La Reconquista and the Alhambra

In the early 8th century, Moors occupied most of the Iberian peninsula. During the Reconquista, Christians rallied to conquer the land. Listen in and learn more about this epic conflict, which spans some of the most formative times in Spanish history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Mammer and I'm fair dowdy and bear with
us non English majors, who are going to start this
episode with a poem written in fifteen oh three. Time

(00:24):
wounded me, exiling me, sending me stumbling to roam the world,
so that I've spent two decades on the move. He
chased my friends from me, exiled my age mates, set
my family far so that I never see a face
I know, father, mother, brothers or friend. Riach your heart
a little bit, doesn't heartbreaking poem, and it makes you
wonder who is the poet, where was he exiled from?

(00:47):
And why was he exiled? And a simple answer to
why is the reconquista my friends. So let's talk about
that a little bit more. In the early eighth century,
most of the Iberian Peninsul Love was occupied by Moore's
or Spanish Muslims, and before the invading Muslims from North
Africa came through, most of the peninsula had been Catholic,

(01:08):
although we should also mention that there was a very
strong Jewish community on the peninsula. Yeah, and the society
was pretty multi ethnic though, with Jews and Muslims and
Christians all well represented. But you shouldn't think it was
this golden age for religious freedom that was there was
there's still some repression, yeah, but it was a golden
age for sciences and art um and the Jews and

(01:30):
Christians did have a very prominent place in society, even
though they were minorities. They weren't just shuttled to the side.
But around seven eighteen a new movement came into being,
the reconquista or the reconquest or recapturing, depending on how
you translate it um. But it wasn't until the eleventh
century that it became the formidable beast that it would

(01:52):
end up being. And if you're wondering who's recapturing, what
it was the Christians attempting to recapture the Peninsula from
the Muslims. And by the eleventh century it was kind
of an opportune time to be trying to do that
because the Muslims had fractured into different sects and Spain
was divided into the city states, and as we've learned

(02:12):
in a lot of our podcast, sometimes city states are
easier to take down than a big unified country. Um
so if there was gonna be a crusade, now is
the time for it happen. And there were plenty of
people who wanted a crusade. Christian fervor was growing on
Pilgrims traveled to the shrine of St. James at Compostla
to pray for the retaking of Spain. The pope was

(02:34):
selling indulgences to raise money. Christians and nights all around
Europe became involved, and in the Peninsula was about half
Christian occupied and half Muslim. But by twelve fifty two
Christians had everything but Granada, this rich area on the
southern coast. But then in the fourteenth century there's this
turning point natural disasters and soue there's the Black plague,

(02:59):
and the population and is terrified, and they're looking for
someone to blame, because of course, things like this happened
for a reason, right, it can't just be an unfortunate,
unfortunate set of circumstances, And they turned to the Jews.
The Jews were to blame for all of these disasters
befalling them, and a friar specifically accused them of blood libel,

(03:21):
which was using the blood of Christian children in their
religious rituals. So the Christians rioted, and at the end
of it all there was a massacre of one hundred
thousand Jews. It's called the Massacre of and the motto
of the whole thing was convert or die. And that
wasn't the end of persecution for Jews on the Iberian

(03:41):
Peninsula either. Isabella made sure of that. And that is
Isabella Catolica, Queen of Castile and Aragon. And as maybe
you've picked up by your name, she was wholly behind
the Rayconquista, believing it just and holy. A lot of
her efforts concentrated on the Jews of the peninsula. Some
were suspected Jews who had converted to Christianity officially at least,

(04:04):
but uh it was believed that they were still following
their religion in private. And during the Spanish Inquisition, which
of course she established, her chief inquisitor, Torquamada, burned thousands
of people at the stake. This is a pretty famous
point in history, and her and her husband Ferdinand's other
efforts were aimed at Islam and their attempts to conquer Granada,

(04:27):
the last holdout of the Spanish Muslim community began in
fourteen eighty two and would continue for a decade. According
to legend, she swore to wear the same clothes until
they were all conquered, and to finance these wars, Castile's
piggy bank was completely drained, and she and Ferdinand taxed
the people heavily and lavished money and artillery on boats

(04:47):
and supplies. But why was Granada so special? Well, Granada
was a cultural center for Muslims, and it was a
center for arts and sciences and learning. It had all
of these amazing buildings and decorative scenes and arts. So
I mean, it was really kind of the place to
be for a lot of people. And it had been

(05:08):
ruled by the Nasri, who, uh, they've been in charge
since about twelve thirty eight, so quite some time by
the time where Isabella here. Um, they didn't have the
calmest rule though there were the Christian armies continuously stirring
up trouble, exerting pressure on them for several centuries. They
were forced to pay tribute, and um, you know, they

