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| What is the influence of other cultures on this liturgical tradition (i.e. Arabic, Jewish, etc.)? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 6 2014, 01:51 AM (535 Views) | |
| RAbbott | Dec 6 2014, 01:51 AM Post #1 |
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So as I understand from the timeline below, I hope it's accurate; in roughly 1080, our era in question Spain was held by Hispanic christians but still occupied and heavily influenced my Moorish Muslim culture. Also the time we are discussing is before the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, so we're talking about a time of open liturgical dialogue pre-inquisition. Is that correct? Is it appropriate that our interpretations reflect the dialogue (however strained) between this fraternity of Judeo-Christian cultures? I'm considering at least passing reference to the Shema, Hadan/Shaddah and Catholic proclamation of faith. What can be expounded about this stage in Spain's theological identity? Many thanks Year Date Event 711 The Moors invaded Spain, displacing the Visigoths, and established Al-Andalus. 722 Pelagius of Asturias defeats the moor's army in Covadonga (Asturias) starting the Reconquista 778 Zaragoza is attacked by the Carolingian army. 1009 The Fitna of al-Andalus got let off with the assassination of Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo. 1031 The Fitna of al-Andalus ended with the breakup of the Caliphate of Cordoba. 1085 Alfonso VI from Castille conquered Toledo. 1094 The Castilian knight El Cid conquered Valencia from the Moors. 1138 The Kingdom of Portugal was established. 1228 Moorish influence was reduced to the Kingdom of Granada. 1366 Starts a civil war against Enrique de Trastamara, son of Alfonso XI. 1469 Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon were married, laying the foundation for the unification of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon into Spain. 1474 The reign of Isabella began. 1475 War of the Castilian Succession: The war began. 1478 The Spanish Inquisition was founded. 1504 Isabella I of Castile died. 1492 Christopher Columbus first explored the New World. Reconquista: The Reconquista ended. Jews were expelled from Spain by the Alhambra Decree. 1493 Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish colonization of the Americas began. 1494 The Treaty of Tordesillas was signed. 1499 Italian War of 1499-1504: Ferdinand allied with the French King Louis XII of France. |
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| Kati Ihnat | Dec 8 2014, 05:16 PM Post #2 |
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Great questions. Thankfully you can cut down the time-line by quite a bit. The Old Hispanic liturgy was practised between approx. 589 and 1080, at which point this unique liturgical form was more or less abandoned in favour of the Franco-Roman rite practised in much of Western Europe by this point. This is with the exception of a few parish churches in Toledo, which continued to celebrate in the 'old tradition' for several centuries more. So we're talking about more or less 500 years, which means you don't need to think about those additional 500 years! While most of the sources we have for this liturgy were produced in the northern kingdoms that remained Christian or progressively became Christian after the Muslim Conquest of 711 (Leon, Navarra, Castille), scholars have pretty much agreed that it continued to be celebrated in Christian churches in the Muslim-ruled areas of the southern peninsula. Because we have only very fragmentary evidence of what was being done in this area, however, we can't be sure that the liturgical tradition was exactly the same as what was preserved north of the border, so it is difficult to address the question of 'Arabic influence'. As for interactions with Jewish culture, while the question of musical influence is almost impossible to determine (given the fact we don't know what the original melodies of this liturgy sounded like!), there was certainly engagement on the part of Christians with Judaism in this period. For example, the major feast day that celebrated the Virgin Mary included public readings from a theological work that attacked the Jews for not believing in the Virgin birth and Incarnation. From what we know of law codes, there was the expectation that Jews would not work on this day, and that any Jews who had been forcibly baptised (which happened, it seems, in the seventh century) had to attend church on this day. How much Christians knew of Jewish traditions is debatable - certainly nothing beyond a very basic understanding from what I've seen! - but it certainly grew in the southern regions, although we don't know how much this would have then influenced the liturgy there. |
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| Emma Hornby | Dec 8 2014, 07:06 PM Post #3 |
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It is worth bearing in mind that the Old Hispanic liturgy had its origins in Visigothic (i.e. pre-muslim) Iberia. There are decrees from a whole series of church councils in the region through the 7th century where all sorts of practical details of the liturgy were being thrashed out; we also have a monastic Rule of St Isidore of Seville (who died in 636) which gives quite a bit of information about how monastic daily life worked, with the shape of the liturgy and how monks/nuns should behave during it; we also have information in Isidore's Etymologies and in his De Ecclesiasticiis Officiis; and we have more writings that link to the liturgy in various ways, including assertions that various 7th century bishops compiled liturgy and wrote chant melodies. Our first manuscript containing Old Hispanic prayer texts, the Verona Orational, shows us clearly that the liturgy was in its developed form before the Muslim conquest, because the prayers link very very closely to their accompanying chant texts, which are included in the manuscript's margins. Those chants are - to a first approximation - used for the same liturgical functions on the same days in the 9th-11th century manuscripts that include musical notation. There may have been Muslim musical influence later but, if there was, it was influence on a liturgy that was already full developed within Visigothic culture. This is supported, of course, by it being a LATIN liturgy - in linguistic terms, the influences are Roman. The musical notation links very closely, both conceptually and (sometimes) visually, to some of the musical notations used during the 9th century in the region around Saint Gallen. The influences in notational terms come from that direction, not from Islam, nor directly from Eastern Christianity. As Kati says, we have very little evidence about the liturgy from non-Christian areas. There's one manuscript in the Toledo cathedral archive (MS 35-6) which has text script that palaeographers identify as being from Toledo or the area near there, but musical notation that is characteristic of the 11th century. So that one might conceivably pre-date Alfonso VI's conquest of the city. If that is the story of that manuscript, then it doesn't support any ideas of Arabic influence - the melodies are very similar to those from the Christian kingdoms. Elements of the Old Hispanic liturgical culture definitely did overlap with muslim culture - there are some muslim names in the margins of manuscripts from regions where there was a lot of muslim settlement (it tends to be a note of a payment made to a carpenter or something). |
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| Raquel Rojo Carrillo | Dec 18 2014, 02:36 PM Post #4 |
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Hi! As Emma says, any influences from repertoires of other religions are not marked or evident. This can be seen when contrasting the chants of a same genre: text and melodies from the first to the latest sources coincide in many variables, despite the hundreds of years that separate them and the different contexts in which they were copied. Later OHC sources, namely those dated after the official suppression of the liturgy in the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula (year 1080), are believed to attest to the practice of this liturgy by Christians living in Muslim-dominated territories (these Christians were know as 'Mozarabs'), where the weight of Rome’s authority was not as powerful as in the Christian kingdoms. Since these sources are preserved in Toledo, most authors believe that they are the last evidence of a long-standing praxis of this liturgy in this city; other authors (e.g. Janini, Boynton, Moreno) have suggested that they might have arrived in this city with the southern Mozarabs (Christians) fleeing from the Almohade invasion of the south of the Peninsula (year 1146 onwards). In any case, the coincidences among the repertoires of early OHC sources and the ones preserved in Toledo suggests that this liturgy and its musical repertoire were used as strong identity-markers by the Christians living under Muslim-rule (whether from Toledo or from further south), who very possibly did their best to not allow influences from other rites. |
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8:26 PM Jul 11