(1150–1270)
Here it is important to recall the importance of relics in the piety of Western laymen. They were a physical contact with heaven and a source of valuable power. Holiness was still locally conceived and bound up with the physical and tangible, rather than a spiritual and pious state of soul. A good Christian king was not expected to have Solomon’s proverbial wisdom and religious insight, but he was expected to build beautiful churches to enshrine relics.—Karen Armstrong1
As the second half of the 12th century began, European religious fervor and military energies had clearly shifted away from the Iberian Peninsula and more towards the Holy Land with its recently established (and precarious) Latin Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Spain and Portugal were by then more or less on their own in terms of completing the Reconquista or, more immediately, defending themselves against the latest Islamic onslaught coming from the North African Almohads. As for the Middle East, the inaugural Crusader state of Edessa had abruptly fallen to the Seljuk Turks in 1144 after less than half a century of existence. This setback in turn prompted the Second Crusade immediately afterwards which, to the consternation of western Christendom, was rounded defeated by the Turks in 1148–1149, although a faraway Portuguese victory led by Afonso I at Lisbon in 1147 was unconvincingly spun by the Papacy as a “Crusader” success (see Chapter 6). Placing these events into a larger historical context, one is struck by the tremendous disparities in chronological time spans. The European Crusades into the Middle East, from total start to finish, lasted less than two centuries. By contrast, the Iberian Reconquista stretched from 711 to 1492—no less than 781 years of relentless Christian-Muslim conflict within a relatively confined geographic area. Yet it is the Crusades that have far more captured the popular imagination of subsequent generations, perhaps because of their failure and futility (for Christians at least), perhaps because of widespread anti–Spanish bias, or perhaps because the sheer chronological length of the Reconquista boggles human comprehension.
Even as the Crusader kingdoms lurched towards their imminent demise, however, a more durable legacy of the Armenian Orthodox Church began reaching prominence in Crusader-occupied Jerusalem. In 1165, the German pilgrim John of Würtzburg announced in writing that the newly completed Armenian Cathedral of Saint James claimed among its numerous holy relics the skull of Saint James the Greater.2 There is no prior documented evidence for this claim, and this is not the proper place to delve into the infinite difficulties of sorting out fragmentary references to this ancient Christian site since the early fifth century (see Chapter 6). A generation earlier, before the arrival of the Crusades, the very same location had been occupied by a rival Georgian Orthodox Church, part of which was incorporated into the subsequent Armenian structure.3 Various scholarly theories, some dazzlingly elaborate, as to how the Jerusalem shrine eventually came to be associated with Saint James the Greater have been recently well summarized by Jan van Herwaarden in his exhaustive study on the subject.4 Suffice it within these pages to say that numerous similarities between the legends of the Spanish Santiago and the obscure Egyptian martyr Saint Menas, along with considerable name-confusion between Saint James the Greater and Saint James the Just (both martyred in Jerusalem during the mid–first century), further exacerbated by formidable barriers of east-west language translation, may have contributed to the creation of Jamesian traditions in both Spain and Jerusalem. Some of these theories have attempted to reconcile or at least plausibly explain how both came into simultaneous existence. More significant is that less than 25 years after John of Würtzburg’s excited testimony regarding the Armenian Cathedral, Jerusalem would once again be under Islamic rule, albeit with a far more tolerant attitude towards Christian pilgrims.
The abysmal failure of the Second Crusade, combined with the growing strength of rival Christian kingdoms such as Portugal and Aragón, contributed to a growing sense of insecurity in north-central Iberia. In 1171, the Military Order of Santiago was formally established with Pedro Fernández de Castro (1115–1184) as its first Grand Master, thereby institutionalizing the same cult so tirelessly promoted by the late Bishop Gelmírez.5 The biggest source of anxiety, however, was the clandestine arrival of the Almohad Caliphate in southern Iberia during mid-century, methodically displacing their Almoravid predecessors with a more durable, efficient and formidable center of Islamic resistance. After shifting their Iberian base of operations from Córdoba to the more strategically located Seville (where they built another impressive Great Mosque), in 1172 the Almohads recaptured the city of Murcia just southwest of Valencia. For a while it looked as if the latest gains of the Reconquista might be rolled back, but in 1184 the Almohads were roundly defeated at the Battle of Santarém in southern Portugal by an allied Christian force under the intrepid leadership of Afonso I (see Chapter 6) with a major assist from his son-in-law, King Ferdinand II of León. Santarém proved that the Almohads were no more invincible than the Almoravids. At this point in time both sides in the prolonged conflict seemed to regroup and consolidate their resources for a new round of hostilities playing out over the next several decades.
