Los cuatro libros de Amadís de Gaula, Zaragoza: Jorge Coci, 1508 (Source: spanisharts.com)

In a previous post (nearly nine years ago!) I wrote about the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon of a Muslim crusader hero imagined by a Spanish Morisco writer in their Arabic-script version of the chivalric romance Paris y Viana (ca. 1560). In this post I’d like to explore how other Morisco writers drew on the conventions of chivalric literature in their retellings of stories from the Hebrew Bible (via the Qur’an and its commentaries).

Following their conquest of Muslim-ruled Granada in 1492 CE, Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile reneged on their guarantees of religious freedom to Spanish Muslims and forcibly converted them to Christianity. Many continued to practice Islam for generations, despite their communities’ lack of formal religious leadership and Islamic education. These crypto-Muslims, called ‘Moriscos’ (‘Moor-like people’) were seen as neither authentic Muslims nor Christians. In an effort to provide some form of Muslim education for a population that increasingly spoke and understood only Spanish, and with limited access to Islamic institutions, their fuqahāʾ (spiritual leaders) produced a unique literature known as Aljamiado—Spanish in effect transliterated into Arabic script (Chejne 1983; Galmés de Fuentes 1996; López-Morillas 2000, 54–57).

Stories from the Hebrew Bible (often mediated through Qur’anic retellings) were popular among the Peninsula’s Muslims (Vespertino Rodríguez 1978; 1983; Pascual Asensi 2008; 2007; Wood 2020; Pauw 2021). Aljamiado versions of the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, Moses, and others offer a lens into the cultural life of late Spanish Islam as it negotiated with the dominant Christian culture (Busto Cortina 2021, 399). Their shared vernacular language and culture served as a medium for Morisco writers and audiences to represent this negotiation. Aljamiado retellings of stories from the Hebrew Bible demonstrate Morisco engagement with local Castilian and Aragonese language and culture, reflecting contemporary vernacular practices (colloquialisms, folkloric material and literary genres).

Iberian Muslims/Moriscos wrote and recited vernacular versions of Qur’anic narratives of Biblical figures. The texts we see here are are vernacular versions and adaptations, for the most part, of Arabic texts from the authoritative collections of al-Kisāʾi, al-Ṭabarī, and al-Thaʿlabī, with some also found in the collection of the Andalusi author al-Ṭarafī (Tottoli 1996).

Morisco authors and audiences were also familiar with the popular literary traditions of the times. and one Morisco poet famously wrote thousands of lines in imitation of the ballads of  Lope de Vega (the ‘Shakespeare’ of Early Modern Spain) (Asín 1933; Cid 2020). They transcribed popular romances such as París y Viana into Aljamiado (Menaldi 2020), and drew on the narrative resources of chivalric literature (which was wildly popular at the time: think Star Wars) in writing their own versions of Biblical tales.

Manuscript of the Poema de Yúçuf
Source: spanisharts.com

The Poema de Yusuf (‘Poem of Joseph’) is a fourteenth-century Aljamiado versification of the Joseph story found in the Qur’an (12, Surat Yusuf).  It casts the figures at Pharaoh’s court in medieval terms, imagining them as medieval knights and ladies. We read references to the ‘vassals’ of Pharaoh (Johnson 1974, 69), and a dialogue between Joseph and Benjamin (who does not recognize his brother, believing him long dead) reads:

Do you recognize me, squire?
He replied: ‘No, by my faith, sir knight.’

‘Conoçesme, escudero?’
Yel le dixxo: ‘No, a la fe, caballero.’
(Johnson 1974, 83, st. B246)

Such borrowings from (Christian) chivalric culture transposed the concepts and values of chivalry onto an Islamic context. The “Dialogue of Moses and God” imagines the discussion between Moses and God on Mount Sinai. The description of Moses as he receives the law at Sinai recalls allegorical descriptions of a knight’s kit, in which each item of the kit represents a different aspect of knighthood. Here’s an example from the late 13^th century Catalan Book of the Order of Chivalry by Ramon Llull  (Llibre de l’orde de la cavalleria):

Unto the knight is given a sword which is made in the shape of a cross to signify that just as our Lord Jesus Christ vanquished on the Cross the death into which we had fallen because of the sin of our father Adam, so the knight must vanquish and destroy the enemies of the Cross with the sword. And since the sword is double edged, and Chivalry exists in order to uphold justice, and justice means giving to each one his right, therefore the knight’s sword signifies that he should uphold Chivalry and justice with the sword…. The lance is given to the knight to signify the truth, for the truth is straight and does not bend, and the truth goes before falsehood. And the lance-head signifies the power that the truth has over falsehood, and the pennant signifies that the truth reveals itself to all…. The chapel-de-fer is given to the knight to signify shame…. The hauberk signifies a castle and rampart opposite vices and misdeeds… spurs are given to the knight to signify the diligence, expertise, and zeal with which he professes the honour of his Order…. The collar is given to the knight to signify obedience… the mace is given to the knight to signify strength of courage…. (Llull 2013, 66–67)

