Wonders and Marvels: The Roman Aqueduct of Segovia, Spain

By Lisa J. Yarde

Segovia’s aqueduct marks a period in Spain when most of the country was a Roman province, one of many examples of the fusion of cultures in the country. Emperor Domitian ordered the aqueduct’s construction during his reign of AD 81-96. That the two tiers of arches numbering 166 and the pillars of the monument still stand today, some twenty centuries later, makes the aqueduct one of the country’s true marvels. This feat of Roman civil engineering is 2,950 feet long and is made of rough-hewn granite blocks totaling just over 24,000, held together without mortar. Its use as a conduit for water to Segovia up through the early 19^th century is even more remarkable.

I’ll never forget the first breathtaking sight of the aqueduct when I visited Segovia in 2012. Just an hour north of Madrid, Segovia boasts beautiful vistas throughout its rolling landscape of valleys and hills. The city incorporates many elements of Spain’s history, including its Alcazar, which had stood from the early medieval period in defense against the Moors, and the 16^th century Gothic cathedral built upon the highest point in the city. The aqueduct is the city’s most distinctive feature as it rises above the old streets; apparently, many other tourists agreed with me judging from the gathering in the plaza at the best spot to see the arches. No wonder it remains Segovia’s heraldic symbol, featured on the city’s coat of arms.

The construction of the aqueduct began as a means to bring water from the river Frio nestled in the shadows of the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains to Roman Segovia. Engineers first set granite blocks at an oblique angle to direct the water, which collected in a reservoir before it flowed through buried channels, covering a distance of more than nine miles to reach the city. Along the route, sand traps worked as cleaning basins to filter out impurities in the water and control its flow. After a steep descent, the channels directed the flow through a valley 30 miles deep before reaching the visible portion of the site. Single and double arches at an average width of 16 feet are interspersed to rest on pillars within the aqueduct. The difficult terrain of the region must have necessitated the use of the best and most brilliant minds among Rome’s engineers. At its highest point, the water traveled 100 feet above ground in its viaduct and reached as far as the northwestern portion of the city, where Segovia’s Alcazar is located. A cleaning basin still exists in the Plaza Mayor.

The aqueduct has withstood time, attacks on the city, and late conservation efforts. In 1072, the army of the Moorish king Al-Mamun from Toledo besieged Segovia and destroyed or damaged 36 of the arches. In the 15^th century during the reign of the Catholic monarchs Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón, Don Pedro Mesa and Fray Juan de Escobedo of the Jeronimos del Parral monastery raised funds for repairs to the aqueduct. A century later, Segovia’s people added statues of Saint Stephen and the city’s patron saint, the Virgen de la Fuencisla, to niches of the aqueduct. In 1929, concrete pipes replaced the Roman channel, but such efforts could not halt the damage caused by centuries of water seepage through the cracked granite. Car traffic is also banned near the aqueduct for fear the vibrations will cause further damage to the centuries-old stone. All efforts to ensure the aqueduct remained one of the best-preserved monuments in Spain.

Sources: (2009). Roman Aqueduct at Segovia, Spain. Comparative Technology Transfer and Society 7(3), 2. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved September 30, 2014, from Project MUSE database.

Aqueduct at Segovia; http://www.turismodesegovia.com/es/que-ver/monumentos/acueducto  

UNESCO; Old Town of Segovia and Its Aqueduct, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/311

The picture is mine from my 2012 visit to Segovia.

Lisa J. Yarde writes fiction inspired by the Middle Ages in Europe. She is the author of two historical novels set in medieval England and Normandy, The Burning Candle, based on the life of one of the first countesses of Leicester and Surrey, Isabel de Vermandois, and On Falcon's Wings, chronicling the star-crossed romance between Norman and Saxon lovers before the Battle of Hastings. Lisa has also written four novels in a six-part series set in Moorish Spain, Sultana, Sultana’s Legacy, Sultana: Two Sisters, and Sultana: The Bride Price where rivalries and ambitions threaten the fragile bonds between members of a powerful family. Her short story, The Legend Rises, which chronicles the Welsh princess Gwenllian of Gwynedd’s valiant fight against English invaders, is also available.

Wonders and Marvels: Nicolaus Copernicus

By James Conroyd Martin

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer, best known for his theory that the Sun and not the Earth is at the center of the universe.  He was born on February 19, 1473 in Torun, Poland and died on May 24, 1543 in Frombork, Poland.

