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The Church of Santa Cruz and the Beginnings of Mudejar Architecture in ToledoAuthor(s): David RaizmanSource: Gesta, Vol. 38, No. 2 (1999), pp. 128-141Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the International Center of MedievalArtStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767185 .

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The Church of Santa Cruz and the Beginnings of Mudejar Architecture in Toledo

DAVID RAIZMAN

College of Design Arts, Drexel University

Abstract

This article examines the architecture and the fresco program of the small brick church of Santa Cruz in Toledo, built sometime after 1186 when the site was granted to the Order of the Hospital of St. John by the city's archbishop. The building comprises an apse added to a square mosque dated to the year 1000. Recognizing the seamless integration of Islamic and Christian construction, the article proposes that the date of the addition and its painting is best situated toward the end of the second quarter of the thirteenth century rather than in the later twelfth century. Based upon the style of the paint- ings, comparison with a firmly dated manuscript, and reconsideration of documentary sources previously used to establish the chronology of Santa Cruz and other post-conquest churches in Toledo, the redating questions a longstanding tradition of scholarship. In addition, the article proposes to situate the unique style of building, known as Mudejar, derived from the term used to designate Muslims living in areas in Spain conquered by Christians, within the context of the changing social, political, military, and religious relations between Christians and Muslims in Toledo. In this context receptivity to Islamic forms in Christian art and architecture coincided with significant Castilian territorial gains and political aspi- rations in the wake of the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

The basilica of Santa Cruz in Toledo (popularly known as El Cristo de la Luz1) is one of more than a dozen parish churches and other modest religious buildings constructed in the city following its capitulation to Christian armies under King Alfonso VI (1065-1109) in May of 1085.2 A combina- tion of physical and documentary evidence establishes that the present basilican structure was formerly a small, nine-bay square brick mosque dated by inscription to the year 999/ 1000. In 1186 this building, dedicated to Santa Cruz, was placed under the care of the Order of the Hospital of St. John by the Toledan archbishop Gonzilez P6rez, providing a terminus post quem for the construction of a semicircular apse extending toward the northeast, which was further embel- lished with a program of fresco painting.3

It is the purpose of this paper to describe the church of Santa Cruz and its painted decoration in greater detail than heretofore, and to consider on stylistic as well as on contex- tual grounds the historiography surrounding the date of its post-conquest construction and decoration. A more precise dating is significant both in its challenge to the accepted chronology and for the effort to understand the emergence of a unique style of architecture (known generally as Mudejar) in relation to the political situation and social organization in

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FIGURE 1. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), view from north (photo: Institut Amatller d'Art Hispanic).

the city as they developed during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Such an examination, in turn, is part of a larger body of scholarship which seeks to investigate the complexities surrounding the reception of Islamic forms in the Christian art of Spain in the middle ages.

The Church of Santa Cruz

The church of Santa Cruz is located to the east of the Val- mard6n Gate in the northern part of the city of Toledo. As mentioned above, a mosque of the year 1000 forms its entrance and nave, leading to an apse which was added sometime after 1186 (Figs. 1, 2). The mosque is a square building, 8 m long, whose interior floor space is divided into nine sec- tions of equal size by four Visigothic columns without bases (Fig. 3), surmounted by horseshoe arches. Each bay is crowned by a small cupola.4 In its present state, the principal facade of the mosque is located at the southwest and is pierced by three arches surmounted by a series of blind crossing arches. Above this arcade is a frieze filled with bricks arranged in a design of diamonds framed by a course of larger bricks set in a sawtooth pattern. Above the frieze is an Arabic dedicatory inscription also set in brick relief (Fig. 4).5 The lateral facade

128 GESTA XXXVIII/2 @ The International Center of Medieval Art 1999



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FIGURE 2. (left) Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), ground plan, reconstruction of the state at conversion, ca. 1220 (drawing by J. Schaaf after Pav6n Maldonado, Arte toledano, 67).

FIGURE 3. (right) Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), interior view into Bab-al-Mardum mosque (photo: Institut Amatller d'Art Hispinic).

to the northwest is opened by three horseshoe arches, deeply recessed and framed by taller blind semicircular arches. The

upper part of this side of the mosque consists of a series of seven blind trilobed arches framing horseshoe arches with al-

ternating voussoirs of red brick and greenish stone (Fig. 1). On the southeast side, all but one of the ground-level arches have been closed, and both levels of the wall are faced with rubble.

Slightly longer than the mosque itself, the later part of the building is an addition toward the northeast (Figs. 2, 5). It consists of a transept preceding a semicircular apse, raised

approximately one meter above the floor of the earlier structure. The two floor levels are connected by three stone steps. The transept terminates in a wall surrounding a semicircular

apsidal arch. Both the mosque of Bab-al-Mardum and the later exten-

sion constituting the church of Santa Cruz are distinguished by economical and reused building materials, predominantly brick as well as rubble.6 Such materials depart from the tra- ditional use of stone for both earlier and contemporary Chris- tian architecture in Spain, including the possibly mid-eighth century stone church built at Melque in the vicinity of Toledo, and the almost exclusive use of stone in the churches built

along the pilgrimage roads in the first half of the twelfth cen-

tury.7 Brick was employed in the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries in a number of churches in southern Le6n; thus

building with brick does not necessarily imply a relation with Islamic practice.8 In Toledo, however, brick marked a conti-

nuity with existing Islamic architecture, seen not only in the Bab-al-Mardum mosque, but also in such civil and military structures as towers, gates, walls, and baths, which likewise

employed brick and reused materials.9 In this context, it is not

surprising that the basilican church of Santz Cruz shows visual continuity with Islamic urban architecture from before 1085. Conspicuous in Toledo is the persistence of local traditions of brick building established in the time of the caliphate, and the ease with which they were adapted to the liturgical requirements of a large and diverse Christian population. New structures created an apparently seamless visual transition in the city, despite dramatic changes in the demography as well as in religious and political hierarchies after 1085.10

The upper levels of both the transept and the apse walls of Santa Cruz are articulated with two series of blind arcades

resembling shallow niches. In the interior the transept is

groin-vaulted, and the apse is covered with a quarter-spherical vault. The plaster niches of the transept, the vault of the apse,

129



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FIGURE 4. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), facade (photo: author).

and the apsidal arch are decorated with an ensemble of fresco painting (Fig. 6).11 On the apsidal arch is a painted inscription written in Arabic script against a background of hatching, three-pointed flowers, and star forms: "Allah. There is no god but he, the eternal, the self-subsistent" (Fig. 8).12 Traces of similar patterned decoration are found as well in the recessed areas framing the niches of the transept, and they also may have extended into the area of the mosque.13 They were intended to imitate more costly and finely wrought materials, substituting for craftsmanship in wood or stucco, and enhanc- ing the luxury of the whole.

