Lead books from the Sacromonte

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The lead books of the Sacromonte ( Spanish Plomos del Sacromonte or Libros Plúmbeos ) are lead tablets of syncretistic content that were found in the late 16th century and early 17th century in the Sacromonte district (then called Monte Valparaíso) of Granada . In addition, a parchment found a few years earlier is subsumed under the lead books. In the German-language literature there is also talk of the lead tablets .

Finding the lead books

When the Torre Turpiana, the old minaret of the main mosque of Granada, where the new cathedral was to be built, was demolished on March 18, 1588, a first find was made. In a box with bones was a parchment in Arabic, Latin and Spanish. A few years after the parchment was found, the actual lead books were found on Mount Valparaíso in the grave caves later known as Santas Cuevas ( Holy Caves ). Today there are eighteen documents in total.

Content

The parchments and lead books reflect the erudition of their Muslim authors. In addition to knowing Arabic , Greek and Latin - and of course Spanish as a colloquial language - they are well versed in the Christian legends of the Iberian Peninsula and familiar with Catholic customs such as the cult of relics. Accompanied by " relics ", e.g. B. the " tears of the Virgin Mary " caught in a handkerchief and the bones of saints, they include u. a. a depiction of the martyrdom of the city saint and patron saint of Granada, Saint Caecilius of Illiberis . In addition , the scriptures “ prophesy ” the arrival of the Prophet Muḥammad and Martin Luther as well as their own discovery, with which they want to flatter the Bishop of Granada.

Author's question

Various researchers named the Morisk scholars Alonso del Castillo and Miguel de Luna as candidates for the authorship of the documents . Both worked for the Inquisition and had worked as translators during the Morisk Uprising. Alonso del Castillo came back to Granada only a few months before the first document was found, after cataloging the Arabic scripts in the Escorial for several years and also serving as King Philip II's translator for his correspondence with the Moroccan sultans .
The historian Julio Caro Baroja ascribes those texts that testify to a high level of education of their author to Alonso del Castillo and those that suggest a slightly lower level of education of their author to Miguel de Luna.

meaning

The Abadía del Sacromonte as seen from Cerro del Sol.

Before the lead books were condemned as forgery by the Vatican in 1682 , they were considered the Fifth Gospel in Spain , the mountain Valparaíso was renamed Sacro Monte and a large abbey, the Abadía del Sacromonte , was built over the Santas Cuevas . In 2000, then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger returned the lead books to the Church of Granada. They are an important testimony to the struggle of the Moriscos for their recognition and to remain in a climate of persecution and marginalization, which they sought to achieve through a reconciliation of Christianity and Islam. Because of this strategy and the multilingualism of the documents, established moriscos of the Granadin upper class are seen today as the originators of the lead plates. The fiction of an Arabic-speaking Christian missionary work in Spain made the Cristianos Nuevos (New Christians), whose Christianity was questioned by the Cristianos Viejos (Old Christians), potentially even older Old Christians than the Castilian Old Christians themselves. In addition to their social historical significance, they are interesting sources for linguists from various disciplines, such as Hispanic studies , Arabic studies and language contact research .

various

The Spanish writer Ildefonso Falcones gave the author of the lead books a name and a story in his novel The Pillars of Faith (orig .: La Mano de Fátima , Barcelona 2009).

literature

  • Manuel Barrios Aguilera, Mercedes García-Arenal (ed.): Los plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y Tesoro . Universitat de València; Universidad de Granada; Universidad de Zaragoza, 2006. ISBN 84-370-6464-3 (Valencia); ISBN 84-338-3908-X (Granada); ISBN 84-7733-837-X (Zaragoza). (Biblioteca de estudios moriscos, vol. 1).
  • Julio Caro Baroja: Las falsificaciones de la historia. En relación con la de España . Seix Barral, Barcelona 1992, ISBN 84-322-0663-6 (Biblioteca breve).
  • Julio Caro Baroja: Los Moriscos del Reino de Granada. Ensayo de historica social . 4th edition ISTMO, Madrid 1991, ISBN 84-7090-076-5 (Colección Fundamentos, vol. 50).
  • Thomas D. Kendrick: Saint James in Spain . Methuen, London 1960. Therein pp. 104-115: The Lead Books .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Sjoerd van Koningsveld, Gerard Wiegers: El pergamino de la Torre Turpiana. El documento original y sus primeros intérpretes . In: Manuel Barrios Aguilera, Mercedes García-Arenal (ed.): Los plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y Tesoro . Pp. 113-140.
  2. ^ Rafael Benítez Sánchez-Blanco: De Pablo a Saulo. Traducción, crítica y denuncia de los libros plúmbeos por el P. Ignacio de Las Casas, SJ In: Manuel Barrios Aguilera, Mercedes García-Arenal (ed.): Los plomos del Sacromonte. Invención y Tesoro . Pp. 217-252.
  3. ↑ Ildefonso Falcones: The pillars of faith. Roman ("La Mano de Fátima"). Bertelsmann, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-570-10045-5 (translated by Stefanie Karg).

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