(05:32):
suffered from that to a certain extent, but managed to
stay standing for hundreds of years, and perhaps the greatest
contribution of the Nazrid rulers to the world was building
and decorating the Alhambra, which is also known as the
Red Castle. The Alhambra gets eight thousand visitors a year
and it's considered the best example of Spanish Moorish architecture

(05:53):
in the world. And it's gorgeous and if you've never
heard of it, it's what's left of a citadel, a
palace of kings and officials quarters. It was built between
twelve thirty and thirteen sixty on a hill overlooking Granada.
And you should really Google image it because it's lovely.
He's been sending me pictures of it, lots of pictures.
We're gonna want them in your inbox or not. We're

(06:14):
gonna go through sort of a list of what you
would see if you Google imaged it, or if you
if you visited it even better. So there's this open
court surrounded by halls and chambers. There are ornamented walls
and ceilings. There's marble and alabaster, glazed tile, carved woods,
all these sumptuous materials used. There's stucco stalactite vaulting, which

(06:38):
sounds like the best ceiling treatment I can imagine so pretty.
There's water everywhere throughout the complex, filigreed windows, these gorgeous gardens,
ornamental Arabic script that um in poetry and passages from
the Korans and aphorisms, and there's color, color color everywhere,
So get your get your mental picture ready. And then

(07:00):
is a fort, right, there is a fort the Alcazaba,
the citadel, which is the oldest part of the Alhambra
and also the worst preserved. It was a red castle
used for defensive purposes in the ninth and tenth centuries.
So this isn't really the part that people usually talking
about when they're talking talking about. Probably no. And we've
also got, uh, I guess some some tiny examples the

(07:21):
more famous parts of doing a hearth castle for yes,
just clossing over it. The Court of the Lions is
possibly the most famous room in the Alhambra, built by
Nasred Sultan Mohammed the fifth and in the middle what
you'll see is the Fountain of Lions. It's a basin
made of alabaster with twelve white marble lions holding it up,

(07:42):
and back in the day it was some sort of clock,
with each of the lions representing an hour, but Christians,
after the way kon Quista took it apart to see
how it worked and weren't able to figure out how
to put it back together again. That happens sometimes we
take things apart. Marshall brain might have got to know
what do sure And some say it was a gift
from a Jewish leader, And so the lions represent the

(08:05):
twelve tribes of Israel. Then there is the Hall of Kings,
with paintings on a leather ceiling showing the lives of royals,
and almost all of the other art in the complex
is free from figures, but it's painting, so that's a
nice peek into their lions, definitely, and their lives in
this room were pretty wild. This is where the parties

(08:25):
and orgies were held. And there's even a story that
dozens of princes were beheaded in the room and their
heads were left there after one of them was accused
of touching the Sultan's favorite, and instead of just settling
the matter with the guy who did the touching, Sultan
took care of all of them. I think that's a
lesson there. There's also the Hall of the Two Sisters,

(08:47):
which has this beautiful honeycomb dome and colored tiles that
inspired the art of mc usher. And we've got the
Slid de los Abenzerajes, where supposedly are Sultan Boabdil, who
talk about in just a minute invited some powerful chiefs
of the abens Arage family and then killed them all.
And we also have the court of the window Grill,

(09:10):
which is sort of the ultimate in if you're imagining
what Moorish architecture looks like Washington. Irving stayed here in
eighteen twenty nine when donkeys roamed around, so he uh
he started the tale of the Alhambra here. It was
must have been a pretty aspiring site began donkeys impressive architecture,

(09:31):
And there's a quote from his the Alhambra by moonlight
on such heavenly nights, I would sit for hours at
my window and hailing the sweetness of the garden and
musing on the checkered fortunes of those whose history was
dimly shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. But you
would think such a beautiful building would have been well tended. Sarah,
much loved for enemies centuries, does have enemies. One of

(09:55):
them is the earth itself that has survived an earthquake
and an there's Napoleon who tried to blow it up
in eighteen twelve. Fortunately a Spanish soldier cut the fuse
and saved this beautiful I'd not like to mind his
own business. No, I think we have found out. The
Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Five didn't think the nasred

(10:17):
palaces were quite good enough for him, so he built
one in the Renaissance style right in the middle of everything.
So you picture this beautiful Moorish architecture and with a
similarly beautiful but ridiculously out of place, very strange Italianate
palace in the center. Michelangelo's student Pedro Machuca built it.
So pictures something Michelangelo esque in the middle of this,

(10:41):
this red castle with you know, this ornate Arabic script.
They just the two things just don't go together. It's
very odd looking. And we've given you all these descriptions
to sort of give you the best idea we can
of what life was like before Isabella arrived. You know,
what life was like for this dynasty of sultans, and

(11:02):
just some of the stuff going on these things, yeah,
just with headings and what life looked like before Isabella
arrived and what the last king of Granada, Boabdil, was
fighting for um when he ultimately to surrender. So going
back to Granada, it wasn't just Christian pressure, pressure from
these Christian armies that was a problem within the Nozrel dynasty.

