A Vanished World: Medieval Spain's Golden Age of Enlightenment (review)

Lowney's contribution to the post-September 11, 2001, debate on interfaith relations takes the form of a popular history of medieval Iberia focusing on the myth of convivencia ("living together," but translated here as "common life") and its relevance in today's world. Américo Castro's famous analysis of the formation of Spanish character through interaction of religious cultures has been embraced rather more wholeheartedly by students of literature than of history, and Lowney is enough of a student of the latter discipline to bring nuanced sensitivity to his delineation of the realities of such a utopia. Despite the sanguine claims of the dust jacket and promotional material accompanying this book, Lowney's text does not simplistically assert that today's world would solve its problems if only it followed the precepts of medieval Iberia. Medieval kings who resisted papal instructions to treat their Jewish and Muslim populations with suspicion and prevent "damnable mixing" of the infidel with Christian populations usually had sound fiscal and judicial reasons for treading a more tolerant path. Kings and municipalities alike were not driven by philosophic ideals of social relations nor by cultural or religious relativism. Lowney reminds us that medieval Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian kingdoms got along because they were neighbors and fellow settlers along a shifting frontier, and what interfaith exchanges resulted took the form of "the pedestrian but rich dialogue of daily life where one learns to accommodate the customs and beliefs of another through myriad quotidian interactions while baking, laundering, buying, selling, sowing, and reaping" (p. 207).

Lowney is a better student of Spanish medieval society than of European medieval history in general: as an undergraduate student of Hispanist Joseph O'Callaghan, he learned his lessons well and accurately, and has good mastery of the relevant bibliography. Unfortunately, when he strays from the Iberian peninsula, he is subject to the errors that usually mar popular histories of the Middle Ages. Few medieval historians refer anymore to the early centuries as the Dark Ages, given the important work accomplished by students of Late Antiquity such as Michael McCormick. The Visigothic period is not considered to be almost three centuries of unrelieved gloom and ignorance. Shame on the publisher and the editors who let slip into print the scenario of ignorant peasants cowering at midnight on December 31, 999, in fear of the coming of the millennium. Otherwise, the work spans Iberian history from the Visigoths to the Catholic Monarchs, providing a felicitous mixing of political, religious, and intellectual history. Particularly well composed are the chapters on Moses Maimonides and Averroes, and the differing cultural perspectives of the Song of Roland and the Poema de mio Cid. After a leisurely look at Alfonso X El Sabio's cultural and legal achievements, the work hurries to a close with the last two chapters speeding through the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to the events of 1492. The pogroms against Jews in Spain's largest and most sophisticated (in modern parlance, multicultural) cities go without explanation as Lowney skips ahead to bring Isabella of Castile and the Inquisition on the scene. Convivencia, however imperfect and for selfish and limited reasons, was replaced first by apartamiento' ("living apart") and then by religious cleansing as Isabella and Fernando offered Jews and Muslims the ultimatum of conversion or exile. Lowney closes by reminding the reader of the potential for history to provide valuable lessons and examples: not schedules of precise behavior to be repeated, but the realization "that he or she journeys through human history accompanied by Jews, Muslims, and Christians" (p. 267) of past ages, their modern counterparts deserving of the charity and justice honored and advocated by the three religions.