Hasta Luego America: History Lesson #1: San Juan de los Reyes

This is going to be a long one….heads up! Many of you might know this already, but for those of you who don’t, I’m not particularly religious. I typically go to church once or twice a year, in some combination of Christmas Eve, Good Friday and Easter, and I am most comfortable in a Lutheran congregation. I’d place myself in an agnostic category, not necessarily believing in God and an afterlife, but also not disbelieving in one either. Saying that though, I love religion. Religions. It’s fascinating to me that so many people can find the answers to life’s persistent questions in the simple word of God or Allah or any number of gods and spirits across all religions worldwide. My first encounter with this fascination came when I was a junior in high school, in Ms. Bartholdt’s AP World History class. We were talking about ancient Asia and Confucianism and Zoroastrianism and other religions that came out of that period in that region, each as a rebuttal to the previous belief systems. And now here I am, a senior history major in college, who realized a year ago that unknowingly I had been taking history classes that also double over into the religious studies program. I decided to declare a religious studies minor. All I needed to complete the minor was the required theory and method of studying religion class and two more electives. My religious studies advisor also told me that enough of my history classes also dip into the Jewish studies program that I should look into getting a minor in that as well. I’ve taken a number of classes about the “people of the book” – Muslims, Christians, and Jews, covering subjects such as the Crusades, the Muslim expansion into Europe, the Reconquista (Christians taking back Muslim lands in Europe), and Jewish prosecution through all of this and World War II. I’ve studied the Spanish Inquisition and England’s split from the Catholic Church. And even still, I am amazed by the fact that people have chosen to persecute and slaughter one another in the name of their religion, and in the case of the Christians, have even come up with justification for their actions that would free them from eternal damnation. “Thou shall not kill. Unless you are protecting the faith on my crusade. Then you can. I’ll even relieve you from all your other sins if you come with me.” That’s how they got people to fight in the crusades. By promising them a spot in heaven regardless of any sins.

Along with the more gruesome aspects of these religions, I have also studied a little about the architecture characteristic of these different groups of people throughout the middle ages and early modern period. The Koran tells Muslims that they cannot depict human or animal life in anything, Jews are not allowed to depict Yahweh in any form (Yahweh is the name they use for God…they are also not allowed to speak His name), and Christians have a free-for-all. One of my classes this semester is about just that – the art of the Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Toledo. For nearly 400 years (1085-1492), these three groups of people lived peacefully together here, one of the only examples of this kind of tolerance ever to have existed at the time. Life here was not entirely tolerant, and some persecution did still exist, but for the most part they were peaceful, giving one another the space to live and work. Until 1492 when the Reyes Católicos were in rule over Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel, the staunch Catholic monarchs, took back the last Muslim stronghold in Grenada and expelled the Jews from the peninsula. It is because of them that Spain to this day is still a very Catholic country.

Last week, I stumbled into the great remaining legacy of these devout rulers here in Toledo. Actually, I went twice. First on Wednesday and then again on Friday. And I don’t expect those two visits to be my last. I will be going back again. To the San Juan de los Reyes Monasterio. The monastery of St. James of the Kings. San Juan is the protector of the royal family here. This monastery was built to celebrate the unification of Spain under these rulers – Isabel was queen of the region of Castile and Ferdinand the king of Aragon, and their marriage united the two largest kingdoms in the peninsula to make Spain more or less as we know it today. During their rule, they also added a number of smaller Iberian kingdoms to their rule as well, such as Navarra and Grenada. The monastery is built in a late gothic style, a style of building used throughout Europe and reserved only for prominent Christian buildings – large churches, cathedrals and monasteries. It is unbelievable. Along with the typical gothic architecture, the entire building is riddled in iconography symbolic of these rulers – shields, castles, lions, yokes, bundles of arrows, their initials, and more, with everything carved by hand directly out of stone, something rare in Toledo, where stucco was typically used for intricate decorations instead.

I’ve been fortunate enough in my 21 years to have traveled a lot, and to have seen and been inside several buildings of a similar magnitude, royal chapels, monasteries, and cathedrals alike, even St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Going into buildings like that always makes me pause and admire the devotion poured into the creation of something so magnificent. The time involved, the workmanship, the peacefulness that settles over me when I walk in…always, without fail, leaves me speechless and glowing. When I went back to San Juan de los Reyes on Friday, I spent almost two hours there. I didn’t even make it to the upper level of the cloister before visiting hours were over and I was being ushered out so they could close for the day. I took quite a number of pictures, and then just settled into a pew in the chapel and took it all in; still just as speechless as the first time I visited on Wednesday. The sun was shining directly into the windows at the far end of the chapel, illuminating the altar and making the gold leaf glow. They were setting up for a wedding and the sweet smell of the lilies lining the aisles hung in the air. I was surrounded by stone shields, apostles, cherubs, floral patterns, even Ferdinand himself, all cold and austere, but warm and welcoming at the same time. I couldn’t help but let out a deep breath and relax, almost as if I had been subconsciously holding it.