Making Moor of History

The relevance of history can hardly be underestimated. Still, in wine education, be it in my SWEN 2 text book or various digital or print media, I often wonder why authors bother at all. They usually come up with sentences like ‘The Romans brought the vine grape to [fill in almost any area in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria]. After the collapse of the Roman empire the church took over. Nothing much changed till in the nineteenth century the Phyloxera blah blah blah blah.’ No real harm is done, but one can do without.

In the case of Spain it’s often even worse. Let me cite my textbook: ‘After the Roman era the Islamic Moors invaded the country. The Moors didn’t forbid winegrowing but they did discourage it. After the last Moors in 1492 had left (…).’ (Michel van Tuil, De wijnwereld, 2011, p. 117 [my translation])

And Wijnbloggers says (in my translation): ‘After the fall of Rome, Spain is occupied by the Moors. Under Moorish rule alcohol is forbidden, but may be used in other products (perfume, cosmetics) and winegrowing comes to a halt, until it starts flourishing again in the Middle Ages with the return of Christian culture in Spain.’

This hurts. After the Roman era/fall of Rome? Islamic? Moors? Left? Forbidden? Halt? Middle Ages? Return of Christian culture?

Let me start by saying that in world history there is only one Moor. His name is Othello and he lived and died in Venice. Furthermore, there are a few centuries between not so much the fall as the crumbling down of the Roman empire and the invasion of the Umayyads in 711. In these seemingly chaotic times (Migration Period) Vandals, Suevi and Visigoths settled in Spain. In time the latter two established kingdoms of which the Visigothic kingdom ruled Spain from 507-711. After 711 all of Spain comes under Umayyad control, except for some smaller kingdoms of indomitable Christians that hold out against the Umayyads. This is more or less the status quo for about 300 years. Then the Berber Almoravids are called in to help the Umayyads against Alfonso VII of Castile. After another hundred years, we’re somewhere around 1170 now, the Almohads, a Berber coalition, take over Andalusia. The Reconquista, the Christian ‘recapture’ of Spain that started in the eleventh century, is said to have come to an end in 1260. Still, Granada remained a flourishing Arabic state until 1492.

So much for ‘After the Roman era the Islamic Moors invaded the country’. Let’s now focus on ‘Islamic’.

The Umayyads were Muslims alright, but above all they were Arabs, more interested in Arabic culture than in Islamic religion. In the famous lush gardens of their palaces, far away from pious Mecca, Arab courtiers (and some Jews as well) assembled, passing time with politics, gossip, poetry contests and, yes indeed, wine parties. The Almoravids, Berbers, not Arabs, were less worldly. They, for example, made Abū Hārūn Mūsā, a Jewish poet at the court of Granada, flee the city to northern Spain (there lamenting the loss of his cultural home). The Berber Almohads, who were quite puristic, instituted religious persecutions once they occupied Andalusia.

So was Muslim rule bad for business? Not so much in Umayyad times, but wine parties were surely out of fashion from the mid-eleventh century onwards.

I could go on correcting the two cited texts, but I’m not sure you can bear with me that long. Let me instead finish with a poem by Abū Hārūn Mūsā, also known as Mozes ibn Ezra, when he was still at Granada’s court. The translation is Raymond P. Scheindlin’s (in his Wine, Women, & Death. Medieval Hebrew Poems of the Good Life. Philadelphia 1986, p. 65).

 

Drink up, my friend, and pour for me, that I

May to the cup surrender all my pain.

And if you see me dying, tell the boy,

‘Revive him! Quick! Take up your lute again.’