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Islam and the West: a View from Twelfth-Century León

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Islam and the West: a View from Twelfth-Century León ISLAM AND THE WEST: A VIEW FROM TWELFTH-CENTURY LEÓN Simon Barton (University of Exeter) Richard Fletcher once trenchantly described the twelfth-century king- dom of León as a “historiographical desert”.1 And with good reason. Compared to other regions of the Latin West, precious few works of historical literature were composed in León—or indeed in any of the other kingdoms of Christian Iberia—during the period in question, and the four centuries prior to that had been even more barren.2 To com- pound matters, for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, the writing of history as an intellectual pursuit seems to have withered away to a large extent after about 1150, until it was resumed with gusto by Lucas of Tuy, Juan of Osma3 and Rodrigo of Toledo during the third and fourth decades of the thirteenth century. Thankfully, however, there are a few precious oases to be found amid this depressingly bleak liter- ary landscape. One such is the Historia Silense, a composite miscellany of Leonese dynastic history, which was in all probability composed by an inmate of the monastery of San Isidoro de León some time between 1109 and 1118.4 Another is the Historia Compostellana, which relates 1 R. A. Fletcher, The Episcopate in the Kingdom of León in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1978), 27. 2 Benito Sánchez Alonso, Historia de la historiografía española, 1 (Madrid, 1947) provides an overview, but is in urgent need of updating. On the twelfth-century, see Raymond McCluskey, “Malleable Accounts: Views of the Past in Twelfth-Century Iberia”, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Paul Magdalino (London, 1992), pp. 211–25; and, above all, Peter Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford, 1993), chaps. 7–9. 3 If he was indeed the author of the Latin Chronicle of the kings of Castile, as has been suggested: Derek Lomax, “The Authorship of theChronique latine des rois de Castille”, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 40 (1963), 205–11. 4 Historia Silense. Edición crítica e introducción, eds. Justo Pérez de Urbel and Atilano González Ruiz-Zorrilla (Madrid, 1959). For a discussion of the work, its authorship and date of composition, see Simon Barton and Richard Fletcher, The World of El Cid: Chronicles of the Spanish Reconquest (Manchester, 2000) (henceforth The World of El Cid), pp. 9–23, with English translation at pp. 24–64. On the ideological purposes of the work’s author, see also John Wreglesworth, “Sallust, Solomon and the Historia Silense”, in David Hook, ed., From Orosius to the Historia Silense: Four Essays on Late Antique and Early Medieval Historiography of the Iberian Peninsula (Bristol, 2005), pp. 97–129. 154 simon barton the history of the see of Santiago de Compostela during the period 1095–1139 and the career of its redoubtable archbishop, Diego Gelmírez, and which was compiled by a succession of at least four authors, all of them canons of the cathedral chapter.5 There is also the Chronicle of Sahagún, which was composed by a monk of that monastery some time after 1117 and the brief, unsatisfying Chronicon regum Legionensium, attributed to Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo (1101–30 and 1142–3).6 The chief focus of this paper, however, is with the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, a panegyric in prose and verse dedicated principally to the deeds of the king-emperor Alfonso VII of León (1126–57), from his accession to the throne down to the eve of the conquest of the wealthy port city of Almería by a multinational expeditionary force in October 1147.7 The Chronica furnishes the principal account of the political and military affairs of the Leonese monarchy during this period, yet it is equally important for providing what is without doubt one of the most vivid and well-informed depictions of the contemporary Muslim world to have survived from anywhere in the medieval Latin West. TheChronica is hedged about with doubts and uncertainties, so much so that we cannot be absolutely sure when, where or by whom it was composed. We can, however, indulge in some informed speculation. First, there is the likelihood that the author was contemporary or near contemporary to the events he related. He claimed in the preface to his work, in an echo of the introduction to the Gospel of St Luke, that his account of the deeds of the Emperor Alfonso was based upon what he had “learned and heard of them from those who witnessed them” (“sicut 5 Historia Compostellana, ed. Emma Falque Rey, CCCM 70 (Turnhout, 1988), with a useful survey of research on the work at pp. xiii–xxi. See also Fernando López Alsina, La ciudad de Santiago de Compostela en la alta Edad Media (Santiago de Compostela, 1988), pp. 46–93. The purposes of the work and the career of its subject are brilliantly illuminated by R. A. Fletcher, St. James’s Catapult: the life and times of Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela (Oxford, 1984). 6 Crónicas anónimas de Sahagún, ed. Antonio Ubieto Arteta (Zaragoza, 1987). Crónica del obispo Don Pelayo, ed. Benito Sánchez Alonso (Madrid, 1924). For a discussion and translation of Pelayo’s work, see The World of El Cid, pp. 65–89. 7 “Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris”, ed. Antonio Maya Sánchez, in Chronica Hispana saeculi XII. Part I, CCCM 71 (Turnhout, 1990), 109–248, and, in the same volume, “Prefatio de Almaria”, ed. Juan Gil, at pp. 249–67. For an introduction to the work, see Luis Sánchez Belda, ed., Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, (Madrid, 1950), pp. ix–cxix; Maurilio Pérez González, Crónica del Emperador Alfonso VII (León, 1997), pp. 9–49; and The World of El Cid, pp. 148–61, with English translation at pp. 162–263. On the reign of Alfonso VII: Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126–1157 (Philadelphia, 1998)..
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