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
Oaths formed an important element of communication between rulers and elites of the same and different faiths during the Middle Ages. They were key to validating agreements and treaties between different Islamic and Christian powers. Moreover, this validation was established by means of a gestural vocabulary recognised by both parties: the use of hands. The first part of the article brings together different arguments and examples to demonstrate the importance of hand gestures to practices of Christian-Muslim oath making across the Mediterranean sphere. Focus is then placed on two specific case studies from Medieval Iberia. The first concerns the oaths of allegiance sworn by several Christian princes to the Umayyad caliph al-Ḥakam II (in 351/962) while the second deals with the submission of the Hūdid prince Sayf al-Dawla (in 525/1131) and the Almoravid governor Ibn Ghāniya (in 540/1146) to Alfonso VII of León and Castile. The analysis of these cases makes it possible to establish two different models of imperial domination and submission, with loyalty oaths serving as fundamental instruments for establishing power relations in both of them.
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