Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (review)

Joseph O'Callaghan's study of the medieval Spanish reconquest serves a dual purpose. First, it updates the now out-of-print English-language surveys by Julian Bishko (1975) and Derek Lomax (1978). Secondly, O'Callaghan enters into an historiographical debate over the religious character of Iberian warfare.

In surveying the history of the reconquest, O'Callaghan begins by tracing the origin of the term itself from the literature of the Asturian kingdom to that of the mid-eleventh century. Chapters Two through Five provide chronological narratives of the Christian-Muslim wars from the mid-eleventh to the mid-thirteenth century. Chapter Nine completes the story to the fall of Granada in 1492 and the establishment of the first Iberian enclaves in northwest Africa. Chapters Six and Seven are particularly outstanding contributions. The former is a more comprehensive description of the royal army—its composition, structure, weapons, and strategies—than found in J. F. Powers' narrower study of municipal militias. The latter is an illuminating look at the financial cost of the conflict and the daunting task of raising funds.

Most of this, however, is almost tangential to the real purpose of the monograph, which is its focus on the reconquest as crusade. O'Callaghan makes two points: (1) the papacy, beginning with Gregory VII, transformed the Muslim wars in Spain into crusades and then supported them with indulgences and financial incentives equivalent to those given to Palestinian crusaders; (2) the kings, warriors, and populace of Christian Iberia embraced the ideology of crusading as a fundamental justification for their participation and support for these wars.

Building upon the work of José Goñi Gaztambide (1958), O'Callaghan makes a compelling case for what he terms the "pluralist" view of crusading, namely, that the Muslim-Christian confrontation extended beyond Palestine to arenas like Iberia. To this end, he provides a thorough account of papal interest and interference in peninsular warfare and demonstrates that it formed part of a wider strategic vision by the papacy. There is a comprehensive narrative of papal proclamations, indulgences, and concessions to secular rulers of ecclesiastical revenues. While the pluralist position may still be resisted by some historians of the Palestinian crusades, it is now generally accepted by hispanists. Among the latter, however, there is broad disagreement over O'Callaghan's second point regarding the political and social acceptance of crusading ideology within medieval Spain. While historians like Julian Bishko, Robert I. Burns, S.J., and Angus MacKay have embraced the notion of crusading, others, such as Thomas N. Bisson, Derek W. Lomax, James F. Powers, and Bernard F. Reilly, comprise a secularist school. This argues that, while kings readily accepted ecclesiastical assistance, the wars themselves were fundamentally about power, territory, and profit.

O'Callaghan seeks to refute the secularist position by citing the words and actions of the medieval actors themselves. Thus, throughout the narrative, he notes when kings and others took the cross, i.e., swore a formal vow of crusading, and invoked religious language as justification of their actions. Innovative is his use of evidence, such as liturgical rites, military banners, the invocation of saints, religious processions, troubadour songs, and art, to demonstrate how pervasive religious sentiments were within the army and society. Finally, he demonstrates the importance of foreigner crusaders who came to Iberia to fight for religious motivations.

The author's assemblage of evidence from such a wide variety of sources is impressive. With this study, it becomes difficult to doubt that a broad array of medieval people viewed the conflict against Muslims in Iberia in religious terms and that these wars were appropriately sanctioned by the papacy as crusades. Because O'Callaghan does not address the parallel material motives also present in the minds of kings and soldiers, however, the debate over the primacy of the religious and the secular will surely continue. This...