In contrast to this latest Iberian stalemate, things were going very badly for Christian Crusaders in the Middle East. On July 4, 1187, the flower of the combined military orders serving the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were wiped out at the Battle of Hattin in modern day Israel. Doing the damage was a dynamic new Islamic coalition led by the Egyptian Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf, better known as Saladin, the premiere hero of his generation both in war and peace. Shortly after this disaster, Jerusalem itself surrendered to Saladin, who won himself additional lasting fame by allowing Christian defenders to peacefully evacuate, in stark contrast to the merciless slaughter of Jerusalem’s civilian population by Christian Crusaders back in 1099. Long story short: all subsequent European Crusades failed to regain Holy Land, excepting an ephemeral negotiated truce between 1229 and 1239, and the coastal city of Acre, which was permitted to exist as a fortified trading post until 1291, when its Latin remnants were mercilessly extinguished by the Egyptian Mamluks. Christian pilgrimage access to Jerusalem (though not Jerusalem itself) had been temporarily secured by military and diplomatic efforts of the Third Crusade in 1192, but the Fourth Crusade of 1204 resulted only in the sack and weakening of Constantinople by a formidable alliance of French and Venetian Christian forces.6 It mainly proved to be a signal harbinger of Venetian international trade ambitions over the next several centuries.
Crusader setbacks during the late 1180s and early 1190s then seemed to carry over back to Iberia, where in 1195 the Almohads under Caliph Moulay Yacoub decisively defeated an overconfident Castilian host under the personal leadership of King Alfonso VIII (1155–1214) El Noble (“the Noble”) at the Battle of Alarcos near Toledo. Present that day as an advisor in the victorious ranks of the Almohads was Pedro Fernández de Castro (1160–1214), son and namesake of the original Grand Master of the Santiago Order. During previous decades, Castro the Younger had managed to fall afoul of both Alfonso and the Castilian nobility, after which he accordingly switched allegiances.7 Christian casualties were enormous and most of the Santiago knights were killed in action. King Alfonso managed to escape the field and lived to fight another day. Fortunately for Iberian Christians, however, the Battle of Alarcos proved costly for the Almohads as well, who were forced afterwards to move deliberately rather than fully exploit their temporary advantage, not unlike Almanzor’s bloody triumph at the earlier Battle of Cervera (see Chapter 5). Nonetheless, Alarcos proved to be the high water mark of Almohad power on the southern Iberian Peninsula.
Amidst this atmosphere of political and military uncertainty, pilgrimage traffic along the Camino de Santiago continued to thrive, even as wars were waged and epic-scaled battles fought to the immediate south. On the literary front, sometime during the early 13th century, the anonymous epic poem El Cantar de mio Cid, written in Castilian, reached the final form by which it is generally known today.8 Just as Santiago de Compostela had become a sacred destination closely tied to the Reconquista effort, “The Song of My Cid” became its secular literary counterpart, occasionally invoking the aid of Saint James within the text. In 1211, the fully completed (at least in its original design) Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was formally dedicated by King Alfonso IX of León, son of Ferdinand II (who had triumphed at Santarém) and cousin to King Alfonso VIII of Castile (recently defeated at Alarcos). The great ceremony marked the latest royal designation of Santiago de Compostela as a landmark shrine representing Christian military and political fortunes in the Iberian Peninsula, a long process begun four centuries earlier at a time in which the tiny Kingdom of Asturias was fighting for its very existence (see Chapter 4). Since then, Christian Iberian kings had won many battles and lost more than a few; most importantly, however, they had provided Spain with a magnificent physical monument housing important religious relics which could be venerated by all (see header quote). As if to ratify its holy status, Santiago de Compostela was visited in 1214 by the venerable future saint, Francis of Assisi, traveling in the guise of a Camino pilgrim.9 By the early 1200s, Santiago had also become a highly visible symbol for all of Iberian Christianity’s tremendous resiliency, conquering spirit, and staying power in the face of all adversity.
