'Moors Dressed as Moors': Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia

Abstract

<p>On 1 January 1567, the government of King Philip II of Spain issued a decree banning the Morisco men and women living in the kingdom of Granada (the descendants of Muslims forced to convert to Christianity) from wearing 'Moorish clothing'. The aim of the royal decree, which also targeted other Morisco cultural practices, was to help enforce the religious assimilation of those Moriscos who continued to follow the Islamic faith of their ancestors. The decree was part of a series of royal measures that eventually pushed the Moriscos of Granada into a bloody but unsuccessful revolt between 1568 and 1571 that ended with their mass deportation from their homeland in southern Spain. Only three years later, when the new Austrian wife of Philip II arrived in Madrid in 1570, she was welcomed by the Council of Madrid with public celebrations, including a juego de cañas (a mock equestrian battle) in which some of the participants dressed 'as Moors'. To a modern observer, especially one not familiar with early modern Iberia, the prohibition of 'Moorish dress' for Moriscos, and its enthusiastic use by members of the Spanish nobility in public festivals, appears puzzling.</p>