His father was a merchant and local official. When Copernicus was 10, his father died, and his uncle, a priest, ensured that Copernicus received a good education. In 1491, he went to Krakow Academy, now the Jagiellonian University, and in 1496 travelled to Italy to study law. While a student at the University of Bologna he stayed with a mathematics professor, Domenico Maria de Novara, who encouraged Copernicus' interests in geography and astronomy.

During his time in Italy, Copernicus visited Rome and studied at the universities of Padua and Ferrara, before returning to Poland in 1503. For the next seven years he worked as a private secretary to his uncle, now the bishop of Ermland.

The bishop died in 1512 and Copernicus moved to Frauenberg, where he had long held a position as a canon, an administrative appointment in the church. This gave him more time to devote to astronomy. Although he did not seek fame, it is clear that he was by now well known as an astronomer. In 1514, when the Catholic church was seeking to improve the calendar, one of the experts to whom the pope appealed was Copernicus.

Copernicus' major work 'De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium' ('On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres') was finished by 1530. Its central theory was that the Earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves yearly around the sun. He also argued that the planets circled the Sun. This challenged the long held view that the Earth was stationary at the centre of the universe with all the planets, the Moon and the Sun rotating around it.

'De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium' was published in early 1543 and Copernicus died on 24 May in the same year.

View a video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCR-DUKXgW0

For more info.:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/copernicus.shtml

http://www.biography.com/people/nicolaus-copernicus-9256984

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/

James Conroyd Martin is an Irish and Norwegian writer who found himself immersed in Polish culture when a friend told him of a diary of a countess that had been passed down through his family for generations. The diary of a Polish countess became the foundation of the novel Push Not the River and led to a trilogy that included Against a Crimson Sky and The Warsaw Conspiracy.

Wonders and Marvels: The Mezquita of Córdoba

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Córdoba is an ancient city in the region of Andalusia, southern Spain; a city that has everything for which a traveler in search of old-world charm could hope:  beautifully symmetrical plazas, exotic flowering gardens, reflecting pools, winding stone streets, beguiling alleyways, white-washed walls, colorful tiled facades, high towers, opulent palaces, sparkling fountains, bustling shops, any number of cafes and restaurants, and elegant hotels.  Córdoba also has the distinction of being one of the few—if only--places in the world where it is possible to say:  Voy a la Mezquita a oír misa.  I’m going to the Mosque to hear Mass.  Mezquita refers to the Great Mosque of Cordoba, the most significant and beautiful Islamic structure in the West.   Although the Mezquita retains important architectural elements of the original mosque, hundreds of years have passed since it was converted into the cathedral named in honor of the Virgin of the Assumption.  And yet, while it is a Catholic church where Christians may gather for worship, the people of Spain still refer to the cathedral as the Mezquita.

Recently, while in Spain, my family and I drove from Madrid to Córdoba en route to Granada and Sevilla.  Spain has always been a place to which I’ve returned.  Spain was where, in my well-spent youth, I went to live and study—and, of course, see as much of Iberia as I could see.  During my years abroad, I ventured as far east as Barcelona, had travelled as far west as Portugal, went as far north as Santander, and wandered as far south as Marrakesh.  I spent a year in Sevilla after graduating from college.  I would return again to Spain to take up residence in Madrid.   I’d seen the sun rise over the Alhambra. There had been a memorable ski trip to the Pyrenees.  I’d scaled the Art Nouveau cathedral  (still under construction) known as the Sagrada Familia.  I’d set out on my own for the historic cities of Toledo and Segovia.  One infernally hot day, I hopped a bus that took me to San Lorenzo to the Escorial (the austere palace built by Philip II).  At the invitation of friends, the pristine beaches of Huelva were all mine for a weekend.  But, for all of this travel, I had never been to Córdoba, and not for lack of trying.  Either I would run out of time or money or both, making it necessary to forfeit any plans I might have to visit the fabled city.  I regretted it, naturally.  Spanish friends would ask:  And Córdoba? Did you go to Córdoba?  Did you visit the Mezquita?  No, no.  I had not been there.  Once, a Spaniard and dear friend said to me: “If I had to choose, I would choose the Mezquita over all else in Spain.” I smiled.  Considering all Spain has to offer, that was saying something.  She went on to explain that palaces, cathedrals, museums—these were cultural monuments of which to be proud.  But there was nothing like the Mezquita.  Her enthusiasm, indeed passion, for the great mosque moved me.  I was determined that, on this trip, I would not leave the country until I had could say the same.  Now, having been there, I can.  I have been to the Mezquita and it is every bit as wondrous as its reputation.