As if right on cue, one year after the official dedication of the Santiago Cathedral, arguably the most important battle in the long history of the Reconquista was fought on July 16, 1212, at Las Navas de Tolosa in south central Iberia, not too far from the scene of Castilian disaster at Alarcos 17 years earlier. This time around, an unusually united coalition of Iberian Christians under the nominal leadership of the now 57-year-old Castilian King Alfonso VIII, with supporting contingents led by the kings of Portugal, Aragón, and Navarre, took by surprise a larger encamped Almohad force under Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir and dealt them a catastrophic defeat. The Christian campaign had been blessed as a holy war by Pope Innocent III, and the Archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, who personally accompanied the army into battle. As a sign of their unified purpose, the Christians flew banners displaying images of the Virgin Mary and Christ child.10 The great victory at Las Navas de Tolosa redeemed the reputation of Alfonso VIII as a Christian warrior king and correspondingly destroyed that of the Caliph, who fled from the field and died soon afterwards in Morocco. Consequently, the fleeting Almohad hold on southern Iberia was forever broken.
Repercussions of the battle were almost immediate. With the death of the Caliph in 1213, the Almohad dynasty plunged into disputed chaos for the next four decades, unable to mount any meaningful, organized resistance during that period. Meanwhile in 1217, Ferdinand III (1200?–1252), later canonized a saint by the Roman Catholic church, ascended the Spanish throne and quickly reunited, this time in permanent fashion, the previously competing crowns of Castile, León, and Galicia. After this administrative triumph, the Christians proceeded to make massive territorial gains in Andalusia, including conquests of Córdoba (1236) and Seville (1248), both former proud capitals of Iberian caliphates. Granada remained the only independent Islamic kingdom, but paid heavy tribute to Castile in return for its freedom. Earlier in 1229, the appropriately named Jaume I (James I) El Conquistador of Aragón, in a surprisingly bold and well-organized naval action, conquered the Balearic Islands (southeast of Barcelona), thereby instantly enriching his kingdom with massive trade revenues.11 In nearby Portugal, Alfonso III conquered Faro in the southern Algarve region, thereby completing the Portuguese phase of the Reconquista by 1249. Thus by mid-century, with the exception of a now tributary Islamic Kingdom of Granada, all that had been lost four centuries earlier by Christian Iberia was by then regained. This time around, however, the Peninsula was ruled by a confederacy of strong rival kingdoms, as opposed to the monolithic and unpopular Visigoth monarchy of old.
Islamic influence in Iberia, however, was far from being over. Devout Muslims from across Christian-occupied southern Spain and Portugal now flocked to the geographically compact Kingdom of Granada and transformed it into a very defensible, though not impregnable, fortress-state, not unlike what Constantinople had become to Christians in Eastern Europe. In 1232 began the reign of Mohammad I ibn Nasr (1191–1273), founder of the Granada-based Nasrid dynasty, which would last for the next 260 years, until 1492 (see Chapter 10). Ibn Nasir was wise and strong enough to keep the peace with the Reconquista alliance as he strengthened the last remaining stronghold of Iberian Islam, including construction of the famed Alhambra Palace in Granada. Helping Granada in this effort, though somewhat unwittingly, was the rise of yet another Berber power in Morocco, the Marinid dynasty, who by 1259 had replaced the Almohads as rulers of the North African Maghreb. Repeated Marinid intervention into Iberia affairs over the next several decades, though having little or no permanent impact, created confusion and shifting alliances between Granada and rival Christian states such as Castile, Aragón, and Portugal. This continued political and military uncertainty provided Islamic Granada with a valuable, much needed respite from a freshly aggressive and re-energized Christian Reconquista effort.
