To begin the day, the class discussed some logistical matters, including:
- Questions on the syllabus
- The upcoming map quiz, and what we will need to know (see in class handout)
- A review of Moodle v. Voices
- Everything on Voices is public, accessible to everyone for things such as discussions, class notes, etc.
- Everything on Moodle is private, and will be used for one to one communication for things such as grades.
After going through logistics and general “housekeeping”, the class moved on to the historical questions for the day.
- The Atlantic World and Imperialism
- The goal of this section was to explore The Atlantic World’s experiences with imperialism, focusing on mainly on Spain and Portugal, but Africa to some degree.
- Prior to the Reconquista (where the Catholics re-took Spain from the Muslims), Spain was controlled by the Muslims. The primary source readings we had for today’s class discussed the state of life that that the three main religions in the area (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam).
- It can be seen through the quotes that we discussed in class, such as “A Muslim should not rub down a Jew, nor a Christian [in the baths], neither should he throw out their refuse nor cleanse their lavatories; the Jews and Christians are more suitable for such a job, which is a task for the meanest” (Rules for the Christians from the Early Twelfth Century) that there is a lot of tension between the various religions.
- The question of how to present the time of “Convivencia” was discussed, with the main dilemma being whether we should present the period as a peaceful one, or whether it is only peaceful in comparison to the period of bloodshed and violence that followed, during the Reconquista.
- This was not the first time that the Spain had been conquered and placed under the rule of another empire. The Romans had conquered Spain as well, so Spain had been accustomed to being under foreign rule.
- Isabelle and Ferdinand – the catholic kings, begun the Reconquista, where all the Jews and Muslims were pushed out of Spain.
- Much of the court etiquette at the time was very much like what our preconceptions of 15th century royalty.
- Divine right kingship – belief that God chose the ruler
- Very Hierarchal society
- Pageantry and projecting sophistication
- Tightly defined gender roles
- Non-Catholics were viewed as sub-human
- Ferdinand the Navigator was the Portuguese ruler who pushed for Portugal to be the best at sea-faring.
- Portugal had much of their trade from Africa, which began with just trade and some raiding, but turned into the North Atlantic Slave trade.
- Portugal and Spain were the two main powers of the world at the time. To resolve conflict on the topic of land, Spain and Portugal went to the Pope, and the Pope drew a line in the map to say which gave Portugal most of coastal Africa.
- History Methodology
- Sources – there are two types of sources, Primary and Secondary
- Primary Sources
- Firsthand Account
- Created at the time
- Can come in many forms (image, scripture, photo, texts)
- Secondary sources
- An expert interpretation of the events
Doing more research on the topic, I found plenty of very good sources on some of the ramifications that the Reconquista has had on modern day history, such as this article http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21631427, which describes how Spain has recently invited back the Sephardic Jews back to Spain after 500 years, but the who were also driven out of Spain at the time were not invited back. While I was in class, I was wondering about more of the history of the Muslim population in Spain, which this article discusses http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/spain_1.shtml, I found it very informative. In order to find a better definition of Primary and Secondary sources, I did some more research on the true definitions and found the following page: https://library.ithaca.edu/sp/subjects/primary, which is very good at it.
A few good exam questions coming from today’s lecture would be:
- If viewed in in a vacuum, apart from the Reconquista and Inquisition that happened afterwards, would the Muslim reign in Iberia have been seen as particularly oppressive for its time?
- Is a Primary source always more reliable than a Secondary source?
- Why was being good at seafaring so important to the Portuguese?