The figural painting consists of a symmetrical hierarchy in the transept preceding a Maiestas surrounded by symbols of the four evangelists in the apse (Fig. 7).14 The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, holding scrolls bearing their names, are located on the interior face of the apsidal arch, visible only from within the apse. In the intrados of the arch two more standing figures appear, holding scrolls and looking toward the transept as they point to the vision unfolding in the apse (Fig. 9; also Fig. 6). The standing male and female figures painted in shallow niches in two superimposed levels on the walls of the transept also gesture toward the apse, and witness its vision much as does the spectator on the floor (Fig. 10).

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FIGURE 5. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), apse (photo: author).

According to Amador de los Rios, who discovered the paint- ings and assisted in the early twentieth-century restoration of the church, at one time some of these figures could be identified by inscriptions which are no longer visible. He claimed that one of the female figures, in the upper register toward the southwest end, was identified as the Spanish martyr St. Eulalia. Although he also attempted to identify the other saints as specifically Toledan, the lack of attributes or inscriptions makes the identifications difficult to corroborate.15

In an overview, one is struck by the unity among the painted figures, seen most clearly in the communication between the saints of the transept and the Maiestas in the apse, and in the placement of the standing figures on the intrados of the apsidal arch, who directs the spectator's attention to the frontal head of Christ. The separation of the zones of the crossing and apse, the interaction and relationships among the figures, and the larger scale of the figures in the apse all imply a strong sense of hierarchy which is lost in the repro- duction of isolated details. The upper torso of Christ, when viewed from the apse directly below, appears elongated. When viewed from a point in front of the steps leading from the mosque to the crossing, however, the torso appears fore- shortened and the overall proportions more naturalistic. Moreover, from this angle the image of Christ makes a pow- erful impression. Against the curved surface of the apse wall and the blue background of the mandorla, he seems to lean forward, hovering close behind the heads of the two figures in the intrados of the apsidal arch. Although the condition, especially of the color of the figures painted in the niches of the crossing, is very poor, one can still imagine that these saints once appeared to be standing beneath arched openings in the wall, looking at the spectator and pointing toward the vision of the Majesty in the apse. The adjustment of proportions to the viewpoint of the spectator, the strong respect for a principle of hieratic composition, the unity fostered by the interaction among the figures and with the spectator, and perhaps above all the use of curved and indented architectural

130



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FIGURE 6. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), elevation of apse and adjoining walls showing frescoes (photo: P. Bartscherer, based upon a drawing by J. Schaaf).

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FIGURE 7. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), conch of apse (photo: author).

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FIGURE 8. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), Arabic inscription on apsidal arch (photo: author).

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FIGURE 9. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), intrados of apsidal arch (photo: author).

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FIGURE 10. Toledo, Santa Cruz (El Cristo de la Luz), standing figure on northeast transept wall (photo: Institut Amatller d'Art Hispanic).

surfaces to create the illusion of space for the figures, are features characteristic of Byzantine mural decoration;16 moreover, the unity of the ensemble seems to indicate that the architecture was planned to receive painted figural decoration. In any case, the two parts of the church of Santa Cruz, separated in origin by more than two centuries, are unified by construction materials, by the decorative vocabulary of the architecture, and by an effort to accommodate the fresco ensemble of the transept and apse to the viewpoint of a spectator standing in the nave which once served as a mosque.

Other examples of the post-conquest religious architecture of Toledo, whose disputed dating will be discussed below, reveal a similar mingling and integration of Islamic and Christian artistic traditions. In the fresco ensemble in the parish church of San Romain, for instance, angels painted in the spandrels of the horseshoe arches of the nave arcade (Fig. 12) are below a series of arches framed by alfiz borders contain- ing pseudo-Arabic script (Fig. 11).17 At Santiago de Arrabal, the compound Gothic piers, pointed arches and groin vaults in the nave are constructed of brick, while portions of the

exterior articulation of the apse display repeated polylobed shapes of Islamic derivation (Figs. 13 and 14).18 At Santa Leocadia, a series of horseshoe arches in relief below the hemisphere of the apse undergoes an elaboration and transformation in the next register down, through the addition of polylobes as well as an intercrossing pattern (Fig. 15). This is based not upon the copying of any particular precedent, but upon extrapolation from the decorative vocabulary seen at Bab-al-Mardum. A local living tradition of urban architecture has been inherited, and served as the basis for experimen- tation and embellishment.19 The distinctiveness of this hybrid architecture and its accompanying decoration emerges in

comparison with the roughly contemporary brick churches of

Sahaguin in southern Le6n, which lack specifically Islamic decorative features and the separate bell towers deriving from the minarets of mosques which are seen in Toledo.20

Chronology

Recent scholarship supports a dating for the post-conquest Christian building activity in Toledo beginning in the mid- to later twelfth century, that is, virtually contemporary with the city's Christian conquest.21 But the basis for this

chronology merits reconsideration. First, there is a tendency in the scholarship on this ar-

chitecture to equate documentary evidence corroborating the existence of a church with its extant construction. Most references to twelfth-century construction are inferred from the mention of parish churches in a series of so-called Mozarabic documents, a collection of dated twelfth- and thirteenth-

century property transactions and donations written in Ara- bic, many of which are witnessed by clerics affiliated with

parish churches.22 This kind of evidence does not establish that the structure currently standing at the specified location is the same one referred to in the document. A case in point is the church of Santa Leocadia (popularly known as El Cristo de la Vega) outside the city walls to the north. This church has been dated to the later twelfth century, although it is difficult to identify any extant construction from that time. The twelfth-century date is based upon a document of 1121 mentioning that the church is in a ruined state, and a charter of March 11, 1162 establishing a church of Santa Leocadia for the canons of St. Augustine.23 However, there is general agreement that the apse, with traces of fresco painting, is the earliest extant construction on the site and dates to the middle of the thirteenth century.24 A twelfth-century date for the church of San Eugenio, also north of the city, is justified by reference to the translation of the relics of this saint and former bishop to Toledo in 1152. The earliest mention of a church of San Eugenio in the documentos mozdrabes is from 1209, but a twelfth-century date is maintained on the basis of similarities between the construction and decoration of the extant apse and that of Santa Cruz.25 This presumes, of course, that the church of Santa Cruz also dates to the later

133



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I V . r ........... . ........ :?:xx.. x.

