Article Title

39

Art in Translation, Volume 7, Issue 1, pp. 39–64

DOI: 10.2752/175613115X14235644692275
Photocopying permitted by licence only.
© 2015 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.

Islamic Objects
in Christian
Contexts: Relic
Translation and
Modes of Transfer
Mariam
Rosser-Owen in Medieval Iberia
Abstract

Many medieval Islamic objects have survived in ecclesiastical contexts

in Christian Spain. The majority of these objects are containers of some
kind, especially caskets, and textiles, ranging in size from small frag-
ments to enormous wrappings. These objects vary in artistic quality,
but they all share a direct association with the relics of saints. Many of
these saints were buried in territory under Islamic rule, and on occa-
sions during the tenth and eleventh centuries their relics were translated
to the emerging Christian kingdoms of the north. This essay argues that
this process offered a means by which Islamic objects transferred into
40 Mariam Rosser-Owen

Christian hands and, as such, attempts to move away from thinking of

object transfer purely in terms of booty and triumphalism, as has been
prevalent in scholarship hitherto.1

KEYWORDS: Islamic art, ivory, medieval Iberia, metalwork, objects,

relics, saints, textiles, translation, transfer

The Islamic objects in the church treasuries of medieval Spain

are perhaps best understood as trophies of war. In contrast to the
lands beyond the Alps, where Islamic objects enjoyed the aura of
exotic vessels from the Holy Land, … the lasting wars in Spain
and the continuing hope of pushing the Muslim invaders south-
ward created a situation in which almost every looted object was
regarded by the Christians as a further symbol of the liberation of
the Iberian Peninsula.2

This quote encapsulates the persistent notion that Islamic objects in

Christian contexts had a potent role as symbols of triumphalism of one
religion over the other. The “triumphalist paradigm” implies that, while
in other European societies Islamic objects were valued for their materi-
als or their craftsmanship, the situation in Iberia was different, because
here societies of different faiths existed in a constant state of Crusade.
Here, Islamic objects could not be admired or desired without being a
political statement. This essay is intended to offer a counterpoint to this
way of thinking about objects that were translated across cultures in
the medieval period. It aims to nuance ideas about triumphalism, which
still very much pertain in scholarship, by proposing alternative modes
of transfer between the cultures that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula, in
particular the translation of relics. It is intended to present ideas and
suggestions to redirect future research, rather than a polished argument.
I do not discuss the history of the Christian communities in al-Andalus,
or engage in the wider medieval culture of relics and their acquisition
by purchase or theft; nor will I touch on the equally fascinating issue of
the Islamic use of relics. My focus will be instances of relic translation
where the saintly remains were obtained from lands under Islamic rule.
Chronologically, I will limit myself to the tenth and eleventh centuries,
and to objects that have a known ecclesiastical provenance. Very few
of the objects here discussed were physically modified in order to be
visually “Christianized.”3 I take a cross-media approach, which is fre-
quently not how objects are studied, as scholars tend to focus on specific
media; it is also common to pick specific objects out of different treas-
uries to make stylistic connections, rather than thinking about these
treasury collections as assemblages, which provide significant context
for the objects. I thus aim to make connections between objects that are
not usually connected, and to suggest a new framework within which to
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 41

consider the objects themselves, as well as modes of transfer across the

Peninsula and beyond.
It is well known that many of the artistic treasures of medieval Islamic
art have survived because of their repurposing and reuse in Christian ec-
clesiastical contexts. These uses range from building materials to cloth-
ing. But the majority were portable objects, especially caskets, and the
use to which they were put was, above all, that of reliquaries. These
luxury examples of—it should be stressed, secular—Islamic art, which
often bore Arabic inscriptions and were thus immediately identifiable as
Islamic cultural products, were thus “Christianized” in the most potent
way, by housing the bones of Christian saints. Legends grew around
these objects, associating them with heroes of the so-called Reconquista:
the two Andalusi ivory caskets from the Monastery of Santo Domingo
de Silos, for example, became associated with Fernán González, first
Count of Castile (d. 970).4 Their mythologized seizure on the battlefield
was even commemorated in later poetic epics: the Poema de Fernán
González records the looting of ivory caskets, gold and silver objects,
silk textiles, and luxuriously adorned arms and armor from the cam-
paign tent of al-Mansur, regent of the Umayyad caliphs at the end of the
tenth century.5 The fact that al-Mansur’s career began in earnest in 976
and that Fernán had died six years before has not been fully taken into
account when evaluating the validity of such literature’s contribution to
our understanding of this period.6
The association of these objects with booty seized in heroic battlefield
deeds by figures who were later seen as foundational for different Iberian
national identities occurred very late—the Poema de Fernán González,
for example, was written in the middle of the thirteenth century, when a
more propagandistic character relating to nation-building had consoli-
dated around the struggle with the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula.
Such myths do not relate to the political realities that existed between
al-Andalus—as Islamic Spain was called in Arabic—and its Christian
neighbors in the tenth and eleventh centuries, which was much more
nuanced and complicated. I will explore some of these connections here,
but first I will introduce the objects. This will by no means attempt a
complete survey as there are far too many possibilities, but I will present
a few key types, which also raise larger issues.
The most spectacular and best known are, of course, the ivory
caskets, produced in the caliphal capitals of Córdoba and Madinat al-
Zahra’ from the early tenth to early eleventh centuries, with a short pe-
riod of revival under the Taifa state of Toledo around the mid-­eleventh
century.7 Some thirty of these ivory caskets have survived from the me-
dieval period and are now in international museum collections. Most
have a direct ecclesiastical provenance: for example, the pyxis made
in 964 for Subh, consort of the caliph al-Hakam II (r. 961–976), was
discovered by Manuel Gómez-Moreno in Zamora Cathedral, whence
it was moved to the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid.8 These
42 Mariam Rosser-Owen

Figure 1
Casket of Hisham II, c. 976,
wood and silver-gilt, h: 27 ×
w: 38.5 × d: 23.5 cm, Treasury
of Girona cathedral (inv. 64).
Photograph © Archivo Oronoz,
Madrid.

objects have been much written about, and I prefer to focus here on less-
frequently discussed objects, in particular metalwork, including several
caskets that were probably made outside the Iberian Peninsula. This
discussion thus also aims to contextualize the presence in al-Andalus of
such “foreign” objects.
One spectacular Andalusi object, now a unicum, that has survived
thanks to its use as a reliquary in Girona cathedral is formed from
silver-gilt and niello panels in repoussé over a wooden core (Figure 1).
Its inscription does not give a precise date, but informs us that it was
commissioned for Hisham, son of al-Hakam II, while he was still crown
prince. The use of the phrase wali al-‘ahd to designate his status allows
us to assign the casket to around 976, the year in which he was of-
ficially declared his father’s heir though he was still a minor.9 The casket
may well have been a celebratory gift from his father. Other intriguing
objects have been found in Cataluña: a spherical perfume bottle and a
tiny ivory unguent pot are among the objects preserved in the cathedral
of La Seu d’Urgell, founded by Bishop Ermengol (d. 1035) and conse-
crated by his successor, Eribau, in 1040.10 The spherical perfume bottle
was found together with other objects in a cavity in the main altar; it
held a relic, and it has been suggested that these objects were used in the
cathedral’s consecration.11 Their materials, production technique, and
iconography associate them with al-Andalus. The explanation usually
given for how these objects found their way to Cataluña is that they all
formed part of the booty seized during the military expedition against
Córdoba in 1010, which was led by Ramon Borrell, count of Barcelona,
and his brother Ermengol I, count of Urgell.12
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 43

