Agricultural Landscapes of Al-andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest (The Medieval Countryside, 22) 9782503593975, 2503593976

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Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest

THE MEDIEVAL COUNTRYSIDE Volume 22

General Editor Phillipp Schofield, Aberystwyth University Editorial Board Laurent Feller, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Paul Freedman, Yale University Thomas Lindkvist, Göteborgs universitet Sigrid Hirbodian, Universität Tübingen Peter Hoppenbrouwers, Universiteit Leiden Piotr Górecki, University of California, Riverside Sandro Carocci, Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata Julio Escalona, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid Pere Benito i Monclús, Universitat de Lleida

Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest

Edited by

Helena Kirchner and Flocel Sabaté

F

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

© 2021, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-2-503-59397-5 e-ISBN: 978-2-503-59398-2 DOI: 10.1484/M.TMC-EB.5.122892 ISSN: 1784–8814 e-ISSN: 2294–8430 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper. D/2021/0095/162

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

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Introduction: Research on Irrigation, Drainage, Dry Agriculture, and Pastures in al-Andalus Helena Kirchner 11

Peasant Irrigation Systems Agrarian Spaces and the Network of Andalusi Settlements of Manacor (Mallorca) Eugènia Sitjes 31 Watermills on Ibiza (Balearic Islands): A Documentary and Archaeo­logical Case Study in Santa Eulàlia des Riu Antoni Ferrer and Helena Kirchner 65 Morpho­logy of Irrigated Spaces in Late Medi­eval Mudejar Settlements: The Canal of Lorca (Riba-Roja de Turia, Valencia) Enric Guinot Rodríguez 97

Urban Irrigated Areas Searching for the Origin: A New Interpretation for the Horta of Valencia in the Time of al-Andalus Ferran Esquilache 127 Drainage and Irrigation Systems in Madīna Ṭurṭūša (Tortosa, Spain) (Eighth–Twelfth Centuries) Helena Kirchner, Antoni Virgili, and Arnald Puy 153

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Dry Farming and Pasturelands On Dry Farming in Al-Andalus Félix Retamero 175 On the Problem of Andalusi Dry Farming: Aialt (Castell de Castells), a qarya with no Irrigation System in the Mountains of Valencia Josep Torró 195 Deciphering the Islamic Landscape in the  Eastern Ebro Valley: Almunias and Livestock Jesús Brufal 237 Irrigated Pasturelands in Mountain Ranges in the South-East of the Iberian Peninsula Antonio Malpica Cuello, Sonia Villar Mañas, and Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz 257

List of Illustrations Eugènia Sitjes Figure 2.1. Penstock of Can Granot’s mill (in ruins and used as a column to support the ceiling of the building) (Vall de la Nou, Manacor, Mallorca).

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Figure 2.2. Pou Colomer’s well (Vall de Ses Planes, Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, Mallorca).

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Figure 2.3. The source of the hydraulic system of Sa Vall de la Nou, called Font de Na Memòria (Manacor, Mallorca).

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Map 2.1. Andalusi districts of Mallorca.

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Map 2.2. Internal divisions in the district of Manacor.

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Map 2.3. Mankur settlements in Mallorca.

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Map 2.4. Plan of the hydraulic system of Sa Vall de la Nou.

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Map 2.5. The Andalusi hydraulic system of s’Hospitalet.

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Map 2.6. Plan of the Andalusi archaeo­logical sites in relation to the torrents.

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Map 2.7. Plan of the Andalusi archaeo­logical sites in relation to the coast.

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Map 2.8. Ortophoto­graph with the archaeo­logical sites and torrents of S’Hospitalet.

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Map 2.9. Plan of the Andalusi archaeo­logical sites in relation to the roads.

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Map 2.10. Groupings of alquerías and rahales of Manacor.

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Table 2.1. The surface area of the alquerías in Manacor.

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Table 2.2. The surface area of the rahales in Manacor.

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Antoni Ferrer and Helena Kirchner Figure 3.1. Reconstruction of the phases of the Molí de Dalt (Santa Eulària, Ibiza).

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Figure 3.2. Section of the original channel embedded in the watermill’s western wall.

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Figure 3.3. Aerial view of the remains of the second penstock.

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Map 3.1. Andalusi settlements in Ibiza.

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Map 3.2. Hydraulic systems and irrigated areas of Santa Eulària River and Es Ierns Torrent.

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Map 3.3. Irrigated areas and enlargements of the hydraulic systems of Santa Eulària River and Es Ierns Torrent.

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Map 3.4. Evolution maps of the Molí de Dalt (Santa Eulària, Eivissa). 84

Enric Guinot Figure 4.1. The divisor in Roll de La Mitjana.108 Figure 4.2. The two holes or rolls of La Mitjana.109 Map 4.1. The castle-villages of the Turia River, in the Valencian Country.105 Map 4.2. Oro­graphic map of the irrigated space and the central depression.106 Map 4.3. The three sectors irrigated by the canal of Lorca and the main channels.

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Map 4.4. The secondary irrigation network.

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Map 4.5. Road network.

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Map 4.6. Proposed original irrigated area in the first Andalusi period.

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Table 4.1. The repartiment of Riba-Roja.

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Ferran Esquilache Figure 5.1. A proportional divisor from the Canal of Tormos (Horta of Valencia) shown in an old photo­graph.

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Figure 5.2. Schematic structure, with Andalusi irrigated spaces, of the canals of Tormos and Favara.

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Map 5.1. Location and extension of the Horta of Valencia.

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Map 5.2. Regular plots from Comuner Canal in Aldaia.

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Map 5.3. Irrigation system of Rascanya reconstruction, with Andalusi spaces.

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Map 5.4. Regular irrigated plots from Alboraia.

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list of illustrations

Map 5.5. The Horta of Valencia in the period of al-Andalus. Phases of building.

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Graph 5.1. Histogram of the data from Table 5.1.

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Table 5.1. Number of spaces according to size.

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Helena Kirchner, Antoni Virgili, and Arnald Puy

Map 6.1. Rural Andalusi settlements around Madîna Ṭurṭûša.154 Map 6.2. The area under study, north and south of Madîna Ṭurṭûša.156 Map 6.3. The area of Les Arenes, south of Tortosa.

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Map 6.4. Drainage phases in Les Arenes.162 Map 6.5. Map of the irrigated area of Tortosa: Horta de Pimpí.167

Josep Torró Figure 8.1. Sinkhole-meadow at La Llacuna.

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Figure 8.2. Agricultural areas of Pla d’Aialt (north) and El Xorquet (south).

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Figure 8.3. Muslim dwelling (fifteenth–sixteenth century) adapted to livestock corral.

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Figure 8.4. The depression of Pla d’Aialt (1956 ‘American’ flight).

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Figure 8.5. The depression of Pla d’Aialt seen from the west. 

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Figure 8.6. Formation process of the agricultural space in Pla d’Aialt.

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Figure 8.7. Proposed identification of the original agricultural blocks in Pla d’Aialt (in hectares).

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Table 8.1. Population (households) and qurā in the valley of Castell (fourteenth–sixteenth century).

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Table 8.2. Lordly rents in the valley of Castell (fourteenth– fifteenth century), in solidi and diners.

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Table 8.3. Livestock in the Castell Valley (1510).

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Map 8.1. Location of the valley of Qaštāl / Castell in the Christian Kingdom of Valencia (c. 1300).197 Map 8.2. The territory of the valley of Qaštāl / Castell and its immediate environs: oro­graphy and hydro­graphy.

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Map 8.3. Settlements and agricultural areas of the territory of Qaštāl / Castell (thirteenth–fifteenth centuries).

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Map 8.4. Pastureland, drove-ways, and Andalusi fortifications in the area around Aialt.

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Map 8.5. Land capability in the municipality of Castell de Castells (C. Antolín and others).

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Jesús Brufal Figure 9.1. A well of undetermined date in Unilla.

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Figure 9.2. Detail of a cistern at Albelda.

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Figure 9.3. Possible tower of the cisterns at Albelda.

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Figure 9.4. Tower of Tossal de Solibernat.

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Figure 9.5. Tower of the almunia in Avinganya.

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Map 9.1. Map of the faḥs Maškīğan where the humid areas suitable for animal grazing can be seen. 

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Map 9.2. Map of the studied area that highlights the humid spaces and Islamic settlements.

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Map 9.3. Map of the studied area.

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Map 9.4. The locations of the Islamic settlements in Bovera.

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Map 9.5. Map with an outline of the land belonging to the alqueria of Palau d’Anglesola and the circular placement of the almunias.248 Map 9.6. Map of the area of Castelldans.

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Antonio Malpica Cuello, Sonia Villar Mañas, and Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz Map. 10.1. Area under study.

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Map 10.2. Settlements, road network, and major mountain ranges in the area of study.

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Map 10.3. Meadows in the north of the provinces of Granada and Almería.

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Table 10.1. Meadows in the north of the provinces of Granada and Almería.

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Helena Kirch ner

Introduction Research on Irrigation, Drainage, Dry Agriculture, and Pastures in al-Andalus

This volume provides an up-to-date analysis of current research trends concerning agricultural spaces in al-Andalus, and of the changes undergone in these spaces after the feudal conquest.1 The chapters deal with how the land was selected for both irrigation and dryland agriculture and how stockbreeding activities were integrated into peasant strategies. These issues are developed through specific case studies on irrigation, milling, drainage, dry agriculture, and pasture areas. Most of them follow the line of research created at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona by Miquel Barceló, looking for the archaeo­logical study of hydraulic systems built by Muslims since the eighth century.2 In the same line, works by prominent scholars like Thomas Glick, Andrew M. Watson, or Lucie Bolens were very influential.3 The first irrigated areas of peasant creation and hydraulic devices such as watermills and qanāt(s) (underground galleries for water catchment) were studied in different areas of al-Andalus like the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, Valencia, and Granada.4

 1 Al-Andalus is the toponym used to refer to Muslim Spain. ‘Andalusi’ is its associated demo­ nym. We do not use ‘Andalusian’ because it refers to the present-day Spanish region of Andalucía.  2 For the initial background of so-called ‘hydraulic Archaeo­logy’, see Barceló, ‘El diseño de espacios’; Barceló, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad’; Kirchner and Navarro, ‘Objetivos, métodos y práctica’; Glick and Kirchner, ‘Hydraulics Systems and Techno­logies’.  3 Glick, Irrigation and Society; Watson, Agricultural Innovation; Bolens, Agronomes andalous.  4 Barceló and others, The Design of Irrigation Systems; Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Barceló, ed., El curs de les aigües; Navarro, ‘El ma’gil

Helena Kirchner ([email protected]) is Professor of Medi­eval History and Archaeo­logy and a member of the research group Agrarian Archaeology of the Middle Ages (2017SGR1073) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest, ed. by Helena Kirchner and Flocel Sabaté, TMC 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 11–28 10.1484/M.TMC-EB.5.124539

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The main interest was initially the irrigated peasant areas, the hydraulic devices used — some of them of oriental origin — and their management. Studies have been already done of over 200 irrigation systems, mostly on the Balearic Islands and in the east of the Iberian Peninsula.5 In al-Andalus, the migration of Berber and Arab tribes was responsible for the dissemination of hydraulic techniques and oriental plant species, and determined the central role of irrigation for the peasant groups that settled after the conquest.6 It has been shown that the hydraulic systems concur with the distribution of peasant settlements and their size.7 A typo­logy of irrigation systems has been developed, distinguishing between those systems located on valley floors and those higher on the valley sides, and also depending on the location of the water catchment area.8 It has also been found that most irrigation systems serve very small-scale agricultural areas, averaging barely 1.2 ha in size. The irrigated areas of rural settlements have thus been divided into small, with less than 1 ha (56.6 per cent); medium, between 1.1 and 2 ha (18 per cent); and large systems, between 2 and 15 ha (21 per cent).9 The preference for small-scale systems thus seems beyond doubt, and probably responds to peasants applying strategies to minimize risks10 and to processes of demo­graphic segmentation and growth.11 All of the authors in the volume have contributed greatly to developing this line of research and are key researchers within the tradition of scholarship on the topic. This book brings together some case studies linked to ongoing research. Many issues are covered: how an urban irrigated area like the one in Valencia was created and what role peasant groups had in its development and management; which hydraulic techniques and devices were mobilized in different circumstances; what were the choices and strategies of the peasant groups that migrated to the Balearic Islands in order

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de Liétor; Barceló and others, Les aigües cercades; Cressier, ‘Archéo­logie des structures hydrauliques’. In 2005, the number of cases was 160: Sitjes, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía’; see references in note 4 and also: Kirchner, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati’; Kirchner, ‘Redes de asentamientos andalusíes’; Kirchner, ‘Watermills in the Balearic Islands’; Retamero, ‘Gorge Builders’; Retamero, ‘Irrigated Agriculture, Risk and Population’; Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats; Sitjes, ‘Espacios agrarios y redes de asentamientos’. Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’. Pierre Guichard and Andrée Bazzana, meanwhile, also linked rural Andalusi hydraulics with the Berber and Arab tribal settlements identified by the former: Bazzana and Guichard, ‘Irrigation et société’; Guichard, ‘L’eau dans le monde musulman’. Retamero, ‘Lo que el tamaño importa’; Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’; Kirchner, ‘Original Design’. Glick and Kirchner, ‘Hydraulic Systems and Techno­logies’. Sitjes, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía’. The difference between macro-, meso- and micro- hydraulic systems makes no sense in historical perspective; it only shows current conditions: Butzer and others ‘Irrigation Agrosystems in Eastern Spain’. Retamero, ‘Lo que el tamaño importa’. Kirchner, ‘Original Design’.

