Hands, Promises and Submission: Loyalty Oaths as Tools of Domination in Medieval Iberia
- Alejandro Peláez Martín Universidad Autónoma de Madrid https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4908-2804
Abstract
Durante la Edad Media, los juramentos constituyeron un importante elemento de comunicación entre gobernantes y élites de la misma confesión y de confesiones diferentes. Eran clave para validar acuerdos y tratados entre diferentes poderes islámicos y cristianos. Además, esta validación se establecía mediante un vocabulario gestual reconocido por ambas partes: el uso de las manos. La primera parte del artículo reúne diferentes argumentos y ejemplos para demostrar la importancia de los gestos con las manos en las prácticas de juramento entre cristianos y musulmanes en el ámbito mediterráneo. A continuación, el foco se pone en el estudio de dos casos concretos de la Iberia medieval. El primero se refiere a los juramentos de fidelidad hechos por varios príncipes cristianos al califa omeya al-Ḥakam II (en 351/962), mientras que el segundo trata de la sumisión del príncipe hūdí Sayf al-Dawla (en 525/1131) y del gobernador almorávide Ibn Gāniya (en 540/1146) a Alfonso VII de León y Castilla. El análisis de estos casos permite establecer dos modelos diferentes de dominación y sumisión imperial, sirviendo en ambos los juramentos de lealtad como instrumentos fundamentales para el establecimiento de relaciones de poder.
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