To Live Like a Moor. Olivia Remie Constable

of the garceta first appeared in the final decade of the thirteenth century, in Catalonia in 1293, when King Jaume II of Aragon wrote to the bailiff of Lérida with instructions that Muslims could wear their hair long (in contrast to the “pudding bowl” cut), but without the garceta (sin garceta), so long as they looked different from Christians. Apparently the local bishop had recently complained that there was not sufficient visual distinction between the two communities.⁶⁶ This 1293 ruling may not have been very effective, since less than a decade later (in 1300 or 1301) the king not only had to reem-phasize differential Muslim hairstyles in Lérida (this time requiring that hair be cut short all around the head), but he also had to remind Christians in the city that they should not wear Muslim dress.⁶⁷ Nevertheless, it would be the first of a deluge of legislation regulating Muslim hair that would continue throughout the fourteenth century in the Crown of Aragon. This preoccupation with hair, and especially with the garceta, was very prominent in fourteenth-century legislation from the regions of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, even while there was very little attention given to Muslim hair in contemporary Castilian law.

      Legislation on Muslim hairstyles must have existed in Valencia before 1301, when a Catalan Muslim from L’Espluga de Francoli was arrested and enslaved on a visit to Valencia because he was not wearing the correct haircut (and could not pay the fine). His seigneurial lords, the Templars of Barberá, complained to the king and obtained his release.⁶⁸ This case was probably related to Jaume’s other rulings about Muslim hairstyles in Catalonia and Aragon, made in that same year. At the Cortes of Zaragoza (also in 1301), he required that all Muslim men in Aragon, Ribagorza, and La Litera must wear their hair cut short around the head, and without the garceta.⁶⁹ A year later, he wrote to the bailiff of Albalate de Cinca (near Huesca), reiterating these requirements, and in 1306 in Calatayud, he ordered that the bailiff general of Aragon ensure that all Muslims cut their hair differently from Christians, in accord with the recent rulings of the Cortes of Zaragoza.⁷⁰ This latter ordinance was now to include those Muslims living near the border with Castile, whom the king had earlier released from this requirement during a period of warfare between the two Christian kings.

      While Jaume’s attention to this matter suggests a desire to coordinate legislation relating to Muslim hairstyles throughout the Crown of Aragon, it also indicates a tendency toward regional differences in appearance both within his own territories and across the border with Castile. These may have been slight but sufficiently recognizable for a Muslim to be identifiable when he traveled from one place to another. Regional difference could also provide a rationale for exemptions, especially for those who had money and influence. In 1345, Pere IV granted permission to Yahya de Bellvís (a member of a wealthy Muslim family in Aragon and Valencia) to wear his hair in the style customary in Castile, and thus be exempt from Aragonese laws regarding Muslim hairstyles, because he lived in Medinaceli and traveled throughout Castile.⁷¹ A decade later, in 1355, another member of the Bellvís family pleaded exemption from Valencian laws regarding hairstyle on the grounds that his branch of the family was from Aragon.⁷²

      This latter plea was probably in response to a sudden change in Valencia law, imposed under Pere IV in September of 1347, that now required Muslims to wear the garceta—a reversal of the earlier prohibition.⁷³ This about-face immediately spurred a flurry of court cases and appeals involving Mudejars, their lords, urban administrators, and royal officials, as Muslim men were apprehended in Valencia for not wearing the garceta. In October, for example, the king heard the case of a Muslim from Alfama who was apprehended in Murviedro for not wearing the garceta; Ramoneta, the seigneurial lord of Alfama, had interceded on his behalf, pleading that he had been excused from wearing the garceta because of a wound (presumably to his head). Such cases would persist over the next two decades in Valencia, and it is clear that many Muslims (or their patrons) simply paid for an exemption.⁷⁴ Eventually, in 1373, the king became tired of all of this legal fuss. Claiming that ambiguous appearance was still causing too many problems, he revoked all of the earlier privileges and exemptions given to individual Muslims and Muslim communities regarding dress and hair. Muslims in Valencia were to wear “a certain Clothing and Appearance haircut” (certa scisione crinium), presumably the garceta, and they must dress as Muslims; that is, in the aljuba, not in Christian clothes.⁷⁵ Nevertheless, some differential treatment apparently continued. In 1389 Prince Martí (later Martí I) wrote to the governor of the kingdom of Valencia to reprove him for too rigorously punishing Muslims in the Serra d’Eslida for not wearing the garceta, while other (more wealthy) Muslims in the region were not so heavily penalized for this infraction.⁷⁶