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to build their agrarian landscape; what was the proportion of agricultural drylands in al-Andalus in connection with other agricultural strategies; what was the process of draining fluvial wetlands to create cereal fields and pasturelands; how can mountain pasturelands and their expansion in late medi­eval al-Andalus be identified. Furthermore, the problem of the occupation of farmed areas and the creation of new ones by the feudal society after the conquest of al-Andalus is also taken into account. We can assume the different contributions of the book as a kind of state-of-art around knowledge of the Muslim farming systems, but primarily the sum of the texts draws new research steps, thanks to research projects recently carried out, with the clear results shown herein. Methodo­logically, the articles in this volume share some basic principles. The most significant is the meticulous comparison of the current agrarian landscape with the documentary information. The study of irrigated, drained, dry, or pasture lands is based on the recognition in the current forms of the landscape of the plots, paths, boundaries, and structures (springs, dams, qanāt(s), water-lifting wheels, reservoirs, watermills, irrigation channels, drainage channels, cisterns for collecting water for livestock, etc.) that are mentioned in the written documentation. These documents are mainly those produced with the conquest of al-Andalus, as instruments for settling the rights derived from the distribution of the conquered properties. Thus, this written record offers a detailed and very complete view of the agrarian landscape at the time of the feudal conquest whose chrono­logy ranges from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, depending on the area. On many occasions, this landscape is still recognizable, at least partially, if the processes of urbanization and the creation of modern infrastructures have not irreversibly destroyed it. Drawing up detailed plans and the morpho­logical analysis of the landscape features enables structures mentioned in the documents, such as tracks, plots, or boundaries to be recognized. Consequently, it is possible to describe and measure these areas. It is often possible to detect what changes they have undergone over their history. Furthermore, E. Sitjes demonstrates the potential of GIS applications for analysing settlement distribution in relation to irrigated fields, roads, streams, and water sources. This chapter emphasizes the importance of analysing these relationships at a regional level. Archaeo­logical excavation has also revealed its capacity to better describe the architectural evolution of a watermill in use until recent times. Finally, it is possible to approach the forms of social management that have been applied to them and also how these have changed. The conquest of al-Andalus, for example, was one of the occasions when these changes had the greatest impact. So, from the point of view of the methodo­logy, this archaeo­logy is highly innovative since it has had to mobilize a wide range of technical strategies and data (aerial photo­graphy and carto­graphic analysis, field survey, documentary research, archaeo­logical excavation) in order to describe the agricultural landscapes, their extension and boundaries, the technical devices

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involved, and the changes that have occurred since they were first built. The initial methodo­logy has been updated by increasing the complexity of the research carried out.12 Beyond this common methodo­logical principle, which is developed to a greater or lesser degree according to the cases, there are some specificities in various of the studies. Perhaps the most notable of these concern the study of the mountain pastures in the northeast of Granada (A. Malpica, S. Villar, and G. García-Contreras) or in the Lleida area ( J. Brufal). These case studies present an added difficulty, namely that of the extension of the spaces studied and the little concretion of their limits. The urban huertas also have specific difficulties, for their extension and the intensity of modifications they have undergone (F. Esquilache, H. Kirchner, A. Virgili, A. Puy).13 Finally, the dryland areas (F. Retamero) also share the difficulty of plot boundaries that are not always clear. Moreover, there is less experience of research for the dry areas and pasturelands compared with the irrigated areas. Finally, in some cases, archaeo­logical excavation and the methods of the archaeo­logy of architecture have been applied, such as in the study of the watermill of Santa Eulària (A. Ferrer, H. Kirchner). The papers by E. Sitjes, A. Ferrer and H. Kirchner and E. Guinot discuss good examples of irrigation systems linked to peasant communities. In the first case, the settlements under examination constitute a well-connected network built around a rural marketplace in Manacor (Majorca). The position of the settlements, which include not only residential areas, but also agricultural fields, roads, clan territories, and marketplaces, is thus the result of applying very precise selection criteria. Similar examples of peasant networks have been analysed in the Balearics.14 The homogeneity of the settlement pattern in the archipelago suggests that it is mainly the result of a single episode of migration, which occurred in the tenth century, after the formal conquest of Majorca by ʿIsam al-Khawlāni (ad 902).15 Research carried out on a regional scale has stressed the importance of interconnections between settlements. The initial settlement of the colonizing groups and the emergence of their agricultural landscape involved the creation of new working areas through the implementation of an existing corpus of technical knowledge; the observation of hydro­logical and edapho­logical conditions; construction work; and, the introduction of new agricultural calendars and new combinations of plants and animal species. Again, a crucial factor was to successfully create links between different population groups — in other words, to create a functional network of settlements.  12 Ballesteros and others, ‘Por una arqueo­logía agraria’.  13 Huerta is the Spanish word for large urban irrigated areas.  14 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’; Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats; Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Sitjes, ‘Espacios agrarios y redes de asentamientos’.  15 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’; Barceló, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad’.

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The second case consists of the excavation and analysis of the different construction phases of a watermill in Santa Eulària del Riu (Ibiza) and reveal the difficulties inherent in an archaeo­logical analysis of a building which belongs to a network of channels (and which contains a water-geared structure for milling grain). Few watermills have been excavated in the Iberian Peninsula. The most significant example was excavated in Valencia, and it corresponds to a watermill that had already been abandoned before the end of the Middle Ages.16 The watermill of Santa Eulària, in contrast, remained active until the twentieth century, and underwent various transformations. This is fairly typical for watermills that are part of Andalusi hydraulic systems, which makes the archaeo­logical analysis of these facilities, and the identification of their medi­eval features, particularly challenging. It is also important to stress that the study of certain architectural techniques and features must not be undertaken in isolation from the analysis of the hydraulic system of which the watermills were part. Not all hydraulic systems could accommodate watermills. The small volumes of water captured by means of qanāt(s) and springs in the Balearic Islands were rarely large enough to drive watermills, and such mills were, therefore, exclusive to the hydraulic systems with the greatest water flow.17 E.  Guinot addresses a particular Andalusi hydraulic system that remained occupied by Muslim peasants after the Catalan conquest. The original nucleus of the medi­eval irrigation system of the Lorca channel (Riba-roja de Turia, Valencia) is an area between 4.5 and 3 ha in size. It was already significantly expanded just before the Catalan conquest but it is difficult to establish which part of it was created after the conquest. After the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1911, a detailed inventory of the lands allocated to each new settler was taken. The total size of the lands (272 ha) recorded almost corresponds with the size of the irrigated area in the Andalusi period (280 ha). This size is rather larger than other similar spaces in the Balearic Islands and more akin in size to suburban examples, such as the Horta of Valencia. But, in the case of Riba-roja, no town existed in the Andalusi period or later. As a significant conclusion, E. Guinot states that the development of the irrigated area of the Lorca channel, which was several hundred hectares in size, always remained in the hands of the rural community or communities that built it. Urban huertas have been less intensively studied. In Madīna Yābisa (Ibiza), the huerta was the result of the partial draining of a fringe of coastal marshland. According to the written record, the drainage process involved the introduction of waterwheels, which have been identified by archaeo­logical excavation.18 In Madīna Manūrqa (Ciutadella, Menorca),

 16 Arnau and Martí, ‘Aigua i desenvolupament urbà’.  17 Kirchner, ‘Watermills in the Balearic Islands’.  18 Barceló, González Villaescusa, and Kirchner, ‘La construction d’un espace agraire drainé’.

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irrigated areas were watered by means of waterwheels.19 The irrigation of the huerta of Madīna Ṭurṭūša (Tortosa), on the right bank of the Ebro, near the current delta, was not based on dams or diverting water from the river but on waterwheels and other drainage systems.20 Recent studies on the huerta of Valencia have revealed that the space currently embraced by the acequias branching off the Turia was not exhaustively irrigated in Andalusi times. Indeed, irrigation was limited to scattered clusters of fields connected to rural settlements spread over the alluvial plain.21 On Ibiza as in Valencia, the existence of a large number of rural settlements around the huertas suggests their mixed urban-rural nature. Also, in Granada, the urban agricultural area is related to peasant settlements.22 So, they stand in sharp contrast with the late medi­eval Christian huertas built and managed by city councils and oriented towards the production of market crops. Other urban huertas have also been studied, but too frequently the areas currently under cultivation or those documented from the fifteenth century onwards are unduly extrapolated back to the original design.23 F. Esquilache’s paper focuses on the huerta of Valencia, where large river-fed irrigation areas form an apparently homogeneous and continuous agricultural landscape. This author has applied a methodo­logy to identify the original perimeter of medi­eval Andalusi irrigation systems, and later expansions, based on morpho­logical features. This intensive archaeo­logical methodo­logy is complemented by a detailed examination of the written record. In all the examples examined in this chapter, the creation of the hydraulic systems was the responsibility of kinship-based peasant communities. F. Esquilache challenges the notion that these huertas were built on the initiative of the Andalusi state. Although he stresses that this possibility cannot be ruled out in some cases, he and also E. Guinot on other occasions  19 Retamero and Moll, ‘Los espacios agrícolas de Madīna Manûrqa’.  20 Kirchner, Virgili and Antolín, ‘Un espacio de cultivo urbano’; Puy and others, ‘Wetland Reclamation’; Kirchner and Virgili, ‘Espacios de cultivo vinculados’. See also the paper in this volume by Helena Kirchner, Antoni Virgili, and Arnald Puy.  21 Esquilache, Història de l’horta d’Aldaia; Esquilache, ‘L’evolució del paisatge agrari’. Ferran Esquilache has done a thorough documentary analysis and detailed survey work in the huerta of Valencia that lead to a description of several phases of creation of this irrigated area: Esquilache, Els constructors de l’Horta. See also his paper in this volume.  22 Excellent work by Trillo has examined in detail the written evidence which records the layout of the acequias and the procedures for water distribution in the city of Granada, but we still lack a precise plan of these water systems. Trillo, Agua, tierra y hombres. Significant archaeo­logical work has been done in Madīnat Ilbîra (Granada), the urban predecessor of Garnâṭa (Granada), where several rural settlements with small irrigated areas supplied by qanāt(s) have been located. Malpica, ‘El paisaje rural medi­eval’.  23 Martín Civantos, Poblamiento y territorio medi­eval; Jiménez Puertas, El poblamiento del territorio de Loja; Bazzana and De Meulemeester, ‘Irrigation Systems of Islamic Origin’; Bertrand and Cressier, ‘Irrigation et aménagement’. Navarro stressed the difficulties involved in distinguishing between different development phases in huertas. Navarro, ‘El tamaño de los sistemas hidráulicos’; see also some remarks by Puy, ‘La huerta de Ricote’.

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have emphasized the prominent role played by peasant initiative, and have even suggested that the creation of agricultural spaces and peasant settlements predates the city and was a condition for its development.24 The analysis of the agricultural areas related to the Andalusi city of Tortosa by H. Kirchner, A. Virgili, and A. Puy points in the same direction, although in Tortosa the water supply did not depend on river-fed channels but on wells and waterwheels, and irrigated fields were complemented by a large, partially drained riverside area used for grazing and sowing cereal. The analysis of Tortosa, in addition, involves a wide array of methodo­ logical techniques: the analysis of written documents, the examination of field distribution and morpho­logy, and fieldwork (which has allowed for the reconstruction of the characteristics and the size of agricultural areas). Geo-archaeo­logical techniques have been used to date the draining of the fluvial plain to the eighth century, and to detect traces of this process in the soils.25 The study of plant macro-remains, especially seeds found in recent excavations, has been combined with the examination of the written record and has yielded results that are also compatible with this kind of drained agricultural space.26 More recently, drainage, dry agriculture, and pasturelands had been introduced as necessary issues into a wider and more complex approach to the agrarian areas. Hence, this subject has produced outstanding results and the development of the al-Andalus agriculture, rural settlement patterns, and urban development can be understood much better thanks to this research. Some of the papers in this volume address these issues. Drainage was especially relevant in urban huertas like the ones on Ibiza and near Tortosa as mentioned above. In the first case, a coastal humid area was partially drained in the Andalusi period, although the process was still ongoing in the seventeenth century. As can be seen in the paper by H. Kirchner, A. Virgili, and A. Puy, a fluvial humid area south of Tortosa was also partially drained in order to create fields for cereal crops. However, it must be said that the most important drainage works were done after the Christian conquest in the humid Mediterranean coastal areas of the Iberian Peninsula.27 Dryland agriculture and stockbreeding have received less attention to date. The chapters that deal with these matters emphasize the need for an integrated approach when analysing Andalusi agricultural landscapes. Although the creation of irrigated areas may have been the first priority for Andalusi settlers, dryland agriculture, and livestock were also crucial

 24 Guinot, ‘L’Horta de València’; Guinot, ‘Agrosistemas del mundo andalusí’; Esquilache, ‘Perspectivas y problemas’; Esquilache, ‘L’evolució del paisatge agrari’.  25 Puy and others, ‘Wetland Reclamation’.  26 Kirchner, Virgili, and Antolín, ‘Un espacio de cultivo urbano’; Alonso, Antolín, and Kirchner, ‘Novelties and Legacies’.  27 Torró, ‘Field and Canal-Building’; Torró, ‘Tierras ganadas’.

