During the ninth century, the Iberian Peninsula was ruled by the Islamic caliphate, with Córdoba as the capital of the Umayyad dynasty. Throughout this period, it would not be unreasonable to assume that those of other faiths were persecuted for not believing the same faith as the ruling party, however, Christians and Jews in Al-Andalus at this time were ‘Dhimmi,’ and enjoyed the relative freedoms associated with that title.[1] Much like present day there were the religiously zealous, those who believed their faith system to be supreme and accepted the risks associated with declaring it proudly. In Córdoba between the years 850 and 859 A.D. this group became known as the ‘martyrs of Córdoba.’ This group of forty-eight Christians believed so profoundly in their faith that they disparaged Islam and declared the superiority of Christianity even when summoned before the judge.[2] It is presumed that this group knew rules associated with living as dhimmi and they knew the consequences of their actions to be a capital offence, but still chose to deliberately instigate their own deaths.[3]

This paper will begin with a brief discussion on what a martyr is and will move on to explore the internal and external factors that these martyrs of Córdoba experienced that drove them to seek out death for their religion. It will delve into the role Paul Alvarus and Eulogius played in depicting martyrdom as the ultimate form of religious devotion, and the role of the Christian perspective of Islam.  As well, there will be a discussion regarding the influences outside the boarders of Córdoba and how the fear surrounding increasing conversions to Islam played a part in the decisions the martyrs of Córdoba made to seek out death for their belief system.

Before exploring the drivers of the actions of the martyrs of Córdoba, it is important to think about what a martyr is. By definition, a martyr is “a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion; a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle.”[4] However, martyrdom has never been a straightforward or unproblematic concept; it presupposed a strict dichotomy between righteous individuals sacrificing themselves for a higher cause and their persecutors.[5] Martyrdom, by need, divides opinion between the community of the faithful (whether religious or secular) and those accused of creating (i.e., killing) the ‘martyr’ in the first place and who would therefore deny them the title. In terms of the Cordoba ‘martyrs,’ they could be deemed as ‘radical,’ as they voluntarily presented themselves before the Muslim authorities and blaspheming against Muhammad.[6]

Arguably, one of the main influences for the martyrs of Córdoba was the series of writings by a cleric named Eulogius, who himself was eventually martyred in 859, and his lay friend Paul Alvarus. These men composed martyrologies and apologies for the group of radicals, as well as writing meant for the prisoners awaiting their fate in prisons and to be circulated amongst the Christian community in and around Córdoba.[7] In his writings Eulogius discusses at length the persecution suffered by Christians and the ominous pressure of their Arab rulers, casting the voluntary martyrdoms in a quasi-apocalyptic setting that has more to do with biblical precedents than with factual truth. He and Alvarus through  anti-Muslim polemic, established firm distinctions between Christians and Muslims in order to define a clear Christian identity.[8] Eulogius’ justifications for voluntary martyrdom are the result of a major interpretation of martyrdom advanced by St. Augustine, who rationalized martyrdom as an expression of its cause and not of “the punishment infringed on the victim.” [9] Through this interpretation and rationalization Eulogius made a point to speak to Bibles’ own discussions of suicide; referencing the story of Samson specifically, and how by the divine commandment of God his actions were justified – despite seeming to go against the sixth commandment.

Paul Alvarus took a different approach. Rather than justifying martyrdom and attempting to prove it did not go against the Ten Commandments, he chose to tell the stories of the so-called martyrs, painting them in a heroic almost saint-like light. For instance, Alvarus writes “as for the blessed virgin Leocritia, though they tried to seduce her with many delights and move her with many promises, she was by God’s grace strengthened in the firmness of faith” thereby associating her to the highest standard of the Virgin Mary, as well as equating her firmness of faith to being touched by God.[10] Similarly, Alvarus writes of Eulogius in the style of a hagiographical biography, with the intention of painting Eulogius as a hero for pushing Christians to, in a way, take up the cross, and be willing to die in an attempt to achieve superiority of their faith.[11] The eloquence and persuasiveness these men held when putting pen to paper was a driving force in the martyrs of Córdoba seeking and accepting death for their faith; the charisma of Eulogius, coupled with the written tales of his exploits in a saint-like fashion compelled many of the martyrs to make peace with the idea of their dying to prove the supremacy of Christianity, and their devotion to their Christian God.

A further factor that drove this group of radicals was the very perspective Christians had regarding the Islamic faith. It is unsurprising that some Christians, despite living under the personal protections as dhimmi, were unwilling to admit any religion to be superior to Christianity. In the regions under Christian rule, Muslims and Jews were treated very poorly in comparison to the protection and clearly defined legal status the dhimmi received in Islamic lands; a means of keeping those who posed a threat to the religious and governing authorities down.[12] Further evidence of this disdain held by some medieval Christians can be found in Christian accounts and documents, some going as far as to describe Islam’s prophet Muhammad to be a heresiarch and repeatedly a false prophet, the followers of his faith as irrational animals, and upon his death condemned his own soul, and the souls of many to hell.[13] These accounts (coupled with the writings of men like Eulogius and Alvarus) aid in the development of an idealized form of Christianity that may have inspired the martyrs as they encouraged ideas of a Christian communal identity and used Islam as a deterrent for that identity to be realized.

