John Hayden, whose blog I highly recommend, left a long and interesting comment on our blog yesterday. Here is an excerpt from the comment that can be found in its entirety here:
Conflict between the Moslem world and the Western world has been ongoing for a thousand years, give or take. It used to be called a conflict between the Moslem and Christian worlds, and some would continue to characterize it as such. However, it is no longer reasonable to characterize the Western world only by Christianity. The hold of western religions on populations has weakened in many places. But the hold of religion seems to have intensified in much of the Moslem world.
Almost from the beginning, Muslims were expansionist, conquering Northern Africa and half of Spain. During the era of the Crusades, Christianity, led by the popes, saw the Muslim world as “Infidels.” Likewise, the Muslim world saw Christians as “Infidels.” Centuries of land and sea battles ensued.
This longstanding battle between east and west has been on hold for a century of more. During that pause, “modernization” has tremendously widened the gulf between the Muslim world and the West, with Turkey sort of caught in the middle. Muslims and Christians have lived side by side in many places. But the breakup of Yugoslavia is instructive. As soon as central government disappeared, ancient enmities between Christians and Muslims turned violent.
Thank you, John! I love long, intelligent, passionate comments like yours. Since you mentioned Spain, I was inspired to write a little comment of my own. If any of my students are reading this, I warn you that you will be bored to death because you’ve heard this a hundred times already.
In 710, the Iberian Peninsula (the part of the world where Spain and Portugal are located today*) was a very sad place. The barbaric tribe of warrior Visigoths had conquered the peninsula and destroyed the great civilization of the Roman Empire that used to be there. These barbarians had no appreciation for the philosophy, art, and culture of the ancient civilizations of Europe. They ravaged the peninsula, enslaved the Jews, demolished the repositories of knowledge, and the wisdom of the Greeks and Romans was lost. The situation in rest of Europe mirrored that on the Iberian Peninsula.
Then, in 711, an enormously more advanced and civilized culture came to the the Iberian Peninsula. Muslims crossed the Straight of Gibraltar and soon conquered almost the entire peninsula. They brought with them the scholarly, artistic, and scientific sophistication that the poor, dumb Visigoths couldn’t even begin to imagine. They built palaces, gardens, repaired the Roman roads, and – most importantly – they brought to Europe the greatest gift our Western Civilization ever received. Muslims brought back the lost knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The Iberian Muslims established the Caliphate of Córdoba which was later destroyed in a civil war and was substituted with a number of smaller Muslim kingdoms called “reinos de taifas.” In all of these Muslim states on the territory of the Iberian Peninsula, Christians and Jews could practice their religions freely, with only few minor restrictions (for instance, the sound of the bells on a Christian church was not allowed to drown out the call of the muezzin and the tallest church was not allowed to be higher than the tallest mosque.) Jews were known to reach highest ranks in the management of some of these Muslim kingdoms. The most famous example of that is Sh’muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid who served as a vizier to the Muslim king Habbus al-Muzaffar.
Now, let’s remember that this was all taking place in the Middle Ages when everybody was constantly at war with each other. Christians kings fought other Christian kings, Muslims battled with other Muslims. Often, Christian leaders would recruit Muslims to fight against other Christians. Then, one Muslim kingdom would turn against a former Christian ally, and they would fight against each other, etc. Everybody had their religion, everybody’s religion was super central to their lives, but somehow, all these folks managed to co-exist quite well together, creating what today is our Western civilization. Crowds of scholars and intellectuals from all over the known world would congregate on the Iberian Peninsula to imbibe the great knowledge of the Western and Eastern civilizations.
* Of course, the words “Muslim Spain” in the post’s title are incorrect. While there were still Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula, there was no Spain. Once Spain started to consolidate around a shared manufactured identity, Muslims (and, of course, Jews) had to be expelled and vilified.
Clarissa's Blog 
The question is then “What the hell happened to reverse the situation?” John’s comment is, after all, not especially inaccurate in reference to the modern world where muslim majority societies have retreated into tradition and stagnation (or worse).
“Colonialism” is not really an answer (or at best an incomplete partial answer).
(nb I have my own theories about what has happened and is happening in the muslim word but I’m interested in what your take is)
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If the question is what brought on the Enlightenment, that’s a very important question but it will need several posts of its own. Short answer: religious wars got too costly and their uselessness became apparent to several people at the same time.
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Please tell me this isn’t really what you tell your students.
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I made a bet with somebody that I would get this exact comment, and here it is. 🙂 Of course, I thought it would take at least a couple more hours, but I do tend to be too optimistic.
I’m trying not to get too annoyed right now but it isn’t working out a whole lot. However, if you are the person who wrote this beautiful post: http://anotherdamnedmedievalist.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/what-being-an-adjunct-isnt-like-and-what-it-is/ , a lot can be forgiven.
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um, thank you?
But could you maybe explain why the question is annoying? It wasn’t entirely clear to me whether these two posts were serious or Swiftian.
