Martyrs of Cordoba

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Under the name of the martyrs of Cordoba 49 people are grouped together, the n. Chr in the years 851-859. Because of the public vilification of Islam and its Prophet and for because of their provocative confession Christianity in Cordoba were executed. The events were documented by the contemporary authors Eulogius of Córdoba and Paulus Alvarus , who paint the picture of a veritable martyrs' movement in their writings . In the absence of independent parallel traditions, however, the assessment of the actual events is controversial.

The sources and their authors

Delivery and edition situation

The two named contemporary authors mainly report on the alleged events. Eulogius of Córdoba wrote three works on the "martyrs": The Documentum martiriale, the Memoriale Sanctorum and the Liber apologeticus sanctorum martyrum . These texts survived in a single manuscript in Oviedo until the 16th century , which Ambrosio Morales used as the basis for his first edition. However, since this editio princeps of 1574 the manuscript has been lost. The printed text shows clear linguistic corrections by humanists , which obviously intervene deeply in the peculiar style of the original text. There are also some letters from Eulogius to recipients in Córdoba, as well as in the Christian-ruled north of the Iberian Peninsula , in which isolated details about the Cordobese events of the 850s are reported.

At the beginning of the 860s, Paulus Alvarus dealt mainly with the "martyrs' movement" in his Indiculus luminosus . This text, too, has only survived in a single medieval manuscript from the 10th or 11th century. The first printing took place in 1753 as part of the España Sagrada des Enrique Flórez . Finally, in the Vita sancti Eulogii , Alvarus reports on the life and martyrdom of his friend Eulogius of Córdoba, who himself was executed in Córdoba in 859 for promoting apostasy by the Muslim authorities.

There is no parallel tradition independent of these central sources. From the contemporary Arabic tradition, the representations of Eulogius and Alvarus cannot be verified. Isolated references in Latin sources to "martyrs of Cordoba", such as As in the translation report of Usuard or in the Vita from the pen Aimons from the first half of the 9th century, prove to be content dependent on the hagiographic writings of Eulogius. The sparse sources from the Franconian Empire only confirm the (limited) effectiveness of cult propaganda about the “martyrs” - but they are unsuitable for reconstructing and examining the historical details of the Cordobese events themselves.

the authors

Eulogius

Eulogius was born in the early 9th century. He came from a distinguished Hispano-Romance family. After his spiritual training by the abbot Speraindeo in the monastery of St. Zoilus, he was ordained first as a deacon and later as a priest by Bishop Recafred of Córdoba . Around 850 he made a trip to the north of the Iberian Peninsula, from which he brought important, previously unknown writings of the church canon of tradition to Cordoba. Eulogius exhorted the Cordobese Christians to openly profess their faith despite their life under Muslim rule. In 851 he and other clergymen were temporarily imprisoned at the behest of the Archbishop of Seville. Presumably this is an early reaction of the emirate to the first cases of provoked martyrdom among Cordobesian Christians, for which the influence of Eulogius and his like-minded people was held responsible.

Eulogius wrote several writings that deal with the martyrs of Cordoba. Numerous letters to contemporaries have also come down to us, giving details of the events. Eulogius began his earliest work, Memoriale Sanctorum , even before he went to prison; he completed it while in prison. In this book he glorifies the executed Christians as martyrs and justifies them as saints . In the dungeon he also wrote his document Documentum Martyriale . He wanted to encourage the virgins Flora and Maria, who were imprisoned with him, in their decision to be martyred. After the "martyrs' movement" flared up again in July 852, the Islamic ruling apparatus began to think about a radical solution to the problem; Eulogius therefore hid temporarily. In 857 he wrote his last work with the title Liber Apologeticus Sanctorum Martyrum .

Eulogius was elected Archbishop of Toledo in 858, but was never able to take office due to the veto of Emir Muhammad I. When he instructed and strengthened a Christian convert from Muslim parents named Leocritia in her new faith and fled with her from Muslim attack, Eulogius was arrested and executed in 859. March 11th is his feast day.

