The Andalusian Society in the Visigothic Hispanic
At the end of the sixth century in the Visigothic Hispania there were many continuous and intense struggles for power among two great families of the Visigothic nobility. This, together with the social and economic crisis that began to be noticed at this time, led to a limit situation without control and of great political and military weakness. In 710, when Witiza died, a powerful group of nobles chose Rodrigo Rey. Due to the disagreements of the nobility with the new king, very severe battles continued to be produced in virtually a civil war.
After these clashes, the Visigothic kingdom was divided into two parts, which made its political instability and its military weakness more notable.
Rodrigo was defeated by his invaders, since he barely had support. After its defeat there was no group capable of acting with central authority to reorganize the army and prepare the defense of the kingdom.
On the other hand, Rodrigo’s followers who were against the new king, the Hispanic-Roman who did not agree with the God’s name and the Hispanic-Jewish people, who felt oppressed and persecuted, held secret meetings with the Muslim leadersFor a few years.
For the internal divisions between the elevated classes about the succession to the throne, the discontent of many social sectors in the face of the privileges of the upper classes against others that were considered aggravated, an unfaithful army and the continuous persecution-In, caused the kingdom to be weakened and the Muslims took advantage of the situation to initiate the invasion.
For the inhabitants of the Visigothic Hispania this conquest was a drastic change in their lives: the passage from one culture to another very different. Instead, for Muslims, it was simply another phase of its expansion to the West.
The Jewish population, discontent for the persecution he had suffered for the Goths, joined the Muslims from the beginning.
The Roman-Christian population soon began to realize that Muslims had come to stay and waited for the right time to reveal against them and reach their independence since if not, they knew they would be slaves of Muslims.
In the Visigothic the social classes were: king, nobility, clergy, peasants and slaves. The peasants had to work the lands in exchange for food and also had to pay taxes to the nobles.
Most cities and regions surrender to Muslims. But the cities that resisted were destroyed and burned, their demolished churches, and their dead or enslaved population, in order to give a lesson and a notice for other cities. Men were killed, normally crucified, and women and children were enslaved, the latter being Islamized by force. In some cases, the men and young people who got rid of death worked as slaves in their old lands, now cultivated for the benefit of their new lords.
The conquerors were also reinforced by offering freedom to slaves who became Islam. These, however, should swear fidelity to those who freed them, and integrate into their army.
The Andalusian society was a complex society:
From the point of view of religion, there were Muslims, Jews and Christians. In turn, Muslims could be:
- Arab: most powerful group despite being a minority, they were the great owners of the land.
- Berberes, the army, were very numerous and their descendants dedicated themselves to crafts, trade or agriculture.
- Originally Christian muladíes, who became Islam, thus retaining its properties;In this way there were powerful muladíes and others belonging to the lower classes (most), which maintained their agricultural occupations.
- Eslavos, white race slaves, incorporated into the army and, after becoming Islam, released.
“The Christians who did not convert to Islam constituted another social class: the Mozarabs, who were able to keep their religion and their properties. Thus we can find noble tributary Christians of the Andalusi. The same happened with the Jews, grouped in neighborhoods called Jews, dedicated to trade, crafts or finance. Finally were the slaves, whose trade was developed in the Muslim world."
The Visigoths, when they arrived at the Peninsula, barely left us art (except the horseshoe arch and the walls of the windows) or vocabulary. They adopted customs, Catholicism, and Hispanic-Roman culture. They transformed a cultural nation into a political nation. They lived in villages and their houses were very simple. Carried out activities related to agriculture, livestock and grazing. They made objects with stones and metals.
However, Muslims achieved many artistic and scientific achievements. In addition, they had their own customs, social structures and the organization. It was an advanced and cultured civilization. I had a very structured type of urban society. They revolutionized the tasks of the field, vitalizing agriculture, and providing new culture methods and endless agricultural species.
The urban core was the Medina, which, in turn, was organized in two zones: the commercial and the neighborhood. The souk was a meeting place where the most diverse transactions occurred. The trades and positions extended by specialized areas, in which the most varied goods could be found. From spices and perfumes to vegetables and fruits, meat, tissues, goldsmiths and ceramics. A strict series of norms governed commercial life, whose honesty depended on almotacén, inspector of the souk. Al-Andalus established a solid administration and a complex judicial system. Purchases were made with counting and sound money, which was coined in the mint of Córdoba: Dinares, Dirhems and Feluses.
They used the mosque to pray in a community way and to call different social and neighborhood meetings, or simply to study or escape summer heats. The domestic life was developed outside the commercial enclosure, in the fortified neighborhoods of the Medina that, for greater security, closed at night through two doors and was guarded. The homes were austere and sober on their outside, and very luxurious inside and, well above the usual at that time in other places in the rest of Europe. They had a patio or a well. The bedrooms, halls and the kitchen gave the patio and were also distributed around the upper gallery. They had a dignified ‘cleaning, and the sewerage, as is the lighting of the city, was distributed through a perfectly organized network.
There were many public bathrooms where customers werehed, relaxed and massages. The women groomed, chatted and even snack. They had an authentic cosmetic arsenal.
They contributed new crops in the orchard such as eggpal, artichoke, endibia, asparagus …, and new fruits such as grenade, melon, citron and apricot, as well as new flowers: the alhelí, the roseand the jasmine. They also introduced the irrigated system through ditches and norias. They improved the technique of grafts, and created botanical gardens for medicinal purposes for hospitals that also had them.
Education was very important for Muslims. The student could go to the mosque or madraza and receive the teaching he chose, provided that the sacred texts and theological sciences already dominate. When he.
Therefore, giving out that in the two societies there were continuous struggles and confrontations, I think that, in general, people lived better with the arrival of Islam, because culture, customs, agriculture with the introduction of irrigation, the irrigation, improved, the introduction of irrigation,sewerage system, lighting, the introduction of medicine, hospitals, education, art, bathrooms, etc. Only the privileged classes of the Visigoths would be more affected with the arrival of Islam, as well as all those who did not want to convert to Islam.
Leave feedback