Despite the esteem of the soldier’s profession in creed and rhetoric, the reality of Muslim Andalucia was that most people had little desire to go to war—even Holy War. To a large extent, the business of Al-Andalus was business, in great contrast to Carolingian Europe, where warfare comprised most of the business and the raison d’etre of a specific caste was the perpetuation of war.
This business of Al-Andalus, how vigorous was it? And how was it organized? Unless we understand these things, we can have no way to see what might have been gained or lost when Ferdinand and Isabel and their successors remade the Spanish economy by their own lights; that is, we need to understand the history of the economy they inherited, and which they determined to use for their own purposes. What we see, when we look into the commerce of Al-Andalus, is an economy based on trading throughout the Mediterranean, the open adaptation of ideas and techniques from other cultures, careful market regulation in the cities, and the use of technology to add value to raw materials through small-and large-scale manufacturing.
By the 900s, traders had a flourishing business in Al-Andalus, making markets in precious stones and textiles, books and spices, timber and wool, pearls and dye, ceramics, leather, and paper. Some of them were merchant-scholars, who went not only to buy and sell goods but also in search of knowledge, whether it be immediately practical or not. What metaphysical knowledge they brought back to the Iberian peninsula I presume is still with us all. And once again, these traders of Al-Andalus were not exclusively Muslim or Jewish. Until 1212, Muslim and Jewish entrepreneurs oriented toward the Middle East undertook most of the trading voyages and financial management, and then the activity, for political and military reasons, swung to Christian traders oriented principally toward Europe. In both periods, Al-Andalus was in lively communication and exchange with other countries and cultures.
But whatever the faith of the traders, we have record of the practical knowledge pressed into action: the horizontal loom, for example, three centuries ahead of its use in the rest of Europe. The techniques to make glazed and polychrome pottery, also unknown in the rest of Europe, came into beautiful use—their painted designs bore witness to a cosmopolitan culture, since they showed origins in China and Syria, in Iraq and Persia. Iron was worked to such demand that in one district alone in Málaga, there were twenty-five ironsmiths. The agriculture and mining industries used fine steel made in the country. Metalwork in bronze yielded buckles, oil lamps, and bowls, and we have still the shining astrolabes of brass that concentrated so much astronomical and mathematical understanding into a single instrument. Near Valencia, there was a paper factory that supplied not only Al-Andalus, but the export market. But beyond all that, we have numerous accounts of the robust, inclusive, ebullient market life. We can read a description of such markets; this one in our own Granada, the Alcaicería, has
… so many streets and lanes it resembles the Cretan Labyrinth, and it is even necessary to tie a thread to the door so as to be able to find the way back. Its shops are innumerable, wherein is sold every kind of silk, woven and in skein plus gold, wool, linen, and merchandise made from them.
There were spice merchants and money changers, cobblers, smiths, tailors, carpenters, shield makers, a hive of artisans practicing a rich variety of crafts, book sellers and wheelwrights, as well as vendors of fresh produce and cooked dishes. These markets throve in every city we know of in Al-Andalus. This activity was overseen by market inspectors, public health officials, and guild supervisors, with such success that for centuries most of the Spanish words connected with market regulation were taken directly from Arabic. All this retail activity, combined with the large capital projects throughout the peninsula in agriculture and fortifications, in house building and road building and military supplies, meant that the economy of Al-Andalus was complex and, to use current terms, a producer of value-added goods by efficient use of intellectual property: some of the most advanced technology in the Mediterranean. And it meant that wealth and work was distributed more widely, since so rich a suite of skills and goods were in demand. We are painting in broad strokes here, but the commercial zeal of the period is unmistakable. This gift for making and doing, for experimentation, for enterprise, for testing ideas and techniques in the marketplace where the citizenry of the period had their say: it is a recognizable formula for prosperity, and for centuries it worked to lift the standard of living in Al-Andalus well beyond anything that could have been imagined in the rest of Europe.
