To Live Like a Moor. Olivia Remie Constable

Three centuries later, on the eve of mass conversions in the early sixteenth century, the first archbishop of Granada, Hernando de Talavera, likewise advised that New Christians should conform outwardly to Christian ways of life, and lest they be suspected of harboring Muslim belief in their hearts, they should appear as good and honest Christians in their dress, shoes, and hairstyles.² Sixteenth-century opinion in this matter was founded on medieval precedents, with one adviser to the emperor Charles V in 1526 recommending that Morisco dress be prohibited because “people and things identify themselves by the signs that they carry, and thus they are judged to be those whose signs they bear.”³ It follows, therefore, that the 1567 law in Granada requiring that the Moriscos “may not wear Moorish clothing” (no traygan vestido de moros), but they must “conform with Old Christians in their dress” (conformen en los trajes con los cristianos viejos) was directly related to a much older discourse about legislating the visual distinction of identity.⁴ Pedro de Deza, the president of the Granadan Royal Audiencia who was in charge of implementing the 1567 ordinances, thus argued that the retention of Moorish styles (ropas a la morisca) “was dishonest, and it did not look right that Christian women should go around dressed like moras.”⁵

      When Francisco Núñez Muley was called upon to defend the rights of New Christians to wear traditional styles, he was forced to find a new focus for this familiar line of argument, by reorienting the discussion from religious to regional distinctiveness. In trying to disassociate the long-held presumption that people of different religions were, and should be, visually distinct because of religion, he argued that “the style of dress, clothing and footwear of the natives cannot be said to be that of Muslims, nor is it that of Muslims. It can more rightly be said to be clothing that corresponds to a particular kingdom and province … it follows from what I have just said that Christianity is not found in the clothing or footwear that is now in style, and the same is true of Islam.”⁶ These arguments ran counter to centuries of legislation and assumptions linking belief and appearance. And yet Núñez Muley’s arguments also had good grounding since there were many different regional styles of dress in early modern Spain. Styles in Granada were different from those worn by New Christians elsewhere, stemming from the fact that this region had been very recently conquered, while Mudejars in Valencia, Aragon, and northern Castile had been living under Christian rule for centuries. Evidence from these regions indicates that Muslims had long dressed in styles that were often similar to those of their Old Christian neighbors—even while religious and secular legislation required differential appearance. By the sixteenth century, many New Christians in northern and eastern Iberia had more or less given up Morisco styles (el traje a los moriscos).⁷

      Some identity requirements were purely external and easily changed, such as styles of clothing; others were also temporary, but somewhat more long term, such as particular styles for hair and beards; still others were permanently inscribed on the body, as with circumcision in particular.⁸ Inherent differences in appearance, such as skin color, might also be seen as important visual markers, but these could not be legislated or altered. Meanwhile, certain invisible elements that were believed to create identity—such as the importance given to purity of blood (pureza de sangre) in early modern Spain—were a different matter again.⁹ The case of Granada was thus particular, and this region would become the focal point for early modern attention to Morisco dress. But it was not entirely unique, and it is important both to consider the particularities of Granadan experience on their own terms and to situate them in a wider context.

      * * *

      The more changeable aspects of visual identity could be easily shared, and there is a common and understandable tendency for people living in the same place at the same time to dress in similar fashions. Much of medieval sumptuary legislation therefore addressed the problems entailed by the social and economic muddling of visual identity. As has frequently been pointed out, repeated laws requiring differential styles of clothing may suggest that, in fact, people routinely ignored these rules. We know, for example, that many Christians in late medieval Spain liked to wear elements of what was commonly identified as “Moorish” dress, despite strictures against such things, while Mudejars did not always wear the particular clothing and hairstyles that were dictated by Christian authorities to signal their Muslim identity. Sharing was less likely in the case of permanent bodily signs, which could not be assumed without inflicting pain, and which would have remained the same even when identity changed. In 1526, when Moriscos in Granada were first required to abandon “Moorish” forms of dress, many adult male converts would still have been circumcised. But, needless to say, this inscribed sign of residual Islamic identity would rarely have been visible in the public sphere (except perhaps in a bathhouse). Old Christian authorities could not demand its removal, although they certainly tried to ensure that Morisco boys did not undergo the procedure.

      Many rulings regarding communal visual identity were directed internally, issued by political and religious authorities toward members of their own communities to create solidarity and conformity, whether these were requirements for circumcision or sumptuary laws dictating clothing and hairstyles. Other laws were imposed by a ruling community that wielded power over a subject community (whether or not these subjects were actually a numerical minority). Both sorts of rules had very ancient roots, and many elements of legal thought that became common in the medieval Mediterranean world can be found in Roman law and other earlier traditions.

      As regards Christian-Muslim relations, legislation on the proper dress and deportment of Christians and Jews living under Muslim rule (dhimmīs) can be traced back to the first century of Islam, in the so-called Pact of ‘Umar (Shurūṭ ‘Umar).¹⁰ This famous document is thought to have been promulgated by either the caliph ‘Umar I (d. 644) or ‘Umar II (d. 720), and it would be widely disseminated throughout the later medieval Islamic world, including al-Andalus, as a long-term template for Muslim-dhimmī relations. The categories for distinction were clearly, and strictly, envisioned along religious lines. Along with other provisions relating to behavior and daily life, Christians and Jews were not allowed to wear Muslim clothing, shoes, turbans, or hairstyles; instead, they were required to dress with a distinctive type of belt and to clip their hair in a particular way.¹¹ Although there is plenty of evidence to suggest that these rules were not always strictly or universally enforced, and that many dhimmīs actually dressed and looked much like their Muslim neighbors, the legal initiatives of the Pact of ‘Umar survived over many centuries.¹²

      The most influential medieval Latin Christian statement on visual distinction was promulgated by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Toward the end of the records of the council, in canon 68, the pope noted that in some Christian regions “a difference of dress distinguishes Jews or Saracens from Christians, but in certain others such confusion has developed that they are indistinguishable.” He therefore decreed that all Muslims and Jews “of either sex in every Christian province and at all times shall be distinguished from other people by the character of their dress in public.” He went on to explain that not only should non-Christians avoid rich and elegant clothing, or anything that might appear to set them above Christians, but that wearing distinctive clothing would avoid the possibility of any confusion of religious identity during daily interaction or—more critically—any confusion that might lead to forbidden sexual contact. Because of similarity of dress, Innocent warned, “it sometimes happens that by mistake Christians unite with Jewish or Saracen women, and Jews or Saracens with Christians.”¹³ His words reflected significant anxieties about confusion of appearance, mistaken identity, and the possibility of sexual mixing that had become common in western European thought by the later twelfth century in the wake of warfare, trade, and increasing encounters between Christians and Muslims.¹⁴

      These rulings initiated a flurry of subsequent sumptuary legislation throughout Latin Europe, dictating the signs that Jews and Muslims should wear in order to be visually distinguished from Christians. The long-term ramifications for Mudejar dress and appearance in Christian Spain will be discussed in more detail below. But what is clear is that the dictates of Lateran IV confirmed and institutionalized, for the rest of the medieval period, widespread acceptance of the idea that Christians and non-Christians should look different.

      Clothing After