which has a 73 page introduction and 184 pages of text (18 pages of which are bibliography and index), putting it at a damned near perfect (for my 10-pages-per-diem pace) 239 reading pages.
I was inspired to look into the history of the Moriscos by my last DDR Book, Fernand Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. So I read a Morisco-centric novel--a most excellent one, Matthew Carr's The Devils of Cardona--and still wanted more, and found this. Cautious buyer that I am, I read a preview of it first just to make sure it would be to my liking, and it was. So a-waaaay we go.
Day One (DDRD 978): July 6, 2020
Read to page xx...which only got me a few pages of text (Contents, List of Illustrations, Acknowledgements, Notes to the Reader, Timeline, and then Introduction), and I actually wanted to keep reading. Might could do that, too. In fact, I was thinking...if I finished this book early enough, I'd still have time to fit in Peat and Peat Cutting before Day 1,000. Very exciting. It'd mean that (at ten pages per day) I'd need to get six days free...which isn't really much. Yes, I think it can be easily done. I'll just take my book out and read on Highway 61.
As for today...just a nibble, of course, but there were several things that I thought worthy of mention. First off, I am very happy that this book has actual footnotes. I grew very tired of flipping to the back to look at endnotes over the course of...hell, every book I've read since Copleston's history of philosophy. For the next month or so I can be a one bookmark guy!
Also, in my three text pages for today (so far), there was mention of another book dedicated to the town of Deza...which I thought was pretty amazing, since the town currently has a population of 214, and hasn't had more than 628 in the past fifty years. I suppose it's possible that it was once much more crowded, but...you know. Not that much more. I mean...look at it:
And get this: the book about Deza is a two volume work. So of course I went looking for that. Found it, too...in Spanish. And as a pdf file. (At https://www.academia.edu/4925558/Deza_entre_Castilla_y_Aragón?fbclid=IwAR3T6WAVmPRDei_AZGXOXZDfFylUxAWF-xt37M31w5hpPs-Hc1pORBXeQvo if you feel that you must.) Or maybe that's not the whole thing. I don't know, but since I don't read Spanish, it's a moot point. ANYway, in the course of trying to find that book, I also found another one by Patrick J. O'Banion which looked interesting...but see if you can figure out why I won't be purchasing it:
Yep. And (big surprise) neither the public library nor the U of L library have a copy of that one. Ah, well. Maybe it'll turn up somewhere later on. Assuming I haven't gotten over my Deza fixation in the near future.
And our survey says...I went back for ten more pages today. Turns out I didn't need to spend time Googling around looking for Dezo's population, as Mr. O'Banion did the work for me:
So it actually peaked at 1,600 people from 1590 to 1606
(-ish) ...which is a bit more than I'd guessed...but not so much more that I feel I need to re-evaluate any comments or conclusions I'd drawn.
In fact, a map of the city around this peak time...
...looks pretty much exactly like the modern day picture (reproduced here for your convenience.) So as I said before...kind of surprising that someone wrote a two volume history of the place.
And even though we're still revving up the wheels on this friction car, Mr. O'Banion has already won my heart with this bit of parenthetical snark: "...many Old Christian observers...wondered, not unreasonably, whether forced conversions produced true believers or (despite the sacramental efficacy of the optimal waters) merely secret Jews." (xxviii)
Something else that tickled my funny bone: there's a footnote referring to a book by Michele L. Clouse entitled Medicine, Government, and Public Health in Philip II's Spain. I just love the specificity...and hell, it gets a lot more specific than that. And oh, btw: that book is actually available on Amazon...but it ain't cheap.
So I ended up reading to page xxx today. Already ahead of the game.
Day Two (DDRD 979): July 7, 2020
Read to page xl, but once again I had a hankering for more, so we'll see what comes of that later on today.
In these ten pages, though, I once again found several things which left a pleasing scent in my nostrils. To wit:
In discussing the reconquest of Spain by the Christians (which had been conquered by the Muslims previously), O'Banion notes that conquering the lands "meant conquering the people - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - who lived in them. And while the Christians might view this as liberation, the Jews and Muslims saw it differently." (xxxi) I just love that touch of sarcasm...and, of course, the point that liberation is in the eye of the beholder, which is always an idea worth thinking about.
"One Too Many Mornings" from The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan
Also, there was a footnote reference to an article entitled "They Will Know Our Hearts: Practicing the Art of Dissimulation on the Islamic Periphery" (which appeared in Journal of Early Modern History 20 number 2, 2016, pp. 193-2217) by none other than Mr. Patrick J. O'Banion, and I will have a look about for that.
