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AccuIluvalion as an ExpIanalov Concepl in SpanisI Hislov

AulIov|s) TIonas F. OIicI and OvioI Fi-Sunev
Bevieved vovI|s)
Souvce Conpavalive Sludies in Sociel and Hislov, VoI. 11, No. 2 |Apv., 1969), pp. 136-154
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Acculturation as an
Explanatory
Concept
in
Spanish History
THOMAS F. GLICK
University of
Texas
ORIOL PI-SUNYER
University of
Massachusetts
If
anthropology
and
history
once
begin
to collaborate in the
study
of
contemporary
societies,
it will become
apparent,
that
there,
as
elsewhere,
the one science can achieve
nothing
without the
help
of the other.
Claude
Levi-Strauss,
Structural
Anthropology
I
This
essay
can best be considered an
anthropological
venture in the field
of recent and
contemporary Spanish historiography.
Our aim is two-
fold: an
understanding
of the nature of
Spanish
historical
interpretation
as it is elaborated
by
national
historians;
the examination of certain
phases
of intercultural contact critical in the formation of a distinct
Spanish
cultural form.
These two
aspects may
be viewed as
complementary. Spanish
historians
reconstruct a
Spanish past through
the
perspective
of their own contem-
porary culture,
a culture which is at least in
part
a
product
of the events
and conditions which form the
subject
of their
investigations.
This
phe-
nomenon of
pre-structuring
is a snare that awaits all who are
engaged
in
self-examination, all,
in
fact,
who devote their
energies
to
developing
abstractions from the natural world. For a
variety
of
reasons, though,
which can be summarized as an
essentially
anti-behavioral
outlook,
it
appears
that
Spanish
historians are
especially prone
to a
culturally
bound
orientation.
Cultural
concepts,
as Jan Vansina
observes, 'impose
a certain attitude
towards the
past
on the members of a
society,
and those in
vogue
at the
time influence and distort
tradition,
because historical facts have to be
brought
into line with the attitude
imposed'.1
This is not to
imply
that
historians-Spanish
or
otherwise-purposely
'slant' their work with the
goal
of
arriving
at
preconceived
solutions. The
phenomenon
is much more
subtle. What is involved is the awareness on the
part
of
any
historian
of the
presence
of
ready-made guides
and
patterns
which structure his
perception
of
history and,
to a certain
extent, govern
his selection of data.
1
Jan
Vansina,
Oral Tradition: A
Study
in Historical
Methodology (London, 1965), p.
99.
136
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
137
The social sciences have had but a belated
impact
on
Spanish
scholar-
ship.
No
doubt,
this can in
part
be attributed to the intellectual isolation
of
Spain
for
many years following
the Civil War. But
allowing
due
influence to the intellectual climate of the
past quarter-century,
the con-
temporary
situation can be understood as the end
product
of a well-
established value
system,
one facet of which is a traditional disinclination
to
investigate
the
apparently
non-rational and irrational determinants of
culture and behavior.
The retardation of
Spanish
science has for centuries been the
subject
of an
agonizing
national
enquiry (e.g.
the works of Benito
Feijoo,
Marcelino Menendez
y Pelayo,
and
Santiago
Ram6n
y Cajal)-not
to
mention a
good
deal of
foreign commentary. But,
much too
blithely,
ob-
servers have woven a kind of intellectual
leyenda negra
that would link a
presumed 'Spanish
decadence' to an overall
decay
in
Spanish
science
and,
more
generally,
intellectual
productivity.
This is a
gross oversimplification.
What
impresses
us is not some
putative general decline,
but a
differential
development
in which some areas of
enquiry
have been either
minimally
represented
or not
represented
at all.
Regardless
of the
quality
of individual
scholarship, Spanish
intellectuals
have
generally
failed to realize the
potential
of certain
disciplines.
One
cannot
escape
the conclusion that
Spanish historians,
for
example,
make
the most casual
(and
frequently distorted)
use of social science.
Similarly,
there is little
appreciation
of the
relationships
between human
biology
and
culture. These
shortcomings
are
by
no means limited to traditionalists.
To cite but one
case,
Americo Castro at
mid-century
can claim that 'ex-
planations
of the
psychological type
.. .are of little use in the under-
standing
of the
processes
of
behavior',1
and that 'we have few instruments
that will enable us to
say
with
any
strictness what existence consists in
for a
Chinese,
an
Aztec,
a
Hungarian,
a
Hispanian
... we will not arrive
at a
knowledge
of this
by studying
and
evaluating Chinese, Aztec,
and
other
civilizations,
or
by seeking
to characterize
peoples "psychologically"
as writers have been
doing
since
antiquity'.2 Now,
it
may
be claimed that
psychology
and culture
('civilizations')
as understood
by
Castro are some-
thing
different from the
concepts
used
by professional psychologists
and
anthropologists.
But this is
just
the
point,
for it amounts to a failure to take
into consideration the
validity
of these
disciplines
in historical
investiga-
tion.
II
The anti-behavioristic
blind-spot
on the
part
of
Spanish
historians has
proved
to be a
costly
burden. For more than a decade historical
writing
in
1
'Las
explicaciones
de
tipo psicol6gico... por'si
solas sirven
poco para
entender los
procesos
de la conducta.' Am6rico
Castro, Origen,
ser
y
existir de los
espaioles (Madrid, 1959), p.
110.
a
Americo
Castro,
The Structure
of Spanish
History (Princeton, 1954), p.
42.
B
138
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
Spain
has been racked
by
a
religiously
and
politically tinged polemic
between two views of the formation of
Spanish
national culture in the
Middle
Ages.
The
principal
adversaries in the
contest,
Americo Castro and
Claudio
Sanchez-Albornoz,
both
political liberals,
have debated the
proposition
that
Spanish
culture is the result of centuries of intimate
contact between
Christians, Muslims,
and Jews.
Castro,
who
supports
this
position,
has been attacked as
un-Christian; Sanchez-Albornoz,
who
opposes it,
has been denounced as a racist.
Much ink has been
spilled
in this
controversy,
and much ill-will en-
gendered, by
the
parochial joustings
of
pro-Christian, pro-Muslim,
and
pro-moderation paladins,
but still the lists have
proved
to be a
remarkably
arid battlefield. This is not too
surprising
as little
attempt
has been made
to define conditions and circumstances of contact between distinct
cultural
groups
and the
consequences
which follow
upon
such contact.
Perhaps
it would be fairer to
say
that it is more a case of
inability
than
unwillingness,
for there is little evidence that
Spanish
historians have at
their
disposal
the instruments to
analyze
culture contact and culture
change.
However one
may approach it,
the central
phenomenon
of medieval
Spain-the
formative
period
of its national culture-is the
meeting
and
bilateral
adjustment
of two distinct
cultures,
Christian and
Muslim,l
with a
third,
semi-autonomous
entity,
the
Jews, playing
some role in
the events. The
process
in
question
is referred to
by anthropologists
as
'acculturation'.
The whole
process
of national formation has hitherto been discussed in
the absence of a
scientifically
valid
theory
of cultural relations. This failure
to come to
grips
with the cultural determinants of national
identity
has
landed the
historiographic polemic
in a morass of confusion and
guaran-
teed that it shall remain
there, appeals
to
philosophers
and historical
experts notwithstanding.