 I have been to the Mezquita, and it is wondrous and complex.  The visitor enters a large courtyard enlivened with orange trees.  The size of the courtyard is remarkable, and so is the water system cut into the stone in precise lines that crisscross the patio.  A place of precision and repose; it is a place that invites lingering, reflection.  Then, it is on to the main hall.  It has been described as “a non-hierarchical, almost abstract space with a system of columns and arches extending in all directions in a strict grid… This arcaded hypostyle hall, in its final form, is composed of a ‘forest’ of 856 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite supporting red and white arches… The double arches consist of a lower horseshoe arch and an upper semi-circular arch, a technical solution which allowed higher ceilings that would otherwise be possible only with relatively low columns.”  This forest of elaborate semi-circles is by far the most intriguing aspect of the Mezquita; it elicits a sense of order that does not impede the impression of spaciousness and freedom.  Airy, colorful, and peaceful.   Impressive as it is, the visitor enjoys a sample of the original mosque as “in the 16th century the clergy of Cordoba decided to increase the size of the Cathedral: the new project consisted in the demolition of an important part of the forest of columns and the insertion of a Christian cathedral grandly combining Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles, although altering forever the unity of the Muslim building.”  The effect is not altogether successful—as Charles V lamented—but luckily not everything has been lost, and the remains of the original mosque are without a doubt lovely and compelling.

 While there, I was in the company of tourists from distant parts, including Muslims.  I couldn’t help but wondering what they felt, thought, as they walked about the mosque.  Muslims are not allowed to pray at the Mezquita.  To this day, the debate rages on as to why they should be prohibited from doing so.   In times such as these, lifting the prohibition would be seen as a gesture of reconciliation.  History is not so easily effaced—or forgotten.   To preserve a cultural treasure is laudable, but the Mezquita remains a contested site, and will continue to be so unless those of Islamic faith may find there a place to worship alongside Christians.  

Sources:    http://socks-studio.com/2014/04/11/the-field-and-the-nave-the-mezquita-of-cordoba/

Kathryn A. Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain.  

Wonders and Marvels: Tiny Orkney Yields Its Big Secret

By J.S. Dunn

Theories change over time in archaeology as with other disciplines. The 19^th century emphasis on the Mediterranean and Egypt as the cradle-of-everything, given that was the region where most early digs occurred, is shifting as more digs are conducted in northern Europe relative to exploration in the 18^th and 19^th century. Sometimes it is easier to dig in your own back yard, for various reasons beyond the scope of this piece.

A remote corner of Scotland provides the latest major discovery.  First, some background. In the Isles, experts like Cunliffe at Oxford had already emphasized the importance of pre-Roman culture. For example, the Isles' natives knew how to survey and build straight roads between two points, and they had organized settlements with defensive walls, and all happened well before the southern area of Prydain (Britain) was forcefully annexed to Rome's Iron Age empire. It is also accepted that the Newgrange or Bru na Boinne complex in Ireland predates the Pyramids (and Stonehenge).

The Isles were not a cultural backwater waiting for rescue by Rome or anyone. The Neolithic cultures who built great passage tombs had connected very early (well prior to 3000 BCE) by marine trade to many areas of the Continent. Irish gold jewelry set the fashion from ca. 2500 BCE onward as attested by pieces found all over northern Europe. The Isles' early smelting of copper in southwest Ireland radically changed the megalithic culture along the Atlantic coasts. This change is portrayed in Bending The Boyne. With bronze smelting (1 part tin, 9 parts copper) from tin in Wales and Cornwall, the Isles became the innovators in weapons and bronze metallurgy for over a thousand years, roughly 2000 BCE to 600 BCE when iron weapons and tools took over. During this time frame and up to what is considered recorded history* the Isles supplied tin for bronze to the Continent and made superior finished metal goods. Cornish tin may have equipped warriors at Troy with bronze spearhead and helmets, and formed Achilles' famed shield.