With appropriate substitutions for his office as prophet, Moses is similarly outfitted in the “Dialogue of Moses and God”:

Musa came and wore upon his head the crown of messengerhood and nubū’a (prophecy),[1] and upon his body wore the robe of tranquility; on his waist the belt of loyalty, and around his neck the sword of ad-dīn [religion], and in his right hand he wore the ring of chastity, and below him the mount of obedience, and in front of him the mounts of truth and promise, and in his right side a guardian of Paradise and to his left a statue, and the fire of desire threw sparks in his heart…

vino Mūça i traía sobre su kabeza la corona de la mensajería i de la annubua (profecía), i sobre su kuerpo la rropa del sosiego, i sobre su çintura la korrea de la lealtad, i por su kuello la espada del addīn (religión) y-en su mano la derecha puesto el anillo de la kastedad, i debaxo d-él la kabalgaduras del kunplimiento, i delante d-él las kabalgaduras de la verdad i de la promesa; y-a su mano la derecha un portero i la figura a su mano la içkierda, i el fuego del deseo echaba purnas en su koraçón” (Vespertino Rodríguez 1983, 168)

The structured inventory and allegorical descriptions of the kit are the same, but with the values of Islamic prophethood substituted for those of Christian knighthood. These adaptations of the language and ideology of Castilian chivalry in Aljamiado Biblical tales give us a good sense of the extent to which Moriscos felt comfortable claiming parts of that literary culture for their own use.

Joseph and his brothers from the Morgan Picture Bible (Paris, ca. 1250) MS M.638, fol. 6r (Source: themorgan.org)

Morisco adaptation of chivalric conventions is even more pronounced in the later Aljamiado prose version of the Joseph story, the Legend of Joseph (Leyenda de Yusuf, ca 1500), written as chivalric literature was mounting in popularity, a few years before the publication of the blockbuster bestseller Amadís de Gaula.  In fact, the Legend of Joseph‘s English translator Michael McGaha calls it “a Morisco Amadís” (McGaha 1997, 164).

The Legend of Joseph is an expansion of the Joseph story as retold in al-Kisāʾī’s Qisās al-Anbiyā (‘Tales of the Prophets’), but the narrator of the Legend is much freer than al-Kisāʾī in their depiction of material culture and psychological states. This includes the detailed descriptions of courtly settings so common to chivalric romance. When the enslaver Malik is preparing the high-priced Joseph for sale, al-Kisāʾī’s version simply states “he dressed Joseph in finery, adorned him most magnificently, and set him on a dais” (1978, 172). The Legend of Joseph, by contrast, paints in rich detail a scene drawn from the pages of medieval Arthurian literature:

he dressed him in a shirt of very thin linen, and in green camlet breeches, and a yellow brocade burnoose, and a necklace with two gold chains, and in the middle of each chain a white pearl that made his face shine like the moon on the fourteenth night of the month. And he put ten rings on his fingers with their red rubies. And at that time men dressed just like women. He put on him bracelets such as kings wear, and he put on him a headdress of gold garnished with seed pearls, and he gave him a scepter like the scepters of kings, and a horse saddled for him with a golden saddle and with silver stirrups and bridle. (McGaha 1997, 182)

bištile una kamiša de lino muy delgado y-unos saraweleš de chamellot berde y-un albornos de brokado amarillo y-un kollar kon doš koloreš de oro, en medio de kada kollar una perla blanka ke relumbraba della šu kara komo la lluna la noche katorzena, i pušole diez anilloš con šuš yemaš y -aliakūtaš koloradaš.  Y-era akel tienpo ke še atabiyan loš onbreš komo laš mugeres. i pušole manillaš de rreyeš i hizo enšilar para el una kabalgadura kon la šilla de oro, i šuš eštriboš i freno de plata. (Klenk 1972, 27–28)

From these examples it is clear that Morisco writers adapted the motifs and conventions of the chivalric culture of the times in their specifically Muslim retellings of Biblical tales. In this, Moriscos are not unlike other minority groups whose group identity is based on both commonalities with the majority as well as practices that mark difference.

Thanks to Donald Wood and Andrea Pauw for pointing me toward useful sources and making suggestions to improve this post. Some of the material in this post appears in Wacks, David A. “Aljamiado Retellings of the Hebrew Bible.” Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-022-00251-1. Author’s Open Access postprint version available at: https://doi.org/10.17613/5vtm-8c09.

Works cited

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