To return to Ferdinand and Isabel and the economy they and their successors created: it is one of the most useful periods of economic history to study, since the policies they adopted hold the same elements any nation must consider today as it seeks its own thriving. The changes made by los Reyes Católicos had deep effect, durable form, and extraordinary scope. First, the king and queen, with their campaign of forced conversion and then expulsion of their Jewish subjects, combined with their cumulative ethnic cleansing of their Muslim subjects, mounted a frontal attack on some of their most productive and enterprising citizens. Though the convivencia had its violent and contentious periods, there is no longer any doubt about the prosperity of the period, nor about its genius in science and culture. But the monarchs, once in possession of Granada, enforced policies contemptuous of their Jewish and Muslim subjects, policies that (to put it mildly) diminished their status and wealth and increased the risk to their fortunes and their families. Those who were expelled lost most of their assets, and Spain forfeited their talent and energy and knowledge. Those who did convert did not thereby gain full entry into Christian society, since the new focus on “blood purity” divided Spanish society into New Christians (anyone converted from Judaism or Islam) and Old Christians. The New Christians were former Jews (conversos) or former Muslims (Moriscos). As New Christians, even if they had prominent roles in society and did useful work, they had inferior social, political, and economic prospects. Worst of all, they had to live with the daily risk that they might be denounced to the Inquisition. So the campaign of forced conversion and expulsion struck two fierce blows at the economy: it limited the financial capital available for productive uses, and it undercut the work and damaged the prospects of a portion of its most productive subjects. This malign result accompanied an even more perverse social change: a dramatic shift in attitudes toward work. Since commerce was associated with subjects whose faith had been declared inferior to Christianity, and since those very subjects, as New Christians, suffered social disadvantages and political decline, it made sense that commerce no longer enjoyed its former prestige as a way to give meaning and value to a life. It is a most curious change to the material and psychological foundation of a whole society. Slowly, with the decades and centuries, market participation and trading took on a stigma, and gainful labor a tarnish of dishonor. The valor of military deeds, the exalted security of a victorious faith, and the adventure of the colonies all took center stage. In any society, energy and capital are invested for desirable returns, and such investment is decided in the climate of the times. In the decades after 1492, to build a career of wealth, status, and prestige, of honor and dignity, many men and families concluded that there were three avenues: the military, the church, and the court. There the energies of the country were concentrated; men went where the action was. As for money and trading, making and inventing, technical progress and market expertise, in the ensuing decades and centuries, all these fields came to be specialties of countries directly in competition with Spain: England, Holland, Italy, France, Flanders. Of course the troops and mercenaries of Spain still had to be paid, and goods for the country still had to be bought. For such needs, Spain had its gold and silver and its debt.
As we watch Spain change after 1492, we see an economy that moves in reverse, back to a more primitive form concentrated on precious metals and basic commodities, especially wool. It is symptomatic of an economic revolution, since Al-Andalus in its most prosperous period was a net importer of wool and a dynamic exporte
r of textiles. Though Castile had a resurgence of its textile industry in the 1500s, it did not last. Manufacturing of a whole range of fabrics moved to other countries, especially Holland and England. What did last in Spain is sheep-raising, which was concentrated in the Mesta, the council that controlled the industry in Iberia. It was allied closely with the Crown, to whom it paid generous taxes, and in return it was granted extraordinary privileges (called fueros) to graze private land throughout Spain. It was an alliance that endured for centuries and gave Spain a commodity, merino wool, in which it could specialize. Yet it meant that Spain regressed to a supplier of raw materials, which calls for little learning and provides employment at a subsistence level for everyone but the owners of the herds, who were mostly from noble, politically connected families. In addition, it produces no finished goods for the market at home, nor for the colonies abroad, where demand was growing apace. What is more, we know from modern ecological study what such gigantic herds—more than three million animals—meant for the land of Spain: the animals ate Iberia alive.
This concentration on sheep and wool production went along with a concentration of land in large holdings. It was another momentous change. Much more is known now about agriculture in Al-Andalus, but the key event was the transition from dry agriculture in classical Mediterranean form—grapes, olives, and grains—to irrigated agriculture that supported the production of fruits and vegetables of the richest variety. When a family in Al-Andalus brought water to dry land, they could become proprietors of that land, and so small landholders proliferated, cultivating the land according to soil and climate, to family need and market demand. The familial control, the flourishing permitted by irrigation, and the progressive introduction of new techniques of cultivation and new crops all meant that the cities of Al-Andalus were likely to be surrounded by a fecund rural space teeming with variety—what is today called polyculture. Such diversity in planting does not replace the natural habitat, but it imitates it more closely: it conserves soil, retains water, increases yield, and boosts crop resilience. It is labor-intensive, and the landholders needed to plan and coordinate, because they were tied together by the irrigation systems that gave their land fertility. And just as Spanish words connected with commerce tend to have Arabic roots, so the Arabic words for common work in agriculture gave rise to a whole vocabulary that survives today in Spanish. Here are a few of them: acequía (irrigation ditch), alberca (small pool), azude (floodgate), acenas (water mill). And the words for hundreds of vegetables, fruits, and spices often have Arabic roots as well: examples are aceituna (olive), albaricoque (apricot), and azafran (saffron).
But los Reyes Católicos, with most of Spain at their disposal after the conquest of Granada, worked closely with the Mesta. Irrigation systems, with their gates and ditches, their complex of fields and community participation, cannot survive an uncontrolled invasion of grazing animals. The damage is just too severe and unpredictable. Thomas Glick, a sober and meticulous scholar, notes in a fine one-sentence summary:
The ordered landscape of Al-Andalus, responding to an agrarian system tightly interlocked with an urban artisanal economy, had no place for the kind of rapacious, land-devouring pastoralism that later came to characterize the Mesta, whose herds ran rampant over many a settled community in the later middle ages and in early modern times.