Paul Alvarus

Paulus Alvarus / Albarus was born around 800 and died on November 7, 861 or 862. His ancestry is unclear, but he refers himself to Jewish and Gothic roots. He professed Christianity. Together with his friend and contemporary Eulogius, he was educated by Abbot Speraindeo. In contrast to Eulogius, he did not hold any church office after this training. Two writings from Alvarus have come down to us that contain information about the “martyrs movement”: the Indiculus Luminosus, in which he defended the “martyrs of Cordoba” in 854 and presented Mohammed as the Antichrist , and the Vita Eulogii, in which he describes the life and death of his Freundes, who after his introduction had also become a "martyr", retells. In addition, some letters from him have survived, but they do not refer to the martyr events. Paul Alvarus himself was not a martyr. According to the calendar of Bishop Recemund of Elvira from the year 961, he was venerated as a saint in Christian Andalusia, and his feast fell on November 7th.

Source value

The source value of the writings of Eulogius and Alvarus is judged controversially. A distinction is to be made between the informational value of the reported events in the context of an alleged "martyrs movement" in Córdoba in the 9th century and, on the other hand, the informational value of the sources regarding internal social discourses and conflicts in the Cordobese community of that time.

The source value of the texts for the events in Córdoba has recently been fundamentally questioned several times. Some historians and philologists, such as B. Ann Christys or Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala , judge the "martyrs' movement" as a purely literary fiction of Eulogius: a coherent "movement" never existed, Eulogius had one from unrelated individual cases - the historicity of which can often not be checked - constructed. The fictitious scenario designed in this way is not aimed at a contemporary audience, but rather intends a readership in subsequent generations who are not familiar with the Cordobese conditions.

Such a radical assessment of the source value of the relevant tradition becomes understandable against the background of a long history of research, in which the propagandistic-tendency aspects of the sources were often neglected too carelessly: The reports of Eulogius and Alvarus about the alleged persecution of Christians in the Umayyad city of Cordoba also determined one-sidedly for a long time the scientific assessment of the living conditions of Christians in Al-Andalus .

The letters of Eulogius or the Translatio Georgii show a source value for the discourse within society . Text passages in Eulogius offer indications that the revolt of the radical Christians was also perceived as a movement by the Muslim public, which can be interpreted in this way. The corpses of Peter and Walabonsus were burned - an act that made a future cult of relics around their bones impossible.

Intention and method of the Cordobes authors

Alvarus and Eulogius pursued the goal of their writings to bring together and consolidate the Christian community in Cordoba. They tried to revalue the Christian-Latin culture, to strengthen the faith in the community and thereby to differentiate themselves from Islam, which seemed necessary in view of the strong acculturation tendencies of the Christians to the Muslim rule in Andalus. The authors pursued their concerns through various sub-strategies:

Stylization of new "martyr saints" as integration figures for the Cordobens community

To strengthen the cohesion, Eulogius stylized the executed as martyr saints. The “martyrs” were to serve as identification figures in order to re-establish the Christian community. The authors justify the “martyrs” by describing a downright persecution of Christians based on the ancient pattern by the Muslims. Even if Christians were allowed to continue to belong to their religion, they were still denied a public commitment to their faith, and the mission , an important part of Christianity, could not be undertaken either. Both authors describe massive violent attacks on Christians and the destruction of churches by Muslim authorities.

Contemporary critics, whose positions can be seen indirectly from the texts, objected that the persecution of Christians in ancient Rome was not comparable to the situation of Christians in Cordoba, since the commitment to Christianity in Cordoba did not necessarily lead to execution. Alvarus responded to this accusation by emphasizing the voluntary nature of martyrdom. It is only through voluntariness that the profession of faith is fully merited.

Since there is no evidence of a cult around the "new" saints in the Cordobese parish, the two authors seem to have been unsuccessful.

Polemic fight against Islam

Eulogius and Alvarus polemically portray Islam as the trailblazer for the Antichrist and his believers as followers of the devil. They describe Muslims as heretics and Islam as a diabolical sect . Eulogius took over a fictional vita of the Prophet Mohammed in his text, with which he tried to show that he was a false prophet and that Islam was a heresy. Like Alvarus, he emphasizes the errors of Islam, which is oriented towards this world and practices blasphemy . The polemical statements of both authors reveal a relatively good knowledge of the Islamic doctrine of the faith , which, in view of numerous allusions and allusions in the text, was evidently assumed by the intended readership.