III
The notion that culture contact is
likely
to
bring
about culture
change
is in itself
hardly
novel. Without too much
exaggeration, Deuteronomy
can be read as a set of instructions aimed at
preserving
cultural
integrity-
a codification that would
hardly
have had much
point
unless fears of
foreign
influence were based on observed results. Whole
chapters
of
Gibbon's
masterpiece may
be
approached
as an
interpretation
of ex-
ternally
derived culture
change.
The modern
theory
of acculturation aims at
providing
a
dynamic
model
applicable
to all culture
change resulting
from external influences. There
1
In
reality,
a number of distinct Christian and Islamic cultures and subcultures. This
point
is elaborated in a later section of this
paper.
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
139
is a
recognition
that
pressures
towards
change
are a normal feature of
cultural existence. These
pressures may
have their
origin
within the
society
or be external to
it,
and while the
province
of acculturation studies is
externally
derived
change,
it should be noted that
change
from whatever
direction tends to
provide
a demonstration effect that
triggers change
in
other cultural sectors. While
change
itself is
normative,
the rate of
change
varies
greatly
from
society
to
society
and from one
period
to another
in
any given society.
An
understanding
of acculturation
requires
some familiarization with
the
anthropological theory
of culture. For the
anthropologist,
culture is
all-encompassing,
or
paraphrasing
E. B.
Tylor,
it subsumes all the
capabilities, habits,
and intellectual and material constructs
acquired by
man as a member of
society.'
It should be stressed that there is no inclina-
tion to limit culture to some conscious ideal of human
perfection. Coupled
with this catholic attitude
goes
a conviction that
every society through
its
culture
seeks,
and in some measure
finds,
values
congruent
with its
way
of
life. While cultures
obviously differ,
no
objective system
exists for evalu-
ating
cultural
superiority
or
inferiority, except
in
purely
material or
technological
terms. The core elements of a culture-its
ideologies,
philosophies,
value
systems,
and
religions-cannot
be
judged according
to standards external to the culture.
At one
analytical level,
culture is
pure
abstraction.
Cultures,
of
course,
are not
animate; they
neither
'change'
nor
'persevere'.
It is
always
the
individual human
agent,
a carrier of culture
(but
nevertheless an actor
with some
say
about his
lines)
who makes choices and decisions.
Culture,
though,
is more than the sum of individual
decisions,
the behavior of a
group
of discrete
personalities.
For the most
part,
men behave
according
to the dictates of the cultures
they
are stationed
in, and,
as
such,
culture
may fairly
be
approached
as a
phenomenon
sui
generis
irreducible to
influences of a different scale.2
Culture is never in a
'steady
state'. It is
always
a
system
with
multiple
feed-backs:
every change, every
new
experience, alters,
however
little,
the
criteria
according
to which future
experience,
future
opportunities
are to
be
judged.
It follows that cultures are
non-replicable
and in a sense
evolutionary. They represent
in the realm of the human condition
group-
ings
of a taxonomic order not unlike that of
species
for the
biologist.
The
biological analogy, although
it has much to recommend
it,
breaks down
with
respect
to one
very important
characteristic. Unlike
species,
cultures
are never true
'isolates',
but are
always permeable
to external influences.
1
E. B.
Tylor,
Primitive Culture
(Boston, 1871), p.
1.
2
See,
for
instance,
Alfred L. Kroeber's
presentation
of culture as
'superorganic',
irredu-
cible to
strictly biological
or
psychological influences; although
both human
biology
and
psychology
are
necessary
foundations for culture. A. L.
Kroeber,
The Nature
of
Culture
(Chicago, 1952), pp.
22-51.
I40
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
It is on this
permeability
that acculturation is founded.
Exposure
is
obviously
a
prerequisite
for
borrowing,
but what is
accepted
or
rejected
depends
on more than mechanistic contact.
Every
culture erects a series
of
boundary-maintaining
mechanisms
(analogous,
with the
proviso
noted
above,
to
isolating
mechanisms in the
process
of
speciation) through
which
external stimuli are filtered. These defenses of cultural
integrity
include
such
phenomena
as
language, religious beliefs, ideologies,
the cultivation
of ethnocentric mechanisms such as
nationalism,
and the institutions of
warfare.
All such
mechanisms,
whether
generalized
or directed at some
particular
area of
culture,1 share in common the feature of
providing
a measure of
time,
time
enough
to
incorporate, assimilate,
and if
necessary reinterpret,
alien influences. Whenever cultural contacts
occur,
which to some
degree
is
virtually always,
a
trimming
of the cultural sails is called for. But
cultural
change through borrowing,
if undertaken at a
pace congruent
with a culture's mechanisms of control and
selection,
need in no
way
represent
a destructive influence.
Rather,
a
strong
case can be
argued
that acculturation constitutes the
premier catalyst
for much of cultural
creativity-new
mental constructs and novel
technological
influences.
As we have
already indicated,
acculturation affects all societies and is
thus
essentially
a bilateral
process.
This does not mean that influences
will be felt in
equal
measure
by
all
participant
entities. The
expectation,
in
fact,
is
that,
due to such variables as the
intensity
of
boundary-main-
taining mechanisms,
not to mention such factors as
power
and
prestige,
differential rates of
change
will be the rule rather than the
exception.
Nevertheless,
the fact that acculturation is seldom unidirectional has led
some
anthropologists
to term the
phenomenon 'transculturation',
which
better describes the
reciprocal
character of most sustained cultural con-
tacts.2
Acculturation involves more than a
change
in cultural content. Given
1In some
cultures, boundary-maintaining
mechanisms are
sufficiently weak,
and the
cultures themselves so
internally receptive,
that the
designation 'open
culture'
appears
to be
in order. Most contact in
Polynesia,
as the
journals
of
exploration detail,
fits this
category.
In
contrast,
other cultures can be
regarded
as
'closed',
modern Zuni
being
a well-known case.
The
degree
of
'aperture',
if we
may
so term
it,
tends to
vary
for different facets of cultural life.
The
Japanese,
for
instance, engaged
in
very
selective
borrowing-mainly technological
and
industrial-from the time of the first massive
impact
of the West in mid-nineteenth
century.
2
The term 'acculturation'
appears
with
increasing frequency
in
anthropological
literature
from the mid-1930s
on, although
a
recognition
of the
significance
of culture contact and culture
change
can be traced to the studies of Franz Boas at the turn of the
century.
Those who wish
to
explore
the theoretical
background
of acculturation should consult Robert
Redfield, Ralph
Linton,
and Melville J. Herskovits, 'Memorandum for the
Study
of
Acculturation',
American
Anthropologist,
38
(1936), 149-52;
R.
Linton, ed.,
Acculturation in Seven American Indian
Tribes
(New York, 1949);
F. M.
Keesing,
Culture
Change (Stanford, 1953); Ralph Beals,
'Acculturation',
in
Anthropology Today (Chicago, 1953);
and Leonard
Broom,
Bernard J.
Siegel,
Evon Z.
Vogt,
and James B.
Watson,
'Acculturation: An
Exploratory Formulation',
American
Anthropologist, 56(1954),
973-1000. The term 'transculturation' was
proposed by
Fernando
Ortiz, Contrapunteo
del tabaco
y
el azzicar
(Havana, 1940).