Now comes a further, major shift from a massive new dig on Orkney off the northeast corner of Scotland.  Over prior decades, Orkney had yielded the remarkable stone dwellings clustered at Skara Brae, the massive passage tomb of Maes Howe roughly contemporaneous with Bru na Boinne in Ireland, and the Eagles' Tomb burial site along with stone circles like Stennes. All this could be seen, touched, evaluated. Much has been dated to the Neolithic. But the biggest discovery lay buried underneath a long hill, a ceremonial complex that archaeologists literally drove past without giving it a second thought. Then one professional living on Orkney decided to dig at the Ness of Brodgar, a finger of land holding the hill barrow. The size of the complex, the skilled masonry of its walls and flagged paths, and varied artifacts coming to light, are all supporting Orkney as a major cultural center. Bits of painted wall and rock, and a small anthropomorphic statue, are a first in the Isles' Neolithic. The cultural center for Prydain was at Orkney, not Wessex, and lasted around a thousand years.  Its demise is thought to have happened around 2300 BCE ( see Bending The Boyne).  http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/06/orkney-temple-centre-ancient-britain ; also http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2012/01/orkney-temple-predates-stonehenge-by.html#.U_YsMvldWAk

What has been found overturns the view that Stonehenge represents the cultural apogee for ancient Prydain. A corollary is that the meaning of Orkney's huge sacral landscape must be newly evaluated by archaeologists, then translated for the public in various media of film and books. Must we then endure more recycled, mumbling Druids?  Will Merlin and Arthur be dragged to Orkney? More damsels in distress defying the laws of physics to time travel? This might seem a rant, but not without justification.

Archaeology's theoretical shift over the past decade has yet to be fully explored in historical fiction. Native Gaelic-speaking clans in the Isles, Iberia, and Gaul, are still portrayed in fiction as having less sophistication or intelligence than the militaristic Romans who arrived fairly late on the scene and wearing sandals despite the climate! Any skills the Gaels do exhibit in certain fiction tend unfortunately to be vague or based on occult practices by mythical “Druids” hunting mistletoe who rule over an unskilled, unwashed populace.  This is like using the imagery of Grimm's fairy tales to portray medieval Europe's culture. This is as offensive as calling native Americans Indians.

There's plenty of room for different styles in fiction, yes. But less fantasy, and a lot more accuracy, would greatly benefit readers seeking historical fiction about the ancient Gaels. This is an instance of truth being stranger than fiction, that little Orkney holds the remains of the largest ceremonial center found to date in northern Europe. See also :  http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/news/neolithic-temples-of-the-northern-isles.htm

*Linguist John Koch's work on Tartessian script in southwest Iberia is pushing back the time frame for written Gaelic. See Celtic From The West, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Oxbow Books (2012 and 2014).

  

About The Author

J.S. Dunn lived in Ireland during the past decade, on 12 lovely acres fronting a salmon river. The author continues to research and travel the Atlantic coasts and is helping to shift the old paradigm of “Celts” with a second novel set at 1600 BCE.

Wonders and Marvels: The Cantigas de Santa Maria

By Jessica Knauss

King Alfonso directs his subjects to worship Jesus through the Virgin Mary
and the angel Gabriel in the F manuscript of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. 

A poor woman takes her baby with her to the wheat fields — she has no alternative. While his mother works, the boy swallows a head of wheat and his belly swells to alarming proportions. His mother, believing he’s been poisoned or bitten by a spider, frets over him for several days. When she despairs for his life, there’s only one person — or supernatural being — she can turn to. She lays him before the altar of Our Lady of Atocha. The boy’s clothes are removed, and no one can find a spider bite, but they do find an intact head of wheat coming out the boy’s side. The boy recovers immediately. Everyone gives praise to the Virgin Mary for such a beautiful miracle.

The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of the wonders of the Virgin Mary in a way that still makes people marvel.

Alfonso X of Castile and León is called el Sabio because he loved learning. He made it possible for a team of scholars to record the latest scientific advances for future generations. He carried this compulsion for compilation through to the Cantigas, which are a collection of nearly 400 songs with words, music, and illustrations.

Many of the miracles involve a dramatic recovery, as in Cantiga 315 above, or theatrical leaps of faith, as in the story about the good wife whose husband was so jealous of her that he mistreated her terribly. She asks him if he would believe she’s faithful to him if she underwent a trial by fire. He responds that he doesn’t think that’s necessary, but she can jump off a cliff! If she comes out alive, that will be proof of her fidelity. The woman comes to the edge of the highest, scariest cliff for miles around.

She commends herself to the Virgin Mary and throws herself over. With the entire town as witness, she lands feet first on ground that seems soft and smooth to her, although for non-believers, it would have been rocky — and deadly.