One important question that remains open is how an object made at

the highest level of court production, and given by one caliph to another,
ended up in a cathedral treasury in Girona. Oliver Watson has suggested
that so many royal objects have survived in Christian treasuries because
they were all handily gathered together in palace treasuries, ready to be
looted en masse.13 However, it should be stressed that occasions such
as these were extremely rare, and this particular instance took advan-
tage of the disarray surrounding the outbreak of Fitna (civil war) in
al-Andalus. It should also be remembered that the Catalan counts were
fighting alongside a Muslim army, in support of one of the pretenders to
the caliphate.14 Watson’s model would also imply that the objects in La
Seu d’Urgell were of the same status as Hisham’s casket, which seems
unlikely, given the cruder production of the spherical perfume bottle. As
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza has observed, the presence of high-quality or
royal objects in cathedral treasuries is much more likely to be explained
by diplomatic gift exchange rather than exclusively by booty, and I will
elaborate on this issue below.15

Fatimid Objects in al-Andalus

While the aforementioned ivory and metal objects were made in al-
Andalus, other objects survive in Christian treasuries whose origins lie
outside the Iberian Peninsula. In particular, a whole range of objects can
be associated with the Umayyads’ archrivals, the Fatimids, who con-
trolled territory in North Africa from 909 until their conquest of Egypt
in the late tenth century (which they ruled until 1171). The question of
contact between al-Andalus and Fatimid Egypt during the tenth and
eleventh centuries is a little-studied area, and one that promises interest-
ing results. The most important of these Fatimid objects is a large ivory
casket, now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, whose lid is incised
with a long historical inscription in Arabic (Figure 2). This tells us it
was made for the Fatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz (r. 953–975), in the dynasty’s
Tunisian capital of Sabra-Mansuriyya, and though it carries no date, it
can be dated through formulae in the inscription to the 960s, the period
immediately before the Fatimid conquest of Egypt.16 However, it has
been preserved since the medieval period in the church of San Zoilo in
Carrión de los Condes, in the province of Palencia. We will return below
to how that might be.
Another Fatimid object is a silver-gilt and niello casket that has
survived in the treasury of the Real Colegiata of San Isidoro de León
(Figure 3).17 Again this attribution comes from its Arabic inscription,
which informs us that it was made for the khizana or treasurehouse of
Sadaqa ibn Yusuf. This man may be identifiable with the vizier of the
Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir (r. 1036–1094), who held office between
1044 and 1047, thus providing a rough production date for the c­ asket.
44 Mariam Rosser-Owen

Figure 2
Casket of al-Mu‘izz (r. 953–
975), 960s, ivory, h: 20 ×
w: 42 × d: 24 cm, Museo
Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid
(inv. 50.887). Photograph
© Archivo Oronoz, Madrid.

Other caskets without such useful information in their inscriptions may

also be examples of Fatimid metalwork. Among various caskets associ-
ated with the treasury of San Isidoro in León is another, rather cruder
example, containing two inscriptions which feature strings of blessings
to its anonymous owner, as is very common on Islamic objects that were
not made for court officials (Figure 4).18
Stylistic elements relate this example closely to an intriguing casket
also inscribed with a list of anonymous blessings, which houses the rel-
ics of Santa Eulalia of Mérida, a Roman Christian martyr whose relics

Figure 3
Casket of Sadaqa ibn Yusuf,
1044-7, silver-gilt and niello,
h: 7.5 × w: 12.4 × d: 7.9 cm,
Real Colegiata de San Isidoro,
León. © Museo de San Isidoro
and Fernando Ruiz Tomé.
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 45

Figure 4
Metal casket from San Isidoro
de León, first half of the
eleventh century?, silver-gilt
and niello, h: 8 × w: 17.7 ×
d: 11 cm, Museo Arqueológico
Nacional, Madrid (inv. 50.867).
Photograph © Archivo Oronoz,
Madrid.

were translated to Oviedo in the late eighth century (Figure 5).19 Her rel-
ics were “rediscovered” by Bishop Pelayo in 1102, who then “elevated
her with great honor”; in front of more than a hundred witnesses, he

placed the small casket which contained her relics inside a larger
silver casket [deinde capsellam ipsam misit predictus episcopus in
aliam capsam maioram argenteam], which had been donated to
that place by the lord King Alfonso, son of King Ferdinand and

Figure 5
Casket containing the relics of
Santa Eulalia of Mérida, late
eleventh or twelfth century?,
wood, silver-gilt, and niello?,
unknown dimensions, Cámara
Santa of Oviedo Cathedral.
Foto Mas 84476, Archivo
Fotográfico del Real Instituto de
Estudios Asturianos.
46 Mariam Rosser-Owen

Queen Sancha, and he placed it in the afore-mentioned treasury,

where it would be venerated by the faithful.20

It is presumed that the impressive silver and niello casket that today
holds Eulalia’s remains in the Cámara Santa of Oviedo Cathedral is the
casket into which they were translated in the early twelfth century, hav-
ing been previously donated by Alfonso VI (r. of León 1065–, of Castile
1072–1109), implying a date for the casket of the late eleventh century.
It is difficult to go further, because this casket is unique. Similarities with
the small casket from San Isidoro (Figure 4) are suggestive of a common
origin: their construction methods and decorative techniques, the shape
of their lids, the formal correspondences between their epigraphy, with
light-touch vegetal floriations in the spaces between the letters, and the
rather lazy form of the scroll. When compared to the casket made for
Sadaqa ibn Yusuf (Figure 3), we can see that all three metal caskets have
very similar mounts: heavily three-dimensional with chased decoration,
with the same way of constructing the hinge at the junction between lid
and body, by means of connected barrels.
Are these caskets Fatimid in manufacture? There is very little extant
Fatimid metalwork against which to judge these objects art historically,
although the recent publication of important hoards of Fatimid met-
alwork found in excavations in Israel will start to clarify the picture
of which object types were made where.21 They could also have been
made in southern Italy, since there are clear connections with a group of
objects in the treasury of San Marco in Venice, which have been linked
to “Sicilian or Southern Italian production, under Arab influence, 12th
century.”22 The distinctive motif on the walls of the Santa Eulalia cas-
ket—of a circle with four hearts arranged as if around a cross—­appears,
for example, in the mosaic window embrasures of the Cappella Palatina
in Sicily. If they had been made in southern Italy, these metal objects
might have imitated Fatimid imports, or imports from further east in the
Islamic world, which were traded into the Mediterranean via Fatimid
Cairo.23 Whatever their origins, this small group of metalwork clearly
demands a study in its own right, not least because it offers a rare op-
portunity to study a group of objects that has a datable context, since
they were probably already in the Iberian Peninsula by the mid to late
eleventh century.
Other Fatimid objects have been found in Spain, such as the many ex-
amples of imported Fatimid lusterware found in excavations across the
Peninsula.24 It is even possible that Egyptian craftsmen were operating
on Andalusi soil, as indicated by the Fatimid luster dishes apparently
made in Seville in the mid eleventh century, for the city’s ‘Abbadid rul-
ers.25 In terms of ecclesiastical collections, a number hold objects carved
from rock crystal, likely to be Fatimid in manufacture as there is no
evidence for rock crystal supply or production in medieval Iberia, while
there is well-established evidence for a Fatimid industry by the end of
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 47

