Codes of Islamic law written by and for Mudejars in late medieval Spain have little to say about dressing in Christian garments, presumably because standard Islamic legal thought, including the Pact of ‘Umar, assumed that the populations in question were living within the Dār al-Islām.103 Only the Breviario sunni, written by the jurist of Yça Gidelli (Īsa ibn Jābir) in Segovia in the middle of the fifteenth century, mentioned the matter, stating that “it is abhorrent to wear clothing in Christian styles [llebar bestidos á la usança de los christianos] for prayer.”104 Unlike standard books of Islamic law, Yça Gidelli wrote this text explicitly for Muslims living under Christian rule. His comment not only rejects Christian clothing in the context of Muslim worship, but it also implies both a recognition that there was something recognizably distinct about Christian styles and the possibility that some Muslims living in Castile might adopt these fashions.
Even within Muslim borders there may have been some degree of similarity between late medieval Muslim and Christian Iberian dress. According to Arabic authors familiar with both Granada and the Maghrib, Muslims in Granada had adopted a number of fashions that were perceived as “Christian.” Both Ibn Sa‘īd (d. 1286) and Ibn al-Khaṭīb (d. 1374) claimed that Naṣrid styles of clothing and weaponry imitated those of their Christian neighbors.105 Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) analyzed this tendency, explaining that “a nation dominated by another, neighboring nation will show a great deal of assimilation and imitation. At this time, this is the case in Spain [al-Andalus]. The Spaniards [Andalusīs] are found to assimilate themselves to the Galician nations [umam al-Jalāliqah] in their dress, their emblems, and most of their customs and conditions.”106 Although many garments typical of Granada, such as the burnūs and the aljuba, were shared with Maghribi fashions, they may well have developed characteristically Iberian variants.107
Yet at the same time that Ibn Khaldūn described the natives of Granada as adopting northern (“Galician”) fashions (and it is noteworthy that he chooses regional rather than religious terminology), a chronicler in Aragon described the traditionally “Moorish” items of clothing worn by ambassadors from the Naṣrid sultan at the coronation of Fernando de Antequera in Zaragoza in 1412 (“todos vestidos con albornoces e capuces e aljuvas moriscas”).108 Perhaps these ambassadors were wearing distinctively regional dress in their diplomatic role on a ceremonial occasion. But it is also possible that the garments this Aragonese author saw as so typically Moorish were the same items that appeared to be inflected by northern fashions from the point of view of the Maghribi observer. Ultimately, the interpretation of style is in the eye of the beholder.
The story of medieval Christian legislation concerning Muslim dress, from the Fourth Lateran Council in the early thirteenth century until the edicts of forced Muslim conversion in the early sixteenth century, makes clear that the issue was never fully resolved. Rulers and churchmen experimented with a number of different strategies relating to hair, clothing, and distinctive signs, but none of these dealt conclusively with the ongoing problem of visual identity. At the Cortes of Madrigal in 1476, just as at the council in 1215, the legal record continued to lament the persistent confusion of Christian and non-Christian appearance.
Although Fernando and Isabel worried about the misidentification of social status, the sexual hazards of ambiguous identity also remained an issue—in line with Innocent III’s original warning. In most respects, Christian law codes were categorical in their condemnation of sexual relations between Christians and non-Christians (even Christian prostitutes were not permitted to accept non-Christian clients, although Muslim prostitutes could sleep with Christians), and some cases that ended up in court rested on excuses of uncertain identity. In 1304 and 1334, a court in Zaragoza heard of two Muslim men who had tried to pass as Christians in order to have sex with a Christian prostitute.109 Another incident came before the bailiff of Valencia in 1359, regarding a Christian prostitute who sometimes dressed as a Christian and sometimes as a Muslim (“nunc in christiano, nunc agarenorum habitu”) depending on her client.110 Her case is an excellent example of the ways in which people may have both understood and manipulated expectations of visual identity. And either way, whether the problem of identity was social or sexual, the basic difficulties remained essentially unchanged. In the later fifteenth century, Christian legislators were still deeply concerned that Muslims looked too much like Christians.
At the same time, visual identity was becoming more complex, as fashions changed and increasing numbers of Christians sometimes chose to wear certain elements of Muslim dress, especially the toca (a turban-like head covering or hat), marlota, and other garments that had long been characteristic of styles in al-Andalus and the Maghrib. This conscious fascination with Moorish fashions (vestidos moriscos) among Spanish Christians, particularly the elite who wore them for festivities and special events (especially the popular juego de cañas), was a trend that appeared in the later Middle Ages and extended well into the sixteenth century. Kings and nobles, such as Enrique IV of Castile and his constable, Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, were known for wearing Moorish garb. A letter sent from the sultan of Granada to Alfonso V of Aragon in 1418 described an accompanying gift of richly adorned garments, included a gilded aljuba, a burnūs, two silk tocas, and a marlota embroidered with gold.111 This Christian delight in “Moorish” clothing has been amply discussed by Carmen Bernis, Barbara Fuchs, and others as a facet of the maurophilia that was so prevalent in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.112 But although late medieval Christian kings, queens, and their courtiers may have enjoyed dressing up in the luxurious and exotic alharemes, almaizares, quiçotes, and albornoces described in their chronicles, inventories, and account books, it is highly unlikely that anybody would actually have mistaken these prominent public figures for Muslims.113 Certainly, there was no sudden legal or clerical outcry denouncing this fashion trend.
Overall, there were very few complaints about Christians being mistaken for Muslims before 1500, although Christians had certainly worn many similar styles, including versions of the toca, aljuba, and almejía, at least since the thirteenth century.114 According to Iñigo López de Mendoza y Quiñones, who was writing in 1514 to object to new ordinances against Muslim clothing and hairstyles, it had been perfectly normal for Christians to dress in vestidos moriscos and to wear their hair in Muslim styles until the middle of the fourteenth century (he dated the change to the accession of Enrique II in 1369).115 It has already been noted that medieval Christians in Spain had long valued Islamic luxury textiles, and these items have been found in church treasures and royal tombs dating back to the twelfth century. Ramon Llull commented favorably on the fact that loose-fitting “Saracen” clothes were cool and healthful.116 Even more ordinary people seem to have appreciated their worth, taking them as booty in war and loot from theft.117
For the most part, the choice of medieval Christians to wear these styles passed without comment, a fact that raises significant questions about how such clothes were perceived, and how they fitted within a broader dialogue about religious visual identity. Even though medieval sources persistently tagged certain styles as “Christian” or “Muslim” (and this tendency has been mirrored by modern scholars), the realities of day-to-day appearance were surely more complex. But it is difficult to see beyond the centuries of complaint about confusion of identity and consequent legislation, to get an idea of why people dressed in certain ways, how they perceived the appearance of themselves and others, and what they intended to look like. On the one hand, there is the ongoing evidence of muddled visual identity; on the other hand, there is the relentless rhetoric (probably reflected to some degree in reality) that there was—or at least it was possible to create—something that was recognized as a “Muslim” or a “Christian” appearance.
One factor here is that many clothing items widely worn by medieval Christians were simply seen as ordinary “Christian” styles, even if they had names clearly derived from Arabic, or were a type of textile or garment known to have been originally created or worn by non-Christians. Some of these