FIGURE 13. Toledo, Santiago de Arrabal, interior (photo: author).

twelfth century. Another example is the parish church of San Romin, a basilica with a series of horseshoe arcades of the so-called Mozarabic type dividing the nave from the aisles.26 The text of a will dated 1125, published by Gonzilez Palen- cia, is followed by the signature of a witness identified as Dominicus of San Romin. This confirms the existence of a parish church of that name in the early twelfth century.27 A date more likely to refer to the existing construction, however, is 1221, contained in the Anales Toledanos, referring to a consecration at which Archbishop Rodrigo Jim6nez de Rada (1208-1247) officiated.28

The second reason for the twelfth-century dating of Toledan brick churches is a statement in the chronicle of the same archbishop known as the Historia de rebus Hispaniae. In this chronicle, written in the second quarter of the thirteenth century, the archbishop mentions the existence of six

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? ... . . . .... ON.,:

FIGURE 14. Toledo, Santiago de Arrabal, apse (photo: author).

parish churches in Toledo in which the older Mozarabic lit-

urgy continued to be practiced.29 Scholars have assumed that these six churches had been established prior to the conquest of 1085 and continued to function, perhaps rebuilt or enlarged sometime after the conquest, yet maintaining such elements of their earlier Mozarabic construction as horseshoe arcades

separating nave from aisles as well as square and rectangular apses. Recently, however, it has been argued that the division of the city into twenty-six parishes was the result of an ecclesiastical restructuring of the Christian community initiated

only after the conquest of 1085, in accordance with the Gre-

gorian reform. Documentary evidence confirms the existence of only three churches in the city during the period of Muslim

occupation; moreover, as a result of the imposition of the new parochial system after 1085 the Mozarabic community of Toledo had to forfeit its former places of worship in the

city and establish new ones in different locations.30 Thus the six churches hosting Mozarabic liturgy alluded to by Arch-

bishop de Rada must refer to parish buildings established sometime after 1085, rather than buildings utilized by the

lit III fill

iio

11 i i-i-:::

*mw_ FT:::_- ITTTITIMTIHU T

FIGURE 15. Toledo, Santa Leocadia, brick decoration in apse (photo: author).

135



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FIGURE 16. New York, J. Pierpont Morgan Library, M 429, fol. 151 (photo: Pierpont Morgan Library).

city's Mozarabic community before that date. If they were not continuous with pre-existing buildings, the so-called Mozara- bic churches of Toledo can no longer be given priority in a chronological development.

Turning to the date of Santa Cruz, the document of 1186 (copied in a thirteenth-century codex) which records that a chapel dedicated to Santa Cruz was placed under the care of the Order of the Hospital of St. John by Archbishop Gonzilez Perez, provides only a terminus post quem for the construction.31 Meanwhile, one can demonstrate that the artist of the Santa Cruz frescoes was also responsible for a series of miniatures in a manuscript of Beatus of Liebana's commentary on the Apocalypse dated by its colophon to 1220, now owned by the Pierpont Morgan Library (M 429).32 The common authorship can be shown by a number of comparisons, for example, between the standing figure of Daniel (gesturing toward the left) and two attendants before the seated King Nebuchadnezzar (fol. 151), and the standing male saint painted in one of the shallow niches in the lateral walls preceding the apse at Santa Cruz (Figs. 16 and 10). These figures share the same squared jaws, simple, compact contours and

three-quarters pose. The garments of both figures are mod- eled with primary folds indicated by lozenges or Vs at the shoulders, and more sketchily drawn clusters of lines that were employed to enhance the appearance of volume.33 The facial features and treatment of hair and beard in the crowned naked figure in the lower right portion of the same miniature are strikingly similar to the head of Christ in the apse of Santa Cruz (Fig. 7). The 1220 colophon in the Morgan manuscript indicates a similar date for the ensemble of frescoes at Santa Cruz, and allows the possibility of a thirteenth-century date for the new construction at Santa Cruz as well, especially in light of the equivocal nature of the documentary evidence for a twelfth-century dating reviewed above.

There are other reasons to support a chronology beginning in the thirteenth rather than the later twelfth century. The revised date would place the beginning of significant Chris- tian building after the pivotal battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, a Christian victory which moved the frontier between Christian and Islamic territories southward considerably be- yond the Tagus, and encouraged new settlement in less threat- ening military circumstances.34 The late twelfth century was a less propitious time for significant building activity in Toledo; this period witnessed several attacks on Christian Toledo by Islamic armies, as well as the disastrous battle of Alarcos in 1195, which followed a period of Castilian instability during the minority of the monarch Alfonso VIII (1158-1214) and included the brief takeover of the city by the Leonese king Fernando II in 1162.35 Moreover, the thirteenth-century dating for the new constructions would place the parish buildings, which are the architectural record of Toledo's urban rather than its noble or clerical estates, in closer correlation with the growth of municipal institutions and their increasing political importance during this time. The new prominence of the urban citizenry is seen, for instance, in the participation of town representatives in the royal cortes convened regularly by Castilian monarchs, and in the king's growing dependence upon townsmen as a source of defense, military forces, and tax revenues.36