      This ongoing legal wrangling in Valencia testifies to confusion, inconsistency, and resistance, especially because (as was clear from the Bellvís appeal in 1355) laws in Aragon had in fact continued to insist that Muslims must not wear the garceta (a fact reiterated in Zaragoza in 1360)—long after the reversal of this policy in Valencia.⁷⁷ Perhaps in an effort to resolve these differences, Pere IV eventually changed the law in Aragon also, now requiring the garceta for all Aragonese Muslims in November 1386, just two months before his death.⁷⁸ Not surprisingly, his successor, Joan I, faced an onslaught of complaint and opposition to this change immediately upon his ascent to the throne, especially after he reaffirmed laws imposing distinctive styles of hair and dress. There were Mudejar revolts in Zaragoza and Huesca in 1387, with protesters claiming that these laws were not the custom in Aragon and that they were only being imposed in order to generate income (presumably for the benefit of those selling exemptions and imposing fines).⁷⁹ In Huesca, at least, the new king quickly backed down, ordering in September 1387 that officials in the city should stop requiring that local Muslims cut their hair short all around the head (sarcenati) or that they wear any other distinctive signs. He explained his decision based on the argument (undoubtedly presented to him by the Mudejar population) that this policy was not only unusual in Huesca but also that it would lead to the depopulation of the city’s aljama.⁸⁰ Three months later, Joan followed up on this order and wrote to the bishop of Huesca to remind him that he could not require local Muslims to cut their hair or wear the clenxia (a style similar to the garceta).⁸¹

      During the first half of the fourteenth century, legislation in Castile—as in Valencia and Aragon—tended to require yet another particular style of Muslim haircut (usually described as with a single part, cut short all around the head, and without the copete), along with rather vague statements that Mudejars must also wear some kind of distinctive sign (in line with the rulings of Lateran IV).⁸² The Castilian sumptuary ordinances that had been so prominent in the thirteenth century, however, were not restated until the reign of Pedro I (1350–69), when attention refocused away from hair back to clothing, textiles, and ornamentation. In 1351, at the Cortes of Valladolid, Pedro ruled that too many Jews and Muslims were dressing in high-quality imported woolen cloth, half-length cloaks, and adornments (“panos de viado e a meytad e con adobos”) making them indistinguishable from Christians. Henceforth, Castilian Muslims over the age of thirteen were not allowed to wear those types of clothes, nor any garments ornamented with gold or silver.⁸³ After his succession to the throne, Enrique II restated these policies at the Cortes of Toro, in 1371, though with somewhat less precision: Muslims were not allowed to wear luxury textiles, and they must display unspecified signs to distinguish them from Christians. There was no mention of hair.⁸⁴

      Elsewhere in the Peninsula, there was also a shift away from policies regarding hair to those concentrating on clothing in the final decades of the fourteenth century. Although laws in the Crown of Aragon continued to mention the garceta, they also began to introduce other distinctive signals of Muslim identity—perhaps because the regulation of hair had proved too difficult on its own. In 1373, Pere IV had required that Muslims in Valencia wear aljubas, harking back to laws requiring this garment from a century earlier in the Costums de Tortosa. Another ordinance from the same year also required that Valencian Muslim men wear the aljuba and cover their heads with a blue cloth (“tovallola blava en lo cap”), while—in an unusual additional clause—Muslim women should veil their faces.⁸⁵ At about the same time, Muslims in Portugal complained to King Pedro I (1357–67) about laws requiring them to wear the aljuba