Al-Andalus 4: Alhambra and Everything After

folks, we're gathered here today to pay respects to Al-Andalus. All good things must come to an end and this is no different. so we trace how it all came apart for Muslim Iberia as the disunified, quarreling Christian states of Iberia began working together and the Christian reconquest effort became a reality. but there's also some rays of sunshine here as we get to talk about the staying power of the Emirate of Granada, Alhambra, the lasting legacy of Al-Andalus, and much more.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, you know, nothing much.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
It's a it's a coffee at four pm kind of day.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
No, no, no, you know, you know how it be,
you know how it is? Ye loving that.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Yeah, they released a new like an Elden Ring spin
off game that I'm not even going to go into
all of it, but basically, like you just do runs.
You do runs in it, and you pick up random weapons,
you fight some bosses, and you keep doing runs. It's
kind of like a roguelike. It's kind of like Fortnite

(00:33):
about a royale type thing, but like it's just so
fucking addicting. But the problem is that every game you
play takes like forty minutes, like oh it does you
have a team of three, you have like this limited area,
like you have to do all this stuff, and so like,
you know, it's one of those things where it's like
you play and you're like, this is so much fun.

(00:54):
This is so much fun. This is so much fun
to having so much fun. But like, you know, if
it's like a eleven or you know, like eleven, yeah, yeah, okay,
well I'll just do one more and then by the
time you're done, it's at least twelve to fifteen. If not.
I mean, you know, it could take a little longer,
and just like anyway, yeah, I'm tired from being.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
A nerd having too much fun.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah pretty much?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
You what, like, look, no one understands the plight of
the nerd, right, Like I'm constantly doing this with like
one more chapter or just or I just need to
get to a stopping point. That's my big one.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Like I'll just my wife loves to My wife will
be like, hey, can we do this thing that we've
talked about doing. Let me get to a stopping point,
and I'll know that that means that I have like
thirty minutes to kill because like she's just like, let
me get to the end of this chapter and like
I'll come back like twenty minutes later. And I'm like, so,
how many chapters you've read since then? Oh? Like three?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Like oh okay, yeah, good god good Yeah, Look like
you know a chapter isn't all sleeping point we all do.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
I mean I literally just said that I do it
with a stupid video game.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah it's true, it's and you know the person who
suffers as me, you know and possibly my charming co host.
But you know, not if I drink enough coffee.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
It'll be fine.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
It'll be fine. They won't even be able to tell.
It's not like I'm on uppers or anything. What do
you guys talk about, Like did you just do coke
for the first time before? It is no, no, I
never don't go never No. Uh you wist start a
band like I think we really do, like a really
great electronica band. It'd be great. You just like I can't,

(02:30):
Like I think I've told the story before, I never
do coke in my life because, uh, this NBA player
Lynn Bias, he was drafted by the Celtics and uh
he died. He died from uh he he did coke
and he had this unknown heart defect. And the story
was like, oh he did like he did this because
uh he the first time he ever did coke, like

(02:52):
it did this to him. And I know it's false.
I know that that's a like Fabrica, like dore fabric,
and that he and that he died not because he
like did coke because but because he has an nownhearted defect.
But every time I've ever been offered, I like terror,
like flop sweating terror, like I can't, like, I cannot

(03:15):
turn my brain off of it. That the first time
I did, like I already did, I'd be like.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Oh my god, like Nancy Reagan's got to you.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
But I'll say, you know, no, I'm I'm not immune.
I am not immune to propaganda. Give me the Garfield thing.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, you know, God, no completely, and like I just
gotta say to you anyway, you're not missing out.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Coke is a drug for boring people so that they
can feel like they're interesting. That's that's what it is.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Like yeah, yeah, you know, to each their own, it's uh,
you know, it's it's whatever you want to do. But like, man,
I I just have no uh.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I mean, it's like endemic to London, like to the
point that like our poor eels are on coke. Uh
so like.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Hey, hey, hey, you want go to Hey hey hey,
oh here's here's a new one over here. Maybe we
go over here here. It's nice, but why are we
all talking to fast all said, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Eels texting me at one on a Tuesday asking if
I want to go to Dalston Superstore things of this nature,
you know, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Hey, have you ever been to have you ever been
to Glastonbury? Like the city, like, uh, the festival, like yeah,
it was like three months ago, like oh yeah, yeah,
I meant to sit You're like wait what like, no, extreme,
have you just been watching uh like Glastonbury videos on YouTube? No? No, no,
no no, hey do you want to come on YouTube

(04:46):
videos to me? Like yeah cool cool? Yeah, anyway, Uh
that's coke chit. This has been coke chat Yeah yeah
they yeah, dare got to be on exactly one thing.
I mean. Also, I'd never do Heroine because terrified and needles,
but that's another thing.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, yeah under any that.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Nope, train spotting was.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Really effective there too, where it's just like I'm good,
like you know, so it was really more the art
around heroin.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
But you know, also, yeah, I'm not doing.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
No needle like I'm the boring drug guy.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Screen name boring.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Dad, you know whatever that's cry don't.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Really standard issue we dad.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah. Yeah, but like I just but like, uh, you know,
I just nothing wrong with that they got there there,
got to mean damn damn propaganda. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah,
what's what's going on with you other than hanging out

(05:55):
with some cooked up eels?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, you know, me and the eels have been big
on it. I don't no man, Like I ruined my
week by like I was doing a shoot with my
my friend and colleague Ben Smoke on Tuesday, and it
was one of these things where they specifically wanted us
to get drunk, and I was like, say no more, fan.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
You know, but unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
For me, I cannot drink all day long anymore, or
at least I thought not so like. I lost a
day yesterday where I just had to like sit on
the couch and eat as much cheese as possible just
to kind of recover yesterday, which isn't great in terms

(06:39):
of productivity.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
We'll just say that, you know. Should I be writing
a book right now?

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
What was I doing?

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Attempting to figure out which white person was which in
the latest season of Love is Blind?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
It was very confusing. I couldn't really tell them.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Apart and also Love is Blind and a hundred percent yo,
I gotta tell you what.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Face blind for these whities?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, Like dude, Like apparently if you're like some white
guy from Minnesota, I've got no chance like there. Yeah,
So I needed something like dull that I could kind
of ignore. So I did that with the cat, who
was delighted because she's like.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh shit, you got the duvet on the couch. What's
up you hung over girl? This is great? You know.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
So so sometime with the cat, didn't really get up
to much but book writing. Hmmm ah, oh, et cetera. Ye,
got a little a little bit of psycond damage there.
But you know, did get drunk in the ruins of
Cistercian Abbey. So that was fun, you know, there you
go drinking on other people's dive.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, we need to do a need to do a
live show at the ruins of Whitby Abbey where we
just sit in there and talk about fifteen fifteen people
make it out because the weather's bad, like you know,
there's no know way, like all the equipment is running
off of like portable batteries. You know.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Like I'm in I love you know.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah that's so cool. Yeah I want to go stand
in the bones of something that is like centuries old.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
It's a good thing. It's a good feeling.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
I like that. It's I'm I'm a big kind of
big guy, and I don't really get to feel small.
It's nice when I just get to be like, yeah,
I'm pretty tiny in significant life. That's interesting. I don't think, like,
I don't think I'm a significant person, but like you know,
grand scheme of things like oh no, oh, oh, what

(08:44):
the fuck happened? Can you still hear me? My monitor
just switch off? You know what, It's fine. We you know,
we've this is well trodden territory. I don't know why
the fuck my monitor just completely switched off. I thought
my I thought my computer had been turned off by accident.
And then I heard you laughing, and I went, did

(09:05):
I imagine that? I was like, I was like, there's
because I thought it was turned off. I was like,
did I just hear like a phantom laugh like? And
then I heard yeah, And then I was like, oh god,
all right, anyway, you know what, let's let's talk about
Let's get into it. Let's talk about the end of

(09:27):
of of old Andy.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Our good friend, our good pal Andy.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, hello, and welcome back to We're Not So Different,

(10:07):
a podcast about how dare got to me about the
len Bias thing, his.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Bastards, how dare you?

