Any time we’re in an unfamiliar place, we make sure to learn a little bit about its history. And Seville and Andalusia are pretty new to us, so here goes! As Classicists we knew something about the very early history of this region. Spain was one of the first provinces of the Roman empire. It eventually later produced (among others) the writers Quintilian and Seneca, and the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. But wait: there’s more.
The indigenous people mingled with the Phoenicians (in North Africa) who were active colonisers in southern Spain. They gave the city its first name, Hisbaal, which the Romans later made into Hispal and then Hispalis. Hannibal started his famous crossing of the Alps from Spain. And after the Carthaginians lost the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE), Rome incorporated Spain as a province.
The collapse of the Roman Empire in the west led to invasions of the area by Vandals and Visigoths in the 5th and 6th centuries CE. In the early 8th century the Muslims attacked and eventually defeated the Visigoths. Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa ibn Nusayr became the first governor of Andalusia (Al-Andalus in Arabic) in 715. He made Seville his capital, but moved it a few years later, to Córdoba.
In the early 11th century Andalusia split into a number of smaller kingdoms. One of the most powerful was in Seville. In January 1147 Seville fell to the Almohad Empire, a North African empire with its capital at Marrakesh. The Almohads were responsible for renewing the city, which had suffered from depopulation in the previous years. During this period the city became an international centre of learning and culture.
The Christians wanted to reconquer Spain for centuries, but only succeeded in the 13th. Spain’s victory at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (16 July 1212) preceded the King of Castile, Ferdinand III’s, successful siege of Seville.
The next century saw terrible manifestations of violence: in 1391, there was a pogrom directed against the Jews of the city. Many fled, while others converted, voluntarily or by force. In its aftermath, synagogues were taken over and converted to Christian churches. Another milestone of intolerance followed with the Spanish Inquisition. Seville was the site of its first tribunal in 1478 and in 1481 the first public penances were held in which ‘heretics’ were burned alive. Not to be outdone, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree in 1492, which compelled Jews either to abandon their faith or to leave Spain.
In 1503, in light of the ‘discovery’ of the Americas and Atlantic sea explorations, Seville became the headquarters of the Casa de Contratación (House of Trade), and with it gained the royal monopoly on all trade with the Spanish colonies in the Americas. All ships dealing with the colonies had to leave from and return to Seville, and this meant that any merchant who wanted to deal in goods from the New World had to be in Seville. Cádiz obtained permission to engage in colonial trade only in the late 16th century, breaking Seville’s monopoly. But by that time Seville had grown enormously. The excessively large Cathedral here is one of many examples of its glory and ostentation.
As trade with the new world declined, Seville’s population began to shrink. The Guadalquivir river began to silt up in the 1620s, which also put a dent in shipping. And in 1649 a plague killed about one-quarter of the city’s population. Over the next hundred years Seville went into decline.
There’s quite a lot of history here, and we haven’t told the half of it. In any case, we’ll take up the story of Andalusia into the modern era in a later post.
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