Islamic Objects in Christian Contexts: Relic Translation and Modes of Transfer in Medieval Iberia

Abstract

Many medieval Islamic objects have survived in ecclesiastical contexts in Christian Spain. The majority of these objects are containers of some kind, especially caskets, and textiles, ranging in size from small fragments to enormous wrappings. These objects vary in artistic quality, but they all share a direct association with the relics of saints. Many of these saints were buried in territory under Islamic rule, and on occasions during the tenth and eleventh centuries their relics were translated to the emerging Christian kingdoms of the north. This essay argues that this process offered a means by which Islamic objects transferred into Christian hands and, as such, attempts to move away from thinking of object transfer purely in terms of booty and triumphalism, as has been prevalent in scholarship hitherto.1

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