Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of Feudal Conquest ed. by Helena Kirchner and Flocel Sabaté (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of Feudal Conquest ed. by Helena Kirchner and Flocel Sabaté
• Nicholas D. Brodie

Kirchner, Helena, and Flocel Sabaté, eds, Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of Feudal Conquest (The Medieval Countryside, 22), Turnhout, Brepols, 2021; hardback; pp. 277; 22 b/w illustrations, 40 maps (36 b/w, 4 colour), 8 b/w tables, 1 b/w line art; R.R.P. €80.00; ISBN 9782503593975.

This volume brings together considerable research experience and expertise, pooling common interests in the archaeology of water control systems both to explore such systems and to investigate connections between documentary records and landscape archaeology. It offers interesting insights that will help scholars better understand both the agricultural and pastoral histories of Al-Andalus and the potential and limitations of hydraulic archaeology as an investigative mechanism.

The opening chapter by Eugènia Sitjes, on the Andalusi settlements of Manacor, is indicative of the sort of methodological richness that follows, with a multifaceted approach that integrates toponymic analysis and documentary evidence, all supplemented by the use of digital data management tools. Describing the settlements, the author points to their interconnectedness, and a ‘corridor’ effect’ (p. 50). This is part of the volume’s first section, which addresses peasant irrigation systems. The second contribution to this section is Antoni Ferrer and Helena Kirchner’s study of Ibizan watermills, which similarly blends documentary and archaeological analysis to undertake the difficult task of understanding the sequence of construction in long-used structures. The authors suggest there are four major construction phases but also conclude that ‘hydraulic elements are significantly resilient to change’ (p. 88). Nonetheless, they also note that there remains evidence of the impact of the feudal rent system on windmill-equipped hydraulic systems. Signs of transition resulting from the Christian conquest are squarely in the sights of Enric Guinot Rodríguez, whose chapter offers a case study of an unusual system where the marker between periods is not so much abrupt technological change but rather periodic signs of growth. This is important [End Page 230] for highlighting that despite its relatively obscure origins, the technological system seemed to evidence little disruption either from the thirteenth-century conquest or the 1609 expulsions, meaning that the site can work as a window into ‘the organization of agricultural spaces in the Andalusi period’ (p. 119).

Urban irrigation is the focus of the volume’s second section, wherein Ferran Esquilache investigates the origins of Valencia’s major irrigation system, the Horta. In this fascinating chapter, the author posits three phases of development, broadly equating to an original village cluster phase, an extension phase, and an infill phase, and argues strongly for a peasant-led sequence of construction, largely responding to population growth, rather than a state-directed model of construction. In a second chapter focusing on urban irrigation, Helena Kirchner, Antoni Virgili, and Arnald Puy investigate hydraulic systems to the north and south of Tortosa, highlighting again the complementarity of archaeological and documentary analyses as tools for investigating complex landscapes.

The book closes with a series of chapters focused on hydraulic elements in dry farming and pasturelands. Félix Retamero highlights that the difference between dry and wet farming is a matter of scale and intensity rather than absolutes, and offers pointers for future directions of research along now familiar lines concerning whether and by whom hydraulic systems are designed, built, and maintained. Retamero draws particular attention to the need to consider the economic priorities of the peasantry as well as wider contextual factors like population change. While noting the significance of population growth and retraction, the final chapter by Josep Torró similarly uses a case study to reveal the importance of appreciating the complementarity of stockbreeding and agricultural systems. Torró also argues that the construction of hydraulic systems for pastoral use ‘is comparable to the construction of irrigated systems’ (p. 229) in the sense of their being proof of a communal resource and undertaking. An interesting element of this system worth noting is also the role and significance within the whole system of the transportation of manure, which again serves to underline the interconnectedness of pastoral and agricultural endeavours...