I was talking to Donna today. She is the Blond lady that owns the flower shop behind my shop in town. She had looked at my Blog this morning, and she remarked that she was enjoying the Mediterranean history and she also remarked that the Moors built one of her favorite places in the whole world. Alhambra Spain. She loves the Moorish gardens throughout Spain. She's a flower and plant nut. We talked about the young girl in the previous post, Alizee Jacotay. I looked up her bio on the Internet. She is from the French Island of Corsica, off the coast of Spain. She was born in 1984. She started dancing and singing at a very young age. The thing that struck me is, that her dark skin, hair, and eyes, very well may have been from the Moor influence.
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella forced the moors to leave Spain In 1492.
With the royal banners and the cross of Christ plainly visible on the red walls of the Alhambra: …the Moorish sultan with about eighty or a hundred on horseback very well dressed went forth to kiss the hand of their Highnesses. According to the final capitulation agreement both Isabel and Ferdinand will decline the offer and the key to Granada will pass into Spanish hands without Muhammad XII having to kiss the hands of Los Royes, as the Spanish royal couple became known. Muhammad XII indomitable mother insisted on sparing his son this final humiliation. The Moorish sultan was received with much love and courtesy and there they handed over to him his son, who had been a hostage from the time of his capture, and as they stood there, there came about four hundred captives, of this who were in the enclosure, with the cross and a solemn procession singing the Te Deum Laudamus, and their highnesses dismounted to adore the Cross to the accompaniment of the tears and reverential devotion of the crowd, not least of the Cardinal and Master of Santiago and the Duke of Cadiz and all the other grandees and gentlemen and people who stood there, and there was no one who did not weep abundantly with pleasure giving thanks to Our Lord for what they saw, for they could not keep back the tears; and the Moorish sultan and the Moors who were with him for their part could not disguise the sadness and pain they felt for the joy of the Christians, and certainly with much reason on account of their loss, for Granada is the most distinguished and chief thing in the world…
Christopher Columbus seems to have been present; he refers to the surrender on the first page of his Diario de las Derrotas y Caminos:
After your Highnesses ended the war of the Moors who reigned in Europe, and finished the war of the great city of Granada, where this present year [1492] on the 2nd January I saw the royal banners of Your Highnesses planted by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of the said city, I saw the Moorish sultan issue from the gates of the said city, and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses…
Legend has it that as the royal party moved south toward exile, they reached a rocky prominence which gave a last view of the city. Muhammad XII reined in his horse and, surveying for the last time the Alhambra and the green valley that spread below, burst into tears. When his mother approached him she said : "Weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man". The spot from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is known as "the Moor's last sigh" (el último suspiro del Moro).
Please click on this link to view the Moorish Gardens of Spain
Moor Gardens in Spain
The Moorish Gardens of Spain
You realized, of course, that there is a Sierra Nevada Mountain range in Spain, Didn't you?
ReplyDeleteSierra Nevada means "snowy Mountain".
The California Mountain range was named by the early Spaniards.
I want y'all to know I find this history fasinating. I throw in little blips now and then but that's the way I are. I would never look up the history Ernie posts here but I read every word that he post's and enjoy it. Makes me wonder where we are headed these days.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Sierra means "saw" in Spanish. It's applied to mountain ranges because they are jagged and resemble teeth in a blade.
ReplyDeleteLos Reyes Católicos, Ferdinand and Isabela, were turned into virtual saints by the Spanish church in later years, as was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid), but modern histories are much more interesting if less celebratory.
Ferdinand and Isabela ejected all of the Jews and Muslims just as the New World was discovered. As the ships began to arrive laden with gold, they were baffled by the pernicious effects of inflation, but they had expelled all of the trained economists, and no quantity of gold and silver could save them from their own ignorance.