And here's a thing which I thought sounded parallel to the American Black Experience: "While young children were often kept in the dark about these [Moslem] practices, women played an important role, and once the young reached a certain level of maturity (often in their early teens), they were initiated into the world of crypto-Islam." (xxxiv) That's where I think this book becomes topical, as I have seen or heard (via friends) that to be Black in America means that you have to speak two languages, live on two different levels, all of that. I remember a speaker at one of my in-service sessions saying, "To be White is not having to think about it." The implication being, of course, that if you are Black you have to think about it pretty much all the time. I suppose that's a big part of what draws me to the story of the Moriscos: empathy for people who are not allowed to live on their own terms, who are perceived as a threat because they have not capitulated to the whims of those in power.
Mmm-hmmm.
Oh, one more thing:
This sounds interesting for several reasons...not the least of which is IT'S A PLAY ABOUT SOMEONE FROM DEZA! So I'll have a look for that as well.
See, that's what happens. For me, reading is like fission.
Day Three (DDRD 980): July 8, 2020
Read to the end of the (most excellent) introduction today...with just one more bit of possible fission: The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg (I mean really how could anyone pass that one up?)...and then inertia carried me right on into the Cast of Characters (currently at page liii), which I might have to keep at that for a bit. This goes all the way to page lxxviii, so I don't know that I have that much more reading in me today...especially not of this ilk...but we'll see. The good news from there is that I finally get to the book proper, and I'm pretty excited to read those Spanish Inquisition documents. The bad news is that Patrick J. O'Banion is going to be consigned to a concealed role, and I am really going to miss his voice. Might just have to fission out a bit more and find some of his other books.
Speaking of the Spanish Inquisition (bet you didn't expect that), there were several references to it in the introduction which were kind of surprising...basically saying that the popular notion of it as a torture fest is not accurate. In fact, O'Banion says that torture was pretty much a last resort...and that civil authorities did the putting to death stuff, as that was an admission of failure on the part of the Inquisition. I'm sure that doesn't mean that all reports of abhorrent behavior were concocted, but it does put a different spin on the whole thing, doesn't it?
And as for this Patrick J. O'Banion, according to Amazon, this is his bibliography:
Negotiating Penance: Sacramental Confession and Religious Life in Early Modern Spain (2011)
-The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age Spain (2012)
-This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town
of Deza, 1569-1611 (2017)
-Deza and Its Moriscos: Religion and Community in Early Modern Spain (2020)
That doesn't quite jibe with what's listed on his Curriculum Vitae
(https://lindenwood.academia.edu/PatrickOBanion/CurriculumVitae), though:
-The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age Spain (2012)
-Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Inquisition: Records of Religious Tension in the Town of Deza,
1569-1611 (2017)
-Deza and Its Moriscos: Faith and Community in Early Modern Spain (Scholarly monograph in progress)
So that's kind of interesting. I'm going to suppose that the last two works in both lists just did slight name changes, but it looks like there are a total of four published books Out There somewhere. Problem being that all of the available ones are quite pricey (like $50 and up per)...and not all of them are available. So maybe I won't be able to fission out this time. Of course, I still have some looking around to do, don't I?
P.S. I just checked every one of my usual suspects online bookstores (Better World Books, Thrift Books, Alibiris, AbeBooks, Biblio, Half-Price Books, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, and eBay)...and only one other book was available at all...and I only found one copy of that one that was even close to my price range. So there's that. I did find a very nice essay entitled "Peace and Quiet in Castile: Baptized Muslims, Feudal Lords, and the Royal Expulsion which you can read for free here though. So there's that.
P.P.S. Read another five pages.
Day Four (DDRD 981): July 9, 2020
Read to the end of the Cast of Characters today...to page lxxx. It was okay and even interesting at times, but it was way too much to take in...over 130 people in the cast, many of them with the same or similar names. Also, there wasn't that much information on some of them, and the organization didn't work for me. It was done alphabetically, which meant that at times you'd be reading about a son before you got to the father. I'd much rather that this had been separated into family groups. Or, even better, if this information had been saved until we got to the main text itself, and then parsed out as each of the characters was introduced. So...good effort, but it just didn't work well for me.
BTW, there were many references to punishments for Moriscos who were found to have been practicing Islamic rituals, and I kept seeing seeing that so and so was forced to wear a Sanbenito for years. I did a little looking around, and found that this
Sanbenito by Francisco Goya • Public domain
is a Sanbenito. It kind of looks like a cross between the Papal robes and a Ku Klux Klan outfit, which is not a pleasant thought, but it doesn't seem like it would be all that awful to wear.
