Tribute to the One Hundred Virgins
The Tribute of the One Hundred Virgins ( Spanish : El tributo de las cien doncellas ) is a medieval Spanish legend . Its content is fictitious, but culturally and historically significant.
Legend
The virgin tribute is said to have been introduced as a sign of the submission of the Christian Kingdom of Asturias to the Emirate of Córdoba in the last decades of the 8th century and paid for some time. Legend has it that the Asturian king Mauregato ascended the Asturian throne with the help of the Emir Abd ar-Rahmans I and, in gratitude, undertook to give the Muslims one hundred Christian virgins every year. Later, the Counts Arias and Oveco rebelled against King Mauregato and killed him in revenge for the conclusion of the tribute treaty. His successor, King Bermudo I, tried unsuccessfully to replace the tribute with a cash payment. On Bermudo followed Alfonso II , who refused to pay any tribute and defeated the Moors in the Battle of Lodos , which led to the suspension of the tribute.
Abd ar-Rahman II is said to have demanded the tribute of the one hundred virgins from Ramiro I (842-850) again later . However, this refused the request and defeated the Muslims in the Battle of Clavijo . According to another legend, the lords of Simancas are said to have handed over their share to the seven virgins with their hands cut off, which then led to the war and the Moorish defeat at Clavijo.
Historical background
Under the kings Aurelio (768–774), Silo (774–783) and Mauregato (783–788) peace reigned between Asturias and the emirate; under Alfonso II (791-842) the fighting with the Moors began again as part of the Reconquista . In the 12th century in Santiago de Compostela a certificate allegedly issued by Ramiro I in 844, the Privilegio de los Votos , was forged; there for the first time - without naming Mauregato - one hundred virgins "of outstanding beauty" are mentioned, fifty from the nobility and fifty from the people, who were supposedly handed over to the Moors annually, whereby peace was bought. This was ordered by “lazy”, “lazy” Christian rulers in order to evade their duty to fight against the Muslims.
In the 13th century, chroniclers Lucas von Tui and Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada took this claim and reported it as a fact. Both named Mauregato as the one who gave virgins to the Muslims; Lucas started this practice under Aurelio. In the second half of the 13th century, this material was processed in the Poema de Fernán González . There is talk of a hundred virgins. Apparently the legend came from circles that disapproved of the interruption of the fighting by a two-decade long period of peace, accused the peace policy of unfair motives, interpreted it as submission to the emirate and as a disgrace for the Christians. However, the Asturian sources of the 9th and 10th centuries report neither such submission nor tribute payments.
Aftermath
The Spanish composer Francisco Asenjo Barbieri dedicated the comic-burlesque operetta "El tributo de las cien doncellas", which premiered in Madrid in 1872.
In her novel La Visigoda , published in Spanish in 2006 , the Spanish writer Isabel San Sebastián processed the legend in literary terms .
Every year on August 1st, a spectacle in memory of this legend is staged in Simancas.
literature
- Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz: Orígenes de la nación española. Estudios críticos sobre la historia del Reino de Asturias . Instituto de Estudios Asturianos, Oviedo (Spain) 1974, ISBN 84-00-04031-7 , Vol. 2, pp. 353-3365: Historia y leyenda . (Collection of articles; Spanish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Isabel San Sebastián: La Visigoda . 1st edition, La Esfera de Los Libros, Madrid 2006, ISBN 84-9734-563-0 . (Spanish)
- ↑ Fiestas y tradiciones on the website of the municipality of Simancas (Spanish)