It has not found wide
usage, probably
because the older term is too well established.
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
141
the need of two or more cultures to
operate
in a
pluralistic setting, pro-
tracted contact tends to result in mutual
agreements, recognized ground
rules,
for stabilized cultural relations. Without such
agreements
and com-
promises
the result could be a situation so restrictive that the survival
of the individual can be achieved
only
at the
price
of
sacrificing
those
values and
organizational
forms that
give
a
group
its
stability
and its
compass
for the future.
In the
long run,
acculturation
may
also lead to a
gradual
and
relatively
painless
assimilation of one
group by
another or the
displacement by
choice of certain cultural
forms,
if not the
totality
of culture. What must
be
kept
in mind is that a whole
variety
of alternatives are
open
between
total cultural
isolation,
which in
reality
is
pretty
much a
fiction,
and com-
plete
cultural eradication.1
IV
Whether culture contact is destructive or constructive
depends
on a
variety
of
factors, including
the
vitality
and
complexity
of the cultures
involved.
(Some anthropologists conceptualize
the
problem
of
complexity
versus
simplicity
in terms of levels of socio-cultural
integration,
the under-
lying
idea
being
that
groups sharing
broad similarities in institutions-
general
structural correlations-are more
likely
to
develop
avenues
per-
mitting working relationships.)
In numerous cases a
great disparity
in the
cultures,
such as has often characterized the contacts of
primitive peoples
with advanced
technological societies,
has led to the demise of tribal
and traditional
styles
of life. The
ethnographic
literature
amply
illustrates
with what
sickening regularity simple
societies have
collapsed
in the face
of the
aggressive expansion
of western nations.2
Nevertheless, examples
of constructive
acculturation,
wherein a similar measure of cultural
complexity
is shared
by
the contact
groups,
are
by
no means rare.
Indeed,
the records and
legacies
of nine hundred
years
of
Spanish history
offer
to the student of acculturation a whole
range
of contact
situations,
some
essentially
destructive
(resulting
from the
overweening
dominance of one
of the two
cultures),
but others
profoundly
constructive
(in
periods
when
the forces of each were more
nearly equal).
1
While the usual
pattern
is for subordinate cultural
groups
to become
assimilated,
the
experience
of the Norman invaders in
England
and of various
conquerors
of China
(Mongols,
Manchus, etc.)
illustrate that the reverse is also
possible.
2
It is worth
remembering
that acculturation
theory
is
mainly
the
product
of American
anthropology,
and that American cultural
anthropologists
of
pre-World
War II
vintage
generally
won their
professional spurs working among
reservation Indians. This
early
exposure
to what were for the most
part
cultures in an advanced
stage
of
decay impressed
itself
strongly
on field workers. In
contrast,
it is
only
since the war that much attention has
been directed to the
study
of more resilient
groups
such as
peasant peoples
and non-Western
high
cultures.
Looking
back on the
receding
tide of
imperialism,
it is clear that colonial
contacts and colonial
pressures
have
proved
less
damaging
to
many
native cultures than the
predictions
of
thirty
or
forty years ago
would seem to warrant.
142
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
Inasmuch, therefore,
as the
differing degrees
of socio-cultural
integration
of the two
groups
in
specific periods
affected the
quality
of
contact,
it is
important
to achieve at least a broad definition of
type-periods
within
the
nine-century span.
The
degree
of
integration expressed
itself in a
variety
of forms-in
political
and
military power,
as well as in the
vitality
of the institutions of the
contacting groups-all
of which influenced the
quality
of cultural
exchange.
The initial
impact
of contact came at a moment when Islamic
society
was
enjoying
an
epoch
of florescence and a
high degree
of social
integra-
tion,
characterized
by
a
powerful
and efficient
military
machine in the
service of a
young
and
dynamic
theocratic
political
movement. The
Muslim warriors confronted a
disorganized Visigothic
state whose
institutions reflected a brittle
society
in which Gothic and
Hispano-
Roman
components
had been
imperfectly
and
uncomfortably
wedded.
Subsequently,
Christian
society gained
both in
vitality
and in level of
integration,
in no small
part
as a result of contact
with,
and reaction
to,
the
adjacent
Islamic state.
The
history
of Muslim-Christian culture contact in
Spain may
con-
veniently
be divided into four
periods,
defined
by
the relative
strengths
of
the
opposing blocs,
and thus
by
the
force, rate,
and direction of cultural
influence.'
The first
period
was one of Islamic
ascendancy
and dates from the
conquest
of 711 to the effective
beginning
of the
reconquest
in the mid-
eleventh
century.
Within the Islamic zone there was a
rapid
assimilation
of
Hispano-Roman
enclaves
(muladies)
and a more
prolonged process
of fusion with non-Muslim
Hispano-Romans (mozdrabes).
In both cases
the acculturation of the
indigenous population
was
sharply structured,
the rules for conversion or for coexistence with
'People
of the Book'
(Christians
and
Jews, categorized
as
dhimmis,
or
protected people) being
prescribed
in detail
by
Islamic Law.2 Islamic force was met
by
reactive
rigidity
in the Christian nuclei of resistance in the northern
mountains,
where a
continuity
in Gothic traditions and institutions was at first
1
Since in the
dynamics
of the Muslim-Christian confrontation in
Spain
accretions of
political power
were
quickly
translated into
gains
of
territory,
it follows that at
any given
time
during
the
period
711-1492 the
geographic holdings
of each bloc
give
a
graphic approxima-
tion of the relative cultural force of each at that moment.
Maps illustrating
the
changing
political
and cultural frontiers of medieval Iberia can be found in J. Vicens
Vives,
Atlds de
historia de
Espaia,
5th ed.
(Barcelona, 1965), especially maps
28
(Islamic ascendancy;
the
frontier between Christian and Islamic territories
during
the
reign
of Alfonso
III, 866-910),
30 and 31
(equilibrium; disintegration
of the
Caliphate
and
epoch
of the
Party Kingdoms),
and
37
(Christian ascendancy;
the
reconquest
of the thirteenth
century).
2
Isidro de las
Cagigas
was the first modern
Spanish
scholar to stress the
importance
of
institutional
structuring
of enclave culture
('Problemas
de minoria
y
el caso de nuestro
medioevo', Hispania, 10[1950],
522).
Cagigas' knowledge
of Islamic institutions makes his
work
extremely valuable,
even
though
it is marred
by
a
typical Spanish
confusion between
race and culture
(e.g.
'la sociedad racial ... es el mds verdadero
exponente
de los
impulsos
humanos', op. cit., p. 537).
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
143
maintained. Non-formal
absorption
of Islamic traits was
achieved,
however, through
the
agency
of arabized mozdrabes
moving
northwards
in the latter
part
of the
period, great
numbers of them
being incorporated
into the Christian states at each
stage
of the
reconquest.'
On
balance,
the second
period
was one of cultural
equilibrium
and
flexibility, reflecting
the increase of Christian
strength--and
decrease of
Islamic-to the
point
where the
opposing
forces were more
nearly equal.
During
the
epoch extending
from the dissolution of the
Caliphate (1030)
and the formation of the
Party Kingdoms
(mulak
al-tawa'if,
Reinos de
Taifas)
to the Almohade rule of the mid-thirteenth
century,
the
political
balance shifted
abruptly
several times. The weakness of the
petty
Islamic
states invited
conquest
from the
Christians,
which in turn
provoked
invasions
by
two North African Berber
dynasties,
the Almoravids
(1086-
1147)
and the Almohades
(1156-1212).
