The Frontier and Cultural Change

Abstract

Although the reconquest of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was at times elevated to the level of a crusading ‘manifest destiny’, the frontier did not act as an insurmountable barrier to the flow of cultural influences. We have seen how, at a practical level, even kings like Ferdinand III and James I had to come to terms with infidels and accord them a place in Christian society. Cultural developments were similarly affected by both elements of ‘hostility’ or ‘rejection’ and by those processes of accommodation or acculturation which were continually taking place between the Christians, Muslims and Jews. Some of these processes were, so to speak, accidental, but there were also cases of deliberate and conscious cultural borrowing in which individuals of authority played a positive role. This chapter is largely devoted to examining cases of both these types of acculturation, but it is only fair to warn the reader that some aspects of these problems have aroused heated controversy. Perhaps the first and most important pitfall to avoid is that of exaggerating the impact of Islam on cultural developments in Christian Spain.