Handless Maiden
Regular price
€46.99
A01=Mary Elizabeth Perry
Abdullah Yusuf Ali
Aljamiado
Apostasy
Arabization
Author_Mary Elizabeth Perry
Blood Law
Category=JBSR
Category=NHD
Category=QRAF
Catholic Monarchs
Christian culture
Christian Identity
Claudia Koonz
Converso
Counter-Reformation
Curse of Ham
De la Cruz
Death
Death by burning
E. P. Thompson
Edict of Expulsion
Edward Said
Encomienda
Endogamy
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Expulsion of the Moriscos
Forced assimilation
Forced conversion
Francoist Spain
Granada War
Heresy
Heresy of the Free Spirit
Heterodoxy
Internment
Irreligion
Islamic literature
Jordan
Josiah
Judith Butler
Kafir
Leila Ahmed
Limpieza de sangre
Looting
Marrano
Mary Douglas
Morality play
Morisco
Mudejar
Muezzin
New Christian
Old Christian
Oppression
Order of Calatrava
Orientalism
Penitential
Persecution
Prostitution
Public humiliation
Purim
Puritans
R. I. Moore
Religion
Ridicule
Roll
Sanbenito
Selim II
Slavery
Society of Jesus
Spanish Renaissance
Superiority (short story)
Taqiya
The Last Stage
The Other Hand
The Pursuit of the Millennium
War
Warfare
Product details
- ISBN 9780691130545
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 25 Feb 2007
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In 1502, a decade of increasing tension between Muslims and Christians in Spain culminated in a royal decree that Muslims in Castile wanting to remain had to convert to Christianity. Mary Elizabeth Perry uses this event as the starting point for a remarkable exploration of how Moriscos, converted Muslims and their descendants, responded to their increasing disempowerment in sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century Spain. Stepping beyond traditional histories that have emphasized armed conflict from the view of victors, The Handless Maiden focuses on Morisco women. Perry argues that these women's lives offer vital new insights on the experiences of Moriscos in general, and on how the politics of religion both empowers and oppresses. Drawing on archival documents, legends, and literature, Perry shows that the Moriscas carried out active resistance to cultural oppression through everyday rituals and acts. For example, they taught their children Arabic language and Islamic prayers, dietary practices, and the observation of Islamic holy days. Thus the home, not the battlefield, became the major forum for Morisco-Christian interaction.
Moriscas' experiences further reveal how the Morisco presence provided a vital counter-identity for a centralizing state in early modern Spain. For readers of the twenty-first century, The Handless Maiden raises urgent questions of how we choose to use difference and historical memory.
Mary Elizabeth Perry is the author of two prize winning books, "Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville" (Princeton) and "Crime and Society in Early Modern Seville". She is Research Associate at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Adjunct Professor of History at Occidental College.