(11:24):
Muhammad the eleventh, also known as Boabdil, who have mentioned
twice now, was the last Nozred Sultan and he became
ruler in fourteen eighty two after his mother convinced him
to rebel against his father, and this began a succession
struggle that weakened the Muslim community in Spain considerably because
it's split into factions, people who were for Boabdil and

(11:45):
people who were for his father. And further complicating things
was the fact that his father wouldn't pay tribute to Castile,
so they're splitting themselves. Isabelle's forces don't even have to
do it for them. Fernand and Isabella are starting their
siege of Granada which started in fourteen one, and so
the final Nasa Red Sultan had no other choice but

(12:07):
to surrender in fourteen nine two, so the surrender end
of the reconquista. It also ended about eight hundred years
of Muslim rule UM. Interestingly, Isabella chooses probably the feast
day of the Epiphany to enter the city victorious. You
can just imagine this scene of the great Catholic queen

(12:28):
entering her conquered land. Well, and the story goes that
Boabdal is watching this happen from maybe a hill outside
the city, watching them all enter, and uh, he sized
the more's last sigh, and he began crying, and supposedly
his mother, the one who had convinced him to fight
his father, said to him, weep like a woman for
what you couldn't defend like a man. And then he

(12:50):
was exiled to Maghreb by Isabella and Ferdinand. And Isabella
and Ferdinand interestingly, you know, they're known for for their
inquisitions and their religious intolerance. It's interesting that initially at
least they promised that the Muslims could keep their religion UM.
But in March fourteen ninety two they issued the Edict

(13:12):
of Expulsion that was against the Jews. The Jews had
three months to convert or to get out of the country.
A hundred thousand of them fled Spain and the rest
converted to Christianity. Some were still secretly practicing their religion,
and many of those people were found out and tortured
and killed during the Inquisition. Um So by the early

(13:33):
six hundreds there just aren't that many places left in
Europe for the Jews to go. But the Muslim oppression
didn't start for about seven years, So I mean, that's
what I find sort of odd about this, that there
was even that delay. It seems like something Isabella and
fernand would have done immediately. They banned Arabic and many

(13:54):
were forced to convert. Many Muslims were forced to convert,
and Muslim converts to Christianity were known as Moriscos. Some
were genuine converts and some were crypto Muslims and practice
their religion in private. But in sixteen o nine they
were exiled altogether and most went to North Africa and
pleaded for help from the Ottomans, but it was helped

(14:15):
that they didn't get and work on the Alhambra to
restore it began in eight and today it in its gardens.
The Hanna relief A are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
But the story of our persecuted Jews and Muslims on
the Iberian Peninsula doesn't end there. And the poem we
began this podcast with is by the Jewish doctor and

(14:36):
poet Judah Ravanel, who left Spain in fifteen oh three.
So we'll pick up with our conversos and our exiles
in another episode we have coming up, and that brings
us to listener mail. So we received a lot of
mail about the McBeth Curse episode, A lot of mail. Again,

(14:57):
many of it. We've mentioned this in our last podcast.
We do realize the play that Lincoln went to see
was not Macbeth. It was our American cousin. We misspoke.
But we also got some other good ones. Yeah, cool
emails about I guess incident. Yeah, other things we can
add to the Curses rap sheet. Our first one is

(15:17):
from Sherry and she wrote, I have an anecdote about
that Scottish play. Nothing tragic, but my friends and I
think it's funny. I was in a play once, not McBeth,
and one of the lead actors scoffed at the curse,
constantly saying Macbeth backstage and even working the word into
one of the songs during the show. Well, his character
ate a lot on stage, and it was usually soft

(15:38):
easy to eat food. He proceeded to bite into a
breadstick while on stage during a performance and promptly broke
a tooth. He doesn't make fun of it anymore. Bump
um okay, I have one from Rob, he said. When
I was younger, I was cast as Malcolm in a
production of Macbeth, and from the very beginning of the
rehearsals people began to talk about the curse. All we