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techno­logical and economic resources and, in fact, communities that did not possess irrigation systems were not at all rare.28 The detailed study carried out by J. Torró, which combines fieldwork with the analysis of the written record, the morpho­logy and distribution of agricultural units, and the characteristics of the soils, is methodo­logically exemplary. He has described in detail how a terraced agricultural landscape was built and managed in Aialt (Castell de Castells, Valencia). There were no irrigation areas in this settlement, and the productive system comprised dryland agriculture, the management of pasturelands and stockbreeding activities, and, as the author points out, this can be used as an example for similar systems elsewhere. As pointed out by F. Retamero in his chapter on drylands in al-Andalus, the integration and combination of dryland agriculture, irrigation, and stockbreeding must be studied at the local level in order to describe how different peasant activities juxtaposed and complemented one another in the context of diversified, risk-averse economic regimes. Any analysis of local systems should be complemented by a regional perspective that focuses on the settlement networks, the communication and exchange mechanisms that lay at the heart of the social structure on which the success and stability of the techno­logical choices made were ultimately based. Archaeo­logical research into Al-Andalus pasturelands is almost nonexistent leaving aside the work initiated by some of the authors of this book. J. Brufal’s chapter underlines the central role played by grazing areas in the selection process used by the peasant groups that colonized the plain of Mascançà (Lleida). Once more, the road network, whose function, in this case, was clearly related to the mobility of the flocks and thus the consolidation of a solid network of rural hamlets, played a key role in the stability of the landscape over time. The construction of farmhouses (almunias) by individuals which appear to have had a connection with the city and the state occurred after the consolidation of the peasant network. These almunias generally appeared around the Madīna Lārida or outside the perimeter of the territory controlled by peasant hamlets. In any case, it does not seem that the selection criteria used to choose their location was very different from those applied by peasant communities to place their hamlets.29 A. Malpica, S. Villar, and G. García Contreras emphasize the central role played by stockbreeding in the mountain areas to the north of Granada and Almería. Especially interesting is the description of the irrigation systems used to assist pasture growth in grazing areas, which also involved exclusive management systems.30 This avenue of research, the exploration of which

 28 Malpica Cuello, ‘El agua en la agricultura’.  29 Brufal, ‘Les almunias’; Brufal, El món rural i urbà; Eritja, De l’Almunia a la Turris.  30 Malpica Cuello, ‘Poblamiento, agricultura y ganadería’, especially pp. 41–42; Malpica Cuello, ‘La vida económica’; Villar Mañas and García-García, ‘Propuestas para el estudio’; Cara Barrionuevo, ‘Huellas de pastores’; Cara Barrionuevo and Rodríguez López, ‘El ámbito

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has only begun, opens the door to highly relevant issues such as communal access to pastures, water for irrigation, troughs, and mountain roads. The study of plant remains (charcoal, seeds, and pollen), animal remains, agricultural tools, food-processing, or storing facilities is not explicitly undertaken in this volume. The book focuses on working spaces. However, it is necessary to emphasize that the archaeo­logy of these material remains, along with the information conveyed by the written record, is also essential for the study of the selection processes that led to the creation of new agricultural landscapes and of the labour regimes implemented in them. The analysis of bio-archaeo­logical remains is an incipient field of study in medi­eval and Al-Andalus archaeo­logy, and the little evidence available is limited to local contexts, the representativeness of which is still uncertain.31 The application of geo-archaeo­logical methods to the analysis of agricultural areas is also only beginning, and despite the precision afforded by these techniques, both in terms of dating the foundation of agricultural settlements and in precisely describing their construction, we are still far from having consolidated sampling and analysis protocols.32 Bioarchaeo­logy and geoarchaeo­logy must, in any case, not be regarded as ends in themselves. They only have explanatory potential within the framework of a broader historical and archaeo­logical approach. Finally, some of the chapters in this book deal with the occupation of these spaces by new Christian colonists after the feudal conquest of Andalusi territory. Andalusi cultivated areas were not abandoned or destroyed, but the economic regime implanted by the new colonists was radically different. The transformations introduced into Andalusi hydraulic systems after the feudal conquest of the twelfth (Catalonia and Aragon), thirteenth (Valencia, Murcia, and the Balearic Islands) and fifteenth (Andalusia) centuries were carried out in the context of a conquest that often involved replacing the population, something that has no parallel in medi­eval Islam.33 The feudal colonization not only meant the occupation of agricultural areas created by Andalusi peasant communities, but also the introduction of changes in the crops planted and the ways these spaces were managed.34 In some cases, however, especially in Valencia and Aragon, the colonization process

 31  32  33  34

económico del pastoralismo’; Azorín Cantó and Ruiz Molina, ‘Aljibes cimbrados’; Ferrer, ‘Una infraestructura ramadera andalusí?’. For plant remains, see Alonso, Antolín, and Kirchner, ‘Novelties and Legacies’; PeñaChocarro and others, ‘Roman and Medi­eval Crops’. For animal remains, see García-García and Moreno, ‘De huertas y rebaños’. Puy and others, ‘Wetland Reclamation’; Puy, and Balbo, ‘The Genesis of Irrigated Terraces’; Ferro-Vázquez and others ‘1500 Years of Soil Use’; Kinnaird and others ‘Optically-Stimulated Luminescence’; Turner, Bolòs, and Kinnaird ‘Changes and Continuities’. Torró, ‘Colonizaciones y colonialismo’. Kirchner, ‘Colonització de lo regne’; Kirchner, ‘Arqueo­logia colonial’; Batet, L’aigua conquerida; Virgili, ‘La infraestructura hidràulica’; Virgili, ‘Espacios drenados andalusíes’.

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included the transformation and expansion of former Andalusi irrigation systems, in effect creating new agricultural areas.35 In the huerta of Valencia, the trend was to ‘fill in the gaps’ left between Andalusi irrigation systems with a form of agriculture which, although open to irrigation, basically focused on extensive farming. These operations, which often involved breaking new ground, are relatively easy to describe, because their plans are highly coherent, they tend to be regular in size, and their identification in the written records is highly precise, even including references to surface measurements.36 As described in some of the chapters in the book, agricultural systems changed in terms of both morpho­logy and size, and new management criteria (which aimed to maximize tax incomes) were introduced (F. Esquilache, E. Guinot, J. Torró, H. Kirchner, A. Virgili, and A. Puy). These changes were far-reaching and also affected the settlement pattern. Many Andalusi hamlets were abandoned, and the population tended to concentrate in fewer settlements, some of which were newly founded (E. Guinot, E. Sitjes). Peasant settlement networks were dismantled, crops and agricultural calendars changed, and new management systems implemented, including the application of different land and water-allocation criteria. New agricultural spaces were also created.37 These are easy to distinguish from the older spaces because each system was based on very different criteria. However, it is important to note that the Andalusi systems were not obliterated. The imprint of Andalusi agriculture was long-lasting. In the future, more research should be focused on the selection criteria used by peasants to choose their agricultural areas. Currently, we know these criteria included local conditions (which would be transformed through the implementation of the community’s technical know-how) and management principles. Often, this research approach allows for the distinction between agricultural systems constructed on the initiative of the peasants and those promoted by the state, and for the identification of feudal modifications or additions. On the other hand, it is also crucial to identify how these spaces were managed. After all, their success depended on the efficiency of management systems, which were themselves based on the establishment of  35 Torró, ‘Terrasses irrigades’; Torró, ‘Field and Canal-Building’; Torró, ‘Tierras ganadas’; Guinot, ‘L’horta de València’; Guinot and Selma, ‘La construcción del paisaje’; Furió and Martínez, ‘De la hidràulica andalusina a la feudal’; Teixeira, ‘O sistema hidraulico do Vale’; Laliena, ‘Los regadíos medi­evales en Huesca’; Laliena, ‘Agua y progreso social’; Ortega, ‘La agricultura de los vencedores’; Laliena and Ortega, ‘Formas feudales de especulación’.  36 Guinot, ‘L’horta de València’, pp. 271–300; Guinot, ‘La construcció d’un paisatge’; Esquilache, Historia de l’horta d’Aldaia. See also papers of both authors in this volume.  37 Torró, ‘Arqueo­logia de la conquesta’; Torró, ‘Terrasses irrigades’, Torró, ‘Field And Canal-Building’; Torró, ‘Tierras ganadas’; Torró, ‘Paisajes de frontera’, Guinot, ‘L’Horta de València’; Esquilache, ‘L’evolució del paisatge’; Guinot and Esquilache, ‘La reorganización del paisaje’; Kirchner, ‘Conquista y colonización’; Laliena and Ortega. ‘Formas feudales de especulación’.

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networks of peasant settlements and also on the exchange and common use of water or other resources. The shock caused by the feudal conquest presents a very different image of these systems. For instance, small settlements and agricultural areas (sometimes no larger than 2 ha. of land and consisting of two to seven houses) on Majorca, the toponyms of which relate to Berber clans, were granted to the nuclear families of Christian colonists in exchange for a tax. Documents dating to the aftermath of the conquest reveal that many of these tenants were soon selling the land they had been granted for planting vines and sowing cereals because they could not make ends meet. Then question is thus why was a cultivation space that had provided for as many as seven families before the conquest not sufficient for a single family of colonists afterwards. The answer has to do with the fact that the networks of rural settlements, the collective management of grazing areas, and the interaction of dryland agriculture, irrigation, and domestic stockbreeding had all been dismantled. Christian colonist families were granted land on the condition they planted vines or sowed cereal but the alliances and exchanges provided by the dense networks of settlements was no longer in place. As a result, on the Balearics the stabilization of the new agricultural regime was a very long process. In Catalonia (Lleida, Tortosa) and Valencia, the colonization process also faced problems, but the creation of new agricultural areas was much easier, and began shortly after the conquest. It seems, therefore, that successful colonization required the expansion of agricultural landscapes, even if substantial agricultural areas already existed.