Strengthening cultural and religious identity in the face of strong acculturation tendencies among Christians in Cordoba

In his Indiculus Luminosus, Alvarus laments the acculturation of the Christian Cordobese youth to the Arabic culture and language as well as the simultaneous turning away from their own cultural tradition. He sees the behavior of the youth as symptomatic of the decline of Christianity and its culture in Andalusia and warns against the intermingling. The two authors try to stop this change and to differentiate themselves from Islam by using an artistic and sophisticated style in their Latin texts in order to increase the attractiveness of the Christian tradition and to stop the threatening loss of identity. The complicated writing style of the authors and the chosen polemics require a high level of education among the intended readership. According to Igor Pochoshajew, the representations of Eulogius and Alvarus are aimed at the educated Christian upper class and in particular at the leading Cordobese clergy . According to the explicit allegation, this would have failed to strengthen the Christian community in times of Muslim rule.

Explanatory models and access to research

For a long time in the history of research no distinction was made between the motives of the martyrs and those of the authors. This is due to the fact that only Eulogius' and Alvarus' writings have survived for the martyrs' movement in Cordoba. Beyond the religious explanatory models presented by the two authors for the actions of the voluntary “martyrs”, further motives for action have been discussed in recent research since the late 1980s. They consider the "martyr phenomenon" from very different perspectives, although these newer approaches can of course only fall back on the existing sources:

Social psychological: reaction to social, religious and cultural identity crises

Jessica A. Coope sheds light on what is happening in Córdoba, for example, from a socio-psychological perspective; it raises the question of how people reacted to religious, social and cultural identity crises. Here, the general dealings of the Christian population with the problem of the mixing of social, cultural and religious aspects and the reaction of the “martyrs” to the identity diffusion must be taken into account.

From the sources it becomes clear that there were different attitudes of Christians towards the Islamic religion and towards Arab culture and society. On the one hand, there was a group that distinguished between their cultural and their religious identity, i.e. adopted the Arabic language and culture in everyday life, but mostly continued to follow Christian traditions in their private sphere of life. Such a differentiation of identities contained the potential for conflict in different contexts: in mixed-religious families as well as in public functional areas e.g. B. Administration. On the other hand, there were also those Christians who felt threatened by the constant presence of the Islamic religion and its social dominance and who categorically rejected it and the associated way of life. The best-known representatives of this attitude were the "martyrs" and their chroniclers in the 9th century. For them, religious and cultural identity could not be separated. The social pressure to adapt to culture in a Muslim-dominated environment therefore triggered many identity crises. As the example of the “martyrs” shows, many of those affected reacted with an exclusive self-definition of their Christianity and the categorical refusal to make any cultural adjustments, despite the negative social consequences arising from this. The retreat from the world to the monastery offered a possibility, but this was obviously not felt by many "martyrs" as sufficient. The executions provoked by the public abuse of Islam can ultimately be understood as the most radical form of such a refusal to acculturation in order to secure and stabilize a Christian identity.

The history of piety: perfection of penance, self-sanctification through ultimate asceticism and self-renunciation

Kenneth Baxter Wolf looks at events in Córdoba in the 9th century, for example, from the perspective of the history of piety. In this sense, Wolf sees the death of the "martyrs" as a purposeful act - in expectation of salvation - and a radical expression of the physical hostility of these Christians, which must be viewed against the background of contemporary and regionally common penance rituals and ideals. For the “martyrs”, rejecting Islam was just an additional dimension of turning away from their secular environment - a step that often began with retreating into a monastery.

The martyr's death precluded any danger of “ sinning ” again after the cleansing penitentiary had been completed , since one could no longer succumb to the temptations of this world, which in the special case of the Cordobese “martyrs” seemed to emanate from the seemingly threatening Islam. Wolf therefore sees the motives of the “martyrs” on a much more individual level and thus less as a rebellion against Islam than as a safeguarding of one's own soul's salvation, which seemed to be in danger.

Depth psychological / psychopathological: Martyrdom as an auto-aggressive act of suicide in mental crisis situations

Clayton J. Drees interprets the provocations of the execution as a suicidal act. He suspects mental disorders as the cause of this pathological behavior , triggered by permanent feelings of fear , tension and deep aversion to Muslim rule and culture. This unmanageable aggression the "martyrs" would eventually directed against themselves, so Drees argued with reference to modern psychoanalytic theories of suicide ( Freud , Favazza, Menninger). What Drees does not take into account is the religious background of the time, which combined the early church conception of martyrdom with a positive model with exemplary character. The pursuit of martyrdom did not have to be an act of desperation for 9th century Christians, but can be interpreted as the realization of a Christian ideal.

