Tuesday, November 3, 2015

What are some of the cultural characteristics of Spain before Islam as presented in A Vanished World by Chris Lowney?

Spain before Islam had a scarce population in contrast to today's 40 billion people. People were well connected and society was well knit, although organized education was not present but few schools based on church and monasteries were present, most of the students learning different religious rituals would join the church later. Christianity was the religion and the rule of the country.
The lifestyle of the people was based on the peasantry, they worked hard to save enough food to survive the next winter, the peasants had a hard life whereas the rich lived luxuriously. The Jews lived poorly and were not allowed to own lands and practice their religion.
The people of Spain along with their understanding of the world were enclosed in their own world, they did not know what existed beyond their limits, which led them to have a very constrained outlook towards the world, and even their philosophers had a limited layout of the aspects, they could not confer anything beyond their imagination.


Chris Lowney’s novel A Vanished World focuses on Spanish history from the Muslim conquest of 711 to the destruction of the last Muslim Kingdom in 1492. The story, told in the form of minibiographies, explores how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities interacted and influenced each other.
Because the book begins with the Muslim invasion of Spain, it does not dwell long on the cultural characteristics of Spain prior to Muslim influence. Prior to the Moors’ arrival in Spain, the Visigoth kingdom ruled the Iberian Peninsula, Hispania, from the years 415 to 711. The early Visigoths were Arian Christians who segregated themselves from the local Catholic population. Culturally, the Visigoth ruling class was influenced by the styles and technology of Constantinople. An effect of Visigoth rule was a depopulation of cities as people relocated to the countryside.
In 587, the Visigoth king Reccared converted to Catholicism and sought to unify Spain under this faith. Church councils became the most powerful institution in the region with Toledo as the new capital city. This period saw a reversal of the typically tolerant practices of earlier Visigoth rulers regarding Jewish people. King Sisebut in 616 ordered that Jews be forcibly baptized or exiled. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?

In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...