With
regard
to cultural flow be-
tween the
blocs,
the Taifa
periods (1031-86/1145-70)
were characterized
by
free
passage
of cultural influence in both directions and a
general
prevalence
of tolerance which contrasted
sharply
with the
rigid
intolerance
of the Berber
dynasts.
The invasions
brought
with them a
great
increment
in Berber
settlement,
whose cultural effect
upon
Al-Andalus has not
yet
been delineated. Within the Christan bloc there were
continuing
situations
of stabilized
pluralism
vis-a-vis the
mudejar
enclaves
(largely
in the
cities)
and continued
receptivity
to cultural
diffusion,
intensified
by enlarged
Islamic enclaves
ingested
as the
reconquest
moved South.
The
period
of Christian
ascendancy, beginning during
the
years
1232-63
with the
occupation
of the lower
Guadiana,
Guadalquivir,
Turia, Jucar,
and
Segura
basins and
terminating
with the
capture
of Granada
(the
last
Islamic
holding)
in
1492,
was the converse of the first. The
rapid
dissolu-
tion of Andalusi
power
resulted in the
ingesting
of
large
numbers of
Muslims into Christian
territory.
Christian
rigidity
increased
throughout
the
period,
with
mounting pressure
towards assimilation as the Islamic
enclaves
grew weightier.
The final
period,
from 1492 until the
expulsion
of the moriscos in
1609,
was characterized
by
extreme Christian
rigidity
and
intolerance,
a
closing
of borders to outside
influence,
the
expulsion
of the Jews and forced
baptism
of
Muslims,
all in the service of a
general
thrust towards
political
and cultural
homogeneity.
The cultural
diversity
and stabilized
pluralism
that had characterized the more tolerant moments of medieval Muslim-
Christian coexistence were now held as
odious,
and
pressure
towards
the assimilation of Muslims and the obliteration of Islamic culture was in-
creased. At the end of the
period, many
of the Muslims
expelled
from
the
peninsula
were
Spanish-speaking,
and the
group
as a whole was in a
state of
profound
cultural
disintegration.
1
Eero K.
Neuvonen,
Los arabismos del
espanol
en el
siglo
XII (Helsinki, 1941), p. 29,
144
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
There was in each of these
periods
a
play
between
rigidity
and
openness,
between resistance to assimilation and
impetus
towards
fusion,
which
created an effect of
pulsation
in cultural flow. If
demographic
variations
are
imposed upon
the
temporal,
the result is a
kaleidoscopic image
of
play
and
counterplay
of cultural forces.
v
Spanish history, therefore,
lends itself
ideally
to the
study
of
acculturation,
since it
encompasses
nine hundred
years
of culture contact between Muslims
and Christians. Yet
Spanish historiography
has been
partial
to static inter-
pretations
of culture. The traditional 'Eternal
Spain' school,
whose effects
are still felt in
Spanish historiography today,
confused race with culture
and
imputed 'Spanish'
characteristics to
people
as
culturally
distinct as
Seneca,
the
Numantines,
the
Visigothic King Roderick,
and even the
Caliphs
of
C6rdoba,
who were descended from Goths
through
their
maternal lines.
In
nineteenth-century Spain
discussion waxed between the anti-semitism
of Francisco Javier
Simonet,
in whose ethnocentric view all that was
worthy
of
Hispano-Muslim
culture was
owing
to
purely indigenous, eternally
Spanish elements,
and the
equally
static
philo-semitism
of Francisco Fer-
nandez
y Gonzalez,
to whom the Arab
conquest
was
nothing
but a renewal
of an
original
Puno-semitic Iberian civilization. In one
interpretation
the
Hispano-Muslims
were little more than heretical
Spaniards
who learned a
new
language
and who
secretly yearned
to
join
forces with their Christian
brothers,
while in the other
they
have
merely
reverted to true
form,
thus
enabling
the Christians of the North to absorb some oriental
trappings
which
they innately
craved
anyway.
In these
racially
oriented
views,
there is
only
one cultural
boundary-that
which is coterminous with the race
(or,
more
correctly,
the
ethno-religious
entity). Thus, synchronically,
the
geographic unity
of
Spain
(in
which Al-
Andalus is
regarded
as
occupied territory-hence
the term
'Reconquest')
and, diachronically,
the
eternity
of
Spain,
are
constant, homogeneous,
and
static
concepts,
not
subject
to structural
changes. Any possibility
of accul-
turation is
precluded,
since the forms of culture themselves are inherent
in the ethnic
group ('la raza')
and are
only susceptible, therefore,
to
super-
ficial modification.
Ramon Menendez Pidal is a
typical exponent
of this
approach,
as here
he describes the
unity
of medieval Iberia:
Al-Andalus,
so
quickly
made
independent
from the
East,
had
hispanified
its
Islam;
the scant Asiatic and African racial elements had been almost
completely
absorbed
within the
indigenous element,
so that the
great majority
of the
Spanish
Muslims were
simply
Ibero-Romans or
Goths, reshaped [reformados] by
Islamic
culture,
and who
could
easily enough
come to an
agreement
with their brothers to the North....
1 La
Espana
del
Cid,
5th ed.
(Madrid, 1956), p.
77.
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
145
To characterize the Andalusi Muslim as a 'reformed' Goth is to distort
or at least to misconstrue the nature of culture and the role of acculturation.
In the entire course of
Spanish historiography only
two
historians,
Julian
Ribera and Am6rico
Castro,
have admitted the structural existence of
transculturation.
Ribera,
the more scientific of the
two,
was one of a
group
of
positivist
historians
writing
around the turn of the
century,
whose
major
figure,
Rafael
Altamira,
introduced
Spaniards
to the
concept
of
history
as
change.
Ribera,
an arabist
by training
and an
anthropologist by inclination,
developed
a full and
general 'theory
of imitation' to account for observed
cultural
borrowing
in medieval
Spain. Conceiving
such
borrowing
to be an
essential functional
component
of
Spanish culture,
he was convinced that
imitation was as inevitable as
change
itself. In an
important monograph,
Origenes deljusticia
de
Aragon (Zaragoza, 1897),
he
sought
to
prove
that
the medieval office
ofjusticiar,
hitherto
explained
as a
spontaneous genera-
tion of the
Aragonese genius,
was in fact borrowed from an Islamic institu-
tion,
the
mazalim,
or
appeals judge.
The basis of Ribera's 'deductive
proof' (there being
no documental
evidence for institutional
continuity
in
this,
as in
many other,
instances of
diffusion)
is a
psychological analysis
of the
learning process
and its four
requisites,
identified as
communication, desire, intelligence,
and means.
The imitation
process
in the individual is the model for similar
processes
among peoples
and civilization.'
Possibility
of communication is the most
important
functional
compo-
nent of Ribera's
concept.