Legal and social history: rebellion against increasing discrimination and social marginalization

Various authors are considering an interpretation of the “martyrs” as an act of socio-political rebellion against the social oppression of the Christian minority in Andalus, as described by Eulogius and Alvarus in their writings. A closer look at the living conditions of Christians in Muslim Spain, however, makes differentiations necessary: ​​In fact, the legal status of the Christian minority in Andalus according to Islamic Dhimma law was marked by deliberate inferiority and social discrimination. These expressed themselves z. B. in increased special taxes ( jizya ), the exclusion of Christians from political power or in restrictions on the public practice of the Christian religion. In individual cases, however, from the sources - especially from the writings of Eulogius and Alvarus - it can be seen again and again that theoretical discriminatory provisions of general minority law were not applied in everyday life in Andalusia. The basic tolerance of Islam towards members of the monotheistic revelation religions, who are granted freedom of worship, speaks against the scenario of a real persecution of Christians drawn by the source authors. The intensification of the repression against Christians by the Muslim authorities in Cordoba was a reaction to the beginnings of the first "martyrs' movement". The particular argument put forward by Eulogius as the destruction of churches and the cleansing of Christians' civil servants cannot have been the original trigger for the "movement". Parallel developments in the Orient, however, suggest a general social climate in which the Islamic authorities, in view of the increasing acculturation of the Christian minority, urged sharper segregation of religious groups.

Reception history and afterlife

The repeated public abuse and subsequent executions weakened the reputation of the Mozarabs. The ecclesiastical-Christian as well as secular-Islamic authorities reacted, among other things, with a Christian council in Seville, initiated by the emir, at which the arrest of the spokesmen, including Eulogius, as well as a prohibition for Christians to seek martyrdom, was decided.

The aftermath of the "Martyrs of Cordoba" and their hagiographs are very small. For Muslim Spain itself, only the so-called calendar of Córdoba in its Latin version probably from the year 961 documents the liturgical veneration of Eulogius, Alvarus and Speraindeo. No other evidence is known here. There is also little evidence of a cult of Cordobese martyrs outside of Andalusia: the relics of three martyrs were still translated to St-Germain-de-Près in the 850s, during which excerpts from the hagiographic writings of Eulogius came to the Franconian Empire . Translation is mentioned in Franconian Passionaries, but it does not seem to have established a permanent cult. 883 were at the instigation of Alfonso III. The bones of Eulogius and the “martyr” Leocritia were transferred from Asturias-León to Oviedo and buried here in the cathedral church.

The apologetic - polemical writings of Eulogius and Alvarus also had hardly any aftereffects. Only one unique manuscript of the Eulogius writings is known from the Middle Ages, but after the text was edited it was still lost in the 16th century. Only a Christian-national-Spanish historiography of the modern age referred increasingly to the martyrs of Cordoba and their chroniclers from the 17th century.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roger Wright: The end of written ladino in Al-Andalus. In: Maribel Fierro, Julio Samsó (eds.): The Formation of Al-Andalus, Part 2: Language, Religion, Culture and the Sciences. London 1998, pp. 19-36.
  2. ^ Igor Pochoshajew: The Martyrs of Cordoba. Christians in 9th Century Muslim Spain. Frankfurt am Main, 2007.
  3. ↑ Jessica A. Coope: The Martyrs of Córdoba. Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion. Lincoln, Nebraska 1995.
  4. ↑ Kenneth Baxter Wolf: Christian martyrs in Muslim Spain. Cambridge Iberian and Latin American studies. History and social theory. Cambridge 1988.
  5. ↑ Clayton J. Drees: Sainthood and Suicide: The Motives of the Martyrs of Cordoba 850-859. In: The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 20 (1990), pp. 59-90.
  6. ^ Eva Lapiedra Gutiérrez: Los mártires de Córdoba y la política anticristiana contemporanea en Oriente. In: Al-Qantara 15 (1994), pp. 453-462.
  7. ↑ Kyrill Scheel: The Martyrs of Cordoba: The fight of Paulus Albarus against Islam. GRIN, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-91287-7 .
  8. ^ Arnold Hottinger : The Moors - Arab Culture in Spain . Fink, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7705-3075-6 . Pp. 63-64.