Speaker 3 (10:15):
To this day, like, I feel like such a fucking
rube about it. I'm like, like I don't want to
do coke. I just feel like a rube. I'm like,
I know that's fake, Like why am I afraid? You
know what, It's fine, It doesn't matter anyway, Folks, Today
we are here, we here, are here to doff our
caps to the end of all, honngolous. It's the last

(10:36):
of our of our series. But yeah, before we get there,
as we usually do, we have a couple of questions
from our patrons. Uh, do we have any contemporary accounts
of people reacted to exotic travelogues before the advent of
god damn it, of mass travel. If you had one
guy like Oderic of porting On talking about cormorant fishing

(11:01):
and footbinding, biased but broadly correct, and another like John
Mandeville talking about one legged giant's a dog face men
entirely made up but in keeping with classical ideas about
quote unquote the orient would you have any reason to
take one as more or less fantastical than the other.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well, I guess it tends to come down too.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
And what we don't really know about the general public, right,
I mean, we only really get to know about what
monastic audiences say about this. They do a thing where
they privilege eyewitness information higher, and that is certainly the case,
and so for example, we will see this in a
similar thing happen in medical texts. So for example, people

(11:46):
will say, yes, and I've done this and it worked, right,
which in order to talk about particular medicines, because sometimes
they're just writing down some medicine like Hypocrates suggested, you know,
like a millennia ago, and whether or not that works
is kind of like up for grabs. So people do understand,
for example, that Marco Polo's discussions are you know, correct

(12:11):
and accurate, and that tends to get promulgated a little
bit more. And I suppose what we end up seeing
as a result of those is we see the map
of Mundi change, right, So we see that, you know,
when we get more information about places from people, the
maps will change. So they're like, oh yeah, the stuff

(12:32):
like the kind of pods and like the Lemier they've changed.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Location, right, you know, so you know like where they
are kind of like looking a little bit more like India.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
And everyone's like, oh, never mind, I think that they're
up like you know, arc angelsk now you know that,
And I.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Do I do love, like I really love that, Like
they wouldn't just finally be like yeah, those things aren't real,
Like it would always just be oh that they're in
like the new far this way, a place that we
don't really know anything about. So like at first it's
you know, it's like two towns over, and then it's

(13:07):
you know, a principality over, it's in the other kingdom
or you know, on the other side of it, and
by the end it's like, yeah, it's camp Chatka, like
it's up there, like it's next to Alaska, and uh
and in the Korean Peninsula. You're like, wait, what exacts.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
It's very much like, sorry, Mario, our princesses in another castle, right.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
So they got me coffin, You got me coffin.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
It's like one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
So they do know that eyewitness information is more important
and they will privilege that more highly. But they are
also not we'd. They're not willing to let go of
their weird little guys. They love a little a weird
little guy, so they just.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Want to hold on to that. Basically, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
And look, I can't blame him. I'm always uh, I'm
thinking about Yoda quite often because he's just like I'm
not even gonna get into it. But there's like this whole,
like because because of like a few things that happened
in the original movies, Uh, they now go all in
on like having Yoda have these like really goofy ass

(14:13):
faces like in like comics or or animated stuff or whatever,
and like I have an entire group chat that's literally
just like people sitting each other fucked up picts of Yoda,
like just like, like I swear of God, there's one
where they made him look like fucking Samuel L. Jackson,
Like it's concept art or something, but it's like who
why who? Just why? What? What? Why did you? Anyway? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
See, you know like it is a deeply human urge.
It's a deeply human urge to draw a little guy.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
That's it, it is, it is. Yeah, yeah, Sie, thank
you very much for the question. Next one we got
is uh from a web in Sweden is an iqbu Hm.
I just thought how extensive and efficient were sewers in
the Roman era, cause that might be how Antiquity scored
such a propaganda coup over the Middle Ages.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah, so there are really good sewers, very.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Specifically in the city of Rome. But what I mean
by this is that they are extensive.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
They are not effective. Okay, so they're like they're there.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
They are gorgeous, monumental buildings, amazing.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
But yeah, yeah, and they will make it so that.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
A lot of people get to have a private latrine
in their house which the sewers will sweep through. Where
is that emptying? I will tell you it's in the river.
Like disease is still incredibly fucking rampant, right, So what
it is good at doing is clearing waste. It's not

(15:45):
good at clearing it sufficiently so that it's not going to.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Make you sick. And we still see, for example, laws
on the.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Books in Rome that are like, please stop throwing your
chamber pots in the street, like in the same way
that we see them in like medieval in the medieval period,
right where they're like, you can't just fucking do that.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
You know? And if the laws are there, it means
that people are doing it, right, yeah, So and not
everybody gets to have the sewer's like obviously wealthy people do,
poor people don't, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Right, I'm just I'm laughing at myself imagining like a
sovereign citizen or like a magna carta type guy in
Italy who's just like, there's nothing, there's nothing on the
books that says I can't throw shit up my window,
and they're like, no, actually there is, and he's like, damn, damn,
there was no fringe on the flat anyway. That's a

(16:35):
stupid thing, American thing.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
But yeah, yeah, like you know, a lot of the time,
the public latrins are like here's a wooden board where
you and your homie can shit next to each other
and like uh, and that goes into a ditch and
then like the and then water runs.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Through the ditch.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
I love pictures of Roman of like the toilets and
Roman bathhouses because it'll either be like two people stare
at like their life directly. Yeah, we're going to stare
deeply into each other's eyes until this is over. Or
it's like thirty five people in a room sitting next
to each other that are like spread out like kind

(17:14):
of in like a semicircle. But there you're still a
like just like fantastic.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Just letting it rep bibs. So I mean, yeah, like the.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Thing is, it's it's kind of more of a convenience
than a sanitation thing, and that is just what we
have to understand about like essentially the pre Victorian world
is that you're never really gonna get sanitation essentially with it,
because it's just impossible to kind of like move that
much waste perfectly until the advent of modern plumbing. And
that's why I like living now, thank you.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yep. Yeah, I mean, like I think it's possible, you know,
to uh to think about these things in both instances
because they are like conveniences and they did still leave
uh you know, shit everywhere and everything like that. But
at the same time, like these people were doing some
fucking monumental stuff and it's not just Rome, Like I mean,

