Medieval anti-Saracen imagery still persists in Spanish festivals of Moors and Christians

Evidence

Chronicles written during later crusades devoted much less attention to portrayals of Saracens as idolaters. Nonetheless, the image of the Saracen pagan lives on in the European imagination. Festivals of Moors and Christians take place to this day in small towns throughout contemporary Spain. These festivals commemorate Christian victories over the Moors, or Muslims of North African origin, during the Reconquista. Some of these festivals include reenactments in which locals, dressed up as Moors, conquer a citadel and erect a Mahoma—an effigy of Muhammad—on the walls. Christian troops then attack the citadel and destroy the Mahoma. The reenactment taps into visions of Saracen idolaters from long ago. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 127

Categorization

• QUESTION: Do these festivals still function as contemporary vectors of anti-Muslim sentiment, or as folkloric memory?
• SEED: Article angle: the living afterlife of crusade-era polemics in present-day Spanish public ritual.
• XREF: connects to: Blackness itself, not monstrosity, signified Muslim evil in medieval imagery — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 201; Medieval Saracen monsters were placed geographically at Christian territory’s edges; Medieval depictions of Islam as heresy served to justify violence and resist conversion — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 139 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval Muslim-monster imagery persists today through Gothic horror and Orientalism #expands (0.70)
• A remarkably uniform anti-Saracen ideology persisted through centuries like a catechism #corroborates (0.65)
• Blackness itself, not monstrosity, signified Muslim evil in medieval imagery #qualifies (0.60) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 201
• Historical memory of the Crusades drives Europeans’ anti-Muslim votes and stares #corroborates (0.60)
• Medieval Saracen monsters were placed geographically at Christian territory’s edges #expands (0.55)
• Medieval art and text conflated Jews and Muslims into a single Saracen body #expands (0.55)
• Medieval depictions of Islam as heresy served to justify violence and resist conversion #expands (0.50) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 139
• The term ‘Turk’ replaced ‘Saracen’ and carried ethnic, political, and religious meaning #expands (0.40) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 144