Mudejarismo

The Toledan post-conquest religious architecture currently under discussion is generally known as Mudejar, derived from the term used to refer to those Muslims who remained in territories conquered by Christians. Mudejarismo, with its implications of cultural interrelationships, is a rich area in the study of medieval Iberia, which reveals a complex and varied picture of the fate of Muslim communities in Spain in the continually shifting military and political circumstances which affected their number and status from the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries.37

In Toledo, the intention of King Alfonso VI that the Muslims would remain in the city following the conquest was

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clearly expressed in his original pact of 1085, which guaran- teed their right to retain property and to worship publicly in their mosques.38 The guarantee of rights to Muslims in newly conquered territories was a practice often followed in other frontier areas in Iberia, especially when maintaining a population was necessary for settlement and it was important to persuade Muslims to remain by promising them indepen- dence and autonomy.39 Further, the capture of Toledo de- prived the king of the tribute he was accustomed to receive,40 and taxes paid by the Muslim residents who remained there might provide compensation for this loss. Continued Muslim presence would also avert interruptions of the city's commer- cial activities, especially the manufacture of iron tools and weapons which later laws prevented from being exported to Al-Andalus. Finally, the seemingly tolerant pact had a precedent in the Muslim practice toward both Christians and Jews, who were treated in Islamic law as protected minorities or dhimmis.

The implementation of these post-conquest policies tended to vary with circumstances, and in Toledo the original guarantees to Muslims evaporated quickly.41 Within a year of the conquest the main mosque became the cathedral, and the conversion of other mosques into churches ensued, with rit- uals of purification as well as the suggestion that the mosques had once been Visigothic basilicas.42 Following the conversion of a Toledan mosque into the church of San Salvador in 1159, Muslims were permitted to relocate to a small building in the Plaza de la Solareza now known as the Tornerias mosque, a tiny structure of which the date of construction is disputed.43

According to the thirteenth-century chronicles which form the basis of our understanding of the period, the change in policy toward the Muslims was instigated by Alfonso's bishop, Bernard, and Queen Constance, who took advantage of the king's absence from the city to effect the conversions of mosques to churches. This event signaled a shift toward a stronger sense of Muslim-Christian confrontation in Spain, often identified with increasing French presence in the penin- sula.44 It was important that the chroniclers find a reason for Alfonso's change in policy, as in these sources abiding by the terms of a pact was a sign of honor that distinguished Christian rulers from their Muslim counterparts, who are often described as going back on promises, which justified Christian aggression.45 But one need not depend upon court intrigue to explain the change in terms of Alfonso's original pact with the Muslims of Toledo. In 1086 the Almoravid Muslims arrived in Spain from North Africa, routing Alfonso at Zalaqa, re- newing Muslim-Christian hostilities, and stimulating further emigration of Muslims from Toledo amid deteriorating social conditions. Recent studies confirm the dispersal of Toledan Muslims from the area and their marginalization in the new Christian society of the city in the years immediately following the conquest.46 Thirteenth-century documents show that

while the mudejares of Toledo were not segregated into a single neighborhood or moreria, other measures were taken to insure their separation, such as restrictions on dress, hair, beards, and even the color of garments they might wear.47 The case of Toledo indicates that it is not possible to offer gener- alizations regarding the status of the Mudejar population of Spain beginning in the later eleventh century. Policies and attitudes changed quickly in the volatile political and military climate of the twelfth century, affecting the size of Mudejar communities in newly conquered territories as well as official policies toward them.

At the same time, literary sources acknowledge the Muslim presence in Toledo as an aspect or expression of royal authority in the city which once had served as capital of the Visigothic kingdom. In Archbishop Jim6nez de Rada's mid- thirteenth century Historia de rebus Hispaniae, the author describes the visit of the French King Louis VII to the court at Toledo in 1148, mentioning the presence of Christians as well as "subjected moors," and he mentions Louis's impression of courtly splendor, a cosmopolitanism which existed in no other "corner of the world."48 The same mention of diversity with regard to costume, habit, and language appears in de Rada's narrative of preparations for the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, as part of an image of royal generosity and power in relation to Toledo.49

The art historical meaning of Mudejar in relation to Toledan architecture

As an art historical term, mudejar originated in the nineteenth century to designate a wide range of Islamic- inspired decoration in a variety of media applied for the most part to Christian architecture.50 As early as the 1930s, Elie Lambert recognized that it is not possible to claim that works in this style were designed or built exclusively by muddjares, that is, Muslims living in Christian territories, citing as evidence the signatures of Christian artisans in the Mudejar chapel of the Gothic cathedral of Toledo. Later writers have also recognized that in art historical terms, mudejar does not adhere to the strict definition which designates a Muslim population.51

Borrns Gualis has questioned the accuracy of employ- ing muddjar merely to designate a style of decoration applied to successive stages of Christian medieval architecture in Spain, pointing to bell towers in Teruel and elsewhere in Arag6n whose form as well as decoration are derived from Islamic precedent. Thus the art historical meaning of muddjar has increasingly acquired a broader if less accurate meaning, designating the survival of a variety of Islamic artistic forms and techniques in monuments produced in areas of growing Christian hegemony.52

More recent discussion of the phenomenon of mudejarismo has focused upon a political interpretation of the term,

137



denoting the conscious use of Islamic forms or objects by Christians, in Dodd's words, as "bearers of cultural meaning." In this view the appropriation of Islamic forms in Christian works of art might signify the creation of a specifically Span- ish identity, even an alternative to French-inspired Gothic architecture in Spain, for instance, at Le6n Cathedral in the mid-thirteenth century.53 The posited political or ideological meaning of mudejarismo is provocative, but linking style to attitudes which were shifting with changing circumstances is challenging, as similar forms might vary in meaning depend- ing upon their context, making a careful study of local history essential for establishing a convincing interpretation.

