Ritual, Spectacle, and Theatre in Late Medieval Seville : Performing Empire

From the fall of Islamic Išbīliya in 1248 to the conquest of the New World, Seville was a nexus of economic and religious power where interconfessional living among Christians, Jews, and Muslims was negotiated on public stages. From out of seemingly irreconcilable ideologies of faith, hybrid performance culture emerged in spectacles of miraculous transformation, disciplinary processionals, and representations of religious identity. Ritual, Spectacle, and Theatre in Late Medieval Seville reinvigorates the study of medieval Iberian theatre by revealing the ways in which public expressions of devotion, penance, and power fostered cultural reciprocity, rehearsed religious difference, and ultimately helped establish Seville as the imperial centre of Christian Spain. COVER 1 Contents 5 List of Illustrations 6 Abbreviations 7 Notes 7 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction: Theatres of Absence 9 1. The Cantigas de Santa Maria 37 2. Penance, Conversion, and Affective Convivencia 95 3. Strange Infidels in the Imperial Metropole 135 Conclusion: Walking Ghosts 173 Bibliography 177 Index 181