(18:07):
the aqueducts in Rome are incredible. The sewer systems for
the time, they are incredible. But like a thing to
remember is like, you know, one of the first human
civilizational inventions is like irrigation, Like that's something we've always done.
And like when we talked about Byzantium Constantinople, I mentioned it,

(18:32):
but like they had these cisterns. They're so big that
one of them now houses a sixty thousand person soccer stadium. Yeah,
it's just in an old cistern. That's fucking insane. Do
you know how long it takes to build a soccer
stadium now, And they built something bigger than that, just
a whole water. They had like six or seven of them,

(18:52):
and I mean, like they're in I've talked about I've
talked about ankor Watt and the Khmer Empire there in
the Middle Ages, and they built like basically cisterns that
were fresh water that were so big they were freshwater lakes,
like they were just massive, and they could they could

(19:15):
feed or I'm sorry, they could water uh the cities
for like years and you know, so like these these
monumental things they did are breathtaking and huge and beautiful.
It's just that, yeah, they're not sanity. They're not going
to get you sanitation because they can't. That's not a

(19:36):
possible thing. There aren't enough If even if you were like, okay,
I want to remove all the ship from my city,
how many people and how long would it take to
like get all of that out or to clear out
like the sewer, like you know where the sewer drains
into like it would take that. It would take half
the city working on you know, it's like you just

(19:57):
can't do it.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, and yeah, and fundamentally, it's like it is a
really good sewer system for what it is, but most people,
but it doesn't go.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
To most people's houses. No, nor it's it's like it goes,
it goes.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, I mean like if you're stopped by the coliseum, Yeah,
that is hooked up. Rich people's big ass houses are
hooked up. But like you live in an insula, which
is like an apartment building, and like maybe there's a
luk trene on the ground floor that's hooked up, but
you're not going to go all the way down from
the fifth floor in the middle of the night, So
you use a chamber pot and you dump it on

(20:27):
the street and no one's cleaning the streets, homeboy.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
So yeah, it's yeah, it's uh, it's one of those
things you know that happens with the Roman Empire a lot.
Unfortunately you're like, damn, that's really cool. But then you
also have to take there has to be but I'm
not going to base my life on that or try
to return to it because they built a sewer system

(20:49):
a long time ago, because that is cool, it's fucking amazing,
but like, yeah, it's it's it's revolutionary in terms of
like the ability to build that is not revolutionary in
terms of sanitation or like moving waste.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, completely, and you know it is. It is cool,
it is interesting. It is not something that happens for everybody.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
So yeah, that's yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
We've been Sweden isn't a kivu. Thank you very much
for the question. If you want to ask us questions
like this, please do subscribe to our Patreon, Patreon dot
com such wnstpod. You get all of these episodes ad free,
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Last time we did part four of The de Cameron

(21:34):
and next week we'll be out with the part two
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check that out. Five dollars a month. You can get
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but hey, we love all the people. We love all
the people who are in there, and yeah, I think

(21:56):
that's pretty cool. So yeah, check it out Patreon, slash wi, nistypod.
It's a neat and you'll like it anyway. Yeah, onto
the show. So sometime in the fall of fourteen eighty seven,
CE the whole long history when the seven hundred rule
seven hundred years of Muslim rule in Iberia once again

(22:17):
fell squarely on the shoulders of Abu Abdallah Mohammad the twelfth,
the twenty second Nazared Sultan of the Emirate of Grenada
for the second and final time. Five years before. Mohammad
the twelfth became ruler upon the abdication of his father
and immediately sought to invade Castile to again lost territory,

(22:40):
but was captured and imprisoned during the campaign. Without a leader,
Mohammad's father returned to Alhambra to rule again before dying
a short time later. Upon his death, his uncle, Mohammad
the twelfth's great uncle became the new sultan, becoming the
twenty third Nazared Sultan, but not the last one, and
taking the regnal name Muhammad the thirteenth, just to make

(23:03):
things confusing. However, in fourteen eighty seven, Mohammad the twelfth
was able to reclaim the sultandom from his great uncle
in a coup that saw Alhambra change hands between Muslim
rulers for the last time, and so Mohammed the twelfth
retook the throne, but there was a serious problem. The
Emirateive of Granada was the last holdout Muslim polity in

(23:25):
Iberia and had been since thirteen forty four, occupying a
small rump territory on the far southern coast of modern
day Spain, surrounding Granada, Malaga and al Maria. The kingdoms
of Castile and Aragon had become continental powers in their
own right and were on the cusp of formally unifying,
which would lead to Spain becoming the first true global

(23:48):
superpower with the conquest of the Americas. Had he wanted
to continue to fight indefinitely, there's no doubt the Emirate
could have held out for some time, but the writing
was literally on the wall. There was no reverse seeing
these losses in no way for a Muslim state so
far from the levant, there was no way that it
could hope to stand against the weight of history and

(24:09):
the hegemonic forces swirling around Western Europe at the time.
But that's the thing. Mohammed the twelfth didn't want to
hold out and hope for a miracle. Quite the opposite.
In fact, whatever initial opposition he showed in his first
Revenis campaign as Sultan against the Christian push further south
into Iberia when he initially took the throne. The Mohammed

(24:30):
the twelfth who took it back, was a much changed man,
far from the brass streak of Muslim or Vanchism he
showed in his youth. The later Mohammad the twelfth was
a plant in stooge for Queen Isabella of Arragon and
King Ferdinand of Castile. He had been let out of
prison and given the porcess to size power once again,

(24:50):
on condition that he turned Granada into a tributary kingdom
of the Christians. In the truest sense of the term.
He was controlled opposition for Granada's enemies, installed by the
Catholic monarchs to ensure the final act of the reconquista.
Now a full fledged ideological tentative, Catholicism was a formality.
In the end, all the rich cultural, religious, military, scientific

(25:13):
and societal legacy of all Andulus would be brought to
a close, not with the bang of a decisive battle,
with a backroom deal and a faith to complea folks.
The final episode of al Andalous and it's real closing
time hours here for our Moorish protagonist. But we're gonna
sit them out in the style and talk about the final
three centuries of Muslim rule on the peninsula. We'll finish

(25:36):
up by talking about the fall of the al Mooviz,
the Almahad's, the overwhelming Christian push south, and the final
ignominies in in fourteen ninety two. Somehow not the worst
thing that actually happened in forty thirty two. Yeah, and
Columbus was apparently at the Treaty of It doesn't matter.
He was at the Treaty of Granada too, which is for.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Dad in Isabelle are responsible for a lot of shit.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, yeah, true, yeah, yeah, Eleanor.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
This is clearly a story of the decline involve of
al Andelouce. But let's get some context first. For the
entire series, we've been saying that the Christian reconquest was
not a unified effort by numerous kingdoms working under a
common ideology. But what material and political factors began to
change so that it could become a reconquista as it

(26:29):
is sometimes commonly thought of today.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Okay, so one of the big things that happens after
this point in time is we've invented crusading, right, So.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
That's like, yeah, like that that's a problem, right.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
A problem is that there has now become this very
specific thing where there's an idea that Christians go out
and they ethnically cleanse a place, or that they have
the grounds and wherewithal to do that. Now that you know,
this isn't to say that Arsians didn't fight Muslims at

(27:01):
various points time, but like, you know who's fighting who
in Sicily, girl, I don't know, right, Like there's all
sorts of things going on, and you know, sometimes one
group is up and the other one is down and
nobody really knows. But increasingly, over the High Medieval period
and then into the Late Medieval period, we're seeing these

(27:22):
crusades that are called against varying groups of people. So yeah,
it's not just like you know, the first Crusade, which
is the obvious one, which doesn't really lead to very
much directly in terms of the Iberian Peninsula, but stuff like,
for example, the Alpagenzine crusade, that's a lot more like
oh okay, like, yeah, you can go in your own
backyard and you can attempt to muck out certain peoples.

