Questions

What is the story told in "Ornament Of The World"?

What most surprised you about the documentary?

What were the strengths and weaknesses of "Ornament Of The World"?

What were the documentary's biases?  How do the film-makers use the past and does this represent an appropriate approach to history?

To what extent do the different presenters effectively make the case that there was something fundamentally distinctive about medieval Spain?

We will be visiting Cordoba, Granada, Seville during our time in Spain.  Each was featured prominently in the documentary.  What did you learn about each?

What was the importance of Toledo to the story of medieval Spain?

To what extent does the story told in "Ornament Of The World" connect to today's Spain?

How, if at all, does "Ornament Of The World" have anything to do with you?

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Some Quotations

Explain the significance of the following quotations:

"I am the David of my age."

"I would rather be a camel driver in Africa than a swineherd in Castile."

"No one has taken the effort to find out what this pestilential heresy is or from whence it has come."

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Some Terms

Convivencia

Reconquista

Abbasids

Umayyads

Great Mosque of Cordoba

Visigoths

Rusafa

Al-Andalus

Medina Azahara

Sepharad

Berbers

Santiago de Compostela (997 CE)

taifas

Granada (1066 CE)

Toledo (1085)

Almoravids

Mozarabs/Mozarabic Rites

Cantiagas de Santa Maria

Battle of Las Novas de Tolosa (1212 CE)

Alcazar

Alhambra

Nasrids

Castile

Aragon

Catholic Monarchs

Alhambra Decree (1492)

Moriscos

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Some People

Abd al-Rahman I

Abd al-Rahman III

Eulogius, Paulus Alvarus, and the Cordoba Martrys (850-59 CE)

Hroswitha of Gandersheim

Hasda ibn Shaprut

Al-Mansur

Ibn Hazm

Samuel Ha-Nagid

Alfonso VI

Al-Mu'tamid

Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

Maimonides

Peter the Venerable

Roger of Ketton

Ferdinand I

Alfonso X ("The Wise")

Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada

Peter I ("The Cruel")

Muhammad V

Samuel Halevi

Ferdinand and Isabella

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