Meanwhile, things continued to go very badly for the last of the European Crusaders. After brooding for nearly 20 years over his defeat in Egypt during the Seventh Crusade, King Louis IX of France (1226–1270), later beatified as Saint Louis, led a mostly French army into Tunisian North Africa, inspired by baseless rumors that the Caliph of Tunis was interested in converting to Christianity. In the terse expression of British historian Edward Gibbon, “Instead of a proselyte he [Louis] found a siege.”12 After a significant part of his army died rapidly from disease and Louis himself succumbed, the survivors of the Eighth Crusade quickly packed up and returned home to France. The Crusade had been highly unpopular among the masses, and after the death of Saint Louis, European interest in Crusader military interventions considerably waned. Rulers and nobility continued to affect enthusiasm for centuries afterwards, but their subjects would have none of it, by that time having witnessed several generations destroyed by pointless and futile foreign excursions.13 There were also other distractions. Europe was beginning to become wealthier; there was a lot of money to made and spoils to be divided much closer to home than the Holy Land. Saint Louis himself was a good example of this, despite his passion for Crusading, being a perpetually rich monarch even after having paid literally a king’s ransom for his own release from Egyptian captivity, in addition to easily financing (near single handedly) two Crusades. All of this seemed far removed from the simple militarist piety and practical homeland defense that had originally inspired the still-thriving cult of Santiago de Compostela.
In addition to foreign military adventures and ransom money, Louis IX also financed some of the most magnificent medieval religious structures ever constructed. For example, in 1248, shortly before his defeat and Egyptian captivity during the Seventh Crusade, Louis dedicated completion of the astonishing Sainte-Chapelle (“Holy Chapel”) in Paris, a short walking distance north of Notre Dame Cathedral. Among Sainte-Chapelle’s many amazing features are well over a thousand beautiful stained glass windows, all recently restored through modern laser technology.14 As an art form, stained glass had been utilized by many cultures long prior to the High Middle Ages; however, it was during the 12th century in France, perhaps in Burgundy, where it began to be manufactured and incorporated wholesale into the new Gothic cathedrals then rising all across Europe, including faraway Santiago de Compostela. Thanks to northern Iberia’s longstanding close ties with France, via the Camino Frances, the new technology would easily be imported, then eventually replicated. Nine centuries later, stained glass is still nearly synonymous with religious art. Much later, in 19th century England, pre–Raphaelite artisans such as William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones would take it to even greater heights of sophistication. Arguably their most spectacular achievement in this medium is Trinity Church of Sloane Square, completed circa 1890 and still miraculously standing after the London Blitz of World War II. Trinity’s centerpiece is the enormous east window by Morris and Burne-Jones depicting no fewer than 48 religious figures, including Saint James the Greater, assuming his familiar third place of standing within the hierarchy of the 12 apostles.
In terms of Jamesian stained glass iconography, however, nothing can compare with that dedicated by Louis IX at Chartres Cathedral in 1260, a decade before his death as a Crusader on the shores of Tunisia. Located southwest of Paris along the main French pilgrimage route to Spain, Chartres may well represent the apotheosis of all medieval gothic cathedrals. In terms of beauty, scale, and proportion, it certainly belongs to a very select class of architecture. Like Santiago de Compostela and Saint-Sernin Basilica in Toulouse, Chartres Cathedral today is, quite deservedly, a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although the true original design and building process of Chartres is clouded in uncertainty and scholarly debate, there is no disagreement on the result, still there for all to see. Begun sometime during the mid–1100s, the stunning development was delayed or stalled several times due to various mishaps and interruptions before King Louis IX himself, assisted by his tremendous wealth, apparently pushed the project to completion a century later. Long before the cathedral, however, Chartres had been a pilgrimage shrine commemorating local martyrs and, like Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, became a repository for an ever-growing collection of holy relics. For purposes of this study, the obvious focal points of Chartres are the enormous stained glass panels, particularly those depicting the life of Saint James the Greater in no fewer than 30 interlocking scenes, prominently situated among the lower windows along the easternmost chevet and adjacent ambulatory. Its magnificence beggars all description, especially when one considers that it was the product of an age innocent of mass production or modern technology as we understand those terms today.