And now I'm ready for the main text, and I'm pretty excited about that. If I stick to the ten pages a day plan, I will finish on day 997 or 998...so obviously I'm going to have to push it a bit if I'm going to fit in Peat. I am pretty sure that that won't be a problem, but time (and I, of course) will tell.
Day Five (DDRD 982): July 10, 2020
Read to page 20...and it was not a strain at all. For two reasons: (1) it's pretty fascinating stuff and (2) the pages are far less dense than the Braudel, Buckle, and Copletston stuff. As to the former, it's amazing to me how petty the grievances brought before the Inquisition seem to be (to me). Someone telling on their neighbor for not eating pork, for instance. And I thought that WE lived in a Big Brother-is society. We had nothing on these folks.
ANYway...this "double reading" puts me at 16 more THiMP days...and with 18 days until Day 1000, I only need to gain 4 more days in order to make Peat possible. I think I've got that covered.
Ram on!
Day Six (DDRD 983): July 11, 2020
Woke up way to early...4:30 am...and after sufficient puttering decided to just go ahead and do my DDR. For one thing, because I find this book quite fascinating. Read to page 35, and will probably go back for a bit more. (Putting a dent in those 4 days. Well, 3 1/2 days now, ennit?) The pettiness of what is reported to the Inquisition continues to amaze me. "I saw this man bathing in the river." "I saw this woman cooking a piece of meat." "I looked into the cooking pot while she was in the other room, and there were eggs and meat in it." "He said this." Thus far there have been no "deeds" beyond eating the wrong thing or eating something at the wrong time. But the slightest deviation from what is termed acceptable "Christian" behavior is cause for suspicion. And God help you if you say something that carries even the slightest hint of a question about Christian beliefs. One woman was testified twice for making a comment about "bringing the big God" out of the church when a crucifix was brought out for a ceremony.
And again, there we are, right? We are so quick to chastise people for saying the wrong word, for expressing the wrong thought, that we don't have a moment to listen to what they're actually trying to say. And I think this happens on the left just as much as it does on the right. I am pretty sure that that is not a behavior which Christianity supports. (I seem to remember something about "judge not that ye not be judged....")
Forgot to mention that Jet insisted on joining me for my early morning read.
She is really into history.
Addendum: Got back from a bike ride hot and tired, so I let myself settle in for another 10 pages (to 45) of THiMP. One particularly interesting passage:
Juan Delgado testified that 25 or 26 years ago he was speaking with some people about the Virgin birth. Diego de Anton (one of the some people) said, "Sure, she remained a virgin, and she gave birth through her knee!" (39)
How amazing is that? A guy makes an offhand comment...and 25 years later it's used against him to the Spanish Inquisition. And the text even goes on to say that Diego de Anton was considered to be a good Christian. Sheesh.
I also read all of the post-text material: the Appendices (Glossary of Terms and Discussion Questions), Bibliography, Index of Topics, and Index...pages 157 to 184. So now I have pages 45 to 156 to go...111 pages. Which means that I am now exactly on track to finish this book and Peat on Day 1,000.
And there was much rejoicing.
Although it actually may be slightly difficult not to read more per day, as I am very interested in this book at the moment. We'll see how it goes, I suppose. Details as they happen.
Another Addendum: I don't think I've mentioned how much I like the cover of this book, have I? The painting itself--Tavern Scene with Two Men and a Girl by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
Tavern Scene with Two Men and a Girl by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez * Public Domain
is wonderful enough in and of itself...especially the way the girl is looking at the dude for whom she is pouring a glass of wine...but the addition of the title and sub-title as word balloons...
brings great joy to my heart.
Day Seven (DDRD 984): July 12, 2020
Couldn't keep myself from reading to page 60 today (15 pages) ...and even then I didn't really want to stop. And may indeed find that I have to go back for more in a bit. (There's still a lot of day left aotw.) Here are a few things I found of particular interest:
It's probably just me, but I found the pidgin English at the beginning of footnote 84 to be amusing. Just goes to show that even the University of Toronto Press needs a good proofreader. The humor is amplified by the fact that the footnote is essentially chastising the original document for being phrased in a confusing manner.
