City of Illusions: A History of Granada by Helen Rodgers & Stephen Cavendish

Author:Helen Rodgers & Stephen Cavendish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hurst
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

A VERY CHRISTIAN CITY

Almost two decades after the vast majority of Granada’s Morisco community had been expelled from the city and the surrounding province, work was underway to demolish the Torre Turpiana. This former minaret was one of the city’s most prominent landmarks and part of Granada’s eleventh-century former mosque; it was being pulled down as part of the ongoing process in the transformation of this site into what is now Granada Cathedral. But on 18 March 1588, work halted when surprised workers unearthed amongst the rubble a mysterious lead casket containing yellowed parchment, old bones, and a scrap of cloth. The writing on the parchment was at first incomprehensible—letters and words in two different colours, dispersed within a grid. Some appeared to be Castilian Spanish, but there was also what looked like Latin, a smattering of Greek, and, more puzzlingly, squiggles suggestive of Arabic. A team of experts in ancient languages was assembled to translate the document, among them two Moriscos: Alonso del Castillo, Philip II’s Arabic translator, and the medical man and writer Miguel de Luna. This pair agreed that the squiggles represented Arabic but explained that it was rather different to its modern form: the script featured no diacritic dots, and letters not normally joined together were so in this unusual text. They suggested, therefore, that this might be an ancient form of the language.1

According to both the Arabic and the Latin translators, the document was written by the first-century saint Caecilius—known in Spanish as San Cecilio—and recorded as yet unseen apocalyptic prophecies of St John the Evangelist. These foretold the coming of Islam, the Protestant Reformation, and the end of the world. In addition to the part signed off by Caecilius, the document also contained a postscript seemingly added by one of his companions, giving the reasons for its concealment. These were that Caecilius had foreseen his forthcoming martyrdom under the Romans, and also to ensure that this important text remained hidden for the duration of the predicted occupation of Granada by the Moors. The bones were declared to be those of St Stephen, and the material a piece of a veil belonging to the Virgin Mary. Found on the site of Granada’s new cathedral, these artefacts generated immense excitement among the local Christians, who had had no religious relics of their own to venerate before—a major embarrassment when comparing themselves with other communities across Spain who proudly proclaimed their ancient connections to the early Church.

In all the excitement surrounding these discoveries, however, an important inference was missed. If authentic, this document purported that one of the earliest Christians to arrive in Spain had been an Arabic speaker. And arriving, as the document suggested, in the first century, well before Arab Muslims came ashore 700 years later, it would suggest that Arabs were strongly connected with early Christianity too. Logically, it would follow that this could have major implications for the Moriscos, who, despite having been largely expelled from Granada, continued at that point in time to live across the rest of Spain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.