The political interpretation of Mudejar art and architecture and the recognition of the fate of the city's muddjares may contribute to the understanding of religious architecture in Toledo after 1085. Following the conquest of the city, Alfonso VI constructed a fort in Toledo, but according to the thirteenth-century archbishop Jim6nez de Rada the king oc- cupied the residence of the city's Taifal ruler, a palace and gardens which were celebrated in Muslim sources for their luxury and magnificence.54 The fourteenth-century Cr6nicas de los reyes de Castilla relates that members of Alfonso's army appropriated the dwellings of wealthy Muslims as their residences.55 Whether or not Alfonso VI planned to restore Toledo as the capital of his kingdom,56 the splendor of its Muslim palaces and their courts was a fitting projection of royal authority, and this made their appropriation seem both practical and politically advantageous. The occupation of existing architecture resembles the display of Reconquest booty or spolia, visible expressions of the power and wealth of vic- torious rulers which confer upon their new possessors princely status.57 It is not surprising that later Castilian kings and nobles continued to model their residences on Muslim palaces, for example at Tordesillas and in Seville in the fourteenth century, and earlier, the episcopal palace at Brihuega in the thirteenth century.5s

The conversion of the city's main mosque to its cathedral is another instance of the appropriation of techniques of construction and decoration which had been practiced in Muslim cities in Spain. The emergence of new buildings such as the addition to Santa Cruz indicates both appropriation as well as creative duplications of Islamic techniques and decorative schemes to address new requirements. Yet as I have argued, these new constructions began more than a century after 1085. One senses that the Mudejar building style which took shape at this time was possible only within the growing acknowledgement and expression of Christian sovereignty which emerged with the return, after more than a century, of more favorable military circumstances, that is, after the successful battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 and in anticipation of the later conquests of C6rdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248.

Conclusion

The church of Santa Cruz in Toledo is an example of the Christian architecture known as Mudejar which emerged after the conquest of the city in 1085, characterized by brick construction and traditions of decoration inherited from the Islamic urban architecture of the city under Muslim domina- tion. The present basilican structure resulted from an enlarge- ment of a small mosque of the year 999/1000, given to the Order of the Hospital of St. John in 1186. A series of frescoes in the transept and apse of Santa Cruz may be dated to ca. 1220 on the basis of stylistic identity with a copy of the Beatus Apocalypse commentary dated 1220 in its colophon. While there is no independent evidence for the date of the post- conquest construction at Santa Cruz, political circumstances in the city and the military progress of the Christian conquest suggest that new construction be placed after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 rather than during the twelfth century, especially considering the absence of convincing evidence for the twelfth-century dating of Santa Cruz or other Toledan churches such as Santa Leocadia, San Euge- nio, San Romin, or of continuity with Christian architecture from before 1085. The proposed chronology would thus apply to other extant Mudejar churches in the lists compiled by Rivera Recia and most recently by Malag6n.59

Santa Cruz and other post-conquest Christian buildings present an architectural esthetic characterized by the integration or modification of materials and techniques of Islamic art in the construction of churches with basilican plans and some- times including ensembles of Christian figural painting. This unique and hybrid architecture emerged not at the moment of conquest but more than a century later, when political and economic circumstances were more favorable to building, and when the incorporation or integration of Islamic forms could be seen as the visible counterpart to the image of a cos- mopolitan Christian capital.60

The phenomenon of Toledan Mudejar art and architecture appeared in the mid-thirteenth century almost literally in the shadow of the construction of the city's immense Gothic cathedral, built on the site of its former main mosque. The foundation stone (not brick!) of the new cathedral was laid in 1226 by Archbishop Rodrigo Jim6nez de Rada and King Fernando III,61 and the cathedral's materials, size and over- powering relation to the more modest dimensions of neigh- boring Mudejar constructions were an unequivocal expression of Christian political and religious dominance, leaving little doubt as to the terms in which Islamic survival was to be construed in thirteenth-century Castile.

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NOTES

1. The name "El Cristo de la Luz" refers to a legend associated with a

sculpted image of the Crucifixion hidden in the wall of the mosque, which was believed to have been a Visigothic church before the Mus- lim invasion, and discovered by Alfonso VI upon his entry into the city. The image was miraculously illuminated by a burning candle. See R. Parro Sixto, Toledo en la mano (Toledo, 1857), II, 304-310.

2. For a survey of building activity in Toledo from 1085 until approximately 1300, see most recently R. Malag6n, M. Sainz, C. Delgado, T. Perez, and M. A. Franco Mata, Arquitecturas de Toledo (Toledo, 1991), I, 61-405; B. Pav6n Maldonado, Arte toledano. Islamico y Mudejar (Madrid, 1973), 62-84; and J. E Rivera Recia, La iglesia de Toledo en el siglo XII (Rome, 1966), I, 87-98.

3. The document, dated 9 June 1186, is transcribed in a thirteenth-century codex (Archivo Hist6rico Nacional, Madrid, Cod. 987B, Fol. 48, No. 40) and printed in J. Gonzailez, El reino de Castilla en la dpoca de Alfonso VIII (Madrid, 1960), II, No. 455.

4. On the Bab-al-Mardum mosque, see C. Ewert, "Die Moschee am Bab al-Mardum in Toledo: Eine 'Kopie' der Moschee von Cordoba," Madrider Mitteilungen, XVIII (1977), 287-354. The evidence for

Visigothic construction on the site is not very strong. The four columns were likely spolia brought from elsewhere. No Visigothic church of Santa Cruz is mentioned in H. Schlunk and T. Hauschild, Die Denk-

miller der friihchristlichen und westgotischen Zeit (Mainz am Rhein, 1978), or in H. Schlunk, "Die kunstgeschichtlichen Stellung Toledos im 7. Jahrhundert," Madrider Mitteilungen, XI (1970), 161-186.

5. M. Ocafia Jimenez, "La inscripci6n fundacional de la mezquita de Bab-Al-Mardum en Toledo," Al Andalus, XIV (1949), 175-182.

6. On the materials see Pav6n Maldonado, Arte toledano, 62-84.

7. For Melque, see most recently S. Garen, "Santa Maria de Melque and Church Construction under Muslim Rule," JSAH, LI (1992), 288-305.

8. See I. G. Bango Torviso, in La Iglesia en la Espaija de los siglos VIII al XIV, ed. J. Fernandez Conde (Madrid, 1982), II, 593-608. On the brick architecture of

Sahagtin, see T. Perez Higuera, Arquitectura

mudejar en Castilla y Ledn (Valladolid, 1993), 41-58, and E Valdes Fernindez, Arquitectura muddjar en Le6n y Castilla (Le6n, 1981).