(16:00):
were allowed to say backstage was the Scottish play, and
if ever the fatal title would slip out of someone's mouth,
the cast would curse them. Needless to say, this got
tired after some time, and I never believed in the
curse until on opening night and actress playing one of
the witches began to scream out Macbeth as loud as
she could. This of course freaked out the cast and

(16:21):
people began to worry over what might happen. Not but
a minute later, this same actress came screaming into the
dressing room. Apparently she had sliced open her hand on
the set and the cut was so deep that she
was not able to go on that night, but rather
had to make her way to the emergency room. The
show went off without a hitch, and there were no
more instances of real blood but no one spoke the

(16:43):
name of the play again. Oh, We've got a few
more we do. This one is from Natalie. She wrote
a few years ago. I was in a production of
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The actor playing Voldemort
was amazing, an amateur actor that we had audition on
a whim. I was playing Ron Weasley, so I went

(17:03):
off stage during the large chess game. Harry then comes
face to face with Voldemort. We have choreographed a wonderful
fight scene and at the end Harry threw Voldemort off stage,
sliding on the floor. Then he would get up and
tackle Harry off stage. Right before we went on, we
warned people not to say Macbeth, but to replace it
with a Scottish play. One actor I thought it was

(17:25):
all fake and said Macbeth several times. All went well
into the last scene when Harry threw Voldemort onto the
floor and he slid right into the corner of the wall.
He got up and tackled him, but collapsed off stage
and was carried out as quickly as they could. He
got an insanely bad concussion and we had to postpone
the rest of the shows. This is true. Never say

(17:46):
Macbeth in a theater. Never. I like that that one
combines Voldemort two, which is another name You're not just today.
He who shall not be named Beeth is the same,
all right. I have one from Abigail. I majored in
acting in college and have experienced several small manifestations of
the Macker's curse. Most notably I worked on a production
of Life as a Dream by Pedro Calderon de la Barca,

(18:09):
which has often been referred to by dramaturges as the
Spanish At Macbeth. Our stage manager mentioned this one night
during rehearsal, much to the chagrin of all these superstitious
members of the production, And when we demanded she exit
and performed the ritual to undo the curse, she laughed
it off, and a few of us throughout the quote
from Hamlet Angels and ministers of Grace defend us, which

(18:30):
is traditionally what one says if the Scottish play is
quoted in a theater. No bad fortune occurred until two
nights after we opened, when during a fight scene, one
girl had her fingernail ripped off by a foil, another
had a chunk of hair ripped out by that same foil,
and the lead actress was punched in the nose when
the other actor misjudged his distance. Of course, we all

(18:50):
quickly pointed to the stage manager's invocation of the m
word and were relieved nothing worse transpired, and that blood
was spilled, which is said to break the curse. Wanting
to prove us all superstitious fools, the lighting designers snuck
into the theater after the show and yelled Macker's name.
After the performance the very next night, in another fight scene,

(19:10):
the lead actor overshot his mark, face planted on the floor,
and sliced his head open in a wound so bad
we had to call intermission early just to clean up
all the blood on the stage and costumes, and of
course to get him to stop bleeding. So let that
be a lesson to all that the Curse of Macbeth
still causes mayhem in theaters even now in the twenty
one century. I've learned my left them. This one is

(19:33):
from Bryce, an actor who performs at a semi professional
theater of by kids, four kids, and he says I'm
usually a pretty reasonable and non superstitious guy, but I
refuse to say Macbeth in real life, even when not
in the area of production. He says, writing it, I
can do, which explains the email and not a phone call.
This stems from a time when someone said the word

(19:54):
and didn't perform the countercurse. In the middle of one
of the shows, as I was waiting in the wings,
I heard a small thud from behind me, only to
look up and see one of the stage leaves start
to fall over in my direction. I quickly grabbed it
and held it up frantically, whispering to one of my
fellow bewildered actors to go get the stage manager. The
leaf almost crushed me and almost hit the other two
leaves behind it, which would have destroyed part of the theater.

(20:18):
This was during the relatively mild mannered Mr. Popper's Penguins.
I remember other things happening as well, but I can't
remember specifically what those things were. And he says to
vital parts of the countercurse that you left out is
that after spitting, you must yellow profanity into the air,
which Sarah, I think I would be good at, and
you can only perform the countercurse outside of theater rounds.

(20:38):
I love that Macbeth brought in both Baltimort and Mr
Popper's Penguins both combination. Ever, I had no idea, so
if you would like to send us an email with
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(20:58):
to read a little bit more about what we were
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(21:18):
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