the tenth century.26 In particular these collections preserve small bot-

tles, which were functionally appropriate as relic containers as well as
being the clearest material available at that period, allowing the relics
held therein to be visible. They also preserve a large number of chess
pieces: we know, for example, from illustrated sources that rock crystal
chess pieces, supposedly donated by Sancho III of Navarre in 1033,
were once mounted on the lid of the reliquary casket of San Felices in
the Monastery of Yuso in San Millán de la Cogolla.27 Despite being
nonfunctional objects these rock-crystal chess pieces were still deemed
worthy of putting to use in an ecclesiastical context, no doubt because
of the preciousness of their materials. But do such gaming pieces, widely
employed throughout Christian as well as Muslim cultures by this time,
proclaim triumphalism over Islam?

Textiles, Trade, and Diplomacy

The objects that more than anything undermine the triumphalist para-
digm are Islamic textiles, which survive in their hundreds in Christian
contexts, from small fragments to massive hangings and whole outfits.
Textiles come from the insides of Islamic caskets, one example being the
unusual silk fragment with a repeating pattern of large-bodied peacocks,
which was found inside the Pamplona casket; this housed the bones of
the saintly sisters Nunilo and Alodia, and this textile may have wrapped
their relics in 1057, when the crypt at Leire was consecrated.28 Many
textiles survive that are said to have come from caskets found within
altars, and therefore they probably wrapped relics, but all trace and
memory of those relics or their containers has been lost. One such ex-
ample is the so-called “Hisham tiraz,” now in the Real Academia de la
Historia in Madrid, a woven silk headwrapping which survives selvedge
to selvedge and is more than a meter wide. It is inscribed in the name
of the caliph Hisham II (r. 976–c.1010) and is thus datable to the end
of the tenth century. It was discovered c.1853, wrapped around relics
in a casket under the altar of the church of Santa María del Rivero, in
San Esteban de Gormaz (prov. Soria), but this casket does not survive.29
Another famous silk fragment, woven with gold thread and depicting
a peacock, attributed to Andalusi production of the mid-tenth century,
was found in a church in the Pyrenees mountains, but otherwise no
more is known about its provenance.30
Islamic textiles also line caskets made in Christian lands; they emerge
from coffins, in the form of clothing, as has been abundantly demon-
strated by the finds in the Castilian royal Pantheon at Las Huelgas in
Burgos;31 but they also occur in the form of wrappings,32 which seems to
have been the original function of a spectacular and unusually large blue
silk, measuring 2.6 m wide by a little over 2 m high. This recently came
to light in the church of San Zoilo in Carrión de los Condes, in the tomb
48 Mariam Rosser-Owen

of the monastery’s foundress Teresa Peláez (d. 1093), widow of Gómez

Díaz (d. 1057).33 This is the same church in which the Fatimid ivory
casket (Figure 2) has survived. This silk is one of several well-­preserved
luxury textiles that have come to light in the monument; another, woven
in red with birds in roundels, has been identified as a so-called sandaniji
silk, made in Bukhara, in modern-day Uzbekistan.34 If that attribution
is correct, this speaks even more to Islamic Iberia’s far-flung intercon-
nectedness with international trading networks.
How did these objects get to Christian treasuries in northern Iberia?
Without doubt their immediate provenance was al-Andalus, even for
the Fatimid objects. It has been suggested that the silver casket made
for Sadaqa ibn Yusuf around 1044 made its way to al-Andalus via com-
mercial routes following the sack of the Fatimid treasury in 1069, when
Fatimid troops, whose pay was years in arrears, looted the royal store-
rooms of the Fatimid caliphs and sold off their contents in the Cairo
marketplace, to recover their debts.35 But if Sadaqa’s silver casket is as-
sociated with the translation of San Isidoro’s relics from Seville to León,
as discussed below, this took place in 1063, meaning that the casket was
already in Seville some years before the sack of the Fatimid Treasury.
It is also possible that some of these Fatimid objects could have found
their way directly from Egypt to the Christian Iberian courts, though the
evidence for this is lacking for this period—one possible means of trans-
fer might have been the trading activity of Italian maritime merchants.36
Trade networks and diplomatic exchange are two important means
by which Islamic objects found their way into Christian contexts. Here
we might make a distinction between, on the one hand, objects clearly
made for the court—the rulers themselves, their families, and close of-
ficials—which tend to show sophisticated craftsmanship and expensive
materials, with inscriptions naming specific individuals; and, on the
other, more commercial objects, in the form of more anonymous or
mass-produced artifacts. It is likely that many of the hundreds of woven
silk textiles that reached the northern kingdoms came there through
trade.
However, at the level of court objects, it is more likely that they
changed hands from person to person, through the ritual of gift ex-
change. Two important objects allow us to reconstruct some specific
instances of this. These are both well-known cases, and I will not repeat
all the details here. The first is the Braga pyxis, a cylindrical ivory casket
made for the regent of al-Andalus, ‘Abd al-Malik ibn al-Mansur, be-
tween 1004 and 1008, but which apparently found its way to its current
home in Portugal during its patron’s lifetime, as a diplomatic gift, since
it contains a silver chalice and paten commissioned to fit exactly inside
it, by the Portuguese count Mendo Gonçalves (d. 1008). As Serafín
Moralejo theorized, this object surely changed hands as the result of
the political relations which existed between ‘Abd al-Malik and Don
Mendo in the early eleventh century.37
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 49