From the
supposition
that imitation will occur
in direct relation to ease of intercultural communication comes the deter-
ministic conclusion
that,
if ease is
proven,
then imitation must follow:
One has
only
to recall with whom
Aragon
communicated
[i.e.,
with
Al-Andalus]
in
order to affirm a
priori
that it would not fail to make imitations from Islam. Such would
have been
unavoidable;
its
geographic position
and the well-known characteristics of its
history
make it clear.2
A
corollary
to ease of communication is the functional
importance
of
barriers to it. These are not
only geographic
but
may
as well be
cultural,
such as differences of
language
or
religion.
Nor do all men receive stimuli
with the same
intensity.3
Ribera feared that his
theory
would not find favor in
Spain:
Imitation has
had,
and
perhaps may
have for a
long time,
two enemies
greatly
to be
feared: the
difficulty
in
perceiving
it and the interest in
denying
it.4
1
Origenes deljusticia
de
Aragdn, pp. 207, 250,
272. Ribera's
theory
is similar to
(though
independent of)
that of G.
Tarde,
Les lois de l'imitation
(Paris, 1895).
2
Origenes deljusticia
de
Aragon, pp.
300 f.
3
Ibid., pp. 274 f. On the
concept
of resistance to
diffusion,
see A. L.
Kroeber, Anthropology,
section
172;
on differential
receptivity
to cultural
stimuli,
see
George
M.
Foster,
Culture and
Conquest (Chicago, 1960), Chapter
Two.
4
Origenes deljusticia
de
Aragdn, p.
201.
146
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
As more and more facts are
brought
to
light regarding
the effects of
acculturation,
lack of
perception
seems all the more
glaringly
linked to cul-
turally ingrained antipathy
to
acceptance
of
concepts
which
anthropologists
have been
describing
in other cultures for
many years.
This
antipathy
was
openly expressed
in the
exaggerated polemic
caused
by
the
writings
of
Americo Castro.
Castro's thesis
(and
his main contribution to
Spanish historiography)
is
that the culture we now call
'Spanish'
is not an
eternal,
fixed
entity,
but
rather the
product
of centuries of contact between
Christians, Muslims,
and
Jews in the Iberian
peninsula.
His works are a
proclamation
of the fact of
acculturation in
Spain.
Castro's
writings
constitute a monumental and
often brilliant
recapitulation
of a mass of data taken
largely
from
literary
sources which are illustrative of Islamic elements in
Spanish
culture. His
recent books on the
subject
have met with
vigorous,
often
hysterical,
denial
by
influential sectors of
Spanish opinion
and
by many historians,2
in
spite
of the fact that he is
by
no means as
rigorous
or as insistent on the
inevitability
of acculturation as Ribera.
Castro's
pre-eminence
in
Spanish
letters assured him of a
large
audience
and a
public response.
Inasmuch as he was the first to offer a holistic
conception
of
Spanish
culture
posited
on cultural
interchange,
The Struc-
ture
of Spanish History
has become a watershed work.
In Castro's
view,
the term 'Muslim
Spain'
is both a misnomer and an
anachronism,
since what is Islamic cannot be
Spanish.
The correct name of
the areas of Islamic settlement is
Al-Andalus,
the name
applied by
medieval
Muslims to all the Iberian land
they held, regardless
of size. Al-Andalus
was a nation as oriental as
Egypt
or the
Magrib,
and it no
longer
exists. Thus
the correct
adjective
to describe the
'Hispano-Muslim'
is andalusi
(not
andaluz,
which would indicate the
present region
of
Andalusia,
a
political
and not a cultural
entity).3
Castro is
equally
insistent on the
recognition
and demarcation of dia-
chronic cultural
boundaries,
such as that between the
Visigoths
and the
medieval
Spaniards.
The
former,
he takes
pains
to
reiterate,
were no more
Spaniards
than the Franks were
French,
a
point
too little
appreciated by
contemporary Spanish
medievalists.4
As
crying
as was the need to
present
these basic considerations in forth-
right terms,
none the less from the
anthropological point
of
view,
Castro's
approach
leaves much unsaid. His
ignorance
of
anthropological
termin-
ology, moreover,
leads him to the fabrication of
agonizingly
obscurantist
1 Castro's
magnum opus
has
appeared
in several
editions,
each of which
represents
a
further elaboration of his
theory: Espana
en su historia
(Mexico, 1948);
The Structure
of
Spanish History (Princeton, 1954);
La realidadhistdrica de
Espana (Mexico, 1954;
edicidn reno-
vada, 1962).
2
See P. E. Russell's
perceptive
remarks on the
polemic,
'The Nessus-shirt of
Spanish
History',
Bulletin
of Hispanic Studies,
36
(1959),
219-25.
3
La realidad histdrica de
Espana,
ed.
renov., pp. 8,
179.
4
Ibid., pp. 18,
148 f.
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
147
neologisms
to describe
phenomena perfectly
well known in the social
sciences. Thus the
concepts
of
'dwelling place
of life' and
'living
structure'
(moradura,
vividura), designed
to indicate the structural and functional
aspects
of
culture, respectively,
do not add
materially
to the
concepts
of
culture and cultural
change-at
least not without a tedious
process
of
assigning intelligible
values to these
philosophical
constructs.
Surely
a
reading
of Kroeber would have served him better than
Dilthey!
Since the details of
post-contact phenomena
which Castro amasses are
not reducible to
any typology,
it is hard to
perceive
the 'structure' in his
portrait
of medieval
Spain.
The bricks are
provided,
but the mortar and the
plans
are
missing.
Too often the reader
gets
the
impression
of a mass of
disjointed analogies,
instead of functional
relationships.
We learn that the men of the three
religions
lived for several centuries
in a state of social and cultural
intimacy (convivencia)
from which
emerged
a new and distinctive
Spanish
culture as the result of the fusion of diverse
elements. But the
concept
of
convivencia, although
it
may
convince the
reader of the fact of culture
contact,
does not
explain
acculturation or the
processes
of cultural diffusion. Convivencia embraces the most diverse
phenomena
without distinction
(formal
and non-formal
contacts, response
to
stimuli,
idea diffusion and
reinvention, etc.)
and fails to account for such
decisive
concepts
as
selectivity,
cultural
rigidity, boundary-maintaining
mechanisms,
cultural
crystallization
and
disintegration,
and
demographic
and
ecological
factors. Lack of
understanding
of the mechanisms of cul-
tural
change
results in Castro's
inability
to
go
further than a mere
tautology
in
describing
the acculturative situation:
Those who
adopt
the
language, religion
and the
system
of
political-administrative
hierarchies of a human
group,
become
part
of
it,
whatever the condition of their
ancestors
may
have been.'
How small indeed is the
ground
which Castro seeks to wrest from the
traditional school in which he himself was trained! His
energy
seems con-
centrated on
convincing
tradition-bound readers that race and culture are
not the same and that acculturation did in fact take
place
in medieval
Spain.
Without
minimizing
the
importance
of these
goals,
it must still be
said that if delineation of a structure is
desired,
then the mechanisms and
conditions of cultural diffusion must be described
systematically
and
classified.
VI
The Islamic
society
which
presented
itself to the inhabitants of
eighth-
century
Iberia was a
newly formed, heterogeneous,
and
intra-acculturating
body
of
Arabs,
middle-easterners of
varying
cultural
backgrounds,
arabized
Jews,
and Berbers. The Christians
falling
under Islamic rule
represented
in
1
La realidad histdrica de
Espafia,
ed.
renov., p. 192.