Also, exciting news: I finished Section 1, "The Visitation of Licentiate Reynoso (1569)," and started Section 2, "The Confession of Román Ramírez the Younger for the Edict of Grace (1571). I enjoyed Section 1 immensely, but still...33 stories in 48 pages doesn't leave a whole lot of room for detail and development. In section 2 we get 7 pages devoted to one story. Which is one of the reasons it was hard to stop on page 60 today--as I really wanted to finish this story.
Speaking of Román Ramírez's story...whilst reading it, there was a reference to the feast of St. John, and a footnote explaining that
Jacqueline was in my proximity when I read this, so...
Never underestimate the power of the autistic mind.
Day Eight (DDRD 985): July 13, 2020
Read to page 70 and stopped. (Maybe) Which put me into Section 3, "The Visitation of Dr. Arganda (1581)," another series of short testimonies. Apparently this was a follow up Inquisition visit.
Once again the testimonies seem astoundingly trivial to my 21st century ears. In the first one of them, a guy who has not even been summoned walks in and the Inquisitor asks him how he's doing. He responds (and I hope to make this my default answer to any passing inquiries regarding the state of my being), "Reasonably well, except that I had to eat a chicken all alone." There are some follow-up questions, of course, and the guy then talks about how his wife would not eat chicken with him because he had wrung its neck but not slit its throat. Apparently it was a Moslem thing to slit the throat of the animal and drain the blood out before you killed it. I was just amazed that a guy who go so far out of his way to throw his wife under the bus. But I guess I shouldn't be. I mean...I have been married a couple of times, after all.
There was also (not for the first time, but I'm finally getting around to noticing it here) reference to the term "relaxed"--which is the term used when the Inquisition decides to turn an accused person over to the secular authorities...which at least usually means time to be murdered. Interesting that they chose such a gentle term for that, isn't it?
If you've done the crime,
we've got your rear. (We've got your rear!)
Torture is too good to hurry through.
But when it's time to relax, the Inquisition stands clear.
(Year after year.)
If you've done the crime (you did the crime),
your ass is seared.
There was also a reference to the Athanasian creed which was interesting enough for me to look up the Athanasian creed. You can (and perhaps should) read the whole thing here, but the pertinent line for me was this one: "Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood." I mean...whoa. That's kind of heavy, isn't it? Vis-à-vis my reading for today, this involved a guy saying this line and getting into the shit for it, which is kind of funny...since he was quoting the creed. It's kind of like the politician who ended up having to resign because he used the word "niggardly" and people assumed that he was being a racist. We are often at the mercy of the stupidest people in our community, I fear.
ADDENDUM: Yet another in a seemingly unending series of amazing coincidences that profiteth me nothing: I accidentally bumped into a video of Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 80 on Twitter and wanted to let my sister, who doesn't speak Twitter, know about it. So I bounced over to The You Tub thinking it was no doubt there as well, and it was, of course. There I was surprised to see that Patrick Stewart was in the midst of a project to read all of Shake-speare's sonnets, so I found a video of Sonnet 1, figuring if I sent that to Sister K that she could continue on up to the present if she so desired. And while I was there, I listened to Sonnet 1. And check this shit out:
Sonnet I
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
That's right...n i g g a r d i n g .
Coincidence...or something else?
BTW, if Shake-speare were alive today, he'd be apologizing for that one, you can bet.
Day Nine (DDRD 986): July 14, 2020
I was talking to a friend yesterday--on the phone...I've talked to very few people "face to face" in the past four months, and most of those have been more than six feet apart. Let's see...less than six feet with ex-wife #1, Jacqueline and Joe...that's it. Six feet or more apart with ex-wife's wife, Brian (neighbor). That is literally it...other than a word or two with the cashier at Kroger (plastic barrier between us), bagger at Kroger (both masked, at least six feet apart). ANYway...I was talking to this friend, and he asked me about what I was reading, and I talked about This Happened In My Presence for a bit. And it's funny, because I could tell that he was a little bit interested, but that he simultaneously (if this makes sense...because it either doesn't or almost does) wondered why anybody would want to read about a bunch of nobodies. Because history is about People Who Matter. I tried to talk about microhistory...which is a new term to me, so I'm still feeling my way through it...and why that was so fascinating to me...and I could feel his interest dissipate.
So as I was reading my ten pages this morning (to page 80, thank you), I was also thinking about that conversation. (Does your brain do that to you...run on two or more tracks simultaneously? For me when I'm reading, it often slides off the main track and then I have to go back and see where Elvis left the building, but other times I just kind of hum along on both (sometimes more) tracks. I wish that I could stop that from happening, but I think that at my advanced age this is not subject to change.) And a simple but powerful answer came to me: microhistory carries the message that ordinary lives matter. Here's a poor, illiterate peasant who lives in a small town in the north of Spain in the late 16th century...but his life is interesting and what he did matters. Right? I'm sure that part of my fascination with that is the hope that it means that my life matters...which often does not feel true to me.