The second object is the so-called Eleanor Vase, from the Treasury
of St Denis and now in the Louvre.38 The core object is a rock crys-
tal vase, probably made in pre-Islamic Sasanian Iran, later decorated
with elaborate European mounts. These mounts are adorned with a
riddling inscription: “As a bride, Eleanor gave this vase to King Louis,
Mitadolus to her grandfather, the King to me, and Suger to the Saints.”
This was reconstructed by George Beech as a genealogy of gifts, leading
back to Imad al-Dawla (Latinized as “Mitadolus”), Muslim ruler of
the Taifa state of Zaragoza from 1110 to 1130. Imad al-Dawla fought
alongside Eleanor’s grandfather, William IX of Aquitaine, at the battle
of Cutanda in 1120, against the Almoravid takeover of al-Andalus. The
original gift of this vase was thus a symbol of collaboration between a
Christian and a Muslim ruler, against other Muslims. What is unknown
is how the Sasanian vase made its way to Zaragoza in the first place; it
may well have been in Córdoba until the fall of the caliphate, and was
appropriated by a Taifa ruler as a legitimizing device. Before coming to
the Umayyad court, it may have had a whole earlier genealogy of gifts
presented from ruler to ruler stretching back through Islamic history,
but this is part of the story we will never know.
These are not the only instances that can be reconstructed of ob-
jects being gifted across confessional borders. As Glaire Anderson has
recently argued, another Cordoban ivory object may have been made
for an Iberian Christian monarch, Queen Toda of Navarra, paternal
aunt to the Andalusi caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman III (r. 912–961) through
her mother’s marriage to the Umayyad emir ‘Abd Allah (r. 888–912).39
This familial connection as well as diplomatic contacts between
them in the 930s may have provided the scenario within which the
famous processional cross associated with San Millán de la Cogolla
was commissioned from Cordoban ivory carvers.40 Indeed during the
tenth century, many Christian soldiers fought in or alongside Muslim
armies, especially under the regency of al-Mansur (fl. 976–1002). A
significant reward for serving successfully in these campaigns was the
distribution of khil‘a, “robes of honor,” as well as other textiles, and
money. This is another important mode of transfer to consider in our
bigger picture.41
These luxury textiles were no doubt prized enough to be repurposed,
either immediately or after long use, as the linings for caskets or the
wrappings for relics. Andalusi textiles in Christian contexts, especially
those relating to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, have received some
attention in recent years, though much research remains to be done.42
Lack of study means we cannot yet accurately locate the place of pro-
duction of many of these textiles: due to the almost total academic ne-
glect of medieval embroideries we cannot say, for example, whether the
embroidery that lines the lid of the San Isidoro casket (Figure 6) was
made in al-Andalus or was another Fatimid import, as some scholars
have suggested.
50 Mariam Rosser-Owen
Figure 6
Embroidered lining of the lid
of the reliquary casket of San
Isidoro, before 1063, silk and
gold thread, casket dimensions
h: 33 × w: 81.5 × d: 44.5 cm,
Real Colegiata de San Isidoro
de León. Photograph © Archivo
Oronoz, Madrid.
Relic Translation as a Mode of Transfer
I would like to propose another possible means by which such objects
changed hands. It is plausible that it was through the translation of the
relics of saints buried in Andalusi territory to the Christian kingdoms of
northern Iberia that many caskets and other containers traveled across
Iberia’s borders. These saints were frequently martyrs whose mortal
remains had performed miracles. However, these martyrdoms were
not due to Muslim policies of Christian persecution. While Eulogius
and the “Cordoban martyrs movement” of the mid-ninth century have
become infamous, Ann Christys has pragmatically called for perspec-
tive, classing them as extremists who were unpopular even within the
wider Andalusi Christian community.43 Other famous martyrs whose
relics I will come back to shortly did suffer at the hands of Muslims,
at least according to the hagiography: the sisters Nunilo and Alodia
refused to renounce Christianity in the mid ninth century; while, in the
early tenth century, the beautiful young boy Pelayo was executed on the
orders of the future ‘Abd al-Rahman III for refusing his sexual advances
(more incriminating, perhaps, were the insults that Pelayo rained down
on both the caliph and Islam).44 But other saints whose remains were
translated from al-Andalus were martyred under the Romans: Eulalia
of Mérida, whose relics are now in the possibly-Fatimid silver casket in
Oviedo Cathedral (Figure 5), was martyred in the early fourth century
for denying the pagan gods and insulting the Emperor Maximian.45 San
Zoilo, whose Fatimid ivory casket and possibly Bukharan silk textile
were mentioned above, was martyred in Córdoba around the same
time. He had a well-established church and congregation, located in the
neighborhood of the Umayyad Dar al-Tiraz (the state-controled textile
factory), near the late antique palace of Cercadilla.46 The church of San
Zoilo is mentioned several times in the Calendar of Córdoba, an almanac
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 51

of the seasonal agricultural and horticultural activities of al-Andalus,

written in 961. This includes the fact that his feast day on November
4th commemorated the translation of his relics from an old church to
the church located near the Dar al-Tiraz (est latinis festum translationis
Zoili ex sepulcro eius in vico Cris ad sepulcrum ipsius in ecclesia vici
tiraciorum in Corduba).47 Is this when his remains were placed inside al-
Mu‘izz’s ivory casket? Some time before 1070, San Zoilo’s relics, along
with those of his companion Felix and the Cordoban bishop Agapio,
were translated from Córdoba to Carrión. It is possible that they were
already packaged and ready to go in the reliquary casket(s) that had
housed them in Córdoba.
Of course the most famous of these saints was not a martyr at all:
San Isidoro, Bishop of Seville, whose relics were translated from Seville
to León in 1063. Relics were required for the consecration of all altars
inside a church, and in the late eleventh century there was much church
building and rebuilding in northern Iberia, as elsewhere in Europe. It is
not my field of expertise or my main concern here to examine the moti-
vations, both political and spiritual, for this great rebuilding, except to
note that in Christian Iberia this was bound up with the political and
territorial consolidation of the emerging kingdoms. By arranging to lit-
erally dig deep into Muslim territories to obtain the relics of pre-Islamic
saints, Christian kings made a show of “reclaiming” as well as laying
claim to lands and property that they considered to be the inheritance
of Iberian Christianity. At the same time, there seems to have been some
competition between the northern Iberian kingdoms to obtain relics,
which had more to do with political rivalry and attempts at legitimation
than with religion: Christys has pointed out, for example, the several
rival claims to the relics of San Pelayo, especially between the kingdoms
of León and Galicia, who competed with each other to promote and
celebrate this saint’s cult. Nunilo and Alodia’s relics at Leire became
embroiled in Castilian claims to legitimize their seizure of Navarra.48
The arrival of relics at their new homes was announced with great fan-
fare, as indicated by the description of Fernando I’s dedication of San
Isidoro’s remains in León, and shored up with the donation of great
treasures, which accompanied the consecration of the church. Popular
relics bolstered the importance of royal monastic foundations, but also
brought pilgrimage, and with pilgrimage came trade and further wealth.
The hagiographies written to accompany and justify these dedica-
tions focus on the emotive aspects of the saint’s martyrdom, the sub-
sequent rediscovery of their remains, and their glorious rededication.
These often formulaic accounts obscure the mechanisms of the physical
process of translation: how do you actually organize to exhume and
transfer someone’s bodily remains from Muslim to Christian territory?
The best (though not necessarily most reliable) accounts to survive relat-
ing to the translation of relics from al-Andalus are those concerning San
Pelayo in the mid-tenth century, and San Isidoro in the mid-eleventh.
52 Mariam Rosser-Owen