148
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
turn different
degrees
of Romanization and
Germanization,1
while those
who
escaped
Arab
subjugation
and survived as
fighting
nuclei of resistance
in the northern mountains
slowly
became differentiated into five distinct
romance-speaking culturo-linguistic groups (from
east to
west, Catalan,
Aragonese, Castilian,
Leonese,
and
Gallego-Portuguese,
to which the
Basques
must be added as a
culturally
distinctive
group).
The cultural
profile
of the
reconquest kingdoms
has been well
defined,
both
linguistically
and
historically,
as have the
processes
of southward
expansion
of cultural dominance and
political
control and the resettlement
of
newly conquered territory.2
The cultural
map
of Al-Andalus is known
at least in broad outline. The main areas of tribal settlement have been
described,3
as have the
idiosyncratic
characteristics of Andalusi Arabic.4
The identification of residual Arabic
names,
both
toponyms
and
personal
surnames,
is the
subject
of several
monographs.5
The diffusion of certain
technological devices,
such as the
hydraulic
wheel
(noria)6
and the water
tunnel
(ganat),7
has been studied and
mapped,
but more such work in a
variety
of fields must be
done,
as must
comparative
studies of
Andalusi,
Near
Eastern,
and North African institutions which would
permit
closer
identification of Islamic elements
present
in distinct areas of the
peninsula
(for example,
the
impact
of
Syrian
settlement in
Valencia). Praiseworthy
studies of cultural transmission have also
appeared
in the fields of
philo-
logy8
and
history
of science.9
1
For pre-Roman
cultural substrata, vulgar Latin dialects and romanization, and the Visi-
gothic element in the Spanish language,
see Rafael
Lapesa,
Historia de la
lengua espanola
(Madrid, 1955), pp.
1-92. Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz discusses the 'Hispano-Gothic heritage
received by the Muslims of Al-Andalus' in 'Espagne preislamique et Espagne musulmane',
Revue
Historique,
237(1967), 295-338; in numerous other articles he discusses the Germanic
imprint on the institutions of the Christian kingdoms.
2
See J. M. Lacarra et al., La reconquista espanola y
la
repoblacidn
del
pais (Zaragoza,
1951).
3
Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., I, art. 'Al-Andalus' (iv), Population, pp.
490 f., and refs.
4
Ibid., I, pp.
501-3, art. 'Al-Andalus' (x), Spanish Arabic; R. Dozy. Supplement aux dic-
tionnaires arabes, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1927)
is
designed to supplement classical Arabic
dictionaries deficient in Hispano-Arabic vocabulary.
5
On place names, see the excellent systematic treatment by Hermann Lautensach,
Maurische
Ziige
im
geographischen
Bild der Iberischen Halbinsel
(Bonn, 1960), and also Miguel
Asin Palacios, Contribuci6n a la toponimia drabe de
Espana (Madrid, 1944). Professor Juan
Vernet of the University
of Barcelona is directing
a series of studies of the
geographic dis-
tribution of Arabic personal names; see his article, 'Antrop6nimos irabes conservados en
apellidos
del levante
espafiol', Oriens, 16(1963),
145-51.
6
Julio Caro Baroja, 'Norias, azudas, acefias', Revista de
dialectologia y tradiciones
popu-
lares
(Madrid), 10(1954), 29-160, and 'Sobre la historia de la noria de tiro', ibid., 11(1955),
15-79; Jorge Dias and Fernando Galhano, Aparelhos
de elevar a
dgua
de
rega (Oporto, 1953).
7
Jaime Oliver Asin, Historia del nombre 'Madrid' (Madrid, 1959);
J. Humlum, 'Under-
jordiske vandingskanaler: Kareze, qanat, foggara', Kulturgeografi, 90(1965), 106-8, and
map;
Henri Goblot, 'Dans l'ancien Iran,
les
techniques
de l'eau et la
grande histoire', Annales,
18(1963), 513, and
map.
8
For the impact of the Arabic
language
on
Spanish culture and language see Castro,
op. cit.; Neuvonen, op. cit.; Arnald Steiger, Contribuci6n a la
fonetica
del hispano-drabe
(Madrid, 1932); R. Dozy and W. H. Engelmann, Glossaire des mots
espagnols
et
portugais
derivds de l'arabe
(Leiden, 1869).
9
Among the many pertinent
works of J. M. Millas Vallicrosa see Nuevas
aportaciones para
el estudio de la transmisidn de la ciencia a
Europa
a travds de
Espana (Madrid, 1943).
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
149
Medieval
Spaniards, just
like modern
hispanists,
tended to see cultural
differences
primarily
in
religious terms,'
and the names
by
which
they
designated
the
major
cultural enclave
groups
are still used
by
scholars
today.
The Christians
rarely distinguished
between Muslims of different
ethnic
origin, although they
did
recognize
the existence of distinctive
acculturative situations. The Andalusi Muslims had similar terms for the
indigenous groups
under their rule. This
typology may
be summarized as
follows:
(In Al-Andalus)
(In
Christian
Spain)
Christians
living
under Islamic rule Muslims
living
under Christian
(Arabic, musta'rib; Castilian,
rule
(Castilian, mudejar,
later
mozarab).
morisco;
Arabic, mudajjan).
Christians converted to Islam Muslims converted to
Christianity
(Arabic, muwallad; Castilian, (Castilian, tornadizo).
muladi).
These
groups
were
broadly inclusive, covering
all enclave
groups
on the
basis of
religious
affiliation and
religious
shift.
Although
the
religious
criterion was
paramount,
there were other frames of reference as well. The
primary meaning
of musta'rib
('arabized')
alludes to the
arabophone
con-
dition of Christian enclaves in Al-Andalus. The northern Christians were
also aware of
linguistic differences, calling
Christians who
spoke
Arabic
algarabiados,
and
referring
to Muslims who knew romance as ladinos.
Thus the medieval
terminology
retains its
validity
for the cultural
historian
today,2
so
long
as it is
recognized
that each of these
categories
may
include a
variety
of contact situations.
If,
as seems
clear,
the
point
of
reference of these colourful terms is
primarily religious,
then it must be
determined if
they
are
capable
of
covering
the whole
range
of cultural
experience
or whether
they
must be modified or
supplemented
with a more
precise terminology.
VII
A basic
goal
of acculturation studies is to relate the overall structure of a
society
to its
potentiality
for culture
change.
In this
regard,
two
concepts
of
fundamental
importance are, first,
that of
rigidity
and
flexibility, and,
second,
that of
boundary-maintaining
mechanisms.3 The social
rigidity
of
1
Cf. Henri
Lapeyre,
'Deux
interpretations
de l'histoire
d'Espagne', Annales,
20
(1965),
1016: 'La th6se essentielle de
Castro,
c'est
que
l'histoire
d'Espagne
est avant tout
religieuse'.
Such an
interpretation
is an extension of the medieval habit of
characterizing
culture
qua
religion.
2
On the
mozdrabes,
see E. P.
Colbert,
The
Martyrs of
Cordoba
(850-859) (Washington,
1962);
Isidro de las
Cagigas,
Los mozdrabes
(Madrid 1947-8).
On the
mudejares, Cagigas,
Los
muddjares (Madrid, 1948-9).
The morisco literature is extensive.
