Adriano Duque

The practice of tree veneration is often either dismissed as a superstitious "magical" rite or relegated to the realm of idiosyncratic belief. This article proposes a way of understanding tree veneration as a meaningful social practice. Taking the veneration of John the Baptist in Mandean, Christian, and Islamic religion from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries CE, the paper first gives a phenomenological analysis of the different rituals around Saint John's sacred trees. Then, guided by the legend of John the Baptist, it develops a phenomenology of tree substitution, showing that the act of prayer builds on and essentially modifies ordinary cases of shared veneration, and how rituals convey different significations and symbolic meanings.

In 849 forty-eight Christians were executed in the city of Córdoba for disparaging Islam and insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The Memoriale Sanctorum describes in detail the executions of the martyrs for capital violations of Islamic law, namely blasphemy and apostasy. With few exceptions, the Christians appeared before Muslim authorities while * Two different versions of this paper were delivered at the Conference "Global Encounters: Legacies of Exchange and Conflict" at UNC, Chapel Hill on 14 November 2008 and at the sixth biennial conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean (SMM), Barcelona 8-11 July 2019. Research for this paper was made possible by a Veritas grant from Villanova University. I am indebted to Felix María Arocena Solano and several anonymous readers for their valuable help. All mistakes remain my own.

The current essay studies the capital execution of ʿUmar Ibn Ḥafṣūn and his family in the city of Córdoba at the behest of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III (912-961). Looking at other instances of capital punishment under Umayyad rule, the article attempts to reconstruct the meaning of the different punishments inflicted on the members of Ibn Ḥafṣūn's family. At the same time, the article attempts an interpretation of the sacrifice of Ibn Ḥafṣūn's not only as a declaration of power over the Islamic and Christian rulers of al-Andalus, but also as an act of clemency at a time of political of social unrest, and as an attempt to establish a more lasting restoration of peace and avoidance of further conflict.

LA cantiga de escarnio "Tanto sei de vós" narra los trabajos de un ricohombre que en su deseo por colmar su ambición no duda en asumir una serie de labores agrícolas impropias de su condición social. Al describir sus trabajos, la cantiga recurre a una serie de motivos y secuencias narrativas que son propias de la literatura popular y donde un término desarrolla simultáneamente diferentes significados. Las referencias históricas se sobreponen aquí al desarrollo y descripción de un locus amoenus que no solo sitúa sino que además cualifica las acciones de los diferentes personajes. Las secuencias narrativas dentro de la cantiga "Tanto sei de vós" se basan en un sistema poético donde el protagonista expone la degradación física y moral de un ricohombre que se adentra dentro del paisaje del olivar. Así, mientras que el motivo del locus amoenus refleja las relaciones íntimas entre un hombre y una mujer, la cantiga "Tanto sei de vós" se centra la relación entre el rico hombre y el espacio del olivar o incluso en las labores agrícolas que transforman dicho espacio.

Resumen Situada a escasos siete kilómetros de la ciudad de Sevilla, la población de Bormujos figura ya desde el repartimiento de 1267 como una localidad eminentemente agraria, dominada por su situación como lugar de paso entre Castilleja de la Cuesta y Almensilla. El desarrollo de esta actividad agraria y las relaciones con las poblaciones vecinas ha determinado el desarrollo de una tradición oral en las coplas, a menudo breves, con las que medían el tiempo de sus festividades y labores agrícolas. Las explicaciones de los informantes reflejan por otro lado una concepción especial del espacio urbano que depende íntimamente de la memoria oral. Abstract Located just seven kilometers away from the city of Sevilla, Bormujos appears already in 1267 as a largely agrarian population, dominated by its status as a transit way between the towns of Castilleja de la Cuesta and Almensilla. The development of this agricultural activity and relations with neighboring populations have determined the development of an oral tradition in couplets, often brief, that allowed people to measure their leisure time and their agricultural chores. Explanations of the different informants reflect on the other hand a special conception of urban space stemming from oral memory.

This paper examines the Spanish song «Princesita que riega la albahaca» and compares it with other Moroccan versions of the folk tale. Although loosely based on the encounter between King Solomon and Queen Sheba, the story incorporates a series of elements from different folk traditions, while insisting on the motif of the husband-seeking maiden. Drawing on the motifs of the garden or the mother, the essay examines how the protagonist of the story uses the metaphor of the Basil plant to articulate relations of exogamy and to question social assumptions regarding the role of women and their social constraints. KEYWORDS: basil, exogamy, matrimony, Morocco, arabic folklore RESUMEN. El presente artículo examina la canción en español «Princesita que riega la albahaca» y la contrasta con otras versiones marroquíes del cuento. Aun basándose relativamente en el encuentro entre el rey Salomón y la reina de Saba, la historia incorpora una serie de elementos de diferentes tradiciones populares al tiempo que insiste en el motivo de la doncella que busca marido. A partir de los motivos del jardín o de la madre, el ensayo examina cómo el protagonista de la historia utiliza la metáfora de la planta de albahaca para articular relaciones de exogamia y para cuestionar los presupuestos sobre el papel de las mujeres y sus limitaciones en sociedad. PALABRAS-CLAVE: albahaca, exogamia, matrimonio, Marruecos, folklore árabe Basil plants stand at the core of several Spanish and Moroccan folktales. In these stories, a woman waters a garden plant to attract the attention of her lover. The present articles studies certain aspects of these accounts, paying special attention to the literary motifs and the recurrent themes that culminate with an act of marriage and the bride's change in social status. This emphasizes the initiatory dimension of the tale. In other words, the marriage of the protagonists facilitates the passing from one social group to another through a process of identification and substitution of the father. This article parts from the assumption that plant watering belongs to the category of the disorderly. Every time a woman is seen washing clothes of watering plants, she exposes herself to the gaze of a man and opens the door to sexual misconduct. Regarding the water motif, Pedro Piñero has observed how that the motif of water in the Spanish ballad tradition can be analyzed on two levels: as the symbolic representation of the legitimate union between a man and a woman or on the level of the sexual and illegitimate