Both saints were translated to León. These accounts were written for
reasons of religious and political propaganda—San Pelayo’s translation
is recorded in a Passion written by a Mozarabic priest and retold in
the Crónica Sampiro; San Isidoro’s is described in the Historia Silense,
written in the early twelfth century under Leonese royal patronage—but
some basic common facts can be established.49 Embassies were sent,
from León to Córdoba in the first case, to Seville in the second. The
Historia Silense relates that Fernando I (r. 1037–1065) preceded his
embassy to Seville with a military campaign, in which the Taifa ruler
al-Mu‘tadid (r. 1042–1069) was defeated; this opened the way for the
king of Castile and León to request the relics. Both embassies were led
by bishops (Velasco to Córdoba, Ordoño and Alvito to Seville). Apart
from providing official sanction and protection for the safe conduct of
the relics to León, this may also have had the practical advantage of fa-
cilitating communication, since we know from Arabic historical sources
that bishops often served as interpreters in embassies from Córdoba to
the Christian kingdoms.50 Once the embassies arrived in al-Andalus, the
envoys presented themselves to the ruler to announce their mission. The
Historia Silense tells us that Ordoño and Alvito “presented the king’s
orders to Benahabet,” meaning al-Mu‘tadid, who “gave them licence
to look for the saint’s remains.” However, he tells them that neither
he nor any of his people can show them where the body can be found;
they should look for it themselves and once they find it, should “take
it and go in peace.” After several days of frustrated searching, it is only
through prayer and the supernatural intervention of the saint that they
succeed in locating Isidoro’s remains (an obvious trope).
The search will have been simpler in other cases: San Zoilo already
had a flourishing church and cult in Córdoba in the tenth century, as
we have seen; and in the hagiographies of Nunilo and Alodia, as of
Pelayo, it is clear that their relics were already venerated by Andalusi
Christians.51 Indeed, according to the hagiographical accounts, saintly
bodies were treated specifically to deter the development of cults among
local Christians, implying that this was mostly unsuccessful: they were
usually dismembered, and Nunilo and Alodia were “taken to a remote
place and buried so deep that the Christians would not be able to find
them and profit from their relics.”52 Another supernatural event allowed
their rediscovery in the mid-ninth century. A century later, Pelayo’s body
parts were thrown into the Guadalquivir, but according to his Passion,
they were recovered from the river by Cordoban Christians.53 Were
they then rededicated and venerated in a Cordoban church, packaged
and ready for collection by the embassy from Sancho I and his sister
Elvira, which arrived in Córdoba in 967? It is interesting to wonder
what the role of local Christians may have been in the process of giving
up these relics to Christians from the north—were they happily involved
in the negotiations, or did they feel deprived of their own culture and
traditions?54
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 53

Indeed what were the motivations that led the Andalusi rulers to give
up these relics and accede to Christian requests for translation? The sit-
uation in the middle of the tenth century, when Córdoba was the major
power on the Peninsula, was very different from the mid-eleventh, when
the Taifa states paid paria payments to secure peace, as discussed below.
The Andalusi court annals are unfortunately missing for the period of
Pelayo’s translation, but the embassy may have been sent directly by
Elvira, sister of Sancho I (d. 966) and abbess of San Salvador in León,
where the relics arrived in 967. Elvira was then acting as regent for her
young nephew Ramiro III (r. 967–984). Was the embassy driven by the
desire to secure good relations with Córdoba on the accession of the
minor? Might the translation of Pelayo’s relics have been a gift from al-
Hakam to congratulate the young monarch? In contrast, by the time of
San Isidoro’s translation the balance of power had shifted to León, and
al-Mu‘tadid may not in reality have had much of a choice in the matter.
Once you have located your saintly remains, you need to wrap them
up in something, and then find something else to put them in. (The
bones of dismembered limbs might easily fit inside a large casket.) Juan
Carlos Ruiz Souza mentions an anecdote that is telling in this regard.
Gonzalo de Berceo, in his thirteenth-century Life of Santo Domingo de
Silos, narrates the miraculous release of the captive Serván through the
saint’s intercession: Serván brings his chains as an offering to the saint’s
tomb where the monks consider them a great relic, and then “look for a
precious casket in which to house them.”55 This implies that you might
look around for something close at hand in which to wrap and contain
the relics. Alternatively you might buy something available on the local
art market. On the other hand, embassies acting under royal authority
and with the blessing of the Andalusi ruler might enjoy patronage in
the form of the donation of wrappings and containers. This might be
what is indicated by the following incident in the San Isidoro transla-
tion story: as the Leonese embassy was preparing the saint’s remains
for departure, the Taifa ruler al-Mu‘tadid threw over the body “a gold
and silk brocade textile of admirable work” (cortinam olosericam miro
opere contextam). It may well be that one or other of the two textiles
that still line the saint’s reliquary casket today derive from this precious
textile gift; indeed, the embroidery fragment that lines the lid is made
with gold silk (Figure 6). Textiles used to wrap such holy remains be-
came “contact relics,” and would not be discarded.56 The Islamic silks
used to line other saints’ reliquary caskets may also preserve the pre-
cious textiles originally used to wrap relics during the physical process
of translation, even if a new housing was made for those relics once they
reached their final destination.
Might the other objects found inside some of these caskets also have
formed part of the original translation process? San Pelayo’s relics were
collected from Córdoba in 967, during the reign of the Andalusi ca-
liph, al-Hakam II. Apart from the silk textile that lines his reliquary,
54 Mariam Rosser-Owen

Figure 7
Heart-shaped reliquaries
holding relics of San Pelayo,
960s, silver-gilt and niello,
h: 2.1 × w: 3.3 × d: 3.2 cm (of
largest), Real Colegiata de San
Isidoro de León. © Museo de
San Isidoro and Fernando Ruiz
Tomé.

the casket contains two tiny silver, heart-shaped boxes apparently of

Andalusi manufacture, to which the Latin inscription ee sunt reliquie
sancti pelagii (“These are the relics of San Pelayo”) has been added
(Figure 7).57 The use of silver and niello, and the form of the split pal-
mette decoration on these tiny containers, closely resemble the silver
and niello mounts of the ivory caskets produced during al-Hakam’s
reign: there is a particularly striking comparison with the mounts on a
small ivory casket made for one of al-Hakam’s sisters around 961, just
a few years before San Pelayo’s translation (Figure 8).58 The historical

Figure 8
Detail of the mounts on the lid
of the ivory casket made for a
daughter of ‘Abd al-Rahman
III, c. ad 961, silver and niello,
casket dimensions h: 4.3 ×
w: 9.5 × d: 6 cm, Victoria and
Albert Museum (inv. 301-1866).
Photograph © Victoria and
Albert Museum, London.
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 55

fact of the translation in 967 might allow us to date these heart-shaped

boxes to the 960s as well. Could they be part of a royal gift, of which
the rest is missing or as yet unidentified, given by al-Hakam to wish
Pelayo on his way?
Turning again to San Isidoro, once the relics arrived in León they were
dedicated to Fernando and Sancha’s church together with a great cer-
emonial donation of gifts. The inventory of these gifts survives, though
it is not always easy to match its vague descriptions with objects in the
treasury. It mentions a capsam eburneam, operatam cum aureo, “an
ivory casket mounted with gold” or “gilded,” et alias duas eburneas
argento laboratas, “and two other ivory caskets worked/mounted with
silver,” in una ex eis sedent intus tres aliae capsellae, “one of which
contained within three other smaller caskets,” also worked with ivory
(in eodem opere facte et dictacos culptertiles eburneos).59 Could this
refer to some of the various Islamic caskets that have been preserved in
the San Isidoro treasury?60 If these caskets left Seville with the saint in
1063, again we have a terminus ante quem for the production of these
objects, for which we otherwise have very little dating evidence.

