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To Live Like a Moor. Olivia Remie Constable
Читать онлайн.Название To Live Like a Moor
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780812294675
Автор произведения Olivia Remie Constable
Серия The Middle Ages Series
Издательство Ingram
Unlike their coreligionists elsewhere, Muslims in Catalonia experienced almost no regulation of their hair or clothing for most of the fourteenth century, although in theory the regulations established in 1301 were still in effect. This changed in 1388, about a year after Joan I came to the throne, when he ordered that all Muslims who lived and worked in Lérida must wear the clothing and hairstyles established by the Constitutions of Catalonia, with the intention of differentiating them from Christians. It appears that the king was responding to the fact that local Mudejars had not been sufficiently distinguishing themselves from their Christian neighbors.88 Two years later, in March 1390, the king went much further at the Cortes of Monzón, issuing a new law that all Muslims in Catalonia over the age of ten must wear a yellow band of cloth on their right sleeve (or a red band if the garment that they were wearing happened to be yellow). These rules were repeated in Tortosa the following November.89 The new regulation was innovative and yet in line with the general move back toward the legislation of visual distinction through signs and clothing, rather than hair, which characterizes the end of the fourteenth century.
Needless to say, Catalan Muslims complained vociferously about this new law, and the king agreed to suspend it pending further investigation in January 1391.90 Six months later, however, he issued a new decree, this time in Zaragoza, requiring that Muslims in Aragon must wear the garceta along with red or yellow armbands. This caused such an uproar among Aragonese Mudejars that an ambassador from Granada even arrived to intervene on their behalf.91 Although Joan acknowledged the ambassador’s intercession and promised not to impose the law, other documents indicate that he reiterated these statutes from Monzón and Zaragoza several times over the next few years, though possibly they were not always enforced.92 Differential imposition is certainly suggested in an exemption issued in 1396, in which the king allowed Aragonese Muslims to take off the yellow band when they were traveling in Catalonia.93 It also seems likely that the yellow band was not commonly enforced in Catalonia given the irritation expressed by Catalan Muslims after the death of Joan in May 1396, when the queen regent María de Luna, wife of his successor Martí I, briefly reimposed the “good customs” established at Monzón. As soon as Martí arrived from Sicily to assume the throne, the aljamas of Catalonia appealed this legislation and received freedom from wearing the yellow band in 1397.94 Shortly thereafter, in 1401, Martí ordered Muslims in Aragon to wear distinctive signs, but there was no further mention of the despised colored armbands.95
Ever since the edicts of the Fourth Lateran Council, it had been common for Jews in Spain (as elsewhere in Europe) to be required to wear specific insignia on their clothing, often yellow stars or circles. However, there were no parallel laws establishing distinctive vestimentary symbols for Iberian Muslims until nearly two centuries later, with the colored armbands required in the Crown of Aragon. Before this, edicts that Muslims wear “distinctive signs” had been vague, and more explicit legislation focused on particular styles of clothing and hair that were supposed to be different from Christian fashions. Initially, at least, Muslims were forbidden from wearing certain styles (such as the garceta or gold ornamentation on their clothing) rather than required to add specific markers of their identity, perhaps because it was assumed that they were already sufficiently visually distinct from their Christian neighbors. This assumption seems to have changed in the course of the fourteenth century, as indicated by new legislative initiatives mandating that Muslims wear the garceta and colored armbands.
Even more explicit markers would be instituted in Castile in the early fifteenth century, with a new series of vestimentary laws issued by Queen Catalina in 1408, in her role as regent for her young son, the future Juan II. This legislation was aimed at “all of the Moors in my kingdoms and seigneurial lands, and those that are studying in them, and traveling through them,” and it ordered that “men must wear over their clothes a cowl [capuz] made of yellow cloth, and a symbol cut of cloth in the shape of a crescent moon, in cornflower blue [color torquesado], of this size [here there is a picture of a moon provided], that is to be worn openly below the right shoulder in such a manner as to be fully showing. And women must all wear the same [blue moon] symbol … large enough so that it is obvious, worn openly on all their clothes below the right shoulder, in such a manner as to be fully showing.” The ordinances went on to list certain types of clothing and shoes that Muslims were not allowed to wear, much along the lines of earlier Castilian sumptuary regulations.96 This law requiring yellow cowls and blue lunettes would be reaffirmed by Juan II in 1437 and repeated in later Castilian legislation into the reign of Fernando and Isabel.97
As well as mandating these distinctive symbols, Queen Catalina would also go on to establish the most rigorous and detailed prescriptions for Muslim clothing that had yet been set down in law anywhere in the Peninsula. Her legislation enacted in Valladolid in January 1412 contained three paragraphs devoted to the textiles, styles of clothing, and length of garments that Muslims and Jews should or should not wear. Another paragraph was devoted to hair and beards, both of which should henceforth be worn long and uncut “as had been the custom long ago.”98 These rulings were in line with an increasing emphasis on rules about clothing in the fifteenth century, and they also mark a shift in that they cover both Muslims and Jews under the same ordinance. The appearance of both groups was restricted in similar ways, to distinguish them from Christians, while the yellow stars and blue moons were established to differentiate them from each other. Later legislation from the reigns of Juan II, Enrique IV, and Fernando and Isabel would likewise group Muslims and Jews together, ordering them to wear public signals on their clothing, to dress differently from Christians, and to avoid luxury textiles and clothing adorned with pearls, silver, or gold.99
This repeated legislation not only reflects a change in monarchs (new rulers tended either to reiterate earlier laws or to enact new ones), but it may also suggest that vestimentary rules were not being routinely observed or enforced. At the Cortes of Madrigal in 1476, the Catholic Monarchs complained that Jews and Muslims customarily ignored the rules about distinctive signs and clothing, so that “it is not possible to tell if the Jews are Jews, or if they are clerics or letrados of great estate and authority, or if the Moors are Moors, or if they are gently bred courtiers [gentiles honbres del palaçio].” Moreover, they noted that some of these Jews and Muslims had documents (cartas) certifying that they were allowed to dispense with distinctive signs or permitted to wear luxurious clothes. To correct this laxity and liberty, Fernando and Isabel reaffirmed earlier vestimentary legislation.100
Parallel to these efforts to prevent Muslims from looking like Christians were the laws that required them to look like Muslims (at least insofar as Christians perceived “Muslim” appearance). We see this in legislation that required them to let their beards grow long, in accordance with Islamic law and to wear the aljuba, albornoz, and other articles of traditional clothing. These garments are mentioned in laws from the Crown of Aragon and from Portugal, including a ruling by Afonso V of Portugal from the middle of the fifteenth century that required Muslims to wear “Moorish costume” (traje de mouro), namely, the aljuba and albornoz, and that these long-sleeved enveloping garments be worn closed in front. In 1454, the Muslim community of Lisbon successfully appealed this law, and they were allowed to wear their robes open, as was more traditional. Meanwhile, another Muslim, from Setúbal, was permitted to wear silk garments so long as these were completely covered by his outer Muslim-style clothing.101 There were no such laws in Castile. In 1480, a local law in Murcia allowed Muslims to wear silk aljubas and head coverings during the public festivities celebrating Corpus Christi, but this was a special exemption to mark the holiday (just as all people in the town were permitted to wear fancy clothes on Holy Thursday, including items that would normally be forbidden) not a general everyday requirement.102
There is almost no evidence regarding views about dress and visual distinction from the Islamic perspective, and it is very hard to know whether Muslims in Christian Spain either dressed or wished to dress like their Christian neighbors. What is clear is that they strongly objected to the imposition of new, burdensome,