Works Cited Secondary Works Alonso, Natàlia, Ferran Antolín, and Helena Kirchner, ‘Novelties and Legacies in Crops and Agricultural Practices of the Islamic Period in the North-East of the Iberian Peninsula: The Archaeobotanical Evidence in Madīna Balagî, Madīna Lārida and Madīna Ṭurṭūša’, Quaternary International, 346 (2014), 149–61 Azorín Cantó, Martín, and Liborio Ruiz Molina, ‘Aljibes cimbrados en el área de Yecla (Murcia). Notas para el estudio de la ganadería trashumante en el NE de la región de Murcia. Siglos XII al XIX’, in El agua en zonas áridas. Arqueo­logía e Historia. I Coloquio de Historia y Medio físico, ed. by Antonio Malpica Cuello and Lorenzo Cara Barrionuevo (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1989), pp. 607–30 Arnau, Beatriz, and Javier Martí, ‘Aigua i desenvolupament urbà a Madinat Balansiya (València). L’excavació d’un molí hidràulic de l’època califal’, in Els molins hidràulics valencians: tecno­logia, història i context social, ed. by Thomas F. Glick (Valencia: Institució Alfons el Magnànim, 2000), pp. 165–92

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Ballesteros, Paula, Jorge A. Eiroa, Margarita Fernández Mier, Helena Kirchner, Julián Ortega, Juan A. Quirós, Fèlix Retamero, Eugènia Sitjes, Josep Torró, and Alfonso Vigil-Escalera, ‘Por una arqueo­logía agraria de las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas. Propuesta de un protocolo de investigación’ in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perpectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 185–202 Barceló, Miquel, ‘El diseño de espacios irrigados en al-Andalus: Un enunciado de principios generales’ in I Coloquio de Historia y Medio Físico. El agua en zonas áridas. Arqueo­logía e historia, ed. by Lorenzo Cara and Antonio Malpica, 2 vols (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1989), I, pp. xv–xlv Barceló, Miquel, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad de los espacios hidráulicos en al-Andalus’, in El agua en la agricultura de al-Andalus, ed. by Antonio Malpica (Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1995), pp. 25–39 Barceló, Miquel, ed., El curs de les aigües. Treballs en curs sobre els pagesos de Yābisa (290–633H/902–1235dC) (Ibiza: Consell Insular d’Eivissa i Formentera, 1997) Barceló, Miquel, Immigration berbère et établissements paysans à Ibiza (902–1235). À la recherche de la logique de la construction d’une nouvelle société’, in Castrum 7. Zones côtières littorales dans le monde méditerranéen au Moyen âge: défense, peuplement, mise en valeur, ed. by Jean-Marie Martin (Roma: Casa de Velázquez, 2001), pp. 291–321 Barceló, Miquel, M. Antonia Carbonero, Ramon Martí, and Guillem Rosselló, Les aigües cercades. Qanāt(s) a les Illes Orientals d’al-Andalus (Majorca: Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics, 1986) Barceló, Miquel, Helena Kirchner, Ramon Martí, and José M. Torres, The Design of Irrigation Systems in al-Andalus: The Cases of Guajar Faragüit (Los Guájares, Granada, Spain) and Castellitx, Aubenya and Biniatró (Balearic Islands) (Bellaterra: Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1998) Barceló, Miquel, and Helena Kirchner, Terra de Falanis. Quan Felanitx no ho era. Assentaments andalusins i organització de l’espai al sud-est de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca: Universitat de les Illes Balears, 1995) Barceló, Miquel, Ricardo González Villaescusa, and Helena Kirchner, ‘La construction d’un espace agraire drainé au ḥawz de la Madīna de Yābisa (Ibiza, Baléares)’, in La dynamique des paysages protohistoriques, antiques, médiévaux et modernes. XVIIe Rencontres Internationales d’Archéo­logie et d’Histoire d’Antibes, ed. by Joëlle Burnouf, Jean-Paul Bravard, and Gérard Chouquer (Sophia Antipolis: Éditions APDCA, 1997), pp. 113–25 Barceló, Miquel, and Fèlix Retamero, Els barrancs tancats. L’ordre pagès al sud de Menorca en època andalusina (Maó: Institut Menorquí d’Estudis, 2005) Batet, Carolina, L’aigua conquerida. Hidraulisme feudal en terres de conquesta (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2006) Bazzana, André, and Pierre Guichard, ‘Irrigation et société dans l’Espagne orientale au Moyen Âge’, in L’homme et l’eau en Méditerranée et au Proche Orient I, ed. by Paul Sanlaville and Jean Métral (Lyon: Publications de la Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée, 1981), pp. 115–40

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Bazzana, André, and John De Meulemeester, ‘Irrigation Systems of Islamic Origin in the Valle de Ricote (Murcia, Spain)’, in Ruralia II. Památky archeo­logické, 11 (1998), 152–60 Bertrand, Marielle, and Patrice Cressier, ‘Irrigation et aménagement du terroir dans la vallée de l’Andarax (Almería): les reseaux anciens de Ragol’, Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, 21 (1985), 115–35 Bolens, Lucie, Agronomes andalous du Moyen-Age (Geneva: Université de Genève, 1981) Brufal, Jesús, ‘Les almunias du district musulman de Lérida (XIe-XIIe siècles)’, Terroirs d’al-Andalus et du Maghreb Médiéval: Peuplements, Ressources et Sainteté, ed. by Sophie Gillote and Élise Voguet (Saint Denis, Bouchène, 2015), pp. 150–78 Brufal, Jesús, El món rural i urbà en la Lleida islàmica (s. XI–XII). Lleida i l’est del districte: Castelldans i el pla del Mascançà (Lleida, Pagès Editors, 2013), pp. 297–350 Butzer, Karl W., Joan F. Mateu, Elisabeth K. Butzer, and Pavel Kraus, ‘Irrigation Agrosystems in Eastern Spain : Roman or Islamic Origins?’, Annals of the Association of American Geo­graphers 75.4 (1985), 479–509 Cara Barrionuevo, Lorenzo, ‘Huellas de pastores: observando los paisajes ganaderos de los “extremos” granadinos’, Análisis de los paisajes históricos. De al-Andalus a la sociedad feudal. ed. by Antonio Malpica Cuello (Granada, Editorial Alhulia, 2009), pp. 169–202 Cara Barrionuevo, Lorenzo, and Juana María Rodríguez López, ‘El ámbito económico del pastoralismo andalusí. Grandes aljibes ganaderos en la provincia de Almería’, El agua en zonas áridas. Arqueo­logía e Historia. I Coloquio de Historia y Medio físico, ed. by Antonio Malpica Cuello and Lorenzo Carra Barrionuevo (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1989), pp. 631–53 Cressier, Patrice, ‘Archéo­logie des structures hydrauliques en Al-Andalus’ in El agua en las zonas áridas: arqueo­logía e historia. I Coloquio de historia y medio físico, ed. by Lorenzo Cara and Antonio Malpica, 2 vols (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1989), I, pp. li–xcii Ferro-Vázquez, Cruz, Antonio Martínez-Cortizas, Juan Carlos Nóvoa-Muñoz, Paula Ballesteros-Arias, and Felipe Criado-Boado, ‘1500 years of Soil Use Reconstructed from the Chemical Properties of a Terraced Soil Sequence’, Quaternary International 346 (2014), 28–40 Eritja, Xavier, De l’Almunia a la Turris: organització de l’espai a la regió de Lleida (segles XI–XIII) (Lleida: Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 1998) Esquilache, Ferran, Història de l’horta d’Aldaia. Construcció i evolució d’un paisatge social (Aldaia: Ajuntament d’Aldaia, 2007); Ferran Esquilache, ‘L’evolució del paisatge agrari andalusí i feudal de les grans hortes fluvials. Les sèquies de Quart i del Comuner d’Aldaia a l’horta de València’, Recerques, 62 (2011), 5–36 Esquilache, Ferran, ‘L’evolució del paisatge agrari andalusí i feudal de les grans hortes fluvials. Les sèquies de Quart i del Comuner d’Aldaia a l’horta de València’, Recerques. Història, economia, cultura, 62 (2011), 5–36 Esquilache, Ferran, ‘Perspectivas y problemas en la aplicación de la Arqueo­ logía hidráulica a las grandes huertas fluviales. Balance de la investigación

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en la huerta de Valencia’, in Estudiar el pasado: aspectos metodológicos de la investigación en Ciencia de la Antigüedad y de la Edad Media, ed. by Ainoa Castro, Gerard González, Daniel Gómez, Katarzyna Starczewska, Joan Oller, Arnald Puy, Roger Riera, and Nereida Villagra (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012), pp. 211–21 Esquilache, Ferran, Els constructors de l’Horta de València. (València: Publicacions de la Universitat de València) Ferrer, Antoni, ‘Una infraestructura ramadera andalusí? Proposta d’adscripció cronològica dels aljubs de la Mola, Formentera’, Irrigation, Society, Landscape. Tribute to Thomas F. Glick, València, ed. by Carles Sanchis-Ibor, Guillermo Palau-Salvador, Ignasi Mangue Alférez, and Luís P. Martínez-Sanmartín (Valencia: Universitat Politècnica de València, 2014. https://riunet.upv.es/ handle/10251/47675?show=full (accessed 5 September 2021) Furió, Antoni, and Luís P. Martínez, ‘De la hidràulica andalusina a la feudal: continuïtat i ruptura. L’Horta del Cent a l’Alzira medi­eval’, in L’espai de l’aigua. Xarxes i sistemes d’irrigació a la Ribera del Xúquer en la perspectiva histórica, ed. by Antoni Furió and Aureliano Lairón (Alzira: Ajuntament d’Alzira, Universitat de València 2000), pp. 19–73 García-García, Marcos, and Marta Moreno, ‘De huertas y rebaños: Reflexiones históricas y ecológicas sobre el papel de la ganadería en al-Ándalus y aportaciones arqueozoológicas para su estudio’, Historia Agraria, 76 (2018), pp. 7–48 Glick, Thomas F., Irrigation and Society in Medi­eval Valencia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970) Glick, Thomas F., and Helena Kirchner, ‘Hydraulics Systems and Techno­logies of Islamic Spain: History and Archaeo­logy’, in Working with Water in Medi­eval Europe, edited by Paolo Squatriti (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 267–330 Guichard, Pierre, ‘L’eau dans le monde musulman medi­eval’, L’homme et l’eau en Méditerranée et au Proche Orient II. Aménagements hydrauliques, état et législation, ed. by Jean Métral (Lyon: Travaux de la Maison de l’Orient, 1982), pp. 117–24 Guinot, Enric, ‘L’Horta de València a la baixa Edat Mitjana. De sistema hidràulic andalusí a feudal’, Afers, 51 (2005), 271–300 Guinot, Enric, ‘Agrosistemas del mundo andalusí: criterios de construcción de los paisajes irrigados’, in Cristiandad e Islam en la Edad Media Hispana (Logroño, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2008), pp. 209–38 Guinot, Enric, ‘La construcció d’un paisatge medi­eval irrigat: l’horta de la ciutat de València’ in Natura i desenvolupament. El medi ambient a l’Edat Mitjana, ed. by Flocel Sabaté (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2008), pp. 191–220 Guinot, Enric, and Sergi Selma, ‘La construcción del paisaje en una huerta feudal: la Sèquia Major de Vila-Real (siglos XIII–XV)’, in Hidráulica agraria y sociedad feudal. Técnicas, prácticas, espacios, ed. by Josep Torró and Enric Guinot (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2012), pp. 103–46 Guinot, Enric, and Ferran Esquilache, ‘La reorganización del paisaje agrario en la huerta de Valencia después de la conquista cristiana. El sistema hidráulico y el parcelario de Montcada y Benifaraig en el siglo XIII’, Debates de Arqueo­logía

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Medi­eval, 2 (2012), 229–76 http://www.arqueo­logiamedi­evaldebates.com/ numero/2 (accessed 8 December 2019) Jiménez Puertas, Miguel, El poblamiento del territorio de Loja en la Edad Media (Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2002) Kinnaird, Tim, Jordi Bolòs, Alex Turner, and Sam Turner, ‘Optically-Stimulated Luminescence Profiling and Dating of Historic Agricultural Terraces in Catalonia (Spain)’, Journal of Archaeo­logical Science 78 (2017), 66–77 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Colonització de “lo regne de Mallorques qui és dins la mar”. La subversió feudal dels espais agraris andalusins a Mallorca’, in Histoire et archéo­logie des terres catalanes au Moyen Âge, ed. by Philippe Sénac (Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 1995), pp. 279–316 Kirchner, Helena, La construcció de l’espai pagès a Mayûrqa: les valls de Bunyola, Orient, Coanegra i Alaró (Mallorca: Universitat de les Illes Balears, 1997) Kirchner, Helena, El mapa de los asentamientos rurales andalusíes de la isla de Ibiza’ in Asentamientos rurales y territorio en el mundo mediterráneo en época medi­eval, ed. by Carmen Trillo (Granada: Athos-Pergamos, 2002), pp. 120–86 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Arqueo­logia colonial: espais andalusins i pobladors catalans, 1229–1300’, in El feudalisme comptat i debatut. Formació i expansió del feudalisme català, ed. by Miquel Barceló, Gaspar Feliu, Antoni Furió, Marina Miquel, and Jaume Sobrequés (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2003), pp. 201–36 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati medi­evali e le loro forme di gestione sociale’ in L’acqua nei secoli altomedi­evali. Atti delle LV Settimane, Spoleto, 2 vols (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2008), I, pp. 471–503 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Redes de asentamientos andalusíes y espacios irrigados a partir de qanāt(s) en la sierra de Tramuntana de Mallorca: una reconsideración de la construcción del espacio campesino en Mayûrqa’ in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perpectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 79–94 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Original Design, Tribal Management and Modifications in Medi­eval Hydraulic Systems in the Balearic Islands (Spain)’, World Archaeo­ logy: The Archaeo­logy of Water 41.1(2009), 148–65 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Watermills in the Balearic Islands during the Muslim period’, in Food in the Medi­eval Rural Environment: Processing, Storage, Distribution of Food, ed. by Jan Klápste and Petr Sommer, Ruralia, 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 45–55 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Conquista y colonización feudal: arqueo­logía de los cambios producidos en los espacios irrigados de origen andalusí. El caso de las Islas Baleares’, in La conquista de Al-Andalus en el siglo XIII, ed. by Jorge Eiroa (Murcia: Centro de Estudios Medi­evales de la Universidad de Murcia, 2012), pp. 41–63 Kirchner, Helena, and Carmen Navarro, ‘Objetivos, métodos y práctica de la arqueo­logía hidráulica’, Archeo­logia Medi­evale, 20 (1993), 121–50