Particularly important
are
J. Caro
Baroja,
Los moriscos del Reino de Granada
(Madrid, 1957),
Juan
Regla,
Estudios sobre
los moriscos
(Valencia, 1964),
various articles
by
L. P.
Harvey
on morisco
language
and litera-
ture,
and the works cited in notes 2-4 on
p. 148,
above.
3
See Broom, Siegel
et
al., op. cit., pp.
975-7
(cultural systems).
I50
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
Al-Andalus,
relaxed
perhaps only
in the
period
of the
Taifas,
found
expression
in the
sharp structuring
of intercultural
contacts, especially
in
the case of enclave
groups.
There can be no doubt that the
greater flexibility
of Christian
society
was conducive to a much more creative reaction to
contact with alien cultures.
Intolerance is a manifestation of cultural
rigidity.
In
spite
of occasional
reverses of
direction,
both Christian and Islamic societies tended to
grow
increasingly
intolerant of the other with the
passage
of time. Christian
intolerance, moreover,
has been seen as
primarily
reactive to
increasingly
harsh treatment of mozarab dhimmis in Al-Andalus.'
Americo Castro has stressed the need for
proper recognition
of cultural
boundaries. But little has
yet
been written of the mechanisms
by
which
these boundaries were
preserved.
What were the mechanisms
by
which the
cultural blocs themselves and the enclaves within
them-Muslim,
Jewish,
and Christian-maintained their cultural
integrity?
What were the rules
in each culture
governing,
for
example, change
of
religion?
How
receptive
was each to
learning
the other's
language (or extirpating it)?
Joan Fuster has shown that
among
the Valencian
moriscos, language
was as
strong
a
boundary-maintaining
force as
religion.
Thus the Christians
of Valencia mounted a
two-pronged
attack on the Islamic culture of the
moriscos. Not
only
was Islam attacked
through
forced
baptisms,
but
cultural
solidarity
was weakened
through
a
planned
destruction of the
institutional
supports
of Arabic
learning.
Laws were
promulgated
for-
bidding
the use of Arabic in schools and in written documents. If the
moriscos could not be
stopped
from
speaking
Arabic
(punitive
measures
were even
proposed
to
bring
this
about) they might
at least be
discouraged
from
reading
and
writing it,
and
teaching
it to their children.2
The situation of the Valencian moriscos
was, moreover, quite
different
from those of
Castile,
who
generally
let the use of Arabic
lapse
and became
Castilian-speaking.3
This differential attitude towards
language
seems in
turn to have been
directly
related to
patterns
of settlement. The Valencian
moriscos lived in
compact, isolated,
and
largely
rural
communities,
while
their Castilian
counterparts
were
mostly dispersed among
the Christian
population.
Perhaps, then,
the
prime typology
of contact situations in medieval
and
early
modern
Spain
must be based on
ecological
and
demographic
factors. Some of the
demographic
work has
already
been
undertaken,4
but
attempts
to link
demographic patterns
to
specific
cultural
phenomena,
1
Juan
Vernet,
Los musulmanes
espanoles (Barcelona, 1961), p.
59.
2
Joan
Fuster, Poetes,
moriscos i
capellans (Valencia, 1962), pp. 97,
110-13.
3
Ibid., pp.
91-100.
4
Henri
Lapeyre, Geographie
de
l'Espagne morisque (Paris, 1959);
Tulio
Halperin Donghi,
'Les
morisques
du
royaume
de Valence au XVIe
siecle', Annales,
II
(1956), 154-82;
Adelina
Bataller
Bataller,
'La
expulsi6n
de los moriscos: su
repercusi6n
en la
propiedad y
la
poblaci6n
en la zona de los
riegos
de
Vernisa',
Saitabi
(Valencia),
10
(1960),
81-100.
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
151
such as Isidro de las
Cagigas' study
of the relation between the distribution
of the andaluz
pre-dorsal
s and
regions
of Berber settlement' are all too rare.
Needless to
say,
the size and location of Islamic settlement in Christian
areas has a direct
bearing
on the
direction, rate,
and force of cultural flow.
The relations established between the
contacting systems
differed
radically
depending
on the environmental
setting.
Scientific
exchange,
for
example,
which
exemplified
the era of tolerance and cultural
exchange during
the
reign
of Alfonso X the Wise of Castile
(1252-84)
was a
decidedly
urban
enterprise,
Toledo
being
the
prime
locus. In
contrast,
as J. Vicens Vives
pointed out,
both the Christian
crusading
ideal
(which
was
exemplified by
the
military
orders and which came about as a reaction to the Berber
invasions)
and the later
antagonism
of Christian and morisco were essen-
tially
rural
phenomena.2
The influence of
mudejares
on Christians would
have been different in medieval
Valencia,
where the Muslims fled most
urban and
irrigated
areas soon after the
reconquest, settling preferably
in
mountainous, unirrigated
zones,
from the situation in
Zaragoza,
where
more Muslims remained in the
irrigated
lowlands.
These
factors-flexibility
and
rigidity, boundary-maintaining
mechan-
isms, ecology
and
demography-are
considerations basic to
defining
the
nature of the entities in contact. The actual contacts between
them,
more-
over,
have their own characteristics which are also
subject
to
systematic
description.
The
processes
of acculturation are in
large part
determined
by
inter-
cultural roles and forms of communication which
produce
a
highly
selec-
tive
patterning
of contacts.3 In other
words,
the
ways
in which the donor
culture shows itself to the
recipient naturally
affect the
way
in which
cultural elements will be
adopted.
One
profitable
distinction is that between formal and non-formal
agencies
of cultural communication. The formal
process
involves situations 'in
which institutions and individuals in
positions
of
authority play
a
positive
planning
role'.4 The formal
process entails,
that is to
say,
directed culture
change. Very
different
examples
of this
process
are the
ways
in which the
state
sought
to absorb minorities in Al-Andalus
(the Mozarabs)
and in
sixteenth-century Spain (the moriscos).
More
specifically,
there are
examples
of
government-directed
imitation of alien
institutions,
as when James I of
Aragon
instructed his
knights
to hold
inquests
of Muslim officials in order
to learn the details of the Islamic
irrigation systems
of the
kingdom
of
Valencia.5
Andalucia musulmana
(Madrid, 1950).
2Jaime Vicens
Vives, Aproximaci6n
a la historia de
Espana,
2nd ed.
(Barcelona, 1960),
p.
232.
3 See
Broom, Siegel
et
al., op. cit., pp.
980-4
(conjunctive relations).
4Foster,
Culture and
Conquest, p.
12.
5
Roque Chabas,
Distribucion de las
aguas
en 1244
y
donaciones del termino de Gandia
por
D. Jaime I
(Valencia, 1898).
152
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
The non-formal
process
includes all
unplanned
mechanisms
whereby
ideas, customs,
and
techniques
flow between
groups
and then are
selectively
adopted.
Of all the
processes
of acculturation non-formal cultural diffusion
is
perhaps
the most
important. Throughout
the entire
period
under con-
sideration Christians and Muslims were both donors and
recipients
of
cultural traits and ideas.
Considering
the
peninsula
as a
whole,
there
always
existed the
possibility
of diffusion across the
political
frontier. This
type
of acculturation is non-
formal,
in that it is incidental to the formal
organization
of
society.