9. C. Delgado Valero, Toledo isldmico: ciudad, arte e historia (Toledo, 1987).

10. For an account of the various populations coexisting in the city from the later eleventh century, see J. Gonzilez, Repoblacicn de Castilla la Nueva (Madrid, 1975), I, 66-138, and Rivera Recia, La iglesia de To- ledo, I, 43-86.

11. J. Gudiol and W. Cook, Pintura Romdnica (Ars Hispaniae, VI), 2nd ed. (Madrid, 1980), 247-250.

12. The inscription is copied from the Qu'ran, Surah 2, verse 255. Although legible, the inscription is in a debased form of the Arabic alphabet. I would like to thank Ms. Lobna Abaza for her kind help in translating this passage and tracing its source. Ancient Arabic writing in Christian monuments usually takes the form of pseudo-Arabic, and it may have participated in the triumphalist associations of booty; see J. A. Harris, "Reading the Arca Santa of Oviedo," AB, LXXVII (1995), 83-93. Although the Mozarabic population of Toledo used Arabic to conduct daily business, this does not explain why a Qu'ranic quotation was painted on the apsidal arch. It may have been intended as an effort to convert Muslims; cf. T. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs c. 1050-1200 (Leiden, 1994), 194-211. It is interesting to note the similarity between the hatched lines in the background of the inscription and the brick design of diamonds on the principal facade (Fig. 4).

13. See L. Torres-Balbais, Arte Califal (Historia de Espafia, V) (Madrid, 1957), 610.

14. It seems clear from their style that the small figures depicting the Res- urrection of the Dead on the lower part of the northwest side of the transept and continuing onto the wall before the apse are later additions to the original ensemble.

15. J. Amador de los Rios, Mezquita de Bib Al Mardon, hoy ermita de Sto. Cristo de la Cruz y Nuestra Sefiora de la Luz. Monumentos arquitectdni- cos de Espahia. Toledo (Madrid, 1905), 11.

16. O. Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration. Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium (London, 1948), 13-14.

17. J. Cam6n Aznar, "Pinturas murales de San Romin de Toledo," Archivo espafiol de arte, XLIX (1942), 50-78.

18. R. Malag6n et al., Arquitecturas de Toledo, I, 285-287.

19. There are also traces of painting both inside the apse and on some of the blind arches of its exterior; see R. Malag6n et al., Arquitecturas de Toledo, I, 206, 208. For the date, see ibid., 205.

20. On the Islamic derivation of bell towers in Arag6n, see G. M. Borris Gualis, Arte muddjar aragones, I (Zaragoza, 1985), 39. For the brick architecture of

Sahagtin, see above, n. 8.

21. The dating of Toledan architecture after 1085 as a series of stages beginning with the transformation of existing Mozarabic churches or converted mosques followed by new brick construction may be traced to M. G6mez Moreno, Arte mudejar toledano, (Madrid, 1916), 4. G6mez Moreno acknowledged the difficulty of assigning dates to

specific churches, but more recent authors have been less cautious. For the dating of particular monuments to the later twelfth century, see Pav6n Maldonado, Arte toledano, 62-84; Y. Yarza, Arte y Arquitectura en Espahia, 500-1250 (Madrid, 1979), 311-322; Bango Torviso, La Iglesia en la Espafia, 599-600; and T. Perez Higuera, Mudejarismo en la baja edad media (Madrid, 1987), 39-41. L. Torres Balbais noted that the brick towers of Toledo, such as those of San Bartolom6 and Santiago de Arrabal, probably date to the mid-thirteenth century, because of the

similarity between these two structures and the reference to the Santiago de Arrabal tower as "new" in a document of 1256. He accepted, however, a later twelfth-century date for a number of parish and other small churches. See L. Torres Balbis, "Por el Toledo mud6jar," Al An- dalus, XXIII (1958), 424-445. J. Dodds (Architecture and Ideology in

Early Medieval Spain [University Park, PA, 1989], 61) dated the general post-conquest building activity to the later eleventh century.

22. A. Gonzilez Palencia, Los mozdrabes de Toledo en los siglos XII y XIII, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1926-1930). G6mez Moreno, Arte muddjar toledano, did not refer to these documents, which have played a large role in attempts to establish a twelfth-century chronology. His twelfth- century dating of Toledan churches is in many ways more tentative than that of more recent scholars.

23. J. M. Porres-Cleto, Historia de las calles de Toledo (Toledo, 1982), II, 291-292; E J. Hernindez, Los cartularios de Toledo. Catdlogo monumental (Madrid, 1985), Docs. 21, 134. As a suburban church of Visi- gothic origins, this church of Santa Leocadia may have continued to serve the Mozarabic community during the Muslim occupation.

24. R. Malag6n et al., Arquitecturas de Toledo, I, 205.

25. Ibid., 201. The reference to 1209 is found in Gonzilez Palencia, Los mozdrabes de Toledo, Doc. 1022. St. Eugenius was thought to be To- ledo's first-century bishop, whose relic (an arm) arrived in the city from Saint-Denis near Paris in 1152. On the circumstances surrounding this relic, see J. Rivera Recia, San Eugenio de Toledo y su culto (Toledo, 1963), and V. M. Nieto Alcaide, "El arca rominico de las

139



reliquias de San Eugenio," Archivo espaiiol de arte, XXXIX (1966), 167-177.

26. For the plan and elevations of the church, see R. Malag6n et al., Ar-

quitecturas de Toledo, I, 233-237.

27. Gonzilez Palencia, Los mozdrabes de Toledo, I, 196 and III, 375-378, Doc. 1012. Later documents of the same type date to the 1170s.