It would be detrimental to the history of this group to assume that the influences experienced by the martyrs of Córdoba were limited the boarders of the city. This movement was not isolated, but rather part of a much wider Mediterranean phenomenon across the early Islamic world; if not an instigator to the Cordoban martyrs.[14] For instance, in the Frankish heartlands there were justifications and pride associated with martyrdom with the early feats of martyr saints being marked by readings and recounts of their sufferings and deaths.[15] This was due to the perception of the protective power of the martyr and of the way martyr cults consolidated the bond between the Franks and their kings, and the legacy the martyrs left behind, through the martyrologies written, or through relics left with the churches.[16]  While there is no evidence that this legacy was associated with the specific forty-eight martyrs of Córdoba, this rhetoric of living forever in history was in the minds of Christians throughout Europe at this time and may have bled through to Iberia. Similarly, throughout the Mediterranean at this time, there was a growing fear that Christians would continue to convert to Islam, it has been argued by one account of martyrdom outside of Córdoba, Mar Saba, that “like the movement in Córdoba, they too aimed at fortifying the Christian spirit in the face of the temptations of Islam,” with the ultimate goal of resisting processes of assimilation and conversion.[17] They saw Muslim rule as a profound crisis for Christianity, something to be vigorously resisted rather than accommodated.

As a final important note, while the growing anxieties surrounding the acculturation and conversion of Christians probably played a part in some of the martyrs’ journeys to martyrdom, some scholars have overestimated the martyrs’ importance; “Simonet, for example, took them as evidence of broad Christian resistance to Muslim rule, while in fact most Christians seem to have regarded the martyrs as dangerous troublemakers who were undermining relations with the Muslim authorities.”[18] Despite the limited support the movement received from Christians, it disrupted the Christian community as well as relations between Christians and the Islamic state as the Muslim authorities saw the movement as a serious threat, and inspired Muslim distrust of Christians.[19] People who are willing to die to make a point are, under any circumstances, unsettling, whether to the Muslim authorities, or to other Christians not willing to die for their faith.

While one can not definitively say what the ultimate factor each of the martyrs of Córdoba faced were, the evidence shows that there were many elements at play internally and externally in ninth century Iberia that led to this group to seek out what they saw as the ultimate form of religious devotion. Whether it came down to the magnetism, and articulacy of Eulogius and Paul Alvarus, the overall feelings of Christians towards the predominant religion during the ninth century in Córdoba and around the Mediterranean, or the role of legacy and being remembered, the martyrs of Córdoba open an avenue of discussion regarding the inter-religious tolerance and intolerance experienced in Iberia during the ninth century.

Bibliography

“A Christian Account of the Life of Muhammed: History of Muhammed (ca. 850)”. In Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, edited by Olivia Remie Constable, 58-60. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.

Alvarus, Paul. “B. Eulogius and the Martyrs of Córdoba”. In Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, edited by Olivia Remie Constable, 62-66. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.

Coope, Jessica, A. “Christians and Jews.” In The Most Noble of People: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Identity in Muslim Spain, 61-85. Ann-Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017.

Duque, Adriano. “Claiming Martyrdom in the Episode of The Martyrs of Córdoba”. Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 8 (2011): 23-48. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/60898817.pdf.

Ihnat, Kati. “The Martyrs of Córdoba: Debates around a curious case of medieval martyrdom”. History Compass 18, no 1 (2020): 1-15. http://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12603.

Nelson, Janet N. “The Franks, the Martyrology of Usuard, and the Martyrs of Córdoba”. Studies in Church History 30 (1993): 67-80. http://doi.org/10.1017/S042420840001161X.

Patey, Ariana. “Asserting Difference in Plurality: The Case of the Martyrs of Córdoba”. Studies in Church History 57 (2015): 53-66. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0424208400050105.

Wessell-Lightfoot, Dana. “Christians and Jews in Al-Andalus.” Lecture, University of Northern British Columbia, May 20, 2021.

[1] Dana Wessell-Lightfoot, “Christians and Jews in Al-Andalus,” (Lecture, University of Northern British Columbia, May 20, 2021); Dhimmi means a non-Muslim living in an Islamic state with legal protection allowing for relative religious freedom and to live according to their own laws so long as they did not question the authority of Islam and pay their jizya (taxes).

[2] Adriano Duque, “Claiming Martyrdom in the Episode of The Martyrs of Córdoba,” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 8 (2011): 24.

[3] Ariana Patey, “Asserting Difference in Plurality: The Case of the Martyrs of Córdoba,” Studies in Church History 57 (2015): 53.

[4] “Martyr”, Merriam-Webster.com. 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/martyr. (17 June 2021).

[5] Kati Ihnat, “The Martyrs of Córdoba: Debates around a curious case of medieval martyrdom,” History Compass 18, no 1 (2020): 1.

[6][6] Ibid, 2.

[7] Patey, “Asserting Difference in Plurality”, 53.

[8] Inhat, “The Martyrs of Córdoba, 5.

[9] Duque, “Claiming Martyrdom,” 27; 38.

[10] Paul Alvarus, “B. Eulogius and the Martyrs of Córdoba”, in Medieval Iberia: Reading from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, ed. Olivia Remie Constable (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012): 66.

[11] Hagiographical biography or, hagiography is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, and by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun, or icon in any of the world’s religions.

[12] Jessica A. Coope, “Christians and Jews,” in The Most Noble of People: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Identity in Muslim Spain (Ann-Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017): 70.

[13] “A Christian Account of the Life od Muhammad: History of Muhammad (ca. 850),” in Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, ed. Olivia Remie Constable (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012): 58.

[14] Inhat, “The Martyrs of Córdoba, 5.

[15] Janet L. Nelson, “The Franks, the Martyrology of Usuard, and the Martyrs of Córdoba”, Studies in Church History 30 (1993): 67.

[16] Inhat, “The Martyrs of Córdoba,” 7.

[17] Ibid, 6.

[18] Coope, “Christians and Jews,” 79.

[19] Coope, “Christians and Jews,” 80.

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