In the style of a rosary, the Cantigas punctuate the miracle stories with songs in praise of the Virgin Mary’s own wondrous nature at every tenth cantiga.

Even these most spiritual of the Cantigas display a down-to-earth quality. One of Alfonso’s main objectives with these songs was to show how wonder could reach absolutely everyone in his realm through Mary, from the poor lady in the wheat field, through nobles, sheriffs, monks, nuns, and warriors, to the king himself. Because they so accurately portray real life, the Cantigas don’t limit Alfonso’s realm to people, but also include the animals that cohabited with his subjects, such as horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, ermines, and silk worms!

A woman who makes her living with silk has trouble: her silk worms are dying. She goes to the Virgin Mary’s altar and promises that if Mary revives her silk worms, she will make an altar cloth to honor the Queen of Heaven. Soon enough, the silk worms are hard at work again, but the woman forgets her promise — until, one day, she comes home to find that the worms have taken her promise upon themselves. They make not one, but two altar cloths, and in the illustrations we see the added miracle that they already have a beautiful lacy design. The fame of the miracle spreads, and since there are two of them, King Alfonso takes one for his own altar to the Virgin Mary.

Most of the lower-numbered cantigas take stories from all over Europe’s Marian repertoire, but as the king’s demand for more and more miracles increased (the goal may have been 500), the poets searched closer to home and in more recent history. As Cantiga 18 shows, some feature Alfonso himself, and 22 take place during the reconstruction of El Puerto de Santa María in the south, one of the king’s pet projects.

Cantiga 371 tells how a large ship headed for El Puerto was laden with flour and people. Some of them were coming for the land grants, some to work as masons, some to form part of the new religious community. El Puerto’s fame was already widespread, as the refrain reports: “Holy Mary performs so many miracles in her Port that we poets can’t describe the least part of them.”

Unfortunately, the ship in this cantiga hits a rock and sinks, killing everyone on board except one woman. She cries out to the Virgin, “I’m coming to you, so save my life with your great power.” In that instant, one of the sacks of flour emerges from the ship, and even though it’s heavy, it floats as if it were very light. The woman floats along atop it, calling, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, Emmanuel,” until she arrives at El Puerto to be welcomed by the residents.

Not all the miracles are so outwardly spectacular. In one of my favorites, the miracle consists of a violent, lustful knight deciding to change his ways.

As you can see in the illustrations, he’s already got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. The Virgin Mary appears to him with a beautiful silver platter filled with rotten food — a metaphor for the knight’s outward loveliness and evil interior. He gets the message loud and clear. Even though the knight’s life is never threatened in this cantiga, his soul is in danger of eternal damnation, which, to medieval thinking, is the most dramatic story of all.

It’s said that the Cantigas were the king’s favorite project, as they incurred the most labor, expense, and time. The compilation may have begun before Alfonso ascended to the throne in 1252 and ended only upon his death in 1284. In his will, Alfonso instructed that the Cantigas manuscripts should be kept in the chapel where he was buried (in the cathedral in Sevilla) and sung on high feast days. None of the four extant manuscripts reside there now: an early draft without illustrations known as To is in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid; King Felipe II had three deluxe manuscripts (including E and T) removed to the Escorial in the sixteenth century; and somehow one of those deluxe manuscripts (F) came to be at the Italian National Library in Florence today.

The Cantigas de Santa Maria deal with people’s interior lives as well as the most unexpected details of their exterior lives, and include everyone from every social class, from Spain to Europe to Northern Africa and the Middle East. Some of these songs are masterpieces of lyricism, others are solid narratives from a time before short stories existed, and still others take humor to new heights. Each of the thousands of illustrations offers delights to appreciate from any point of view. They constitute the largest collection of medieval music ever amassed and contain every imaginable Western musical style.

In their time, the Cantigas celebrated marvels and wonders, and today they have become a marvel in themselves because of the sense of wonder they convey in greater measure as time goes on. 

You can now experience ten of the Cantigas de Santa Maria in a fun new way in J. K. Knauss's Our Lady's Troubadour. 

Jessica Knauss earned her PhD in Medieval Spanish with a dissertation on the portrayal of Alfonso X’s laws in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which has been published as the five-star-rated Law and Order in Medieval Spain. A driven fiction writer, Jessica Knauss has edited many fine historical novels and is currently a bilingual copyeditor at an educational publisher. Find out more about her historical novel, Seven Noble Knights, and her other writing and bookish activities here. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter, too!