An equally momentous decision of Ferdinand and Isabel was their granting large holdings of land to noble families and financial and political allies. These lands became the famous latifundia, enormous tracts whose owners had virtual fiefdoms, meting out justice, collecting taxes, and naming administrators. From those estates, as well, they could gather manpower to be pressed into military service. The latifundia often undid the diverse small-crop mixtures, and wherever the cooperative irrigation systems fell into disuse, the land reverted to the dry farming of the Roman and Visigothic periods, producing once again grain, olives, and grapes. The local and regional power of the latifundia increased over time, and in the 1500s and 1600s when the Crown, desperate for revenue, sold off some of their own lands, the owners of such real estate amassed yet more wealth and influence. Overall, as time went on, the pattern of land use in Al-Andalus, with its rich variety of crops and linked assembly of family plots and cooperative control, metamorphosed into vast landholdings with one of three formidable and dominant owners: noble families, the Crown, and the church. The church, in fact, held land within all its separate institutions: cathedrals, monasteries, convents, military orders. It did not pay taxes, which was a disaster for the public treasury, especially given Americo Castro’s estimate that at one point, the church “came to possess almost half the arable land in Spain.” All in all, it was an agricultural revolution that altered profoundly the landscape and ecology of all of Spain. Riding across the Iberian peninsula today, it is hard not to conclude that the cumulative changes imposed after 1492 and intensified thereafter had a long follow-on effect. Those changes began to transform the land into the condition we see it in today, with a lamentable and dangerous expanse of biologically depleted soil and a countryside engulfed by monocultures.
Education declined in quality in Spain from the time of Ferdinand and Isabel, principally because of the closure of the educational system to ideas from the rest of Europe and the rest of the world. Spain was, of course, at war with most of Europe at one time or another. The Reformation, as a religious movement, was thought to be an abomination. And in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Catholic Counter-Reformation took hold. Just as books and ideas from Protestant Europe were suspect, so too the achievements in mathematics, science, philosophy, and medicine of Jewish and Arabic scholars carried a taint of heresy and inferiority. Though they had been a living part of the intellectual heritage of Spain, their influence, their languages, and their books all declined dramatically in esteem, distribution, and influence. After all, their people had been forcibly converted or expelled, and their faith and cultures had been eradicated, as far as possible. In addition, the Inquisition also censored books and managed to ban over a couple of centuries of works by Catullus, Martial, Ovid, almost all chivalric novels, and any books that doubted or attacked Catholic dogma. It banned Boccaccio’s Decameron, all books written by Jews and Muslims, and eventually Copernicus and Kepler, the latter, of course, because they proposed a new astronomical model that came, ominously, from Protestant countries. Catholic countries did not necessarily escape. Even Dante’s Divine Comedy was banned, rather mysteriously. Then, later on, those dangerous Frenchmen Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.
Earlier, in 1605, the Inquisition had taken another step, decreeing that booksellers keep a register of their clients, so that a check could be made on the reading habits of Spaniards. What effect all this fierce, suspicious oversight had on the actual studies of the Spanish public is a subject of controversy, but it is safe to assume that it did not encourage over time a spirit of critical inquiry and adventurous research, of independent thinking and open-minded embrace of the best work of other cultures and religions. These were the centuries of Leonardo da Vinci, Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler; of the rapid development of mathematics in the work of Descartes, Fermat, Pascal, Newton, Leibniz, and Euler; of the ascent of medical and biological science in the results of Anton van Leeuwenhoek in Holland and William Harvey in England; and the affirmation of the scientific method in the work of Francis Bacon. The labor of these men and their many eminent colleagues in England, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland prepared and carried forward what we know as the Scientific Revolution. What part had Spain in this decisive advance in human knowledge? In an attempt to answer this question, I passed a spell of days with encyclopedias, timelines, and histories in science, in a wholehearted effort to find the eminent Spaniards in science in the years from 1492–1900. I could not find a single mention within that period of any scientist of Spain known today for a pivotal invention or discovery. And this, in the country of Europe that had built a foundation
of knowledge so formidable that Al-Andalus was known as the “Schoolhouse of Europe.”
Education suffered also from the practice of book-burning. In the decades following upon the famous conflagration in Plaza Bib-Rambla by Xavier de Cisneros, there were massive burnings of books in Seville, Toledo, and Barcelona, where it was reported by a Jesuit that “on seven or eight occasions we have burnt a mountain of books at our college.” We should note that the practice was carried on as well in the Americas, where in 1562, a mere seventy years after the fall of Granada, the 25-year-old Franciscan priest Diego Landa encountered the Mayans of the Yucatan. The Mayans were a people who could make a decent claim to be another of the “People of a Book,” that is, cultures who merit the protection central to the legacy of Al-Andalus. For their books were among the principal treasures of their culture: constructed meticulously of durable plant fiber, bound in wood or leather, radiantly illustrated, with pages that folded out in a kind of lexical revelation. They held stories of Mayan history and the deeds of their gods on earth, and they set forth mathematical and astronomical tables, their records of observation and calculation. They held, in fact, virtually the entire written cultural heritage of the Mayans. Friar Diego Landa burnt every single one he could find, offering us his notes in return:
These people also used certain characters or letters, with which they wrote in their books about the antiquities and their sciences; with these, and with figures, and certain signs in the figures, they understood their matters, made them known, and taught them. We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil we burned them all, which they took most grievously, and which gave them great pain.
Landa was censured in Spain and then duly promoted to bishop of the Yucatan and returned to the New World. In later years, three surviving Mayan books have surfaced. They are wondrous. I cite this instance because it is a chain of events resonant with the outlook of the period.
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