Literacy and the laity in early mediaeval Spain

Abstract

In the early seventeenth century the Morrocan author Al-Maqqarî, looking back on the departed glories of Al-Andalus, recalled that: rich men in Cordova, however illiterate they might be, encouraged letters, rewarded with the greatest munificence writers and poets, and spared neither trouble nor expense in forming large collections of books; so that, independently of the famous library founded by the Khalif Al-hakem [961–76], and which is said by writers worthy of credit to have contained no less than four hundred thousand volumes, there were in the capital many other libraries in the hands of wealthy individuals, where the studious could dive into the fathomless sea of knowledge and bring up its inestimable pearls. Cordova was indeed in the opinion of every author the city in Andalus where most books were to be found, and its inhabitants were renowned for their passion for forming libraries. His words may seem ambivalent. On the one hand he hints that some of these avid collectors may not have been able to read the books they sought so hard to acquire, whilst on the other he implies that the substantial libraries that they formed were accessible to scholars more studious if less rich than themselves. Al-Maqqarî's principal source here would seem to have been the thirteenth-century author Ibn Sa'îd, whose own purposes were both satirical and moralizing. He was criticizing the wealthy collectors who were interested only in the outward show of their books: the rarity value of the works and the fame of their calligraphers. Some modern bibliophiles might find his words uncomfortable.

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