The
'success' met
by agents
of non-formal
diffusion,
whether human
(such
as
merchants, travellers, soldiers, scholars, entertainers)
or non-human
(transmittal
of ideas
through books)
was
dependent
on the individual
choice of the
recipient.
Useful or attractive innovations were
accepted,
unappealing
ones were not.
Proper understanding
of the
concept
of
selectivity
is essential to the success of future historical studies. While the
recipient group
is
obviously selective,
the donor culture never
presents
its
full face either. Not all is
offered;
not all that is offered is
acceptable.
The
utility
of the
concept
of
boundary-maintaining
mechanisms as
barriers to diffusion can be illustrated with an
argument
from the Castro
polemic.
Castro
proposes
that the medieval Christian
military
orders of
fighting religious
men were modeled on the Islamic ribdt.'
But,
in the
absence of
documentary evidence,
his
position
is
easily
attacked and
reducible to a
causally meaningless, unprovable analogy.2
The
phenomenon
described
by
A. L. Kroeber as stimulus or idea
diffusion,3
of which the
ribat-military
order
problem
is so clear an
example,
has been described in
many
cultures.
Many
an alien institution which is
basically
attractive
may
be
unacceptable
in its
original
form. But it
may
act as a stimulus to a reinvention within the confines of the
recipient
culture of a similar institution consonant with the values of the
recipient.
The ribdt was attractive to the Christians and fulfilled a social and
military
need but was
unacceptable owing
to
Spanish religious
values. For the
Christians it would have been
thoroughly repugnant
to take on the
trap-
pings
of that
very religion
whose extermination was life's
highest goal.
Nevertheless we
may posit
that the Islamic
concept
acted as a stimulus
towards the reinvention of the ribat in
completely
Christian
guise.
In such
a
case, moreover,
the
anthropologist
would
expect precisely
not to find
that documented institutional
continuity upon
which medievalists so
depend.
As two different cultural
groups
bombard each other with an
increasing
number of elements a
process
of
progressive adjustment
can be detected.
1
Castro, Structure, pp. 202-18;
Realidad
histdrica,
ed.
renov., pp.
407-19.
2
J.
O'Callaghan,
'The affiliation of the Order of Calatrava with the Order of
Citeux',
Analecta Sacra Ordinis Cisterciensis
(Rome),
15
(1959),
161ff.
3
A. L.
Kroeber,
'Stimulus
diffusion',
American
Anthropologist,
42
(1940),
1-20.
ACCULTURATION IN SPANISH HISTORY
153
Such
adjustment may
culminate in a number of
ways:
in assimilation of
one
group by
the
other,
for
example,
or in cultural
fusion, whereby
an inter-
cultural network
develops
into a
genuine
third socio-cultural
system.'
The
stereotype
most often
represented
as
descriptive
of
Spanish
medieval
culture
(that
situation which Castro labels 'convivencia' of the three reli-
gious groups)
is in fact a situation of stabilized
pluralism-a stage
of
arrested fusion or
incomplete
assimilation.
Indeed,
the
stereotypical
im-
pression
of the creative
interrelationship
between autonomous cultural
communities
living
in mutual
harmony
is
supported by provisions
of
medieval
law,
both Islamic and
Christian, guaranteeing
the discreteness
of
minority
communities.2
Nevertheless,
conditions of stabilized
pluralism
can
only
be attributed to certain
places
at certain times. The best
examples
would be Christian cities of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Some of the overt manifestations of this stabilized
pluralism
are the
many
public
monuments built with
mudejar
labor
(e.g.,
the additions to the
Alcizar of Seville made in the
reign
of Peter the
Cruel),
the school of
translators of Alfonso
X,
centered in
Toledo,
and the fact that most of the
Arab loanwords in Castilian entered the
language during
this
epoch.3
Stabilized
pluralism
in medieval
Spain
was therefore
largely
an urban
phenomenon (Castro's sources, being literary,
were the
product
of urban
culture,
which
they faithfully reflect).
In the second
place, by
its
very
nature stabilized
pluralism
is often a
sequential development.
In
Spain
such situations were
generally
a
prelude
to
hostility, assimilation,
and
finally expulsion
of the
minority by
the dominant culture. Thus the con-
ditions of
pluralism describing
the
relationship
of Mozarab enclaves in Al-
Andalus with the dominant Islamic culture lasted a scant two centuries or
less and were terminated
by pogroms, large-scale emigration,
and assimila-
tion. Stabilized
pluralism
in medieval
Spain
was at best a modus
vivendi,
not an end of the values of either bloc.
The immediate
post-conquest period
in
any
area was followed
by
one
in which
minority
enclaves
adjusted
to the norms
imposed upon
them
by
the dominant
group.4
This is
basically
a
culture-shedding period
which
involves the
selecting
out of cultural elements inimical to the level of fusion
desired
by
the dominant culture. In
Islam,
as has been
pointed out,
these
norms were rather
strictly
defined at each level
by religious
law. Thus
both mawlas
(the muladies)
and dhimmis
(the Mozarabs)
were
obliged
to
1
See
Broom, Siegel
et
al., op. cit., pp.
987-90
(progressive adjustment).
2
See note
2,
on
p. 148, above;
in the same
article, p. 522, Cagigas
observes that the
primary
institutional difference between
mudejares
and moriscos was that the latter lacked the constitu-
tional
guarantees granted by
statute to the former.
3
Seventy-one per
cent of the arabisms discussed
by
Neuvonen entered the Castilian
language
in the thirteenth
century (op. cit., p. 305).
4
For a
specific example
of one such transitive
period,
see R.
Ignatius Burns, 'Journey
from
Islam:
Incipient
Cultural Transition in the
Conquered Kingdom
of Valencia
(1240-1280)',
Speculum, 35(1960),
337-56.
C
154
THOMAS F. GLICK AND ORIOL PI-SUNYER
leave behind some of their cultural
baggage, considerably
less
being per-
mitted to the mawlas who
agreed
to assimilate
through
conversion. The
Mozarabs,
inasmuch as
they
remained
Christian,
were allowed
thereby
to
preserve
the
strongest
element of their cultural
discreteness,
in
spite
of their
becoming arabophone.
Assimilation is often
preceded by
cultural
disintegration.
How the
disintegration
of Jewish culture in the fourteenth
century paved
the
way
for assimilation is the
subject
of a recent
monograph by
B.
Netanyahu.'
The fact that conversos were
willing
to be assimilated into
Spanish
Christian
society
can
only
be understood in the
light
of the
process
of Jewish cultural
and
religious decay (marked by religious confusion,
the
permeation
of the
community by radical,
rationalist
ideas,
and the
shattering
of faith in
providence).
But the studies which describe mechanisms of cultural
change
are
infinitesimal,
and
Spanish
medieval studies are in need of
greater precision
in
sorting
out the varieties of contact situations and
processes
of accultura-
tion. Historians must be less
rigid
in the kind of material
they
are
willing
to
approach.
Here Castro has shown the
way.
Not until these ends are
achieved will the true structure of
Spanish history
be discernible in full
relief.
1 The Marranos
of Spain, from
the Late XIVth to the
Early
XVIth
Century (New York,
1966).
For a discussion of the
anthropological significance
of this
work,
see review
by
T. F.
Glick, Speculum,
42
(1967),
401-3.