The Middle Ages – al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms
Mosques, monastery churches and palaces – for almost eight hundred years Islamic, Christian and Jewish art met on the same peninsula.
After 711 most of the Iberian Peninsula became part of the Islamic world. The region was called al-Andalus. With Córdoba as its capital it became one of Europe’s richest and most learned societies. The Great Mosque of Córdoba, with its forest of columns and striped horseshoe arches, is the period’s most famous building. Craftsmen made splendid ivory caskets, silk textiles and ceramics, and the architecture was full of geometric patterns, plant scrolls and inscriptions.
In the north there were small Christian kingdoms that gradually expanded southwards, in what was later called the Reconquista. There churches were built in the Romanesque style, and along the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela a network of monasteries and churches grew up. In Catalonia church apses were painted with radiant frescoes of Christ in Majesty. From the 13th century Gothic cathedrals were raised at Burgos, Toledo and León on French models, with high vaults and stained-glass windows.
What is most distinctive about Spain is the mixture of cultures. Muslim craftsmen worked for Christian kings, and Jewish communities built synagogues in the Islamic style. Christian art in the Islamic tradition is called Mudéjar. In Granada the Muslim Nasrid dynasty built the Alhambra, one of the most famous palaces in the world. The era ended in 1492, when Isabella and Ferdinand took Granada, the same year the Jews were expelled and Columbus sailed for America.