History Summarized: Medieval Spain & Al-Andalus

Medieval Spanish history gets the short end of the stick — brushed over for Baghdad in Muslim histories and little-understood before peak Reconquista in Christian histories. But a little digging reveals an absolutely stunning society that bridges worlds and shatters some of history's biggest lingering misconceptions.

Further reading: The Ornament of the World by Maria Menocal

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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[TangmoMopet]

Roman empire: *fallen*
Every country: It's free real estate.

[guayitoC]

“I am firmly convinced that Spain is the strongest country of the world. Century after century trying to destroy herself and still no success.”
-Otto Von Bismark

[manuelcorderoiniesta]

Judaism, christianism, Islam
Long ago the three religions lived in harmony, but everything changed when the Almoravid Empire attacked...

[EmperorTigerstar]

Cordoba: The reason why ojala is a common word in Spanish.

[Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

*Islam in your Medieval Western Europe?*
It's more likely then you think.

[camerongrow]

If there's one thing I've learned from these videos its that history may be filled with monsters, heroes, and heroes who become monsters. But there's always those who just decide not to F%&k everything up and just build something cool.

[MeatGuyJ]

"Catholics had no problem celebrating mass in Arabic."

We still don't. There are 23 different traditions within the Church that say mass in languages as ancient as Aramaic, Greek and Ge'ez.

[PeroesoesotraHistoria]

Cool video. The medieval history of my country, Spain, is very complicated but also very interesting.

[sergiobosque]

Spaniard here. You got some things wrong. For one, Abd-al-Rahman, who we call Abderramán, did not create al-andalus, it was a province of islam before he arrived, long before. Second, the mosque of Córdoba was turned into a cathedral by king Saint Fernando III when he reconquered the city and kinda liked the architecture too much to demolish it. It was never both kinds of temple.

[jordanianchristian]

The Abbasids weren’t Persians. They had support from the Persians, and practiced some Persian traditions and architectural styles, but they were Arab in origin.

[JustinY.]

Nobody expects the Squarespace Spnsorship!

[XanderVJ]

Spanish here. After Red's take on "Don Quixote", it's fun to see Blue's take on Medieval Spain (although there are other periods in Spanish history it would be cool to see you talk about).

Although, as other people have already pointed out, you over-idealized the tolerance of Muslim Spain. Christians and Jews had to pay an extra tax to practice their faith, otherwise they had to either convert, go to exile or die. Sure, that was far, FAR better than what was happening in other territories at the time, both Muslim and Christian, but the way you explain it, you make it sound like the three religions were considered almost equals, when it was not that in the slightest.

Other than that, I think it's a pretty well put together video. In Spain we hold our Muslim heritage in a pretty high regard, and monuments like the Alhambra and the Mosque of Córdoba (and yes, nowadays it's considered a mosque, not a cathedral) are considered national treasures.

And there are TONS of words in Spanish that come from Arabic, particularly those that start with "al-". For example, "Algodón" ("Cotton"), "Aldea" ("Village"), "Alcalde" ("Mayor") or "Almohada" ("Pillow"). Some of them even became part of English through Spanish influence, like "Alcohol", "Algebra" or "Algorithm" ("Algoritmo" in Spanish).

Anyway, as I've told you on Twitter... PLEASE, MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT EL CID! He's one of the most interesting topics you can have about Spain. He's both a historical AND a mythological figure. In the sense that he was a real person who really lived, but his deeds made people to make up tons of legends about him. Now, that makes it a little difficult to separate fiction from reality, which makes people to either over-idealize him or over-demonize him, but he's a fascinating subject nonetheless. He was admired by both Christians AND Muslims alike. As a matter of fact, "El Cid" was a nickname that the Muslims themselves gave to him, which means "The Lord" (His real name was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar).

If you do, don't forget to look for an epic poem called "El cantar del Mío Cid" (I think it's known in English as "The Poem of My Cid", although "Cantar" means "Song" in this context). That was a poem that bards sang about him, and although it's not historically accurate, it was the main reason why he became a mythological figure, and where most of the myths about him come from. We all study that poem in Spanish Literature class in school, too. (I'd LOVE to see Red talking about it!)

[joannassienkiewicz]

Yeah, Spain was one of the most interesting poltical creations of the middle ages. With many cultures and religions all living on the land, it seems nuts, that a few hundred years later it would be one of the most exclusively Catholic countries in Europe. The history of Spain is fascinating, and I'm so glad you made a video about it. Thanks, Blue!

[raydawg]

Respect for shedding light on this. As a Muslim, this warms my heart to see knowledge about this time brought to the world. Thank you 🙏🏽

[hotwheels]

12:21 "But if YOU want to reconquer Iberia, - ...wait, no..."
subbed

[nedisahonkey]

Good Moor-Ning everyone!




Please kill me.

[Flopsos]

Back then Spain and Portugal were *Juan* country

[jzc]

I'm Mexican and got a DNA test, I'm gonna show this to my sisters because they where so confused we had ashkenazi Jew and Arab in our genetic history.

Edit: Thanks for the likes and comments. Y'all gave me some stuff to read up about.

[carmacksanderson]

"Our story begins in the same place that all my nightmares do--with the fall of Rome."

I feel you, man. So much.

[Audentior_Ito]

It's kind of ironic Blue presents the Iberian wars & those of the Middle East as opposites to contrast when, in reality, they shared far more than they differed. Christians & Muslims allied and lived in harmony in the Holy Land under Christian rulers for the same reason that Christians were tolerated in Islamic Iberia - pacification & pragmatism. You see similar with the Normans in Sicily too. The victorious Christians in Iberia also take the same route as the victorious Muslims in the Levant; once the balance of power is totally shifted, tolerance ends.