It is stated by Ibn-Said, Al-Makkari, Al-Kattib, and Ibn-Khaldun, that the Moors of Granada occasionally adopted Christian clothing, and we know that the Sultan Mohammed, a contemporary of Alfonso the Learned of Castile, was assassinated by Abrahim and Abomet, the sons of Osmin, because he was so clothed, and because he had further violated the precepts of the Koran by eating at Alfonso's table.[10] But as a rule the costume of the Spanish Moors was almost wholly that of orientals. Where they were tolerated in a city under Christian rule, a certain dress was sometimes forced upon them by their subjugators, as by the Ordenamiento (a.d. 1408) of Doña Catalina, issued on behalf of her son, Juan the Second, and which prescribed for the Moorish men a capuz of yellow cloth with a mark upon it in the form of a blue half-moon measuring an inch from point to point, and which was to be worn on the right shoulder. The garments of the women were to be similarly marked, on pain of fifty lashes administered publicly, together with the forfeiture of all such clothes as lacked this necessary and humiliating token.

But where the Spanish Moors were in possession of the soil, their clothes were similar in most respects to those of eastern peoples. Detailed notices of these costumes are furnished us by Ibn-Said and other writers. Fray Pedro de Alcalá explains in his Vocabulary that, among the Granadinos, the use of one garment in particular was limited to royalty, or nobles of high rank. This was the libas (or, in the Granadino dialect, libis), shaped like roomy breeches, and greatly resembling the zaragüelles worn until this hour by the peasants of the Huerta of Valencia. Ibn-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari (see Gayangos, History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, Vol. I., p. 116) says that the dress of the Moors of Andalusia was not identical with that of the Asiatic Mussulman. The former, he declares, would often discard the turban; especially those who lived towards the eastern frontier. In the western region the turban continued to be generally worn by the upper classes and by the leading State officials. Thus, at Cordova and Seville every cadi and alfaqui would wear a turban, while at Valencia and Murcia even the nobles went without it, and among the lower classes it had fallen into absolute disuse. Neither officers nor soldiers of the army wore the turban.

We learn from Casiri (Bibl. Arabico-Hispana, II., p. 258) that the imama[11] was the only form of head-dress used by the cheiks, cadis, and ulemas of Granada. At this capital red was the distinctive colour of the sovereigns of the Alahmar dynasty, who took their very title from this circumstance, the Arabic word alahmar meaning “red.” The distinctive colour of the Nasrite sultans was purple, which was replaced by black in time of mourning. In this last fashion the sultans were probably influenced by the Christian usage, for Ibn-Khaldun remarks that black was not a colour approved of by the orientals, who considered it to be related with the spirits of evil. However this may be, the manuscript History of the House of Cordova quoted by Eguilaz Yanguas, says that when Boabdil el Chico entered that city as a prisoner, “the captive monarch was dressed in black velvet, in token of his adverse fortune and defeat. He rode a richly caparisoned charger, whose coat was black and glossy.”

The Moors regarded green or white as pleasant and well-omened colours, symbolic of the angels and of all good fortune. Perhaps this preference was suggested to them by the cool oasis in the desert. Nevertheless, when Ibn-Hud became ruler of Andalusia, his shields and banners were black, as well as his costume. Black, too, was the colour adopted by the Abbaside Sultans, to whom Ibn-Hud was subject. Under the Beni-Nasr and Beni-Alahmar, this gloomy hue was changed, as we have seen, to purple or to scarlet, though black continued to be used in sign of mourning.

V
THE TUNIC OF BOABDIL EL CHICO
(National Museum of Artillery, Madrid)

The chronicle says that Abu-Said, “the Red,” who was assassinated at Tablada, under the walls of Seville, by Pedro the Cruel, was clothed in scarlet at the time of that atrocious deed. Boabdil was also clothed in red at the battle of Lucena. The History of the House of Cordova, from which I have already quoted, says: “Il était armé d'une forte cuirasse à clous dorés, doublée de velours cramoisi, d'un morion teint de grenat et doré…. Sur sa cuirasse était passé un caban de brocart et de velours cramoisi” (Plate [v].). Eguilaz quotes a further passage from Hurtado de Mendoza, to prove that red continued to be the official colour of the Moorish rulers of Granada; for when the Moriscos had risen in the Alpujarra, and met together to invest their leaders, Aben-Abu and Aben-Humeya, with the insignia of royalty, they clothed the former in a red costume and the latter in purple, “passing about his neck and shoulders a red token in the form of a scarf.”[12]

As I remarked in speaking of the tiraz, the clothing of the Moorish kings of Spain was of the richest quality obtainable, massively wrought, embroidered in colours and in gold, and bearing “sometimes a prince's name, sometimes his device or motto, or even a portrait of himself embroidered on the right breast of his caban or robe, thus following the fashion of the monarchs of Assyria and Persia.”

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