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It’s annoying because I’ve already had maybe a dozen medievalists show up on this blog with the exact same comment aimed at starting some weird pissing contest. Curiously, it’s always medievalists. Nobody else ever feels the need.
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It’s not really curious at all. If I have time, I will blog about it, but the short version, IMO, is this:
— One does not simply walk into a Medieval History PhD. The most basic requirements include three languages, a thousand or so years of content knowledge covering Europe, Byzantium, and the Early Islamic World (although after about 800, that tends to be the Islamic world from the Eastern Mediterranean westwards). We are also supposed to have a fair knowledge of major texts from each area (whether religious, political, literary…), an understanding of the transmission of those texts, and specialized skills for reading them. And that’s without the historiography. Most of us have to use four or five languages on a regular basis, and many more specialized interpretive skills. Pretty much only other fields in history where the basic requirements are so broad are Classical and East- or South Asia.
— Representations of the Middle Ages in popular culture and in most K-16 general textbooks range from the just plain wrong to the outdated.
— In general, there is an idea in Anglophone culture that “anybody can be a historian.” This is simply not true. Even for the narrowest of historical specialties, there is a lot of training that goes into learning to think and interpret historical evidence and sources.
— What you’ve written in these last two posts pretty much encompasses everything that can go wrong with regards to the points above. Although some of the things you mention have some basis in evidence, your interpretation … it’s not only not supported by evidence, but it’s just plain wrong and misleading. Most of what you say has been discounted and/or disproved by about the last sixty years of scholarship.
— So it’s not a weird pissing contest. Calling it a pissing contest implies that our academic credentials make us equally qualified to speak as academics on a particular topic. That’s not the case. For example, I read a lot of popular science (and even actual academic science) material, especially in the life sciences. If I wrote up something on basic gene theory or using DNA in archaeological studies and a colleague in biology stopped me and said, “hey, you know, we don’t think that, and probably you should re-think before speaking as an authority, because you’re wrong,” I wouldn’t think it was a pissing contest, because hey — historian? biologist? who probably knows more about biology?
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Sweetie pie, you really don’t want to get into the “my credentials are bigger than your credentials” contest with me. I have been educated by some of the world’s leading medievalists and unlike you, little pumpkin, they didn’t throw these silly little hissy fits about their “training.”
As for working in 4 languages, I was already doing it by the age of 12. It sounds like you see it as some sort of a super big deal but I don’t remember being so pompous about something so mundane even as a child.
Maybe it’s time for you actually to achieve something, and then these childish little outbursts of yours will stop happening.
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You wrote 5 (!) paragraphs about your qualifications and credentials. One paragraph about it and 4 about your views / knowledge on the subject would have been more interesting. I’d read about the Middle Ages from a qualified medievalist happily. 🙂
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For reals? I’m sorry you read it that way. This isn’t about bigger credentials. It’s about having the credentials, period. You may have taken courses with some of the world’s leading medievalists, but what you’ve written here and in the second part don’t demonstrate that you learnt much from them.
Oh well. I at least get to be amused by patronizing comments that are as ill-informed and poorly aimed as the blog posts themselves.
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“Oh well. I at least get to be amused by patronizing comments that are as ill-informed and poorly aimed as the blog posts themselves.”
– I always wonder what is the point of wasting one’s life on writing such weird and meaningless comments that don’t transmit any ideas whatsoever.
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To self-promote one’s own blog. )))))
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Ah! Got it.
Everybody is welcome to participate in the Self-Promotion threads, of course.
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Perhaps if you raised a particular point or two and explained what you think is wrong and why then people might like to read it. Just saying it’s all wrong because… qualifications! isn’t very interesting or enlightening.
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They don’t really mean anything by it. They are just like that. Frustrated medievalists are all like this.
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\\ Perhaps if you raised a particular point or two and explained what you think is wrong and why then people might like to read it.
I actually went to anotherdamnedmedievalist’s blog to check whether she (?) posted her version of the events. (My knowledge about this historical period is zero.)
Btw, to what extent is interpreting history similar to having one’s reading of a novel?
Based on much more recent Jewish history in the Muslim world, what one person may see as “practice their religions freely, with only few minor restrictions”, another may describe as “pogroms from time to time, being 3rd or 4th sort, but a few famous Jews rose to high positions so people said all Jews were rich and had great lives.”
At least, I see people on Internet describing Jewish life in the Middle East just before Israel’s creation as 1st, when it was closer to the 2nd. You can even see this play out regarding today’s Jews in Iran too.
To make clear, Clarissa, I don’t doubt your knowledge. I have asked whether there could be another legitimate reading of the events you described.
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Yes, I’d be interested in reading what you think is incorrect since I am not a medievalist but have an interest in the period. Just knowing how smart you are doesn’t tell me anything about whether the post has incorrect information.
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I think it’s important to differentiate between ‘qualifications’ and ‘qualified’. It isn’t the degree that makes me qualified to speak on the subject, it’s the training and practice that went into getting the qualification, and the work that has taken place since.