(27:45):
I think certainly the quote unquote success of the Christianization
of the Baltic is in here where it's like, yeah,
we've finally managed to subdue these rebels Estonians, right, and
we've managed to Christianize them. So there's this idea that
it is possible to take over these places. I mean,

(28:07):
definitely in the fifteenth century the Crusades against the Hoosites.
Do they all fail, Yeah, but we are establishing this
particular narrative wherein you go in and do these things.
I think, especially in terms of towards the later medieval period,
when you know this finally happens, and indeed you know

(28:28):
on the Iberian Peninsula. My argument is that when the
Christians take back over, like you're like you're done, like
fourteen ninety two, that is sorry, but that's to me,
that is the early modern.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Period if you're in Iberia at the end.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
And I think that what is happening here and what
really helps the narrative is stuff like the rise of
the Ottomans over in the east.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
So there is a much.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Larger existential threat that these guys think that they are facing.
Because you know, the Turklus in his art constantinoble right
always and so it's like they're like, well, damn, bro,
I'm going to be so real with you, I can't
tell the difference between like a Turk and a Spanish
person if if they are if they are a Muslim

(29:13):
of some description, and so you. When the Automans take
over Constantinople, this gives a bigger rallying point I think
for the people in the Iberian Peninsula to say, okay, like, yeah,
that's it, We're mucking these guys out now, like we're going.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
To get rid of it. Because also they don't understand.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
How how like that society is working, right, Like Muslim
society necessarily is always going to be this melting pot
because of the way religious law works.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
But Christians don't have that same necessity.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
You know, they kind of want they just want a
group of Jewish people over there, you know, to keep for.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
The end times and then other than that, you know whatever.
And I mean, I think.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Also part of this does also have to do with
kind of like the early modern turn things like well, yeah,
and we can also get rid of Jewish people while
we're at it, because we don't even need them to
lend money anymore, because like the cat's out of the
bag there, right, we don't even care. And yes, and
Muslims are not Jewish people, but you know they're like,
I don't know, it's not a Christian, it's this kind

(30:23):
of person who's living here and not eating pork, you know,
So like who's to say what's good or bad? So
I think that there's all these these real structural things
that are changing at the time that really lead to it,
and it's kind of a slow creep. It's easy now
for us to go, yeah, and then this is all
kind of like one progression, but fundamentally we are talking

(30:43):
about like a three hundred year period over which this happens,
so yeah, yeah, And I suppose a thing is to
kind of keep in mind too, from the perspective of the.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Beginning of this.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
You know, it's really easy to kind of talk about
the later period because we've just got better sources and
it's so close to time for us. Is that I
do think that kind of the al Morivid conquest of
Iberia somehow felt more foreign right where you have in
terms of like the Umiads, they are a group who's

(31:15):
been there for quite some time, you know, like no
one by the time you get to the High Medieval
period is like oh yeah, hell yeah, man, I was
a Visigoth, Like, oh no, my beautiful Visigothic culture has
been trammeled upon right where it's a lot easier to
kind of say, oh, well, yeah, you know, there they
are Muslim and I'm Christian, but they sure have been

(31:38):
in you know, Granada for a really long time, like
I don't know, but has until late I always been
like this, you know, that makes a little bit more sense,
Whereas I think there is kind of a feeling about
the al more of its as being a slightly more
other And certainly that's also kind of true if we're
kind of like comparing and contrasting like Umiyad faith practices

(32:01):
and now more of it once, right, because like as
Obians are like, yeah, what's up, I'm drunk, and Christians
are like, well, so true best, like aren't we all?

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Aren't we all?

Speaker 2 (32:09):
But when the al Morbit's come in and they're like
you need to knock all that shit up, Christians are like,
well what the fuck is this?

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Right?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
You know?

Speaker 2 (32:15):
And I think that there is this sort of tendency
to kind of then begin to look at these people
as though they are a little bit more foreign, just
because they're a little bit newer. There's a little bit
of a shift in terms of what the culture is like,
and it is coming a little bit more from Morocco
than it had been doing because it had kind of settled,

(32:37):
hadn't it, And it sort of settled into like being
this particular Iberian thing. And now we've got a new
influx of outside things. And you know, there's nothing wrong
with that. In fact, I would argue that there's a
lot that's really good about that. But it just makes
it easier to tell a story about us versus them.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
And when you have.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
A new influx of people who are coming from over
it's easier to say, yeah, Muslims come from overseas, yeah right,
because you know you've been you've been hanging out in
the story, yes, right, you've been hanging out in Barcelona,
and you've been here.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
The whole time. And now there's like a new kind
of Muslim.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Muslim came from overseas. You're like, you mean the straight
across the Strait of Gibraltar, which you can cross in
like a dinghy, Like.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
You could swim that broke yeah, bro, you could.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, you could swim stop on a rock in the
stop on a rock and then you know, swim again
like yeah, it's yeah, yeah, but you know you're you're
absolutely right, like you know, we're making light of it,
but yeah, that's that's a solid uh propaganda dub that
is still being used today, a version of it anyway,
you know, Oh, it's the other's fault. This is happening

(33:47):
there from overseas or across the border or whatever, you know,
fortress or a fortress America, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah,
so the when when the almore of it's took over
in eleven or I'm sorry, in about about the late

(34:13):
the late eleventh century, they they extended their power over
southern Iberia. But as Eleanor said, they had come from
from the mcgreb from north uh, northwestern Africa, so you
know Marrakesh, Fez, Morocco, and then you know down towards Uh,

(34:34):
towards where the Ghana Empire was and at the time anyway,
and uh, there's gonna be this continuing thing where like
even though Marrakech, Marrakesh and Seville and Cordoba are not
very like far from each other in terms like you

(34:59):
still have to sail across a certain amount of like
you know, of sea to get there, like it's still
like getting there as a problem. And when you've got
like forces pushing down on them from the north, while
you're also trying to like hold on to rule in
your base in Morocco, you're kind of going to start

(35:21):
putting less emphasis on al Andalous and more emphasis on
the mcgreb and that part. And that's going to be
what happens, because you know, the Almrvids they were able
to stop the Christian advance south like they they were
for you know, for a time, but in the early

(35:43):
in the twelfth century, they really start they start to wane.
And that's when once the Almoravids are removed or remove
themselves or fall apart or however you want to say it,
that's the existential nature of this conflict sets in. For

(36:06):
al Andalous. There's no there's no coming back from that,
like given the politics of the time and everything, because
any group that sets up in Morocco in Marrakesh is
again going to be based in there or Fez or
you know, somewhere like that. They're not going to be
based in the comparatively smaller and shrinking you know, Seville,