Conclusions

Looking to relic translation as a possible mode of transfer of objects

leaves many questions unanswered, and should not supplant other
models entirely. I have not, for example, touched on the issue of paria
payments, enforced payments of tribute from Iberia’s Muslim states to
the Christian kingdoms, to “buy” peace, and which became a significant
means of income for the emerging Christian kingdoms.61 In addition to
large sums of money, luxury objects also formed part of these payments:
‘Abd Allah ibn Buluggin, the last Zirid ruler of the Taifa state of Granada
(r. 1073–1090), describes in his memoir one of his paria payments to
Alfonso VI. As well as a massive monetary outlay, “I prepared for him
many carpets, textiles and vessels, and I gathered them all together in a
great tent, which I invited him to enter and admire the textiles.” These
bonus gifts were offered “to keep his displeasure far away from me.”62
The relic translations discussed here may thus have occurred within the
framework of negotiated treaties or paria payments.
The likely association with relic translations of the objects discussed
here allows us to assign tentative dates to artifacts for which there is
otherwise only circumstantial evidence through stylistic comparison,
and sometimes not even that, given the neglect in studying some of
these object types. The spherical perfume bottle from La Seu d’Urgell
is so far a unicum, so its possible presence in the cathedral at the time
of its consecration in 1040 is significant. This dating remains tentative,
however, since the Islamic objects housing relics may have come into
Christian contexts through other means as well, and perhaps through
56 Mariam Rosser-Owen

direct contact with, for example, the Fatimids. But this approach opens
new vistas: it allows us to better understand the variety of objects avail-
able in al-Andalus during the caliphal and Taifa periods, which included
Central Asian textiles and Fatimid metalwork, as well as objects of pre-
Islamic origin, such as the Sasanian rock crystal vase which ended up
in St Denis.63 Many of the translations we know about occurred in the
eleventh century, while the objects associated with them sometimes date
from the tenth century, from the heyday of the Umayyad caliphs. This
implies the survival of caliphal objects in Taifa rulers’ treasuries after
the fall of Córdoba, where they would have been subject to other tra-
jectories, to do with legitimizing these small states vis-à-vis each other,
the Almoravid threat, and the Christian powers busily consolidating
territory.
In conclusion, it is important to read these objects in all their dimen-
sions, to take into account all possible means of contact between Muslims
and Christians on the Peninsula, and not merely think in terms of oppos-
ing binaries. Attempting to elucidate the many trajectories in which these
objects have been implicated during their lives and after-lives requires
that they be studied across borders—both perceived and actual—and
that the art (and history) of medieval Iberia be considered as a mutually
enriching and enlightening whole, rather than separated into material-
based categories or confessionally dictated academic disciplines.

Notes

1. This article is published within the framework of the research

project, HAR2013-45578-R: Al-Andalus, los Reinos Hispanos
y Egipto: Arte, Poder y Conocimiento en el Mediterráneo medi-
eval, led by Susana Calvo Capilla of the Universidad Complutense,
Madrid. For discussions, suggestions, and information while under-
taking this research, I would like to thank Glaire Anderson, Silvia
Armando, Caroline Goodson, Julie Harris, Therese Martin, Rose
Walker, and Flora Ward. I would also like to acknowledge a debt to
Daniel Rico Camps, whose paper “Inventions and Translations of
Saints in Iberia, 1050–1100: An Overview,” presented at the Leeds
International Medieval Congress on July 13, 2010, first gave me
the idea for this line of thinking about object transfer in medieval
Iberia. I did not have time to consult Ana Rodríguez, “À propos
des objets nécessaires: dotations monastiques et circulation d’objets
au royaume de León dans le haut Moyen Âge,” in Objets sous con-
traintes: Circulation des richesses et valeur des choses au Moyen
Âge, eds Laurent Feller and Ana Rodríguez (Paris: Publications de la
Sorbonne, 2013), 63–89.
2. Avinoam Shalem, “From Royal Caskets to Relic Containers: Two
Ivory Caskets from Burgos and Madrid,” Muqarnas 12 (1995), 24.
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 57

  3. An observation made by Flora Thomas Ward in her thesis, “Con­

structing the Cámara Santa: Architecture, History, and Authority in
Medieval Oviedo,” unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Department of Art,
University of Toronto, 2014), 161, referring to the title of Avinoam
Shalem’s book Islam Christianized: Islamic Portable Objects in the
Medieval Church Treasuries of the Latin West (Frankfurt am Main:
Peter Lang, 1996; revised 2nd ed., 1998).
 4. José Ferrandis, Marfiles árabes de Occidente, vol. 1 (Madrid:
Imprenta de Estanislao Maestre, 1935), 51–2 (cat. no. 1, pl. 1,
“Estuche de Silos”), 88–91 (cat. no. 25, pls. 48–52, “Arqueta
de Santo Domingo de Silos”); Renata Holod, “Game Box of the
Daughter of ‘Abd al-Rahman III,” in Al-Andalus: The Art of
Islamic Spain, ed. Jerrilynn D. Dodds (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1992), 190–1, cat. no. 1.
  5. Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, “Botín de Guerra y tesoro sagrado,” in
Maravillas de la España Medieval: Tesoro Sagrado y Monarquía,
vol. 1: Estudios y catálogo, ed. Isidro Bango Torviso (Valladolid:
Junta de Castilla y León, 2001), 31.
  6. For a recent history of al-Mansur and his career, see Ana Echevarría,
Almanzor: un califa en la sombra (Madrid: Sílex Ediciones, 2011).
The larger casket, which came to hold Santo Domingo’s remains,
was not even produced until 1026, some fifty years after Fernán’s
death.
  7. For a general bibliography of the Andalusi ivories, see the proceed-
ings of the international conference, The Ivories of Muslim Spain,
published as a special issue of the Journal of the David Collection 2
(2005).
  8. Manuel Gómez-Moreno, Catálogo monumental de España: Pro­
vincia de Zamora (Madrid: Ministerio de Instrucción Pública
y Bellas Artes, 1927), vol. 1, 77 (no. 164), figs. 26–9; Ferrandis,
Marfiles árabes, 56–8 (cat. no. 4, “Bote de la Catedral de Zamora”).
  9. Manuel Casamar, “Casket of Hisham II,” in Dodds, Al-Andalus,
208–9, cat. no. 9.
10. Albert Vives, “L’art d’orfebreria al Museu Diocesà d’Urgell,”
Urgellia 3 (1980): 483–9; see also Glaire D. Anderson and Mariam
Rosser-Owen, “Great Ladies and Noble Daughters: Ivories and
Women in the Umayyad Court at Córdoba,” in Amy S. Landau
(ed.), Traces of the Poet, Artist and Patron (Baltimore, MD: Walters
Art Museum, forthcoming 2015).
11. Albert Vives, “L’art d’orfebreria,” 488. It should be noted that
it is unlikely these compartments remained sealed since the first
consecration, as relics tend to be taken out, verified, and paraded,
providing many opportunities for changing containers; consecration
dates should thus be used with caution when seeking dating
evidence for objects. My thanks to Rose Walker for this warning.
12. Vives, ibid.; Casamar, “Casket,” 209.
58 Mariam Rosser-Owen