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Kirchner, Helena, Antoni Virgili, and Ferran Antolín, ‘Un espacio de cultivo urbano en al-Andalus: Madīna Turṭûša (Tortosa) antes de 1148’, Historia Agraria, 62 (2014), 11–45 Kirchner, Helena, and Antoni Virgili, ‘Espacios de cultivo vinculados a Madīna Ṭurṭûša (Tortosa, Cataluña): norias, drenajes y campesinos (siglos VIII–XII)’, Edad Media. Revista de Historia 20 (2019), 83–112 Laliena, Carlos, ‘Los regadíos medi­evales en Huesca. Agua y desarrollo social, siglos XII–XV’, in Agua y progreso social. Siete estudios sobre el regadío en Huesca, siglos XII–XX, ed. by Carlos Laliena (Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 1994), pp. 19–44 Laliena, Carlos, ‘Agua y progreso social en Aragón’, in Agua pasada. Regadíos en el Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza, ed. by Julián Ortega (Zaragoza: Gobierno de Aragón, 2008), pp. 53–84 Laliena, Carlos, and Julián Ortega, ‘Formas feudales de especulación agraria: villas, viñas y acequias en el sur de Aragón (ca. 1170–1240)’, in Hidráulica agraria y sociedad feudal. Prácticas, técnicas, espacios, ed. by Josep Torró and Enric Guinot (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de Valencia, 2012) pp. 79–102 Malpica Cuello, Antonio, ‘La vida económica en la frontera nazarí-castellana. Ganadería y sal en la zona nororiental del reino de Granada’, Le monde du sel. Mélanges offerts à Jean Claude Hocquet ed. by Carol D. Litchfield, Rudolf Palme, and Peter Piasecki (Hall in Tirol: Berenkamp, 2001), pp. 101–24 Malpica Cuello, Antonio, ‘El paisaje rural medi­eval en la Vega de Granada y la ciudad de Ilbîra’, Arqueo­logía Espacial, 26 (2006), 227–42 Malpica Cuello, Antonio, ‘Poblamiento, agricultura y ganadería en el reino nazarí de Granada’, La pastorizia mediterranea. Storia e diritto (secoli XI–XX), ed. by Antonello Mattone and Pinucia Simbula (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2011), pp. 41–54 Malpica Cuello, Antonio, ‘El agua en la agricultura. Agroecosistemas y ecosistema en la economía rural andalusí’, Vínculos de Historia, 1 (2012), 31–44 Martín Civantos, José M., Poblamiento y territorio medi­eval en el Zenete (Granada) (Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2007) Navarro, Carmen, ‘El tamaño de los sistemas hidráulicos de origen andalusí. La documentación escrita y la arqueo­logía hidráulica’, in Agricultura y regadío en al-Andalus. II Coloquio de historia y medio físico, ed. by Lorenzo Cara and Antonio Malpica (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1995), pp. 177–89 Navarro, Carmen, ‘El ma’gil de Liétor: un sistema de terrazas de origen andalusí en activo’ in I Congresso de Arqueo­logia Peninsular (Porto, 12–18 de Outubro de 1993), ed. by Vítor Oliveira, 6 vols (Porto: Sociedade Portuguesa de Antropo­ logia e Etno­logia, 1995), VI, pp. 365–78 Ortega, Julián, ‘La agricultura de los vencedores y la agricultura de los vencidos. La investigación de las transformaciones feudales de los paisajes agrarios en el valle del Ebro (Siglos XII–XIII)’, in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perpectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: BAR International Series, 2010), pp. 123–46

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Peña-Chocarro, Leonor, Guillem Perez-Jordà, Natàlia Alonso, Ferran Antolín, Andres Teira-Brion, Joao P. Tereso, Eva María Montes, and Daniel López Reyes, ‘Roman and Medi­eval Crops in the Iberian Peninsula: A First Overview of Seeds and Fruits from Archaeo­logical Sites’. Quaternary International (2017) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.09.037) (06/02/2019) Puy, Arnald, ‘La huerta de Ricote (Murcia, España) entre los siglos XV y XVIII’, in Estudiar el pasado: aspectos metodológicos de la investigación en Ciencias de la Antigüedad y de la Edad Media, ed. by Ainoa Castro, Gerard González, Daniel Gómez, Katarzyna Starczewska, Joan Oller, Arnald Puy, Roger Riera, and Nereida Villagra (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012), pp. 199–209 Puy, Arnald, and Andrea Balbo, ‘The Genesis of Irrigated Terraces in al-Andalus: A Geoarchaeo­logical Perspective on Intensive Agriculture in Semi-Arid Environ­ments (Ricote, Murcia, Spain)’. Journal of Arid Environments, 89 (2013), 45–56 Puy, Arnald, Andrea Balbo, Antoni Virgili and Helena Kirchner, ‘Wetland Reclamation in al-Andalus: The Drainage of Les Arenes Floodplain (Tortosa, Spain, 7th–10th centuries ad)’, Geoderma, 232–34 (2014), 219–35 Retamero, Fèlix, ‘Gorge Builders: Andalusi Peasant Settlements in the South of Minorca Island (10th–13th)’ in Ruralia III. Památky archeo­logické, 14 (2000), 177–86 Retamero, Fèlix, ‘Lo que el tamaño importa. Cuándo y por qué se modificaron los antiguos sistemas hidráulicos andalusíes’, Arqueo­logía Espacial, 26 (2006), 293–310 Retamero, Fèlix, ‘Irrigated Agriculture, Risk and Population: The Andalusi Hydraulic Systems of the Balearic Islands as a Case Study (Xth-XIIIth century)’ in Marqueurs des Paysages et systèmes socio-économiques, ed. by Jean René, John Chapman, and Pierre-Yves Laffont (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007), pp. 135–47 Retamero, Fèlix, and Bernat Moll, ‘Los espacios agrícolas de Madīna Manûrqa (Ciutadella de Menorca). Siglos X–XIII’, in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perpectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: BAR International Series, 2010), pp. 95–106 Sitjes, Eugènia, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía de sistemas hidráulicos de Al-Andalus’, Arqueo­logía Espacial, 26 (2006), 263–91 Sitjes, Eugènia, ‘Espacios agrarios y redes de asentamientos andalusíes en Manacor (Mallorca)’. Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perpectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas. BAR International Series, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 61–77 Teixeira, Simone, ‘O sistema hidraulico do Vale do Huecha sob o domínio do Mosteiro de Veruela (Aragao)’, in I Congresso de Arqueo­logia Peninsular (Porto, 12–18 de Outubro de 1993), ed. by Vítor Oliveira, 6 vols (Porto: Sociedade Portuguesa de Antropo­logia e Etno­logia, 1995), VI, pp. 383–402 Torró, Josep, ‘Arqueo­logia de la conquesta. Registre material, substitució de poblacions i transformació de l’espai rural valencià (segles XIII–XIV)’, in El feudalisme comptat i debatut. Formació i expansió del feudalisme català, ed. by

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Miquel Barceló, Gaspar Feliu, Antoni Furió, Marina Miquel, and Jaume Sobrequés (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2003), pp. 153–200 Torró, Josep, ‘Terrasses irrigades a les muntanyes valencianes. Les transformacions de la colonització cristiana’, Afers, 51 (2005), 301–56 Torró, Josep, ‘Colonizaciones y colonialismo medi­evales. La experiencia catalanoaragonesa y su contexto’, in De Tartessos a Manila. Siete estudios coloniales y post-coloniales, ed. by Glòria Cano and Ana Delgado (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2008), pp. 91–118 Torró, Josep, ‘Field and Canal-Building after the Conquest: Modifications to the Cultivated Ecosystem in the Kingdom of Valencia, ca. 1250–ca. 1350’, in A World of Economics and History: Essays in Honor of Prof. Andrew M. Watson, ed. by Brian A. Catlos (València: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2009), pp. 77–108 Torró, Josep, ‘Tierras ganadas. Aterrazamiento de pendientes y desecación de marjales en la colonización cristiana del territorio valenciano’, in Por una arqueo­logía agraria. Perspectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 157–72 Torró, Josep, ‘Paisajes de frontera: Conquistas cristianas y transformaciones agrarias (siglos XII al XIV)’, Edad Media. Revista de Historia 20 (2019), 13–46. https://doi.org/10.24197/em.20.2019.13–46 Trillo, Carmen, Agua, tierra y hombres en al-Andalus. La dimensión agrícola del mundo nazarí (Granada: Ajbar, 2004) Turner, Sam, Jordi Bolòs, and Tim Kinnaird, ‘Changes and Continuities in a Mediterranean Landscape: A New Interdisciplinary Approach to Under­ standing Historic Character in Western Catalonia’, Landscape Research 43 (2018), 922–38 Villar Mañas, Sonia, and Marcos García García, ‘Propuestas para el estudio de la ganadería andalusí. Aproximaciones desde los registros arqueológico y etnográfico’, El registro arqueológico y la arqueo­logía medi­eval. Actas de las XIII Jornadas de Arqueo­logía Medi­eval de la Casa de los Tiros (Granada, 12–14 de junio 2012), ed. by Antonio Malpica Cuello and Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz (Granada: Editorial Alhulia, 2016), pp. 257–96 Virgili, Antoni, ‘La infraestructura hidràulica de la Conca del Gaià a mitjan segle XII segons el “Llibre Blanch” de Santes Creus’, Universitat Tarraconensis, 8 (1985–1986), 215–26 Virgili, Antoni, ‘Espacios drenados andalusíes y la imposición de las pautas agrarias feudales en el prado de Tortosa (segunda mitad del siglo XII)’, in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perpectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 147–56 Watson, Andrew M., Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World: The Dif­ fusion of Crops and Farming Techniques 700–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)

Peasant Irrigation Systems

Eugènia Sitjes

Agrarian Spaces and the Network of Andalusi Settlements of Manacor (Mallorca) Introduction: Al-Andalus Irrigated Spaces and the Methodo­logy of the Study1 This chapter presents part of my research on Islamic irrigated spaces and archaeo­logical sites in Manacor and Sant Llorenç des Cardassar (Mallorca). Following the main focus of the volume, emphasis is placed on the Andalusi agrarian spaces and settlements, and the new techniques and methodo­logy applied to the study of this historical period. The method used in this work has its beginnings in the 1980s, in fieldwork carried out by a research team from the UAB and directed by Miquel Barceló. Since then, the principles of Andalusi hydraulics and the method of ‘hydraulic archaeo­logy’ have been described in detail in various publications.2 The method consists of combining diverse sources of information: the study of place names (toponymy), document study, and hydraulic and archaeo­logical survey. Starting from this well-established method, and tested in different regional projects over more than twenty years,3 new methodo­logical aspects

* The study presented here was carried out thanks to a predoctoral grant from the Ministry of Education and Science.  1 Al-Andalus is the toponym used to refer to Muslim Spain. ‘Andalusi’ is its associated demonym. Andalusi settlement in the Iberian Peninsula took place from 92 ah./ 711 ce until the final conquest of the Reign of Granada (1492 ce). However, the conquest of, and migration to, the Balearic Islands occurred later and, consequently, the period of Andalusi colonization in this region, from 290 ah./902 ce to the conquest by James I, king of the Crown of Aragon (1229 ce), was shorter than on the mainland.  2 See a representative selection of titles in Barceló, ‘El diseño de espacios’, pp. 2013–47; Barceló, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad’, pp. 25–39; Glick and Kirchner, ‘Hydraulic Systems and Techno­logies’, pp. 267–329; Kirchner and Navarro, ‘Objetivos, método y práctica’, pp. 121–50.  3 Barceló, Los Banū Ru’ayn, p. 3; Barceló and others, Les aigües cercades; Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats; Barceló and others, The design Eugènia Sitjes ([email protected]) has a PhD in Medi­eval History and is a collaborator of the research group Agrarian Archaeology of the Middle Ages (2017SGR1073) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest, ed. by Helena Kirchner and Flocel Sabaté, TMC 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 31–63 10.1484/M.TMC-EB.5.124540

FHG

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Map 2.1. Andalusi districts of Mallorca. Map after Barceló, ‘Sobre la divisió administrativa de Mayūrqa’, pp. 238–45.

Map 2.2. Internal divisions in the district of Manacor. Map after La Remenbrança de Nuno Sanç, ed. by Mut and Rosselló.