(36:29):
you know, Granada, et cetera. Yeah, so the yeah, as
I said, the North African power base of the al
Morovitz came under attack and they started to withdraw and
they loosened their grip, and in eleven forty seven they
would officially fall to the Almohad Caliphate and Iberia would

(36:53):
enter another brief Taypha period where they broke into the
small competing states again, and you know, it zoomed kind
of what they had with the old type of period,
but because they've been pushed so far south by this point,
by like eleven forty seven, they controlled land just north

(37:13):
of Sevilla and Cordoba, and that's about it. And it
wasn't like the last type of period. But there were
so many and they were so strong, and they were
so big that when they broke into twenty something states
they could still hold off the Christians and fight amongst themselves.
Now it was a huge problem, and the Alma had

(37:36):
saw that immediately and went over there and tried to
stabilize Iberia. But by that point, the Christians had already
retaken Kuenka, Lisboa which is modern day Lisbon, Tortosa and more.
And you know, it's just if you're ruling, if you're

(37:57):
a Berber kingdom from North Africa, going to have trouble
ruling al andulous, both because it's its own kind of
cultural thing by this point of hundreds of years of
Umid slash quasei Umid rule and yeah, they just your
focus is going to be on home, not Spain.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Think that really this this type of period kind of
really fucks them because uh, you know, the typhos are
always an issue. But essentially, what kind of happens at
this point in time is I think if the various
Taipha kingdoms could have like calmed down and like stopped
fighting each other, they would have stood more of a chance.

(38:38):
But what kind of happens here is you know, again,
because we talk about this in terms of saying, oh,
it's a reconquista and like everyone it was always like
Muslims versus Christians, that simplifies it to this point where
it's like, oh yeah, and then this is just kind
of like this inter civilizational struggle. But if you ask
the Typhos, they were like, oh yo, hey fuck Ganada.
They're like, you know, Zarago says like I fucking hate

(39:00):
those guys, right, So they are constantly fighting each other,
probably more than they are actually fighting Christians, and they
don't have the armies to do that, so they're hiring
Christian mercenaries like Elsie to do it. In order to
pay these mercenaries, their taxes are through the fucking roof, right,
They're like taxing the shit out of their people at

(39:22):
the time, And so there is no concerted Muslim effort
to shore up against the Christians, whereas Christians have a
more nominal story that they're telling about this, where Christians
have and you know, Christians have this kind of guiding
theological principle and story that they're telling about this, and like, yeah, okay,

(39:46):
they also will fight each other, like I mean, they
absolutely will, but they are a little just a bit
more like, yeah, I'm going to press down, I'm looking
for more land that way, whereas the Teipha are hundred
percent under no circumstance is going to say, oh I'm
going to I'm going to treat you better than like

(40:08):
anyone else, because they're just kind of squabbling for what
power people can get. So by the time you have
the al more of its really facing outside pressure, they
don't have anyone else they can go to for help,
you know, the first type of period basically when things
get too hot, they're like, oh, more of it, please help,
And then the Morvids are like, oh, yeah, okay, here
we are.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
But then when you can't do that anymore, where does
that leave you? All Right? So the fractuous.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Nature of it, which is kind of what helped initially,
ends up bringing it down.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
I would argue, Yeah, it's you know, the circumstances they changed,
and they couldn't They just couldn't handle the shift.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
It was.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
It was too much the forces aligned against them, even
know those forces themselves fought were just too powerful. And
you're too far from uh, you're too far from from Americash.
You're certainly too fucking far from Constantinople and uh Cairo

(41:18):
and bagh Dad. So yeah, it's just that's I mean,
it's not inevitable, but like at this point, it kind
of is unless you have some kind of like insane
black Swan event, like you know, I don't know, like
a fucking second Black Death or some shit, I don't know,
but like, yeah, it's just but yeah, I think that's

(41:41):
can't do it. Yeah, That's a.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Good point too, because you know, again, like the fractious
nature of the Muslim kingdoms also means it's like, I'm sorry,
Conceptinople is not coming to help you.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
No, Like they do not care.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
They are one hundred percent do not care about like
what the fuck is going on over in you know,
the Ibery Peninsula. They're not going to show up as
a result of this. You know, there is absolutely no
way bag Dad cares. They like maybe Egypt does, like
maybe like maybe Tunisia does.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Could be, but you know, they've they've got their own
issues and they're and they're fighting, and they're all fighting
with each other.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Right, So these are not these are not people who
see themselves as being part of like a contiguous world
that needs to justify itself in opposition to Christendom. They
don't have that same umbrella story that they're telling, whereas
you certainly do get that out of like a Barcelona

(42:38):
and Astorias and places like that. You know, they they're
they're able to tell like a more convincing story about
what is supposed to be happening, right.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yeah, yeah, And you know it's just you can't you
can't do anything about it. So when the when the
Almoheads took control of Marrakesh and then forty seven, they
did move into southern Iberia, and they did for a
time put another hold onto the Christian push south. They

(43:08):
won a crushing victory against Castile at the Battle of
Alarcos in eleven ninety five, and they even proclaimed a
small bit, a small amount of territory again, but that
would be the last delaying action. Beginning in the thirteenth century,
the Christian push south was unstoppable and something of a

(43:30):
foregone conclusion. As the Almohads when you know it, they
consolidated power in North Africa because they were under attack,
and they pulled resources away from Iberia in the process,
and this led to a large alliance of Christian forces
from Castile, Aragon and Navar went a sweeping victory against

(43:53):
the Almahads in twelve twelve in the Battle of Los
Novas de Tolosa, and this loss was so bad that
the album had completely abandoned al Andolous and they did
it within two decades, and that started the third Typhe period.
Christian games were massive throughout the thirteenth century. They took Valencia, Cordoba, Savilla,

(44:17):
Cadiz and Farrow by twelve sixty two. So that's all
of present day Portugal, almost all the present day Spain,
and by twelve sixty two all that was left was
the Emirate of Granada, and folks, that takes.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Us the best one though.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yeah, it's fun, as I know you love it. It's
fun as hell. The Emirate of Granada, They're a thing
from it starts in twelve thirty two, but state it
hangs on for two hundred and sixty years in spite
of all these changes and everything, eleanor how the hell
did they? How the hell did they they hang on

(44:57):
for that long? Like in spite of all this.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, it's really crazy, actually, and I think that that
is an important thing to say, right because you know again,
you know, we have this tendency to be like, oh
and then the Reconquista and then all this happened. I'm
like Granada, like we're fucking hanging in there for like
longer than America's right, you know, like you like absolutely
get it, you know, and we I mean in Chilaida.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Still existed, has still existed for longer than the United States.
And I don't know, man, you got five we got
five years.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yeah, and I'm just saying, I'm just saying, right, So
I mean basically what ends up happening.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
It's like, you know, they get they get like.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
A good line of sultans going like about over twenty
of them, So that's that's pretty good. Yeah, and this
is when the Nazards build the Alhambra, yeah, which you know,
and thank god they did.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Well we'll talk about a second, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, Like, but basically what they do is they're able
to do a good job of consolidating power in the
region itself, which has been kind of like traditionally Muslim.
There's been a lot more Muslim people and so everyone's
kind of happy to see that. And they are basically
just paying tribute to the varying kingdoms around it, and