swell

  • Alvarus of Cordoba: Indiculus luminosus. ed. Juan Gil. In: Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum. Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas: Manuales y anejos de Emerita, 28, vol. II. Madrid 1973, pp. 270-315.
  • Alvarus of Cordoba: Vita Eulogii. ed. Juan Gil. In: Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum. Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas: Manuales y anejos de Emerita, 28. Madrid 1973, 330-343.
  • Eulogius of Córdoba: Memoriale sanctorum sive libri III de martyribus Cordubensibus. ed. Juan Gil. In: Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum. Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas: Manuales y anejos de Emerita, 28, vol. II. Madrid 1973, pp. 363-459.
  • Eulogius of Cordoba: Documentum martyriale. ed. Juan Gil. In: Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum. Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas: Manuales y anejos de Emerita, 28. Madrid 1973, pp. 459-475.
  • Eulogius of Cordoba: Apologeticus sanctorum martyrum. ed. Juan Gil. In: Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum. Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas: Manuales y anejos de Emerita, 28. Madrid 1973, pp. 475-495.
  • Eulogius of Cordoba: Epistolae. ed. Juan Gil. In: Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum. Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas: Manuales y anejos de Emerita, 28. Madrid 1973, pp. 495-503.

literature

  • Ann Christys: St-Germain des Prés, St-Vincent and the Martyrs of Córdoba. In: Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998), pp. 199-217.
  • Ann Christys: Christians in al-Andalus (711-1000). Culture and Civilization in the Middle East. Richmond 2002, pp. 52-79.
  • Edward P. Colbert: The Martyrs of Córdoba. Washington, DC 1962.
  • Jessica A. Coope: The Martyrs of Córdoba. Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion. Lincoln, Nebraska 1995.
  • A. Cutler: The Ninth-Century Spanish Martyrs' Movement and the Origins of Western Christian Missions to the Muslims. In: Muslim World 55 (1965), pp. 321-339.
  • Clayton J. Drees: Sainthood and Suicide: The Motives of the Martyrs of Cordoba 850-859. In: The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 20 (1990), pp. 59-90.
  • Franz Richard Franke: The voluntary martyrs of Cordova and the relationship of the Mozarabs to Islam. According to the writings of Speraindeo, Eulogius and Alvar. In: Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, series 1 13 (1958), pp. 1–170.
  • Eva Lapiedra Gutiérrez: Los mártires de Córdoba y la política anticristiana contemporanea en Oriente. In: Al-Qantara 15 (1994), pp. 453-462.
  • Lucas Francisco Matéo-Seco: Paulo Álvaro de Córdoba. A personaje símbolo de la cultura mozárabe. In: Enrique de la Lama Cereceda (ed.): Dos mil años de evangelización. Los grandes ciclos evangelizadores. XXI Simposio Internacional de la Teología de la Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, ​​3-5 mayo de 2000). Pamplona 2001, pp. 209-234.
  • Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala: Mitografía hagiomartirial. De nuevo sobre los supuestos mártires cordobeses del siglo XI. In: Maribel Fierro (ed.): De muerte violenta. Politica, religious y violencia en al-Andalus. Estudios onomástico-biográficos de al-Andalus, 14th Madrid 2004, pp. 415-450.
  • Igor Pochoshajew: The Martyrs of Cordoba . Christians in 9th Century Muslim Spain. Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-87476-540-4 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • Jesús Miguel Sáez Castán: El movimiento martirial de Córdoba. Notas sobre la bibliografía . Alicante 2008 (accessed September 15, 2009).
  • Carlton M. Sage: Paul Albar of Córdoba: Studies on his Life and Writings. Washington DC 1943.
  • Kyrill Scheel: The Martyrs of Cordoba: The fight of Paulus Albarus against Islam. GRIN, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-91287-7 .
  • Kenneth Baxter Wolf: Christian martyrs in Muslim Spain. Cambridge Iberian and Latin American studies. History and social theory. Cambridge 1988 ( online ).
  • Roger Wright: The end of written ladino in Al-Andalus. In: Maribel Fierro, Julio Samsó (eds.): The Formation of Al-Andalus, Part 2: Language, Religion, Culture and the Sciences. London 1998, pp. 19-36.