Among the series of stained glass scenes at Chartres covering the life of Saint James the Greater, limited space permits only passing commentary, despite a treasure trove of detail.15 Interestingly, at the base of the window are two corresponding plates portraying the medieval professions of furrier and draper, both of whom claimed Saint James as their patron, as surely both profited from pilgrimage traffic along the Camino Frances between Paris and Santiago de Compostela. It is safe to deduce that the furrier and draper guilds of Chartres financed this window, and may have indeed been compelled by authorities to do so. From examples such as this, it is easy to see how and why Louis IX of France was such a wealthy monarch throughout his long reign.16 In tandem with resources from royalty and nobility, these traders and tradesmen would help to patronize anonymous artisans, whose talented work would in turn find ultimate expression in the imposing cathedral masterpieces such as the one dedicated at Chartres. Selecting a single window pane in this series for discussion is nearly impossible, but at least one deserves mention. Near the upper central portion, James is depicted being led off to execution, along with the scribe Josias, the latter being converted to Christianity by James after having publicly accused the saint of being a Christian. Both have ropes around their necks as they are led by a club-wielding officer, followed by a swordsman—presumably their executioner. The facial expressions are passive and resigned; a sense of sympathy for the condemned is strongly conveyed. This scene, like most of the surrounding ones in the overall window, are drawn from Jacobus (James) de Voragine’s highly popular The Golden Legend.17 The story of the repentant scribe Josias is traceable back to Eusebius who did not, however, name the accuser (see Chapter 1). Curiously, the Chartres window makes no allusions or references to James having been buried in Spain or later appearing as an apparition at the head of Spanish armies. Instead, almost all focus is on the interaction between James and his Jerusalem contemporaries. By this point, French authorities were apparently not interested in over-emphasizing Spain’s growing nationalistic power and territorial ambitions.
For ultimate visual expression of the theme on Josias, the repentant whistle-blower, however, one must turn to later masters of the Renaissance and beyond. The destroyed fresco on this subject matter by Andrea Mantegna is discussed separately (see Chapter 19). In terms of sheer visceral impact, however, it is doubtful that anyone has ever surpassed Martyrdom of St. James (1722) by the Venetian master Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682–1754), an older contemporary of Tiepolo (see Chapter 15). The work is still on display in the Venetian Church of San Stae (Saint Eustachius) as part of a cycle on Lives of the Apostles, in which various artists, including Piazzetta and Tiepolo, competed with one another to produce memorable images. Piazzetta’s St. James depicts and aged but sturdy saint literally being roped-bound by a determined and brutish-appearing Josias. James appears barely aware of his captor, moving forward while carrying an oversized codex and his emblematic pilgrim’s staff. Informed viewers, as those at the church would have likely been, immediately realize that the unrestrained ferocity of Josias will soon be transformed into repentant remorse. In the end, both will become martyrs, each in their own way, but neither lacking in powerful physicality. Once again, there is no hint of Spanish Santiago in this drama, only James’ singlemindedness in spreading the gospel, which he succeeds in doing even with respect to his captor Josias. Overall, the painting has a similar effect to a station of the cross (with its subject an apostle rather than Jesus), conveniently serving to inspire or edify, depending on the occasion and the audience. At the time, Piazzettia would have been about 40 years old and at the height of his abilities. A younger Tiepolo would have been in his mid–20s and famous in his own right, yet surely impressed by what his older colleague and competitor had just produced.18 Tiepolo’s work would continue to bear the stamp of Piazzetta’s influence afterwards.
Before leaving this fascinating topic, it would be remiss not to mention a relatively unknown work today on display in the Musée National du Moyen Âge (formerly the Musée de Cluny) in Paris.19 Here can be seen a series of four stained glass panels portraying SS. Peter, Paul, John and James, dating from the late 13th century and of somewhat uncertain provenance, possibly taken from the chapel of the famous Chateau du Rouen where Joan of Arc would be imprisoned two centuries later.20 Saint James is depicted as a humble Camino pilgrim holding a staff and travel purse, surrounded by his emblematic cockle shells. The cult of Santiago Matamoros is nowhere to be seen. Aside from its inherent beauty, this Burgundian image underscores how Saint James had by then been considerably pacified, if not outright commercialized. The French nobility of Rouen, capital of the same Normandy province which had not so long previous produced a warrior class terrorizing all of Europe (including Iberia), appeared to be no longer interested in crusading or Reconquista efforts, especially following the death of Saint Louis. Now they were mainly interested in commerce, and with good reason considering the potential profits to be realized. For a brief moment it looked as if Christian coexistence with Islam might become a desirable alternative to never-ending conflict and strife.