(46:19):
the Varian kingdoms around it are like, yeah, sweet, good enough,
don't care, like, do not need to actually take over Granada.
The trade is sort of fine, and they act to
a certain extent as a buffer between the Christian kingdoms
and Morocco. So for the Christian kingdoms, they're like, actually,
it's kind of quite nice to have these people who

(46:40):
that we get on with really well, and we're not
really worried about the Moroccans coming over here and starting
a war with us, because they'd have to go through
Granada first, and then that would.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Be very unseemly.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
So there's a real advantage there. So they play their
hand incredibly well, and they're able to just be like, yeah,
we're your friendly low Muslims that you know, and you
wouldn't want to go all the way to Gibraltar anyway,
because like, who knows what might come out of Morocco next.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Right, Yeah, yeah, And uh, you know, they also did
have a bit of geography on their side because the
south of Spain, much of central and northern Spain is
extremely mountainous, uh to a to a real big degree.
And so you know, fighting fighting a gorilla war in

(47:34):
the mountain, not a gorilla we're fighting a war in
a mountainous area is hard as hell anyway, But like
in the Middle Ages, fucking impossible. Yeah, So we're gonna
talk We're gonna talk about a bit more about the
emirate and their doings just a second. But Eleanor, I've
always loved Alhambra. Uh. I don't remember the first time

(47:57):
I saw it. I don't remember anything like that. But
I do remember loving it. You've been there. Please I'm
coming to you with a cup in hand and I'm
shaking it saying please. A love letter to Alhambra Queen,
a love letter to mate.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
It is just my absolute favorite. It would be in
my list for possibly my favorite medieval building. It's absolutely incredible.
And when I went as some years ago, now I
did this really cool thing which you know, just shout
out if anyone's thinking about going to Granada. The way
to see the Albahambra, in my opinion, is you can

(48:35):
get a ticket that lets you go into the palaces
at night and into the gardens at day so they
light up the inside of the palace. You can see
what it would have looked like at night there, so
you can see all the carvings incredibly well because they're
all kind of like flickering in the light. And then
you can see the gardens in the daytime, which is

(48:56):
what you want to do. But like the water gardens made,
the fountains, like just the size of the Alabera, like
you get into Grenaut, you can see it from everywhere.
You can just like use it as a navigational point.
It's it's absolutely enormous. It's situated on this huge, gorgeous
kind of outcrop that it's so steep and difficult to

(49:16):
like get up.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
And.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
It is just this monumental work. And what it does
a really effective job of doing, is broadcasting the power
of this area and broadcasting that it is a regional
arts center, because like that's what ends up being one
of the most important things of it is it's like
it is a really big center of pottery production. It's

(49:43):
like Mayolica that we talk about. A lot is invented there,
and this is kind of just a standard of like, well,
here's a form of luxury that you bitches are not
going to get anywhere else, and that it becomes incredibly
important just as a kind of touchstone. But the the
thing is poetic as hell. You know, it looks like
something out of a fairy tale. It's absolutely stunning. I

(50:06):
can't say enough good things about it.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
I would kiss it if I could, you know.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yeah, it's yeah, it's just gorgeous. It's so pretty. I
love it. It's I think it was. I think it's
typically said that it was made famous to Western audiences,
or at least Americans, by Washington Irving who was the

(50:34):
writer of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle.
But he wrote something called the Tales of Alhambra, and
that really inspired a lot of people in America to
get really into this cool, red looking building. And yeah,
it's I mean, it's an architectural marvel. It inspired many people,

(50:59):
including m. C Escher who raved about it. It's something
I found out. Apparently there's a lot of mathematical precision
that goes into the specific art designed. It apparently contains
clearly I had I did not know. This apparently contains

(51:19):
all or nearly all of the seventeen mathematically possible wallpaper groups.
Wallpaper groups are mathematical classification of a two dimensional repetitive
pattern based on symmetries in the pattern, which I just
obviously read. It's you know, cool, I like, there's just

(51:40):
so much about it. It's like the water gardens. It
serves as like a It served as like a water
hub and a canal point, where a point where a
lot of canals met to feed and water the area.
Because while as if you've seen pictures of it, Alhambra
is this gorgeous red building surrounded by like a forest

(52:05):
of trees. Of course, a lot of the area is
you know, a bit drier than that and everything, and
it's just it provides water, provides agricultural growth and everything
like that. But yeah, I just wanted to talk about
that before we goes because the emirt of Grenada, it's fun,

(52:26):
we love it. It has characters. But it it wasn't
it wasn't to last eleanor what like. It got to
its apoge at some point in the mid fourteenth century.

(52:46):
But you know what what happened to start the decline
and fall here.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
The consolidation of the Christian kingdoms. Yeah, and I like that.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
That's just fundamentally it, right, So it's it's like playing
Crusader Kings, right, you know, like when when you're playing
Crusader Kings, you consolidate land, and you consolidate land, and
you consolidate land, and then you just like go for
what the next group that you could take over is, right,
And that's what ends up happening, you know, due to
intermarriage in the Christian Kingdoms, we eventually just get left

(53:23):
with Aragon and Castile, right, Like, they all kind of
go into each other and that's how you get Ferdinand
and Isabella.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
They so Ferdinand and Isabella and then get married, and
they consolidate Castile and Aragon, and then the only thing
left is Granada. And they're just not gonna like I mean,
it's like being a dick and not letting everyone quit monopoly,
even you know, like when it's clear that you're gonna win,

(53:53):
they're like, nine.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Oh my god, I don't care anymore, and they're like, nope,
we got to keep doing it, bro.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Yeah, And that's basically it.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
So you get enough power in one place and people
are just going to kind of go for it. And
this is you know, again, really the story of the
early modern period. You know, you have this this consolidation
of power under varying ruling families that means you have
suddenly these huge fucking kingdoms, whereas before there were just
you know, kind of like various smaller states and principalities.

(54:26):
And you know that's how you end up with Habsburgs
and things like that, right, you know, it's you have
these kind of like this. Basically what happens is that
the stories people have been telling for hundreds of years
in order to justify their rule and where it is
that they're at are now like coming true, just in
the same way that the papacy consolidates power very very

(54:48):
slowly by telling stories over and over again in books. Eventually,
you know, eight hundred years later that works, and that's
what happens in Spain, and that's what happens in Europe
more generally. So they go for Granada and they.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
Are able to take it really easily because I'll tell you.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
What, Morocco's not coming up to help. They can't. They've got,
you know, enough troubles of their own. And you know,
the Ottomans are kind of looking at it. They aye it,
but they're like, I don't know, it's just being kind
of cuter to like let the pirates do whatever it
is they wish to do, and like that's an easy
way to score points, right, you know, I don't really
feel like I'm gonna have an ability to send a

(55:29):
bunch of troops all the way over there to Constantinople,
you know, especially not when we're doing things like you
know now we lust in our hearts for Vienna.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
Yeah, so where we're.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Looking at a whole, we're looking at all new range
of places to attack, right, We're not We're not going
for Spain.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's the consolidation was pretty vast, like the
catalog lands. Barcelona had been swallowed up by Aragon a
long time ago. Navarre in the very was now like
a very tiny sliver in the far north of Spain,