Agr a r ia n S pac e s an d t h e A n dalu s i S e t tle me nt s o f Manaco r

have been added and also new techno­logies, as more tools for this consolidated methodo­logy, permitting one to obtain more precise knowledge about the Andalusi society on the Islands (the reader is referred to the recent proposal of a research protocol of agrarian spaces).4 The integration of computer applications, such as databases (DB) and the systems of geo­ graphical information (SGI), allow for the efficient storing, organization, hierarchy, and management of large amounts of data of a geo­graphical nature. In second place, they enable agile statistical and geo­graphical analysis, and so are ideal tools for studying agrarian spaces. Finally, they are extremely useful for the ­graphic depiction of agrarian systems in the context of regional studies, since they permit the generation of maps which transmit large quantities of spatial data in a clear and efficient manner. Both systems (DB and SGI) are genuine methodo­logical innovations which have enriched the analysis. It is fitting to highlight, in any case, that the questions and objectives in the study of Andalusi agrarian spaces are still basically the same, duly formulated in their beginnings, but which can now be known more precisely thanks to these new tools.

The Network of Settlements and Andalusi Agrarian Spaces of Manacor In the Andalusi era, Manacor was the name of a district — the district of M.n.qur, in the Arab version of the Llibre del Repartiment (see Map 2.1) — and of one of the internal divisions within the same district5 (see Map 2.2). This division is known thanks to La Remembrança, a document written immediately after the conquest by James I in 1230, which consists of an inventory of the properties that were adjudicated to the magnate Nunó Sanç.6 Miquel Barceló identified an analogous form of the M.n.qur in the Llibre del Repartiment in the Memories of Abu Bakr b. ‘Ali al-Sanhaji. This mentions that in one of the itineraries of the campaign by ‘Abd al-Mu’min,

of irrigation systems in al-Andalus; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’, pp. 120–86; Kirchner, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati’, pp. 471–503; Kirchner, ‘Original Design’, pp. 151–68; Sitjes, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía’, pp. 263–91; Sitjes, ‘Espacios agrarios y redes’, pp. 61–77.  4 Ballesteros and others, ‘Por una arqueo­logía agraria’, pp. 185–202.  5 ‘El códice Latinoarábigo del Repartimiento’, ed. by Busquets, pp. 243–300. A possible translation of Llibre del Repartiment could be Book of Distribution. Miquel Barceló recreated the Andalusi districts (Barceló, Sobre Mayūrqa) that were subsequently determined by Ricard Soto (Soto, ‘La porció de Nunó Sanç’, pp. 347–65).  6 The document was edited and published by Mut and Rosselló, La Remembrança. The editors date the text to around 1232. When making reference to this document in this article, the name La Remembrança is used. A possible translation of La Remembrança could be The Report. The subdivisions within the district of Manacor have been able to be known thanks to La Remembrança.

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Map 2.3. Mankur settlements in Mallorca. Unless otherwise specified, all maps in this chapter are by the author.

in the area of Todga (Atlas), some Ait ‘Ali u Sukkur u Mankur submitted to the Almohads.7 This shows the existence of a group that refers back to a common ancestor, Mankur, in the area of the Atlas in the Almohad era. A Mankur group had earlier already settled in Mayūrqa and had given a name to the territory under study. This was confirmed by the nisba of Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh b. Sahl al-‘Abdarři al-Manaqūrī (born in 490 ah./1096 ce and died in 560 ah./1166 ce), who carried out the functions of imām and kātib in Madīna Mayūrqa.8 The existence of a group that gives its name to a territory is not infrequent in al-Andalus nor in all of the Islamic area, where villages, regions, or other features of the countryside can adopt the name of the clan or tribal group that settled there.9 There are numerous examples that allow one to affirm that they correspond, with all probability, to the settlement of all or part of the group in a given place.10  7 Barceló, ‘Un topònim berber més’, pp. 35–36.  8 Rosselló, L’Islam a les illes Balears, pp. 120–21; Barceló, ‘Un topònim berber més’, p. 36; Riera, Prosopografia, p. 38.  9 Guichard, Structures sociales ‘orientales’, p. 309.  10 Miquel Barceló highlighted, for example, the Huaune Javarah> hawma Hawwara alquería, the name in the Llibre del Repartiment, that permits one to indicate that it was from the

Agr a r ia n S pac e s an d t h e A n dalu s i S e t tle me nt s o f Manaco r

The Mankur group also gave its name to at least two alquerías in this territory: the Balleix Manacor alquería (located on the northern limit of the municipal area in the Nou valley) and the Mancorme Abeniara alquería (in the south of the Manacor municipal area, in the terra de Falanis, subsequently called Felanitx).11 Another segment of the Mankur group settled in the district of Inkan, in the north of the island creating the Manchor alquería and the Manchor rahal (a rahal is also an Andalusi agricultural exploitation, but smaller than an alquería, as detailed below).12 This corresponds to modern-day Manacor (see Map 2.3). Different studies have shown that the alquerías that gave their names to large territories (municipal areas and districts) had larger hydraulic systems at their disposal in their territory.13 According to H. Kirchner, the groups that gave their name to districts had to have a certain pre-eminence, possibly already when settling and based on them having larger population size which meant more influence on the founding pacts of the principal irrigated spaces. The result of these pacts meant management of the hydraulic systems tending towards equity, but not necessarily towards equality.14 This is the case, for example, of the Banū Furānik, present in various settlements on the Balearic Islands. They constructed the largest hydraulic system of the Falanis (nowadays the municipal area of Felanitx) to which they gave its name.15 Another example is that of the Banū ‘Arūs, who gave their name to the administrative district (Canarrossa) and to the qanāt that fed the largest hydraulic system (qanāt al-‘Arūs), one managed by the Califa alquería that possibly belonged to the same group.16 M. Argemí studied the Artà district where the Yraten founded two settlements, that of the Almudaina of Artano and the Dahamar alquería, which managed the largest hydraulic system in the municipal area, 8 ha in size, with two integrated watermills.17 These are three examples which show that the pre-eminence of certain groups was translated into the management of the most important hydraulic systems. In the case of Manacor, the guidelines described in the cases of Canarrossa, Felanitx, and Artà were followed. The pre-eminence of the Mankur group was undoubtedly notable, not only because it gave its name to three alquerías, the municipal area, and the district, but also because it ‘region of the Hawwara’ (Barceló, ‘Vespres de feudals’, p. 244). Pierre Guichard also offered numerous examples, such as an iqlim of the Zanata in Valencia and the place-name of Melilla (Malila), among others (Guichard, Structures sociales ‘orientales’, pp. 308–11).  11 Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis.  12 Soto, Còdex Català, fol. 6v and 54r.  13 Kirchner, La construcción de l’espai pagès; Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’, p. 354; Kirchner, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati’, p. 484.  14 Kirchner, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati’, p. 484.  15 Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis.  16 Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès, p. 354.  17 Argemí, ‘Segmentación de grupos bereberes y árabes’, 373–86.

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constructed two irrigated spaces comparatively larger than the rest of the hydraulic systems of Manacor. The Balleix Manacor alquería constructed and managed the biggest irrigated space in the municipal area, the hydraulic system of La Vall de la Nou, 7 ha in area and with two watermills. The Mancorme Abeniara alquería, that is, Mankur of the Banū Hiyyara, had a hydraulic system of approximately 2.5 ha irrigated by a water-lifting wheel.18 The existence of few small irrigated spaces in the Manacor area made these two hydraulic systems stand out and seem to highlight the pre-eminence of the Mankur group.

The Andalusi Hydraulic Systems of Manacor Seventeen hydraulic systems from the Andalusi era have been identified and mapped in Manacor. Most are in the northern half of the municipal area. There are twelve irrigated spaces north of the village and four to the south. In fact, the northern part has the main springs and watercourses and, above all, the most stable supply of water. The Andalusi hydraulic systems of Manacor are mostly valley-bottom ones (with a single system located on the slope) and consist of channelling the water captured (by eleven qanāt(s), five springs and one water-lifting wheel) to irrigate plots of land located on the banks of the streams. Thus, they were preferentially built in the valley bottoms, and generally terraced. With the single exception of the system of La Vall de la Nou, the rest are each watered by a single main irrigation ditch and generally with a reservoir to collect the flow from the source. There are eleven hydraulic systems with an area of less than one hectare, three between 1 and 2 ha, and three that are larger than 2 ha. More than half of the irrigated spaces of Manacor are less than one hectare in area (70 per cent of the irrigated spaces on the islands are smaller than 1.2 ha). The median length of the systems is 418 m (considering the length from the beginning of the irrigation channel to the end of the plot of land). The results in Manacor again confirm the homogeneity in Andalusi hydraulic systems, corroborating that these groups built agrarian spaces of similar dimensions on the Balearic Islands.19 In La Remembrança, four hydraulic watermills were inventoried in Manacor and these, in turn, were the only ones in the whole district (there were no watermills in the other parts of the district, namely Falanis, Caçor, and Adia). It has been possible to identify and locate them in three of the systems studied: the two watermills in Balleix, in the system of La Vall de la Nou, and the watermills of Aben Bunel and Facher, which correspond to the

 18 Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis.  19 Sitjes, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía’, pp. 263–91.

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Figure 2.1. Penstock of Can Granot’s mill (in ruins and used as a column to support the ceiling of the building) (Vall de la Nou, Manacor, Mallorca). Photo: A. Pasqual.

watermill of La Vall de Ses Planes and that of La Font des Molí d’Aigo (in Sant Llorenç des Cardassar). All four were horizontal-wheeled watermills with penstocks (the well-known arubah type of mill — see Figure 2.1) and were at the end of the hydraulic system or at the end of a block of plots of land to return any extra water to the main channel, to avoid losses of water for irrigation, a characteristic of the Andalusi hydraulic systems that was established by Helena Kirchner.20 To these seventeen irrigated spaces whose design and dimensions are known, we should add nine other orchards that appear in the feudal documentation irrigated from wells or water-lifting wheels (at times called ‘Saracen’ wells in the texts).21 However, due to the proliferation of these devices in the modern and contemporary eras, it has not been possible to  20 Kirchner, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati’, pp. 471–503.  21 They are the wells of the Margamta alquería (currently Pou Colomer); from the Son Cladera well (the Totesaus well in the documents of the thirteenth century); the well of the Xibela, or Acebela Aquila, alquería (located between the current properties of Tortova and Sa Cabana); the orchard of the Llucamar alquería; the orchard of the Ramon Torrents alquería (located in the present-day zone of Son Toni Mas); the orchard of the Pocafarina alquería; that of the Rotja alquería (located in the coastal zone of Sant Llorenç des Cardassar); and that of the Algorefa alquería.

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Figure 2.2. Pou Colomer’s well (Vall de Ses Planes, Sant Llorenç des Cardassar, Mallorca). Photo: A. Pasqual.

Figure 2.3. The source of the hydraulic system of Sa Vall de la Nou, called Font de Na Memòria (Manacor, Mallorca). Photo: A. Pasqual.

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identify them, except for an exceptionally well-documented case, the well in the Margamta alquería. This alquería occupied the current property of Es Pou Colomer, where the well still gives its name to the property (pou is well in Catalan), and whose location that has not been changed (as has been proven through medi­eval documentation and maps from the modern era) (see Figure 2.2). This Andalusi well is profusely documented at the end of the fourteenth century due to a dispute between two people who quarrelled over its access and use.22 The conflict over this well is possibly similar to the one that involved the Saracen well in the Padrina alquería (which adjoined the Albocàsser, Benigembla, and Benimartí alquerías, south of Manacor). This was also the subject of a dispute in the mid-fourteenth century, and the texts mention that, according to old customs, the ‘Saracen’ waters were communal for the inhabitants.23

The Hydraulic System of Sa Vall de la Nou The hydraulic system of Sa Vall de la Nou has its origin in a qanāt currently called Font de Na Memòria, which is the most voluminous and stable spring in all of the municipal area of Manacor (see Figure 2.3). Starting from the exit of the gallery, the water is channelled into two channels, one which runs in a south-westerly direction and the other, to the north-east. The channel that goes off to the southwest is 1600 m long and, at the moment of maximum farming output, watered up to 9.7 ha. The second channel, which goes off in a north-easterly direction, is 3100 m in length and permitted the irrigation of a maximum of 56.7 ha. It also had two watermills integrated into it, the Molí Paperer and the Molí de Can Granot. Hydraulic prospection has permitted the identification of two different plots morpho­logies from two different eras, built on two distinct levels and with contrasting forms and directions. In the one closer to the channel, there are some long and narrow terraces, elevated above the valley bottom, parallel to the watercourse and with a tendency to a tapering (spindle) form (because they are adapted to the contours of the valley). The other morpho­ logy, adjoining the watercourse, consists of totally regular, rectangular plots perpendicular to the watercourse (thus, in the opposite direction to the previous ones), occupying its floodplain, which was a marshy area before the construction of modern drainage (see Map 2.4).24  22 Documents in the Royal Archives of Mallorca from 1396 (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Lletres comunes 71, fol. 121r); from 1399 (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Lletres comunes 76, fol. 88v); and from 1409 (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Lletres comunes 89, fol. 12v). Rosselló, Història de Sant Llorenç, p. 76.  23 Rosselló, Cronicó felanitxer. 1228–1399, p. 133.  24 In fact, the modern maps and land registries consulted, such as the ‘Apeo’ of 1818 (Arxiu Municipal de Manacor) and the Atlas by Pedro Alcántara Penya from 1859 (Arxiu Municipal

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Map 2.4. Plan of the hydraulic system of Sa Vall de la Nou (Manacor, Mallorca).