13. Oliver Watson, “The Doha Box,” Journal of the David Collection
2, no. 1 (2005): 172.
14. Casamar, “Casket,” 209.
15. Ruiz Souza, “Botín de Guerra,” 34.
16. Jonathan M. Bloom, “The Painted Ivory Box Made for the Fatimid
Caliph al-Mu‘izz,” in David Knipp (ed.), Siculo-Arabic Ivories and
Islamic Painting, 1100–1300. Proceedings of the International
Conference, Berlin, 6–8 July 2007. Römisches Jahrbuch der
Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. XXXVI (Munich, 2011): 141–50. On
this object see also Sarah M. Guérin, “Forgotten Routes? Italy,
Ifrı̄qiya and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade,” Al-Masaq 25, no. 1
(2013): 78–9, 83–6; Silvia Armando, “Separated at Birth or Distant
Relations? The al-Mu‘izz and Mantua Caskets between Decoration
and Construction,” paper presented at the conference Beyond the
Western Mediterranean: Materials, Techniques and Artistic Pro­
duction, 650–1500, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, April 20,
2013.
17. Stefano Carboni, “Casket,” in The Art of Medieval Spain, ad 500–
1200, ed. John P. O’Neill (New York: Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 1993): 99–100, cat. 47.
18. Stefano Carboni, “Casket,” in Art of Medieval Spain, 98, cat. 45.
19. Ward, Constructing the Cámara Santa, 153–62.
20. Ward, Constructing the Cámara Santa, 154. It is not known to me
if the small casket holding the relics still survives within.
21. Elias Khamis, The Fatimid Metalwork Hoard from Tiberias, Qedem
55 (2013). The publication of the metalwork from Caesarea is
being prepared by Ayala Lester of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
An important companion volume is also recently published: Rafael
Azuar, Los bronces islámicos de Denia (s. V HG-XI d.C.) (Alicante:
MARQ, Museo Arqueológico de Alicante, 2012).
22. Kurt Erdmann, “Avori e argenti,” in Il Tesoro di San Marco, vol. 2:
Il Tesoro e il Museo, ed. H.R. Hahnloser (Florence, 1971), 119–22,
cat. no. 131, plates CVI–CVII. James Allan has attributed a metal
casket now in Doha to Sicily, late twelfth to early thirteenth century,
on the basis of its formal similarities to the “Siculo-Arabic” ivory
caskets: see James W. Allan, Metalwork Treasures from the Islamic
Courts (Doha: Museum of Islamic Art, 2002): 50–1, cat. no. 12.
23. The Y-fret pattern that covers the background of this casket is
usually associated with Eastern Islamic metalwork, of a later date,
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is seen, for example, on
the inside lid of a penbox in the V&A (M.712-1910), datable
c. 1250 and attributed to the Jazira (the Upper Mesopotamian
region encompassing northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and
southeastern Turkey). It is executed in a much less sophisticated
way on the Santa Eulalia casket, suggesting that it is copying an
imported Eastern Islamic object. This would argue for a later
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 59

date for the casket. Ward, Constructing the Cámara Santa, 159–
60, citing James Allan, suggests that this motif might be a later
continuation of now lost examples of Fatimid metalwork, though
to my knowledge it is not seen in any of the objects featured in the
citations given in n. 21, above.
24. See, for example, Bernabé Cabañero and Carmelo Lasa, “Nuevos
datos para el estudio de las influencias del Medio y el Extremo
Oriente en el palacio islámico de la Alfajería de Zaragoza,” Arti­
grama 18 (2003): 253–68.
25. See the article on this fascinating group of fragments by Carmen
Barceló and Anja Heidenreich, “Lusterware Made in the ‘Abbadid
Taifa of Seville (eleventh century) and Its Early Production in the
Mediterranean Region,” Muqarnas 31 (2014).
26. Juan Zozaya, “Importaciones Casuales en al-Andalus,” in Actas del
IV Congreso de Arqueología Medieval Española, vol. I (Alicante:
Diputación Provincia de Alicante, 1993), 125; Manuel Casamar
and Fernando Valdés, “Saqueo o comercio: la difusión del arte
Fatimí en la Península Ibérica,” Codex aquilarensis: Cuadernos de
investigación del Monasterio de Santa María la Real 14 (1999):
133–60.
27. Casamar and Valdés, “Saqueo o comercio,” 150–2, pl. 1, figs 5–6.
28. J.E. Uraga, Arte medieval navarro, vol. 1: Arte Prerrománico
(Pamplona: Caja de Ahorros de Navarra, 1971), 265–7, with
thanks to Pilar Borrego for this reference. On the Pamplona casket
as the reliquary casket for Nunilo and Alodia, see Julie Harris,
“Muslim Ivories in Christian Hands: The Leire Casket in context,”
Art History 18, no. 2 (June 1995): 213–21.
29. Cristina Partearroyo, “Veil of Hisham II,” in Dodds, Al-Andalus,
225–6 (cat. no. 21).
30. Cristina Partearroyo, “Textile Fragment,” in Dodds, Al-Andalus,
224–5 (cat. no. 20).
31. See, for example, Vestiduras Ricas: El Monasterio de las Huelgas
y su Época 1170–1340, ed. Joaquín Yarza (Madrid: Patrimonio
Nacional, 2005).
32. For the medieval use of textiles to wrap relics, see Anna Muthesius,
“Silks and Saints: The Rider and Peacock Silks from the Relics
of St Cuthbert,” in St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community
to ad 1200, ed. Gerald Bonner, David W. Rollason, and Clare
Stancliffe (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1989), 343–7; and
Margaret Goehring, “Textile Contact Relics,” Encyclopedia of
Medieval Pilgrimage (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 740–2.
33. José Luis Senra, “Dos telas islámicas encontradas en el Monasterio
de San Zoilo de Carrión de los Condes,” Goya: Revista de Arte
303 (Nov–Dec 2004): 332–40; idem, “Mio Cid es de Bivar e nos de
los Condes de Carrión: los Banu-Gómez de Carrión a la luz de sus
epitafios,” Quintana 5 (2006): 233–67.
60 Mariam Rosser-Owen

34. This attribution was presented by Miriam Ali de Unzaga in her

paper, “Textile Topographies. A Case Study: Al-Andalus and the
Mediterranean Connection,” presented at the Second Biennial
Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean,
“Cultures, Communities and Conflicts in the Medieval Mediter­
ranean,” University of Southampton, July 4–6, 2011. Ali de
Unzaga is currently preparing the Carrión de los Condes textiles
for publication.
35. Carboni, “Casket,” 100; Jonathan M. Bloom, Arts of the City Vic­
torious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and
Egypt (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 157.
36. Especially the Amalfitans, who had a trading base in Fustat by
the late tenth century. See Armand O. Citarella, “The Relations
of Amalfi with the Arab World before the Crusades,” Speculum
42 (1967): 299–312; idem, “Patterns in Medieval Trade: The
Commerce of Amalfi before the Crusades,” The Journal of Econ­
omic History 28 (1968): 531–55; Yaacov Y. Lev, “The Fatimid
State and Egypt’s Mediterranean Trade 10th–12th Centuries,” in
East and West: Essays on Byzantine and Arab Worlds in the Middle
Ages, ed. Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, Vassilios Christides, and
Theodoros Papadopoullos (Piscatway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009):
101–5.
37. Francisco Prado-Vilar, “Circular Visions of Fertility and Punish­
ment: Caliphal Ivory Caskets from al-Andalus,” Muqarnas 14
(1997), 33–4, citing the unpublished theory of Serafín Moralejo.
On the pyxis itself, see Renata Holod, “Pyxis of Sayf al-Dawla,”
in Dodds, Al-Andalus, 202 (cat. no. 5); for an illustration with the
chalice and paten, see Barbara Drake Boehm and Charles Little,
“Chalice and Paten of San Geraldo; Pyxis of Sayf al-Dawla,” in Art
of Medieval Spain, 148–9, cat. 73.
38. George Beech, “The Eleanor of Aquitaine Vase: Its Origin and
History to the Early Twelfth Century,” Ars Orientalis 22 (1992):
69–79; idem, “The Eleanor of Aquitaine Vase, William IX of
Aquitaine, and Muslim Spain,” Gesta 32 (1993): 3–10.
39. Glaire D. Anderson, “Sign of the Cross: Contexts for the Ivory
Cross of San Millán de la Cogolla,” Journal of Medieval Iberian
Studies 6, no. 1 (2014): 23.
40. Anderson, “Sign of the Cross.”
41. See, for example, Xavier Ballestín Navarro, “Jil‘a y monedas: el
poder de los Banū Marwān en el Magrib al-Aqs.à,” Al-Qantara 27,
no. 2 (2006): 391–415. Though it has no study on Spain, an impor-
tant compilation of essays on this theme is Robes and Honor: The
Medieval World of Investiture, ed. Stewart Gordon (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
42. See the recent studies by María Judith Feliciano, “Muslim Shrouds
for Christian Kings? A Reassessment of Andalusi Textiles in
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 61