(56:03):
and uh, yeah, it's just Leon was there too, but
it was it was losing power basically. It's just they
they consolidate and uh, you know after uh, fernand and
Isabella die they I believe that was when they was
all it was all formally put together. But yeah, it's

(56:24):
just you can't fight that when you don't have a
power base outside of like the tiny thing down there.
They they're Morocco is not helping, Marrakesh is not uh
and the forces in the Christian Kingdoms are allowing them

(56:46):
to paper over their differences in a in a very uh,
in a very telling way, because I mean almost as
soon as this is done, you're going to start having
the Spanish separatist movements, you know, and you're going to
have you you've already a believed Yeah at this point,

(57:08):
you've already had you know, revolts in uh in Cataloonya,
in places like that. So it's just like you know, uh,
how are you how are you going to you know,
how do you how do you fight against that? The
answer is, at that point, you couldn't, you know, there's
probably nothing they could do to stop that.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Yeah, and I don't really think that there is. And fundamentally,
I think it puts paid actually to the idea of
not necessarily the reconquista, you know, which is you know,
a very powerful story, but you know the idea of
the civilizational struggle between Christians and Muslims, because I'm like, well, babe,
if that was true, they would have fought, someone would

(57:47):
have showed up to help, like, you know, like some
Muslims would have been like, oh hey, wait a minute, right,
But it's a really easy and seductive story for Christians
to tell because you know, for None and Isabella are
really good at telling this story.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
You know, they are some of the.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
First to really tell this early modern national story about
like what it means to be Spanish. And they're also
the ones who enforced that, you know, at sword Point.
They're the ones who do the the inquisition and like, yeah,
the church is like yeah, sure, find have fun. But
they're the ones who are like, I don't really like
to torture some people about this, right, I really want

(58:24):
to make this idea of what it means to be
an Iberian Christian enforced on pain of death.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
And you know that is.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Something that they a story that they told really successfully
and it gets repeated by all of the worst people
on earth, like you know Fronco.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Yeah. Yeah, it's I mean, like the story of the
very end is just it is very sad. As I said,
Muhammed the Twelfth retook the throne, but he was just
a puppet. He didn't He's stood by and watched while
they retook Gibraltar, and it's just, you know, I mean,

(59:07):
I don't like, I'm not like, you know, saying like, oh,
you know, he should have like died to you know,
to stop the inevitability or whatever. But it's it's just
really sad. And I mean they signed they did sign
the Treaty of Granada in fourteen ninety one, which is
what I was talking about with with where Columbus was there.

(59:31):
And Muhammed the Twelfth is known in in Europe as
boabdil Is, which is like Tom Bombadil. Yeah. Anyway, he
signs it with them and they relinquished h the Emirate

(59:53):
of Granada in January fourteen ninety two, and that was
that was the end of it. Now, the Tree of Grenada,
you know, it had this long list of rights and things,
guaranteed rights to the Moors, you know, who were what
they called Muslim inhabitants of Spain, including you know, religious toleration,

(01:00:13):
fair treatment as long as they surrendered and didn't fight. Guess. Yeah.
But at the same time they also turned to the
Jewish population in this in the lands and said you
either convert or migrate to North Africa within three years,

(01:00:35):
get the fuck out. And yeah, this basically, probably not surprisingly,
was superseded by the Alhambra Decree in later fourteen ninety two,
which forced all Jews to choose between conversion or immediate expulsion.

(01:00:56):
And of course they did not honor the treaty with
with Muhammad either. Uh. There was a rebellion uh in
a place called the Alpujaras in fourteen ninety nine. And uh,
because they were they were, you know, being the forced

(01:01:17):
conversions were occurring, and uh, you know they said there
were there was stuff told with the pope that they
converted about three thousand Muslims on a single day and
stuff like that. And yeah, after the revolt and al
Puharas was put down, Uh, they just dropped all pretenses

(01:01:37):
and you know, and the converter get the fuck out basically. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Yeah, And like I fundamentally, who was gonna stop them?

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Like that that is the trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
I mean, I I don't I don't fault Muhammad. I
mean I would have signed that thing too. I'd been like, yeah, okay,
well I think we need to we need to save
some lives here.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Just yeah, I mean you're gonna like you're gonna it's
the obliteration of your family, Like you know, you can't.
So like sometimes they're like sometimes like you can have
pride in everything, but like if that means another sixty
seventy eighty thousand people killed, if not more like to
fight this, you know, that's not I don't to me,

(01:02:17):
that's not honor anymore. That's just you like having that
stuff in that right. Yeah, that's a death drive for
you that you're extending to a bunch of other people.
And yeah, but yeah you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Yeah, I agree, And it's like there's there's nothing you
can really do here fundamentally, And you know, it's not
his fault that these Christians are liars, right, you know,
and they will they will go on to tell many
lies too many people overseas and repeat these patterns again
and again, you know, and that and that's colonialism, baby.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
So yeah, yeah, And I mean this is you know,
this is just another in a long line of you know,
crusader ideology. But you know, it is what it is.
This is it goes part and parcel with that. So
eleanor you know, looking back on it, how how should

(01:03:09):
we view there are Because obviously a Christian reconquest happened,
that is undeniable, and and by you know, probably the
twelfth century at the latest it was, it had been
formalized as like a Catholic Christian ideology, So like, how
do we separate that from the recon Christian narrative that

(01:03:32):
we have.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
I think the important thing to consider is that, yes,
there is a consolidation of power under Christians, but there's
been a retrofitting of a narrative about how this is
what Christians were attempting to do back into the medieval past,
when it was actually an early modern project to consolidate

(01:03:56):
power under you know, essentially, one pattern and then also
rishianize everyone, so you know, like there's this one family
who's like, okay, look it's all one place and we're
all Christian and you know, that makes perfect sense. Of course,
why that story gets told over and over again in
the modern period when we start telling the story of
nation states, when we start saying, oh, there are nations,

(01:04:18):
you know, and Spain is very much in the business
of oppressing smaller entities and cultures that wish to secede
from it. Underneath this one conglomeration, you know, like the Basques,
the Catalans, you know, all these varying people's you know,
even the Andalusians. You know, there are violent efforts to

(01:04:41):
keep these people down. And so we need to understand
the Riclonquista as a part of this centralized and Castilian
Spanish desire to oppress the rest of the Iberian Peninsula.
And it's an incredibly easy story to tell because you're right, Luke, Like,
I mean, you are right. Eventually Christians take back over
the entire Iberian Peninsula. But that's not what people were

(01:05:05):
trying to do in you know, like nine eighty six, right,
like they were just attempting to take whatever land they
could like, yeah, they'll tell a convenience.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Story if it's helpful.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
But this is not a consolidated effort on the part
of any Christians. And I mean I think that it
is when it comes to Ferdinand and Isabella, But when
it comes to Ferdinane and Isabella, well we're in the
modern period, so like what are you gonna do?

Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
Right? Yeah, Yeah, It's just like the idea of like
a nation of them forming a nation state is in
a lot of ways a very early modern and modern concept.
And you know, I think you can you can kind
of see this, you know, where they're going to consolidate
everything and try to like blot out kind of the

(01:05:54):
some of the old geographic boundaries and things like that.
And it's just this to me, it's just this, it's
an offshoot of the Crusades, even though I mean, as
we said last time, the siege of Barbastro took place,
was a precursor to the Crusades themselves. But this is
a unified movement as like an ideological tenet is you know,

(01:06:20):
completely downstream of the Crusades. To me, it's the same language,
the same idea, the same ideas, the same concepts, you know,
the same just abhorrent treatment of you know, locals and
people of other religions. I mean like like you know,
I'm not We've talked about the al Morovid's and how

(01:06:42):
they definitely did a lot more repression of Christians of
Jews than their predecessors. But like Ferdinand and Isabella are
like they like, this is Christian. This what they're doing
is what we understand now is Christian nationalism. It is
like attempting to push all people and may all people

(01:07:03):
who are not one type and in this case, one
specific type of Christianity. It pushed them out of Spain
altogether so that you can have your own completely homogeneous society.

(01:07:23):
And that is like, that is what Christian nationalism is today.
That's what they want, That's what they're talking about. It's
the same concept. So it's just like it's this these
sins of the Middle Ages, and I mean they obviously
stretch farther back than that too, but these sins from
the Middle Ages that become catalysts for ideas and philosophies

(01:07:48):
and things. And then when you get to the early
modern period and you get these real advances in political
theory and the ability for a nation state to form
and fucking go across the ocean and populate, genocide and
then populate two continents is like, you know, you can

(01:08:09):
take those crusader ideals and the reconcrease the ideals global
and yeah, and I mean I think we're not I
don't want to harp on this because to be weird
about it, but it's like it is. I think it
is important because like what Ferdinand and Isabella wanted is

(01:08:30):
the same thing that Christian nationalists want today. Like as
a long term goal, it is to put like to
a Christian homogeneous I mean, in this case white society.
They didn't they weren't talking about white people in Spain
in fourteen ninety two, but you could. You know, it's
that is what they want, and you know, it's it's

(01:08:51):
good to know what actually happened. So like if somebody
says that you you know, and could talk to maybe
people who don't know as much. I'm not saying too
like we try to well actually like these reactionary freaks
because they're not gonna listen to that shit, but like
bystanders who don't know like that, you know, not everybody's radicalized,

(01:09:12):
not everybody's class conscious and everything like that. So people
are going to have to learn somehow, and so this
is a good you know, it's helpful to me to
know these things to talk to people, and you know,
it's also helpful to be like, yeah, this wasn't some
this isn't a universal struggle, this isn't some fucking horrific

(01:09:33):
destined thing. It's just people fighting over political material, political
circumstances like within these frameworks, and you know, it's there's
nothing inevitable about it, like it's just a thing. It's
you know, it's it's just a trapping that is used
to explain this as a as propaganda. Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah, there's no difference between the story of the reconquista,
you know, versus you know, the stories early medieval people
are telling you about how they're descended from a sea
monster and that's why they should get to be the
king of France.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
That's just it's yeah, I'm descended. Uh. Yep. There was
a second donation of Constantine where he said me specifically,
I was supposed to be the king even though I
was born five hundred years later. It's still real, damnit.
And it and it's written in my own handwriting in
like early in like an early fringe or whatever. He's like, wait,

(01:10:30):
why is this written in a satan? He spoke Octan,
damn it, Uh shut up.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Yeah, exactly exactly, that's it, baby.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Yeah, So eleanor like, as we leave this, I don't
want to leave it on a down note, because I mean,
this is we all knew where this was going, the
decline and fall of this lovely and vibrant, an interesting
civilization or society. Rather, what is what is the lasting
legacy of al Andolouce to you?

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
What what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
I think that one of the things that is really
testament to how important Andalus was is actually, you know,
most of the good shit that happens in the medieval
period is really helped along by al Envaluce. So you know,
the wonderful things like cultural and philosophical debate and the

(01:11:22):
way that texts flow through Europe, it's all down to
Aln deLuce and the fact that they have this really
rich and multicultural society wherein ideas are constantly being shared
and texts are being copied and things are moving back
and forth. So I think the intellectual legacy is absolutely huge.
It cannot be understated. You know, any medical advancement that

(01:11:45):
happens in this period is basically down to Alan deLuce.
And then I think also we can really say that,
like architecturally and artistically they've made a real impact on
the Spanish Psyche.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
And certainly if you go to Andalucia now you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Really see that this is this particularly beautiful place and
it's got a real echo, you know there there is
a cultural impact that they have had that is still ongoing,
and you know, despite the best efforts of a lot
of people to expunge it, the fact of the matter
is they are culturally incredibly significant and it was one

(01:12:25):
of the most important places in the fucking world in
the medieval period. And there's no erasing that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Baby.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
Yeah, it's I mean, like if you if you're looking
for something specific, it is a Copernicus thinked a bunch
of these astronomers in their revolutionis as i'd said, as
I said, and like I mean the Avaros and Albertrji
excuse me, Albertruji. Uh, these guys are uh the shoulders

(01:12:58):
the giants that at Copernicus and Galileo and Newton and
Kepler and everyone after them were standing on They were
some of them, because you know, they had to get there.
And Copernicus is very open about like how Muslim astrology
and specifically al Ondolous provided the like theoretical scientific basis

(01:13:22):
for what he was doing. Even you know, they didn't
they weren't able to quite figure it out because they
didn't have the telescopic advancements. They didn't you know, they
didn't have all of this stuff. But when we finally
get that stuff, you get you know, these guys standing
on it. And that's the basis for our cosmology today,
the Earth circle, the Earth orbiting the Sun and gravity

(01:13:44):
and all that shit, and it's just yeah, it's art
and culture and meaning and I mean it is proof
that like these people all lived together, Jews and Christians
and Muslims, and I mean they fought sometimes, but seven
one hundred and seven fucking seven hundred and eighty one years,

(01:14:04):
and you know, for most of that they were living
pretty peacefully. They had to pay attack on it, but
they would have had to pay attack anyway, you know.
I mean, like, so if they can do it for
that long in the Middle Ages, why can't we do
it now? I'm not like it sounds trite or pat
or whatever, but like, seriously, why why can't they just

(01:14:24):
like they can't we do that shit.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
They're suppressing al the al andolous and the history so
that people won't know that actually you could just chill
the fuck out and eat some dates they don't want.

Speaker 3 (01:14:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can have some hamone or not
if you don't if you don't eat pork. You know,
it's like whatever, you can have some hamon or some
fuck I'm drawing a blink on Native Spanish all I
can think of, fucking like, No, folks, it's a rich culture.

(01:14:59):
It's a rich Tavish And we're glad you took this
ride with us. Well we'll be back next time to
talk about something a little different. And yeah, we are
glad you tuned in, and I hope you learned a lot.
Eleanor which guy going on?

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
I forgot to say last week because I didn't realize
how quickly these motherfuckers turned it around. And I was
on trash Future if you want to check me out
chatting with the homies there. But otherwise, you know the deal,
your girls on the socials at Going Medieval, I got
a bunch of stuff upcoming, so watch the space.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much same here. You found me,
Lucas amazing if you want to hear me, continue to
go gradually insane, and you can find my old shit,
A People's History of the Old Republic if you want
to hear me talk about Star Wars. But yeah, other
than that, that's going to do it. Thank you very

(01:15:56):
much and we'll see you next time. Bye.