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The oldest plots, well identified thanks to the documentation and comparative morpho­logical study, are the long terraces 8 m above the riverbed. This protected them from the flooding and separated them from the marshy areas close to the watercourse. These very old plots form two blocks, each closed by a watermill. The first block covers 1.85 ha and has the Molí Paperer at its end, and the second is 5.05 ha and is closed by the watermill of Can Granot (see Map 2.4).25 Overall, the irrigated area of this system was originally only 6.9 ha, but it was extended up to ten-fold until reaching 66.4 ha at the beginning of the twentieth century (see Map 2.4). The morpho­logy of the valley, with a wide and very flat valley bottom, as well as the periodic fluctuations of the watercourse of the Na Borges (one of the most abundant on the island) meant that the original plots were built on terraces elevated above the riverbed, in areas outside the floodable valley bottom. If it had not been done like this, the Andalusi peasants would not have been able to build stable irrigated spaces. The medi­eval notarized documents about this valley begin in 1242, a year when various transactions were made agreed, for example the sale of an orchard and a contiguous field located ‘in the Nuce valley’ that bordered the land of Berenguer d’Aurenga, that of Bernat Vaquer de Horta and the spring of La Mola.26 These documents testify to the existence of orchards and fields in the La Nou valley, in the territory of the Teulada alquería (the name that substituted that of Balleix Manacor immediately after the Conquest). However, it is the hydraulic watermills that attracted the most attention from the feudal settlers, and these are mentioned more frequently in the documentation than the agrarian spaces. The oldest mention of these mills, after La Remembrança (where the mills of Balleix are named), is from 1247 when Joan de Marí and Simó de Marí, lords of the chivalry of de Manacor), show how the margins of the Na Borges Torrent had not been ploughed until the beginning of the twentieth century. In the ‘Plan of approval of the plans of establishment of the Vall de la Nou’ land (Arxiu Municipal de Manacor, VIII.2.2.2), when the valley belonged to the Trujillo brothers, the new distribution added to the already existing plots can be seen. These new plots (the map is dated 1924) are known as rotes in the modern documents and maps (that is, lands newly ploughed). It is fitting to highlight that, even in this 1924 map, which represents the maximum farmed area of the lands of Sa Vall de la Nou, we can see how there were margins close to the torrent where there was riverbank and meadow vegetation, indicated in the map as ‘poplars’ or ‘meadow’.  25 The watermill was converted into a paper mill in modern times, but it was a grain mill during the Middle Ages.  26 Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 342, fol. 174v. The Escrivania de Cartes Reials (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca) is a very extensive, notarized body of documents whose writing began with the Conquest of 1229–1230 and continued up to the modern era. This collection has been studied systematically between 1230–1330, that is, a century after the Conquest. This corresponds to Volumes 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661 of the Escrivania de Cartes Reials, in the Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca.

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the Vall de la Nou, established a boundary for Bernat Molner from the watermill of the Vall de la Nou to Rotana.27 This was, undoubtedly, the first watermill in the system, which adjoined the Rotana valley and that, being closest to the spring, was put into operation a few years after the Conquest. The second mill is mentioned in 1268, when the royal attorney general established Bernat Rosanes in a watermill house in the Vall de la Nou, within the Teulada alquería, and it is added that in this dwelling postquam terra Maioricarum fuit erepta a manibus sarracenorum non moluit alique molendinum, an interesting mention, since it proves that the watermill of the Teulada alquería, currently the Can Granot watermill, had still not been put into operation in 1268 (that is, thirty-eight years after the Conquest).28 It is not the only mention of farmed spaces or watermills that were not used until decades after the Conquest due to the lack of people to fill the places abandoned by the Andalusi groups. The Balleix Manacor alquería possibly had more of a residential zone, since four sites have been located very close to the irrigated space and clearly related to this space.29 There is a site very close to the first block of 1.85 ha and three sites near the second block of five ha, undoubtedly related to the latter (which would mean an average 1.66 ha per site, if these three had similar surface areas available). Additionally, we know through the documentation that besides Balleix Manacor, there were three other alquerías in La Vall de la Nou. The location of these can be indicated; Benjorbana (Orben in La Remembrança)30 with the Benimaria rahal were in the north (in Son Cifre), while the Almunia rahal,31 the Benicudia alquería and the Agut rahal were in the east.32  27 Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 343, fol. 192 r.  28 Other later documents permit one to assume that the watermill of the Teulada alqueria is currently the last mill in the system, since the watermill of that alquería came to be called Jussà, that is, ‘the one under’, located in the lower part of the valley.  29 There are other known cases of place names on the islands that correspond to more than one site (Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’, pp. 351–72).  30 There is one mention in 1267 when Pere Obrador and Domingo Guamir begged the Batlle Reial (Royal Mayor) for the reparation of the notarial instrument of the establishment that Jaume Picany gave them for the Benjorbana alquería with the Benimaria rahal, in the Vall de la Nou (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials 643, fol. 51 r). Immediately afterwards, the establishment of the alquería and rahal was recognized for them (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 643, fol. 51). Orben and Beniorban are from the Awraba Berber group, which had other settlements on the island as well as in the Peninsula: the Orban alquería in Petra, Majorca (Mut and Rosselló, La Remembrança, p. 160); Orba, near Denia and Oliva, near Gandía, Valencia region (Barceló, ‘¿Por qué los historiadores académicos’, p. 186).  31 This alquería is documented late, in 1300, when Pere Servar and his wife Bonaventura sold two rahals that bounded the Justaní de Marí alqueria, the Rotana Valley and the Almunia rahal to Bernat Pasqual and Ferrer Pujol (Rosselló, Història de Manacor. Segle XIV, p. 88).  32 The corresponding Andalusi place name is not known, probably due to the first documented mention being late, from 1294 (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 343, fol. 182 r).

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The Hydraulic System of S’Hospitalet The spring of S’Hospitalet rises on a slope half way up the side of the valley and the water collects in a reservoir which measures 5 by 5.5 m, in a position above the terraces. In the lower part of the reservoir, there is a sluice gate from which the water is channelled to five terraces, constructed from half way up the valley side down to the valley bottom. Any overflow then flows into the Rafal Torrent (see Map 2.5). The total surface area irrigated is 0.41 ha. This farmed space is clearly related to the Andalusi site that occupied the upper part of the hill, only 2 m above the spring. There are other Andalusi sites near this irrigated space: Site 26/256, near the houses of S’Hospitalet Vell, and the site called Talaiot de S’Hospitalet (26/140), a proto-historic site from which some structures in the Andalusi era were

Map 2.5. The Andalusi hydraulic system of s’Hospitalet (Manacor, Mallorca).

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reoccupied and in one of which a collection of tenth-century ceramic pitchers was found.33

The Network of Andalusi Settlements in Manacor Manacor was a densely occupied region before the Catalan Conquest. The two sources of information which we currently possess supply proof of this high density. A study of the documentation puts the maximum number of alquerías and rahales in Manacor at 172 and these are listed in La Remenbrança. This gives a settlement for every 1.9 km2 on average. Archaeo­ logical work has localized 129 sites that were inhabited until the Catalan Conquest (a fact confirmed thanks to the discovery of thirteenth-century Andalusi pottery in all of them). The finding of 129 settlements from the total of 172 that appear in La Remembrança means a high percentage of reconstruction of the Manacor settlements. Indeed, 75 per cent have already been located and mapped. There is sufficient evidence that these reflect a social fragmentation into a large number of cells (172), none of which were very large. The documentary study has supplied knowledge of what these rural settlements were like. They consisted of small groups of houses with their arable fields and areas for grazing, hunting, gathering, and forest management. In the establishments which date from after the conquest of Manacor, between one and three houses are mentioned.34 Cariat Açoch (the alquería that would later be called the villa of Manacor) was the only alquería where a certain urban structure with streets is documented. This pattern is analogous to that identified in other areas of the island, where only the alquerías that were later converted into villas were made up of greater groups of houses organized into streets.35 The territories that correspond to the alquerías must have had precise limits which were well known to the Andalusi groups. These limits were modified with the Catalan Conquest, although in some cases it has been shown that these changes took place very early. In the documents that show the boundaries between alquerías it is seen that they were generally linked by a track and that there were non-irrigated fields, vineyards, and/ or non-farmed gaps between them. A good example of this is a document

 33 Riera and Rosselló, ‘El nivell andalusí de la sala hipòstila’.  34 In the majority of the documents, houses are mentioned generally, without specifying the number. However, there are some cases where the number of houses is specified, and in all of them it ranges from one to three. To give an example, two houses in the Beniulpech alquería are documented in 1268 (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 347, fol. 36 r).  35 As can be seen in other regional studies: Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Argemí, ‘Segmentación de grupos bereberes’, pp. 373–86; Argemí, A les vores dels torrents; Argemí, ‘El sistema de molinos andalusí’, pp. 259–71.

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Map 2.6. Plan of the Andalusi archaeo­logical sites in relation to the torrents (Manacor, Mallorca).

from 1263 where Berenguer Tornamira established Bernat Duluia with a piece of land and a pen with a house on the Serrella alquería.36 This land is beside the road that goes from Serrella to the neighbouring alquería called Alpoda and it also borders a vineyard, the scrub-brush on the hill, and the vineyard from the Alpoda alquería. Thus, both alquerías have land available nearby. This was occupied by their vineyards and bordered the scrub of the hill (undoubtedly the hill currently called Son Galiana). Hence, although the documentation generally is not very precise regarding the  36 Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 347, fol. 264 r.

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Map 2.7. Plan of the Andalusi archaeo­logical sites in relation to the coast (Manacor, Mallorca).

boundaries of the alquerías, some clear cases, such as the one above, do appear.37 Some clear patterns are seen in the choice of residential zones. In the first place, their position is visibly conditioned by the farming spaces. Secondly, they are preferentially situated on south-facing slopes, which are less exposed to the north winds. This has already been seen in other zones.38 In third place, they were placed close to the springs and watercourses,  37 Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’, pp. 351–72.  38 Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’, pp. 120–86.

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but avoiding the floodable margins of the latter. Geo­graphic analysis has been extremely useful for determining this question, since it has enabled extremely precise measurements of the number sites a specific distance from a watercourse by means of the use of buffers or areas of influence. The first aspect to highlight is that half of the 129 sites are equal to, or less than, 200 m from a torrent, but always avoiding their floodable margins (see Map 2.6). Only five of the 129 are more than one kilometre from watercourses. Fourteen alquerías have also been identified, some of them with associated rahales (in three cases), that were installed next to stable springs. In some cases, the proximity of more than one site to the spring makes it possible to indicate that it could be a point with a shared water trough.39 Spatial analysis has enabled the quantification of a feature that is clearly visible on the maps: different densities in the network of sites, higher in the interior of the municipal area and lower on the coastal strip and the southeast of Manacor.40 There is only one site less than 500 m from the sea and only two at a distance equal to, or less than, 2 km. However, only eighteen of the 129 sites are in a fringe of 5 km from the coastline (see Map 2.7). In this five-kilometre strip inland from the sea there is only one single Andalusi hydraulic system, possible due to the lesser presence of springs and the poorer soil quality. In a good part of this area, intensive agricultural practices are not possible. In addition, in these ‘marine’ zones, the predominant xerophilous and thermophilous vegetation is little use for certain types of livestock. This seems to have led to a greater distance between sites and, possibly, leading to the alquerías having greater land areas to manage in comparison with inland zones of Manacor with their deeper soils and greater presence of surface water, where the density of sites is clearly higher.41 In

 39 The alquerías near springs are: Balleix Manacor and Almunia (the spring is called Font de Na Memòria); Arontana (Font de Rotana); Beniamor and Nadia rahal (Font de Ses Planes); Almadrava and Izagl rahal (Font de Gossalbo and Font des Magalons); Balafi and Atangi (Font de Tánger); Gallequenza had two springs (Font Roada and Font de Ses Piquetes); Benifaig (Font de Sa Real); Borabe (Font des Molí d’Aigo); Alpuda (Font de Son Galiana); Benimurrutx (Font de Can Cremat); Lodran (Font de Llodrà). There are Andalusi sites very close to, and clearly related to, springs: Sa Fontpella, Son Ribot, las Cuevas Des Voltors, Es Rafalet Drac, Conies, Sa Murtera, Ses Toltes, Son Banús, Son Amengual and S’Hospitalet.  40 The low density of sites in an important area southeast of Manacor has also been seen and is explained by the existence of a large property of 1800 ha, Es Fangar, which the researchers have not been allowed to enter and, thus, where it has not been possible to carry out prospection work. This is accompanied by a smaller volume of documented mentions of this zone, possibly due to lower levels of post-Conquest colonization than those in areas closer to the village of Manacor. The only establishments known in this area between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries are the Des Fangar alqueríia and of the Mola des Fangar. Ricard Soto mentions the difficulties of colonization the territories between the municipal areas of Manacor and Felanitx, giving examples of some colonizing failures (Soto, ‘La porció de Nunó Sanç’, pp. 347–65).  41 Although there are sites that still have to be identified, it does not seem plausible that the guidelines seen in 70 per cent of the settlements could be altered.