28. E. Florez, Espaila Sagrada, XXIII (Madrid, 1780), 406.

29. Rodrigo Jim6nez de Rada, Historia de rebus Hispaniae sive Historia

gothica, ed. J. E Valverde (Turnholt, 1987), III, iv. The enumeration of the parishes and the names of the six Mozarabic churches of Toledo

appear in a fourteenth-century document by the Marques de Loaysa, published and described by R. Gonzalv6z, "El arcediano Joffre de

Loaysa y las parroquias de Toledo en 1300," in Historia mozadrabe. Congreso Internacional de Estudios mozdirabes (Toledo, 1975), 91- 145. Torres Balbais ("Por el Toledo mud6jar," 430), identifies the six churches as Santas Justa y Rufina, San Lucas, San Sebastiin, San Mar- cos, Santa Eulalia, and San Torcuato. See also G6mez Moreno, Arte

mudejar toledano, 6-7, and Perez Higuera, Mudejarismo en la baja edad media, 39-41. For the dating of the Historia de rebus Hispaniae, see P. Linehan, History and Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford, 1993), 316.

30. J. A. Aparicio Bastardo, "Notas para la aproximaci6n al estudio de las

iglesias de mozairabes en la urbe toledana," Aijaquel de Estudios Arabes, IV (1993), 9-21. Thanks to John Williams for sending me a

copy of this article. Bastardo believes that suburban churches like Santa Leocadia were more likely to have continued as places for Christian worship.

31. See above n. 3. The practice of granting property to religious orders in

exchange for service was common; see J. E O'Callaghan, The Learned

King: The Reign of Alfonso X of Castile (Philadelphia, 1993), 189.

32. New York, J. Pierpont Morgan Library, M 429; see New York, Metro-

politan Museum of Art, The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200

(New York, 1993), No. 147, pp. 293-294.

33. The artist of the frescoes was named the "Maestro de Toledo" by Cook and Gudiol Ricart, Pintura Romdnica, 247-250. They were unaware of connections with manuscripts. The same painter was also responsible for the miniatures in a manuscript of St. Ildefonsus's De virginitate Beatae Mariae, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 10087. The work of this master is analyzed in D. Raizman, "The Morgan Beatus (M.429) and Late Romanesque Painting in Spain" (Dissertation, University of Pitts-

burgh, 1980). M. Gom6z Moreno, Arte muddjar toledano, 9, already proposed that the frescoes were painted in the early thirteenth century.

34. Jim6nez de Rada, Historia de rebus Hispaniae, VIII, i-xiv.

35. See J. E O'Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, 1975), 235-236; and Linehan, History and Historians of Medieval Spain, 279.

36. See J. E O'Callaghan, The Cortes ofLe6n-Castile, 1188-1350 (Phila- delphia, 1989), 53-58; idem, The Learned King, 94-95.

37. For Castile, see J. E O'Callaghan, "The Mud6jares of Castile in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries," in Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100-1300, ed. J. M. Powell (Princeton, 1990), 25, and M. Ladero Quesada, "Los Mud6jares de Castilla," in Actas del I Simposio internacional de Mudejarismo (Madrid, 1981), 349-390; for other king- doms of Spain see R. I. Burns, "Muslims in the Thirteenth Century Realm of Arag6n: Interaction and Reaction," in Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100-1300, 57-102 and J. Boswell, The Royal Treasure. Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the Fourteenth Century (New Haven, 1977).

38. Rivera Recia, La iglesia de Toledo, I, 53-56; J. Gautier Dalch6, His- toria urbana de Le6n y Castilla en la edad media (IX-XIII) (Madrid, 1979), 107.

39. Burns, "Muslims in the Thirteenth Century Realm of Aragon," 57- 102, esp. 70-73.

40. On the payment of tribute or parias, see D. W. Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (London, 1978), 53; and D. Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings. Politics and Society in Islamic Spain 1002-1086

(Princeton, 1985), 249-255.

41. B. Ye'or, The Dhimmi. Jews and Christians under Islam, trans. D. Maisel, D. Fenton, and D. Littman (Rutherford, 1985), 51-74. For an overview of art historical issues in relation to this policy see Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain, 58-70; for references to this policy in the Qu'ran, see K. B. Wolf, Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (Cambridge, 1988), 7.

42. On the conversion of the main mosque into the cathedral, see B. Reilly, The Kingdom of Le6n-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065-1109 (Princeton, 1982), 181-183. The mosque may have stood on the site of the original Visigothic cathedral; see Linehan, History and Historians

of Medieval Spain, 216-220, and J. M. Porres-Cleto, "Sta. Maria de Alficen," Historia Mozarabe (Toledo, 1978), 29-40. On the later conversion of mosques to cathedrals in C6rdoba (1236) and Seville (1248), see O'Callaghan, "The Mud6jares of Castile," 42-43; J. A. Harris, "Mosque to Church Conversions in the Spanish Reconquest," Medieval Encounters, III (1997), 158-172.

43. The conversion is recorded in the thirteenth-century chronicle known as the Anales toledanos, transcribed by Florez, Espafia Sagrada, XXIII, 392. On the Tornerias mosque, see J. M. Porres-Cleto, "La mezquita de la plaza de la Solareza en Toledo," Al Qantara, IV (1983), 411-421, who dates its construction to the later twelfth century, in agreement with M. G6mez-Moreno, El arte drabe espafiol hasta los almohades (Ars Hispaniae, III) (Madrid, 1951), 210. Clara Delgado Valero argues for an eleventh-century date: see Toledo isldmico, 303-317.

44. In the chronicle account the king was absent from Toledo when the conversion occurred, and the Muslims did not protest the violation of the

pact for fear of further reprisals against them; see Historia de rebus

Hispaniae, VI, xiiii. Reilly believes it highly unlikely that the conversion would have occurred without Alfonso's knowledge or consent: The

Kingdom of Le6n-Castilla under Alfonso VI, 181. On the anti-French sentiments expressed in the chronicles, see R. Barkai, Cristianos y musulmanes en la Espaila medieval (El enemigo en el espejo) (Madrid, 1984), 221. On the emergence of a more confrontational attitude toward Islam see also R. Fletcher, "Reconquest and Crusade in Spain c. 1050- 1150," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, s. 5, XXXVII (1987), 31-47.