More importantly, I was answering a question about why medievalists tend to respond to posts about their fields. I wasn’t answering a question about why the post was wrong.
Short version of the five (!) paragraphs:
Lots of medievalists find it frustrating when something they know from experience is very difficult and nuanced is presented as being very simple and straightforward. They are especially frustrated when the simplified version is offers interpretations that people trained in the field know cannot be supported by the evidence.
Having said that, I did say why at least part of the posts were wrong: in part, they reiterate a narrative that hasn’t been accepted by experts for 20-60 years.
I am planning on blogging a lot in November. For those of you with legitimate (i.e., genuine, non-trollish) questions about the period, please feel welcome to take a look sometime near the end of the first week.
As a teaser, though, the Visigoths were only barbaric because that’s what Romans called people who weren’t Roman. The interpretation of their role in terms of destruction of the Roman empire, and the comment about lack of appreciation for philosophy, art and culture of Rome/antiquity are misleading at best. Was their lack of appreciation of Roman philosophy, etc. the result of being Visigoths? Barbarians? (the meanings and understandings of the word itself is the subject of dozens of scholarly publications, none of which are reflected in the post) or Christians? After all, the Visigothic kings held church councils, a practice that goes back to Constantine, and we have many examples of Romans who denounced Rome’s non-Christian heritage.
With regard to the interpretation question below, historians expect that the interpretation be supported by evidence. Interpretations can differ to some degree, and historical interpretations can change, if the evidence changes (even a text can change, for example, if it turns out to have been written by a different person, or someone shows that the language or handwriting wasn’t correct for the time/place of origin attributed to it a hundred years ago). Understanding how to evaluate and use historical evidence is part of the training I mentioned.
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I thought you at least had something of interest to say after all this bellyaching. But all you have is the boring as dust ultra-PC silliness of “it is wrong to call anybody barbaric because all cultures are equally valuable”?? Seriously?
You probably got your degree at some of those failed schools in California.
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@anotherdamnedmedievalist
Wow, you really wrote the 5(!) paragraphs 🙂 The question of the validity of historical evidence is quite interesting. I have knowledge mainly about proving methods in maths and natural sciences. But history works in a completely different way.
The history of Middle Ages is an obscure haze for me. Once I half-read a book which claimed that a part of it hadn’t even happened. The book was about the phantom time hypothesis by historian Heribert Illig, but it seemed to be a conspiracy theory, so I didn’t finish the book. Or is there perhaps some truth in it? See, that’s my problem with history. One can never know.
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“Lots of medievalists find it frustrating when something they know from experience is very difficult and nuanced is presented as being very simple and straightforward. They are especially frustrated when the simplified version is offers interpretations that people trained in the field know cannot be supported by the evidence.”
I think that’s true of every discipline. Things always seem so simple and straightforward when you haven’t studied them in-depth.
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No, it isn’t true. Most people are perfectly capable of seeing a difference between a blog post and a doctoral dissertation. Feeling frustration because a blog post doesn’t mirror the style of your scholarly writing is a sign of a severely limited intellect.
And the way to see things clearly and straightforwardly is precisely to study them in depth. If you can’t deliver the idea you are working on to any audience within a short period of time, it means you are still in the very early stages of your work. First-year grad students sigh sagely and say, ‘My research is too complex. It will take me 2 years to explain it.’ By their second year they usually get over it
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In my experience the medievalists tend to think the middle ages weren’t as backwards as people think and that the renaissance wasn’t so much more wonderful by contrast.
I’m sure Guy Gavriel Kay makes medievalists indignant.
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I agree that the Renaissance is a myth. But I can discuss the issue without going into a fit of pearl – clutching.
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Medievalists know GGK is writing fantasy and isn’t pretending it is history.
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Of course medievalists know that, just like historians of Tudor times know that Phillipa Gregory is fiction. I’m sure lots of lay people now think Tudor history is all heaving bosoms and incest. I’m wondering how many non-medievalists who come across GGK know that even given the fictional remove. GGK’s fictional history sounds a lot like Clarissa’s version in this post, and those particular novels are less than 20 years old.
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Clarissa’s “version” is yet to be disputed. All we have heard so far is a PC retelling of what I said. There is no disagreement about the facts, only about the tone.
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“Short version of the five (!) paragraphs:”
Well that was agonizing and not very illuminating. Maybe what woud your five paragraph summary of the period in question be?
Bullion cubing for a blog isn’t the same as painstaking academic research and write up but it’s not worthless either and unless you can do it better then maybe complaints that a blog post isn’t refereed journal material are not useful.
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I have to confess, I have no evidence whatsoever proving that the Enlightened thinkers actually scratched their heads, and said, “OK, what the hell was that, again?” There is no bibliography I can offer to support the fact of scratching. We don’t know if they scratched a body part and which body part that was.
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For people who are interested in learning more about Muslim Spain, I recommend the works of the great historian Americo Castro.
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