Convivencia: living together, and apart

La convivencia

711–1492. For most of the Middle Ages Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in the same peninsula, often in the same towns, under both Muslim and Christian rulers.

What happened

For most of the Middle Ages Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in the same peninsula, often in the same towns, under both Muslim and Christian rulers. Scholars translated Arabic science in Toledo, Jewish courtiers served caliphs and kings, and Spanish filled with Arabic words. The philologist Américo Castro called this 'convivencia' in 1948 and argued it made Spain what it is; his rival Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz denied that Islam had shaped Spain at all. Since then the idea has been both popularised as a golden age of tolerance and heavily criticised: minorities paid special taxes and faced restrictions, there were massacres such as Granada in 1066 and the pogroms of 1391, and coexistence ended in forced conversion and expulsion. Most historians now describe a practical, unequal and sometimes violent coexistence rather than harmony.

Events along the way

• 16 January 929: The Caliphate of Córdoba
• 25 May 1085: Alfonso VI takes Toledo
• 6 June 1391–1392: The anti-Jewish riots of 1391
• 2 January 1492: The fall of Granada

Sources

1. Medieval Convivencia — Medieval Histories (medieval.eu)
2. Review of Paola Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew (Hussein Fancy) — Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 9 (2014), Boston College
3. Muslim Spain (711-1492) — BBC Religions
4. Rolled privilege of the capitulations for the surrender of the city of Granada (1491) — History Lab (Universidad de Almería / Archivos Estatales)