Thirteenth-century Castilian Life and Ritual,” in Under the

Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile, eds
Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi (Leiden: Brill, 2005): 101–31;
idem, “Medieval Textiles in Iberia: Studies for a New Approach,”
in Envisioning Islamic Art and Architecture: Essays in Honor
of Renata Holod, ed. David J. Roxburgh (Leiden: Brill, 2014),
46–65.
43. Ann Christys, Christians in al-Andalus (711–1000) (Curzon, 2002),
Chapter 4: “The Martyrs of Eulogius.”
44. Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, 88–9; Jeffrey A. Bowman,
“Beauty and Passion in Tenth-century Córdoba,” in The Boswell
Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality,
ed. Mathew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006),
236–7.
45. Ward, Constructing the Cámara Santa, 151–3.
46. Antonio Arjona Castro and Pedro Marfil, “Posible localización
de los restos arqueológicos del Dār al-Tirāz (Casa del tiráz) en la
Córdoba musulmana,” Boletín de la Real Academia de Córdoba
147 (July–Dec 2004): 138–41.
47. Ibid., 139, citing Charles Pellat (trans. & ed.), Le Calendrier de
Cordoue (Leiden: Brill, 1961), 103. He notes that the old church
may have been located in the parish that later became known as
San Pedro.
48. Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, 71–2.
49. The story of Pelayo’s translation is recounted by the Crónica
Sampiro, preserved in the Historia Silense, eds Justo Pérez de Urbel
and Atilano González Ruiz-Zorrilla (Madrid: Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas, 1959), 169–70; see also the summary in
Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, 97. For San Isidoro’s discovery
and translation, see Manuel Gómez-Moreno, Introducción a la
Historia Silense, con versión castellana de la misma y de la Crónica
de Sampiro (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Historicos, 1921), cxxvi–
cxxxv. I am deeply grateful to Therese Martin for providing me
with scans of both these texts.
50. For example, Recemund, Bishop of Elvira, served as ambassador
and interlocutor for the caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman III, during the
embassy of John of Gorze: see Christys, Christians in al-Andalus,
Chapter 6: “Recemund and the Calendar of Cordoba.”
51. Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, 89.
52. Ibid., 69, summarizing Eulogius.
53. Bowman, “Beauty and Passion,” 237.
54. Questions that again I owe to Rose Walker, and relay here in the
hope that future research will find answers to them.
55. Ruiz Souza, “Botín de Guerra,” 34.
56. Goehring, “Textile Contact Relics.”
57. Stefano Carboni, “Box,” in Art of Medieval Spain, 98–9, cat. 46.
62 Mariam Rosser-Owen

58. Mariam Rosser-Owen, “The Metal Mounts on Andalusi Ivories:

Initial Observations,” in Metalwork and Material Culture in the
Islamic World: Art, Craft and Text. Essays Presented to James W.
Allan, eds Venetia Porter and Mariam Rosser-Owen (London: IB
Tauris, 2012), 310–11.
59. The Latin here is rather unclear, especially the phrase dictacos culp-
ertiles: culpertiles may refer to the lids, or may relate to colpatio/
culpatura, “cutting (of wood).” Dictacos eburneos are cited in
another medieval inventory, where they perhaps indicate ivory dip-
tychs, though that meaning seems unlikely in the San Isidoro con-
text. With thanks to Rose Walker for sharing her thoughts on this
phrasing (personal communication, August 27, 2014). Among the
objects associated with San Isidoro is a wooden casket encrusted
with designs in ivory (actually probably bone): see Manuel Gómez-
Moreno, El arte árabe español hasta los almohades (Madrid:
Editorial Plus Ultra, 1951), fig. 61—could this be what this strange
phrase is referring to? There is also a tiny ivory box, measuring only
4.6 × 3.1 × 3.2 cm. The information that it held relics of various
saints is incised in Latin on its underside. See Ferrandis, Marfiles
árabes, 87–8 (cat. no. 24, “Cajita de San Isidoro de León”), plate
XLVII.
60. Ángela Franco, “El Tesoro de San Isidoro y la monarquía leonesa,”
Boletín del Museo Arqueológico Nacional 9 (1991), 46–54, dis-
cusses which of the objects presented to San Isidoro in the royal
donation of 1063 may be identifiable with the extant objects.
61. Franco, “El Tesoro de San Isidoro,” 40, notes that by the mid elev-
enth century Fernando I was receiving tributes from the Taifa states
of Badajoz, Seville, and Zaragoza; by the end of his reign these may
have amounted to as much as 40,000 dinars annually. Zaragoza
was particularly generous: in 1058–9, for example, it gave a total
sum of 10,000 dinars.
62. El siglo XI en primera persona: las memorias de Abd Allah, el
último rey Ziri de Granada, eds É. Lévi-Provençal and E. García
Gómez (Madrid: Alianza, 1980), 160, cited in Ruiz Souza, “Botín
de Guerra,” 34.
63. I cannot resist closing with a reference to the Holy Grail recently
“discovered” in San Isidoro de León, as argued by Margarita Torres
and José Miguel Ortega in their book, Los reyes del Grial (Madrid:
Reino de Cordelia, 2014), and made notorious through many news
reports—see, for example, “Historians claim to have recovered
Holy Grail,” http://nypost.com/2014/03/31/historians-claim-to-
have-recovered-fabled-holy-grail/ [accessed August 12, 2014]. The
theory centers on the chalice given to San Isidoro sometime after
her father’s death by Urraca (d. 1101), daughter of Fernando I; this
is formed from two Roman onyx cups mounted together with gold
to form a cup and stand (on which see John Williams, “Chalice of
 Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts 63

Urraca,” in Art of Medieval Spain, 254–5, cat. no. 118). Torres and
Ortega claim to have found two medieval Egyptian documents that
tell how Muslims brought a sacred cup from the Christian com-
munity in Jerusalem to Cairo, which was later given as a diplomatic
gift to “Ferdinand, emir of Léon.” These documents imply that the
Christian community from which the cups were taken revered them
as the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper. Whatever we may
think about the validity of this administration, this anecdote speaks
to the trajectory of objects imported from Egypt to Iberia, and
provides another “celebrity” object, subsequently repurposed as an
extra-special diplomatic gift.