45. See Barkai, Cristianos y musulmanes en la Espaila medieval, 109 and 218.

46. For example, a population of mudejares recorded as living in an area south of Le6n during the twelfth century may have been recent emi-

gr6s from the region of Toledo; Ladero Quesada, "Los Mud6jares de Castilla," 354. On the Mudejar uprisings of 1264 under Alfonso X and the general practice after that time of expelling the Muslims from re- conquered towns, see O'Callaghan, The Learned King, 189.

47. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 required that Muslims living in territories under the dominion of Christian kings wear distinctive forms of dress for the purpose of easy identification; cf. Boswell, The Royal Treasure, 330-331.

48. Historia de rebus Hispaniae, VII, viiii.

49. Ibid., VIII, i. One might also mention in this context Toledo's reputa- tion as a center for the translation of Arabic texts, which drew scholars

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from all over Europe. Linehan dates the beginning of this activity to the later twelfth century: History and Historians of Medieval Spain, 307-310.

50. The term was first used in an art historical context by J. Amador de los Rios in a published lecture of 1859, reprinted as El estilo mudejar en

arquitectura, ed. P. Guenoun (Paris, 1965). See the summaries of

muddjar historiography by Bango Torviso, La Iglesia en la Espafia, 593-608; and Yarza, Arte y Arquitectura en Espaila, 311-322. See also the proceedings of three conferences devoted to the subject: Actas del Simposio internacional de muddjarismo, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1981- 1986).

51. E. Lambert, "L'art mudejar," GBA, IX (1933), 19-20; L. Torres Bal-

bis, Arte almohade. Arte muddjar. Arte nazari (Ars Hispaniae, IV) (Madrid, 1949), 255. The earlier assumption that muddjar architecture was the product of Muslim craftsmen is found in G6mez Moreno, Arte

muddjar toledano, 8, even though this author was unaware of the size of the muddjar community in Toledo and its participation in art and architectural projects.

52. G. Borris Gualis, "El Mudejar como constante artistico," in Actas del I Simposio internacional de muddjarismo, 29-40, esp. 37. The author defines Mudejar as the "survival of Islamic art in Spain amid declining Islamic political power" ("el arte mudejar no es otra cosa que la per- vivencia del arte musulmain en el mundo hispinico, una vez desapare- cido el poder politico musulmin").

53. J. Dodds, "The Mudejar Tradition in Architecture," in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. S. K. Jayussi (Leiden, 1992), 592-598, who does not address the chronology; D. Fairchild Ruggles, "Representation and Iden- tity in Medieval Spain: Beatus Manuscripts and the Mudejar churches of Teruel," in Languages of Power in Islamic Spain, ed. R. Brann (Bethesda, MD, 1997), 77-106, esp. 101-106. My thanks to an anonymous reader for this reference.

54. Jimenez de Rada, Historia de rebus Hispaniae, VI, xxii; Pav6n Maldonado, Arte toledano, 94-95. On the location of the palace, see R. Malag6n et al., Arquitecturas de Toledo, I, 85-86.

55. Crdnicas de los reyes de Castilla, I, ed. C. Rosell (Biblioteca de Autores Espaholes, LXVI) (Madrid, 1953), 420. Examples include the so-called "Bulas Viejas" house, illustrated in Pav6n Maldonado, Arte toledano, 98, Fig. 34, P1. L.

56. Alfonso VI favored Sahaguin as the location of his pantheon and the center of Cluniac monasticism in Spain. Despite the significance of Toledo as the royal and ecclesiastical capital of the Visigothic kingdom and its role in the mythology of the Reconquest, the histories of other

centers like Oviedo, Le6n, and Sahaguin undermined any exclusive claim to the title of capital. On Le6n as a capital see J. W. Williams, "Le6n: The Iconography of the Capital," in Cultures of Power. Lord- ship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. T. N. Bisson (Philadelphia, 1995), 231-258.

57. See D. Kinney, "Rape or Restitution of the Past? Interpreting Spolia," in The Art of Interpreting, ed. S. C. Scott (Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University, IX) (University Park, PA, 1995), 53-67, esp. 53, on spolia as propaganda involving victory, triumph, and legit- imate succession, primarily with reference to Roman art. On booty in Spain, see J. A. Harris, "Muslim Ivories in Christian Hands: the Leire Casket in Context," AH, XVIII (1995), 213-221, and J. D. Dodds, "Islam, Christianity, and the Problem of Religious Art," in The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500-1200, 27-37. Although there is little mention of royal residences in the eleventh-century kingdom of Le6n-Castile, one can surmise that the Taifal palaces of Toledo and other Taifal king- doms (e.g., the Aljaferia at Zaragoza) were far more comfortable and luxurious than their Christian counterparts.

58. For Tordesillas, see Perez Higuera, Mudejarismo en la baja edad media, 13-15. For thirteenth-century palaces (including Brihuega), see L. Torres-Balbais, "Los z6colos pintados en la arquitectura hispano- musulmana," Al Andalus, VII (1942), 411-412.

59. See above, n. 2. Including the so-called Mozarabic churches, Rivera Recia lists twenty-two churches in which some traces of medieval construction are extant.

60. Curiously, while the Mudejar style celebrated diversity, the city of To- ledo was increasingly homogenous. The Arabic-speaking Christians or mozdrabes, who survived as a reminder of more deeply-seated Islamic acculturation, were in the process of becoming assimilated within the growing Castilian Christian community. E J. Hernandez, "Language and Cultural Identity: The Mozarabs of Toledo," Boletin Burriel, I (1989), 29-47 sees the abandonment of Arabic as occurring rapidly during the twelfth century. The assimilation is also demonstrated by the adoption of a single legal code for mozdrabes and Castilians in place of the separate codes which were established at the time of the conquest; Rivera Recia, La iglesia de Toledo, I, 49; Gautier Dalch6, Historia urbana de Ledn y Castilla, 203.

61. Jimenez de Rada, Historia de rebus Hispaniae, IX, xiii. There appears to have been little royal interest in building a new cathedral in Toledo prior to the accession of Fernando III in 1217. In 1173 Alfonso VIII donated some ovens for the making of bricks and tiles to the cathedral workshop. On this donation, see Rivera Recia, La iglesia de Toledo, II, 17-19.

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