Thomas Devaney’s book analyzes spectacles in Castilian towns on the frontier with Granada. He examines religious processions, pageants, tournaments, and other festivities and explores how these events both exhibited and shaped Christian attitudes toward Muslims and Jews as relations between Castile and Granada shifted in the late fifteenth century. After Queen Isabel and King Fernando came to power in 1474, they transformed what had been a relatively stable borderland. Waging war on Granada, their forces conquered the last Islamic emirate on the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. Social and cultural dynamics reflected these political and military changes. In the late Middle Ages, Jews and Muslims had lived under Christian rule in what Devaney calls an “amiable enmity,” characterized by peaceful and hostile interactions. As victory over Granada became assured, Spaniards started implementing policies that asserted Christian hegemony and ultimately forced Jews and Muslims to flee Spain.

To examine shifting attitudes in this context, Devaney presents three case studies. In December 1462, the constable of Castile, Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, organized a series of festivities in Jaén. In these events, Christians dressed up as Muslims, waged juegos de cañas (game of canes), and enacted the Magi play. Blending in Arab dress and fighting techniques, Iranzo’s staging evinced admiration for Islamic culture. However, the performances — depicting Muslims being baptized and the Magi paying homage to Christ — also emphasized conversion. Devaney argues that Iranzo, in order to win local support for warfare against Granada, used these spectacles to model a postconquest scenario. In his vision, because Muslims would convert to Christianity, their communities would remain intact, and consequently opportunities for Christians to conduct economic exchanges would be preserved. From Jaén, Devaney shifts locales to the city of Córdoba. In 1473, a procession of the Cofradía de la Caridad (Brotherhood of Charity) led to attacks on conversos and their aristocratic protectors after an effigy of the Virgin Mary was perceived to have been desecrated during the proceedings. In a city divided by social status, vocation, religion, and political infighting, Devaney argues that the confraternity’s processional route deliberately wound through a contested neighborhood where many conversos resided and ultimately provoked an incident. Finally, a third example focuses on Murcia, where festivities modeled after Corpus Christi processions and plays celebrated Spain’s victories over Málaga in 1487 and Granada in 1492. Whereas in past Corpus Christi events Jews and Muslims could participate on a limited basis and therefore share in the community, the city council coerced Jews and Muslims to contribute significant sums to mount celebrations of Christian victory over infidels. By relating these spectacles, Devaney suggests that the line of exclusion between Christians and non-Christians hardened in what had once been a religiously and culturally pluralistic society.

To better understand these case studies, Devaney’s book also includes two chapters that discuss methods to analyze spectacles and consider how spectacles wove into the spaces, social networks, mental associations, and literary imaginaries of urban settings. Elites produced spectacles, and usually scholars focused on the performances from the patrons’ points of view. To consider how ordinary spectators engaged and understood spectacles, Devaney helpfully observes that even when performances served an ideological or political purpose, such as Iranzo’s 1462 events, they had to conform to audience expectations that were informed by popular notions. At the same time, popular opinion could be shaped through cues from the staging, enactment, and narrative of the performance as well as through audience reactions. By applying these methods, Devaney situates the spectacles in Jaén, Córdoba, and Murica in thick political, social, and cultural contexts.

Devaney’s book draws significantly from secondary historiographical literature to flesh out the contexts and construct the narrative. Familiar chronicle sources on the life and times of the last Trastámara monarchs and the constable Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, as well as archival sources on the celebration of Corpus Christi in Murcia, constitute the limited primary-source base. The Granadan frontier incubated personnel, skills, and outlooks that weighed heavily in Spain’s imperial expansion. This study opens windows onto this borderland, and the three cases present a fascinating kaleidoscope of social and cultural dynamics in transition.