So there's that.
ANYway...a couple of things I found interesting in today's ten. First, there was a story about a guy who was chastised (and later reported to the Inquisition) for saying, "I swear to God" repeatedly. Ie responded to the chastisement by saying, "I swear to God that I have to swear to God...."
There was a guy named Gerónimo, which I thought was pretty strange.
One of the "crimes" reported in this part was a woman standing at fountain in the town square at midday washing her "private parts."
Another reported crime was a guy saying that Mary couldn't have given birth as a virgin.
Breaking News:
Day Ten (DDRD 987): July 15, 2020
I ended up getting caught up in the proceedings of several of the stories today and read to page 105. So there goes the whole Finish On Day 1,000 thing. I thought about that for a moment, but then decided that that was just kind of silly anyway, and that I was going to read as long as I felt like reading today. So I'm a day and a half up on my schedule.
The aforementioned stories? Well, let's see. The one about the Swear to God I have to Swear to God one; the man who said screwing a prostitute was a venial, not a mortal sin; the woman who washed her private parts at the town square fountain; the people who were carrying around a dead infant's body at night; and a new one: the people who apparently disinterred a corpse and buried it elsewhere. (Evidence being that the original grave collapsed.) More stories about people fasting during the day and eating only at night, too, which has been going on for some time. All in all, it is still pretty stunning in its complete lack of posing any kind of threat to Christianity. And more than that, it seems to me that all of these behaviors easily fall into the category of cultural mores rather than religious beliefs.
But maybe that's just me.
Also, there was a picture of the interior of the parish church in Deza, and it was pretty impressive. I looked around on the internet to see if I could find any public domain pictures, but there is not a whole hell of a lot of information about Deza that I could find...and no pictures of the parish church. So I guess you'll just have to read this book, then.
Day Eleven (DDRD 988): July 16, 2020
Read to page 120...so there's another half of a day gained there. And I've definitely abandoned the Finish A Book On Daily Devotional Reading Day 1,000 idea. In fact, with less than 40 pages to go in this book now, I'm thinking I might just get down to the heart of the matter and finish it off today or tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.
But I am definitely caught up in the multiple narratives of this story. I would really love to make a movie out of this book. Oh, to be young, gifted, and rich. Of course, we now live in a world in which I could probably make this movie on my telephone for a pretty modest budget...but I would need a pretty big cast. And costumes would be vital. So that won't be happening. But still...it could be a really cool movie. Hey, Béla Tarr! How about coming out of retirement for one more go? (Maybe two more if you want to hear my Other Idea.)
P.S. But there was page 121 staring at me with its "The Sentence of Román Ramírez the Younger (1599 - 1600)--a fifteen page section devoted to another part of this one guy's story--so I ended up going back to read most of that (stopped just a few pages short at page 130...because it's really hard to focus on reading when your autistic daughter is watching Wheel of Fortune. (🌎🐒It's a madhouse! 🌎🐒🌎 It's a madhouse!🐒🌎) But there's another "day" evaporated, ennit? The solo story was pretty intense, by the way. We've got devils and deals with them, we've got herbs and potions, we've got healings and lapsed Christians and lapsed Moslems and...well, pretty much everything you could want. Looking forward to finishing this story...maybe even later tonight?
Day Twelve (DDRD 989): July 17, 2020
I couldn't stop myself: finished the book this morning. As if the story of Román Ramírez the Younger wasn't fascinating enough, we went from there to letters from some Dezans who had been imprisoned and some of the details of their sufferings...including many of them being sentenced to rowing in the king's galleys, despite some pretty debilitating injuries. The only thing that I felt was lacking in this book was a Afterword by the editor. I would have liked some sense of greater resolution...big picture kind of thing. Mostly I just wanted Patrick J. O'Banion to say good-bye, I guess. Speaking of, I will mos def be reading more of his books if I can find affordable copies of them. He is a fine writer. I'm thinking about writing him an email just to tell him how much I loved this book. Part of me says that's a stupid thing to do, why on earth would he give a fuck what no name for nowhere has to say about his book. But there's another part of me that says if you love something you should acknowledge it, because there really is a dearth of that on this bitch of an earth.
Hmmmm.
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