Valencia During the Later Eleventh Century
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CHAPTER 6 Valencia during the Later Eleventh Century Introduction Valencia (Ar. Balansiya) was the center of Sharq al-Andalus, the eastern coast (Levante) of the Iberian Peninsula stretching from Tortosa facing the Ebro to Murcia and Almeria in the south, and separated from the Meseta by a series of high mountains in eastern Iberia. This long and slender plain is divided by the Alcoy Mountains into two parts, Valencia and Alicante-Murcia, making com- munication between the two difficult (only the pass of Alcoy-Cocentaina was passable).1 The fertile, irrigated area (huerta) surrounding Valencia is watered by the Turia (Guadalaviar<al-Wādī l-Abyaḍ) and a great reservoir, Albufera (al-Buḥayra). Another great river, Jucar (Shuqr), is flowing parallel to the Turia to the south, irrigating the vast huertas of Alcira (Jazīra Shuqr), Jativa (Shāṭiba) and Gandia.2 The region (iqlīm) of Valencia was enlarged during the eleventh century to include Almenara (al-Manāra), Onda, Segorbe (Shubrub), Banicanena (Banū Kināna), Jerica (Shāriqa), Cullera (Qulayayra), Alcira, Burriana (Buryāna) and Sagunto (Murviedro, Murbīṭar).3 During the eleventh century Valencia became an important export port of not only the crops of its hinterland, but also saffron, kermes, the pine timbers of the Cuenca Mountains and the high-quality paper produced in Jativa. In the following century the route connecting Valencia with Santiago de Compostela was opened, and the ships of Genoa and Pisa regularly visited Valencia, though it seems that the direct communications with Maghrib, Sicily, Egypt and Syria remained underdeveloped.4 It is important to notice, however, that the region of Valencia was increas- ingly arid, sparsely populated and underdeveloped during late Roman and early Islamic times with the progress of aridification and the decline of irrigation. Valencia was a small rectangular city (a long side was about 350 meters); other cities, Sagunto, Jativa, Denia, Orihuela (Uryūla) and Cartagena (Qarṭājanna) dwindled into small Christianized towns (Roman forums and theaters were converted into cemeteries and fortresses). Most Roman villas ceased to exist 1 Guichard, Les musulmans de Valence i, 56–7. 2 Idrīsī, ii, 556. 3 ʿUdhrī, 20. 4 Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain 17, 20, 43, 45, 66, 132, 172, 190, 195–6. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/97890043�5983_008 Valencia During The Later Eleventh Century 141 or were transfigured into villages (qaryas>alquerías).5 It is these Christianized towns and villages that the Muslims found during their early eighth-century conquest.6 Contrary to Lévi-Provençal’s theory, few Arabs settled in Sharq north of the Alcoy Mountains.7 Only part of the Arabs of the Egyptian jund, who were settled in the region of Murcia (Tudmīr) in the 740’s, spilled over into the region of Valencia north of the Alcoy.8 As Guichard expounded it is mainly Berber clans who colonized both the plains and mountains. Probably the Hawwāra and other Berber tribes (qabāʾil) of Santaver immigrated into Sharq north of the Alcoy during the ninth cen- tury, initiating the development of their style of irrigation there.9 They often renounced the suzerainty of Umayyad amīrs;10 Umayyad governors and qāḍīs are rarely recorded in this region, indicating its late Islamization and Arabicization.11 Guichard’s grounds for his argument are mainly the names of villages of both plains and mountains, beginning with Beni (children), which he regarded as Berber clan communities (a typical village consisted of ten to fifty houses and its farms extended 0.5 to 2.5 km). It seems that the Berbers of Sharq crossed further to Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza as numerous place names there beginning with Beni indicate.12 However, counterarguments have been made. According to one theory, qaryas were not independent communities, but subject to nearby cities and often owned by absentee proprietors; villagers were sharecroppers.13 Possibly, many qaryas of the mountains retained Berber 5 Guichard, Structures 179, 192; Sharḳ al-Andalus, in EI2, ix, 351; Glick, From Muslim Fortress 3, 5, 11–2. 6 Gutierrez Lloret, From Civitas to Madina, in The Formation i, 217–63. 7 Lévi-Provençal, Histoire de l’Espagne i, 84, 90. Kināna and Quḍāʿa tribesmen settled in Sharq (tha latter in Onda). Guichard, Structures 224, 233, 243. For the jund of Tudmīr see his Les musulmans de Valence, ii, 283. 8 Muqtabis vii, 201. 9 Guichard, The Population of the Region of Valencia, in The Formation i, 154–5, 162–3, 173– 7; Siḥr al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Shāṭiba 40–7. 10 Yaʿqūbī, buldān 355. 11 Guichard, Structures 195; Les musulmans de Valence i, 281–2. Acién Almansa also posited the late Islamization of Sharq. Glick, From Muslim Fortress 53. 12 Guichard, Structures 179, 192, 233, 261–2, 267–9, 272–4, 328–41; Glick, From Muslim Fortress 19, 31–6, 80, 134. There are many villages beginning with Beni in Algeria and Morocco too. Idem 35. 13 María Jesús Rubiera, quoted in Glick, From Muslim Fortress 23–6; Burns and Chevedden, Negotiating Cultures 17–8, 311, 233, 238; Moreno, Quelques considérations, in Islamisation et arabisation, ed. D. Valérian, 247–63..