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Map 2.8. Ortophoto­graph with the archaeo­logical sites and torrents of S’Hospitalet (Manacor, Mallorca). Map by the author with ortophotograph from Servei d’Informació Territorial de les Illes Balears.

this same sense, M. Barceló and H. Kirchner indicated that the great clan territories, such as the ‘Falanis land’, were more easily found in dry zones and those dedicated to livestock husbandry, and not in denser arable areas.42 One common characteristic is seen in the eighteen sites located in this fringe of 5 km from the sea: The Andalusi sites are in the upper part of the ravines (see Map 2.8), a fact also seen, for example in the ravines on the south side of the island of Menorca.43 The lower parts of the coastal ravines are generally too steep and potentially at risk of flooding and so were avoided by the Andalusi settlements. The toponymic study has enabled the verification that this was a segmented society organized into agnatic groups, where the high percentage of names with the prefix Beni (30 per cent) stands out, 15 per cent with proper nouns, 6.3 per cent with nisba-s, and 2.3 per cent of tribal names, among other lesser percentages. This toponymic trace has brought up eight cases of segmentations at a short distance in Manacor, among which three segments of the Mankur group mentioned above stand out.44 When a group grows beyond the capacity of its land to maintain it, the only possible solution is to split it up and move part to another place in the same area, so creating a new settlement and a new farmed space that can be identified thanks to  42 Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’, p. 356.  43 Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats.  44 The cases of duplication of placenames in Manacor are: Ason lo Major and the Rafal al Maptor d’Ason (or Adson and Adsona in the Escrivania de Cartes Reials documents); the Alpuda d’Amont and Alpuda d’Aval alquerías; the Rapellaix alquerías; Sebella and Sebella Menor alquerías; Zerclu and Afo Zerclu rahales; Aben Bunnel and Mafomat Aben Bunnel alquerías; the toponyms Maimon (Aserraxola de Maimon and rahal de Maimon) and the two segments Mankur (Balleix Manacor, Mancorme Abeniara).

Agr a r ia n S pac e s an d t h e A n dalu s i S e t tle me nt s o f Manaco r Table 2.1. The surface area of the alquerías in Manacor.

Table 2.2. The surface area of the rahales in Manacor.

Alquerías — area

Percentage

Rahal — area

Percentage

2 jovadas

10%

2 jovadas

29%

3 jovadas

10%

3 jovadas

13%

4 jovadas

25%

4 jovadas

30%

5 jovadas

13%

5 jovadas

20%

6 jovadas

20%

6 jovadas

8%

7 jovadas

1%

8 jovadas

8%

the duplication of the name.45 In other nearby zones, segmentations 1% 9 jovadas of groups over a short distance 1% 10 jovadas have also been identified. In Artà, for example, M. Argemí identified 7% 12 jovadas different segmentations within 2% 14 jovadas the same district of Yartan and 1% 15 jovadas confirmed that the groups with the 1% 40 jovadas most active segmentation processes were precisely those associated with the largest irrigated spaces.46 H. Kirchner detected a case of similar segmentation, of the Banū Ağğer group, which built three settlements in the municipal area of Bunyola (in the north of the island): Beniadatz, Beniaddars, and Beniatzar.47 This was also the case of the Mankur, the Manacor group of which more segments are known. The cited examples are of well-identified segmentations. However, H. Kirchner warned that there could be ‘intermediate’ cases, in which the groups created complementary work areas of the alquerías and that are called rahales. This author was able to verify this in the rahales of the valleys of Bunyola, Coanegra, and Alaró.48 In the case of Manacor, 132 alquerías and forty rahales are documented in which their area in jovadas (a jovada — catalan, yugada in Spanish — describes the area of land which can be worked by one person with one team of oxen in one day) is known thanks to La Remenbrança (see Tables 2.1 and 2.2). The first thing that one sees is that the rahales have a smaller area than the alquerías. The average area of the rahales is 3.6 jovadas, while the alquerías have an average of 5.8 jovadas.

 45 Barceló, ‘El diseño de espacios’, p. xxviii; Barceló, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad’, p. 24; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès, p. 370.  46 Argemí, ‘Segmentación de grupos bereberes’, pp. 373–86.  47 Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès, pp. 147–48.  48 Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès, p. 355; Kirchner, ‘Original Design’, p. 161.

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In absolute figures, the maximum size of the rahales is six jovadas, while that of the alquerías reaches forty jovadas. Another feature that is verified thanks to the notarized documentation from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is that the rahales are frequently associated with a specific alquería (that can be identified in the documents when an alquería is mentioned cum rafallo or, even more explicitly, cum suo rafallo), something found in Manacor immediately after the Conquest (already in the 1230s).

Connectivity and the Andalusi Groups of Manacor Among the different strategies of peasant subsistence, the political relations among groups and pacts for access to the available resources played a very important role. Without taking these pacts and alliances among groups into account, it is very difficult to be able to understand the existence of 172 Andalusi settlements, of which only 15 per cent had irrigated space. The groups that did not have irrigated land available had to have access to certain products that they could not otherwise obtain, at least not on a regular basis. The relations between groups had to play a ‘balancing’ role in order to allow access to the necessary plant and animal products. The maps made and documentation studied allow one to propose some hypotheses about how this society was structured. In the first place, it has been shown with precision how the alquerías were linked to each other. Thirteen main tracks that already existed in the Andalusi era have been documented in the post-Conquest documentation. They are the following (from the north going eastward): the road of the Vall de la Nou, the Artá road, the road to the Banyeres alquería (present-day Son Servera), the road to the port of Manacor, the south road (present-day Cales road), in the south, the Felanitx road, and in the west, the City road (that went to the madīna Mayūrqa).49 It has been possible to quantify the proximity of the Andalusi sites of Manacor to these paths thanks to spatial analysis, which has shown, for example, that more than half the Andalusi sites are less than 600 m from an Andalusi road axis (see Map 2.9). In fact, the sites create a ‘corridor’ effect, since they are located next to each other along the tracks. In the second place, the combination of the maps of site densities, the Andalusi roadways, and information obtained in the documentary study indicate the existence of thirteen groups of alquerías (see Map 2.10). It has been considered that the alquerías are integrated within one of these groupings when they are related by means of a road, when they occupy

 49 It has been named this way not only for its orientation but also because the name of one of the alquerias that is located beside this road is, literally, Azabella Aquila (sabila = road / alquibla = of the south). Mut and Rosselló, La Remembrança, pp. 114–15.

Agr a r ia n S pac e s an d t h e A n dalu s i S e t tle me nt s o f Manaco r

Map 2.9. Plan of the Andalusi archaeo­logical sites in relation to the roads (Manacor, Mallorca).

coherent relief features (whether valleys, plains, around ponds, etc.) and, fundamentally, when the documentation clearly relates them to each other. The distance between alquerías within these groupings is between 1 and 2 km. Twelve alquerías are excluded from these groups, especially those closest to the coast. It has already been mentioned above that very possibly this is not random, but rather that these alquerías are excluded from the preferred zones and more distant but not isolated from the denser area of alquerías (see Map 2.10). The point where these thirteen tracks come together is exactly where the Cariat Açoch was and where the town of Manacor later grew. The next

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Map 2.10. Groupings of alquerías and rahales of Manacor (Mallorca).

section deals with this alquería that was at the centre of the Andalusi road network of Manacor.

The Manacor Market The Cariat Açoch, that is, the market alquería (as-sūq), is documented in La Remembrança, and from that moment on has always been called ‘the villa of Manacor’, taking the name of the district or the group in which it was established.50 This also happened in the Inkan district, where a Kariatazoq  50 Mut and Rosselló, La Remembrança, p. 117.

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of seven jovadas is documented (CC, page 37v). After the Conquest, this took the name of Inca. There are other cases of rural markets that have left their trace in place names: Min Caria Azoh in Pollença,51 the Alxuch alquería or Assoch of Montuïri,52 and the Azoch rahal in Inca.53 These are four cases of markets that have left their trace in toponyms, but there were possibly other markets on the island that did not leave any trace. The documentation gives indications of what this Cariat Açoch was like, an alquería with an agrarian space of greater dimensions than that of the rest (forty jovadas are attributed to it) and with a certain urban area. Documents from after the Conquest mention different houses, and in some clearly state that fuit staticum sarracenicum.54 These houses were organized into streets and at least one square is documented.55 We also know that there was probably a mosque very close to Cariat Açoch, which was in the territory of Berenguer Tornamira, whose main possessions bordered the village to the east. Cariat Açoch of Manacor is one example of a market, possibly weekly, at a crossroads. There are many ethno­graphic examples of sūq-s beside road junctions.56 Map 2.10 shows that Cariat Açoch was at the confluence of a grouping of radial tracks, the centre of the network of Andalusi settlements and the confluence for peasant and livestock-rearing groups in Manacor. Some authors have indicated that the existence of a dense, but disperse, rural population is a demo­graphic characteristic that propitiates the development of a weekly sūq, allowing disperse groups to meet for social and commercial purposes.57 F. Benet points out that the sūq-s clearly prospered in poly-segmented societies, where each segment is similar to the others, but always preserved its own individuality, without a central authority arising.58 It is this type of segmented society we find in the territory of Mankur, with a large number of small establishments (172), sufficiently close to each other to maintain regular contact, but sufficiently far so that movements of the

 51 Poveda, ‘Repertori de toponímia’, p. 97.  52 Soto, Còdex Català, p. 176.  53 Poveda, ‘Repertori de toponímia’, p. 97.  54 For example, more than thirty years after the Conquest, a document of 1263 mentions that the country home that Guillem Soler sold to Bernat Franquet fuit staticum sarracenicum (Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca, Escrivania de Cartes Reials, 345, fol. 203 r).  55 A document from 10 June 1223 is the oldest reference to a certain urban structure: Count Nunó Sanç made different donations to the Cistercian monks, who came under Poblet monastery, including some houses in the village of Manacor, which belonged to a person named Abenferrug, and that were in a square in front of the church, with other houses to the north and a road to the west with (Diplomatari del monestir de Santa Maria de la Real de Mallorca I. 1232–1360, ed. by Mora and Andrinal, pp. 186–87).  56 Troin, Les souks marocains, p. 88; Benet, ‘Mercados explosivos’, p. 245; Chaouali, ‘Les nundinae’, p. 383.  57 Chalmeta, El señor del zoco, p. 75; Jemmali, Les souks hebdomadaires, p. 82.  58 Benet, ‘Mercados explosivos: las tierra’, p. 89.

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groups were limited to once a week (which coincided with the Manacor market), a fact also verified in other zones of the Balearic Islands.59 The distances from the Mankur market are an important element to take into account, since the inhabitants of the alquerías in this territory had to make the return journey on the market day. The alquerías furthest from Cariat Açoch are those in the northern and southern parts of the municipal area, a maximum distance of 18–20 km (following the sinuous route of the roads). To give just some examples, the Balleix Manacor alquería was 12 km from the market; the Beniamor and Alpare alquerías, located in the north, bordering Artà, were a maximum of 16 km away, and the alquerías of the southeast, although we cannot reconstruct the complete route they covered, would be a maximum of 18–20 km from the market. It is not, surely, a coincidence that the distances to the market would be what could be done in one day on foot or with beasts of burden. In fact, this is one of the characteristics of the traditional North-African markets, where some authors have seen that the radius of influence of the market is in the distance that can be walked in a day.60 In some cases this radius of influence has been quantified at between 20 and 50 km.61 Different anthropo­logical and ethno­graphical studies have shown that the sūq-s prospered on the edges of highly complementary eco­logical regions, from the agro-pastoral economy to regions of intensive agriculture.62 In Manacor, the presence of a region to the north with a greater concentration of hydraulic systems and a region to the south with less irrigated land and where they were all smaller in size, could give an indication of this complementariness, which had its redistribution centre in Cariat Açoch. The market, thus, was another factor that enabled the rural groups to relate different subsistence options. The groups preferred to diversify their strategies and create a redistribution centre, avoiding specializations that, be they agricultural or livestock rearing, always meant a risk. The ‘microeco­logy’ concept that Horden and Purcell coined, not so centred on the physical-geo­ graphic features but rather on the interaction of opportunities and activities, is very useful for describing the map that has been presented.63 Of course, there were other activities in the sūq-s besides those purely economic ones, and this was where scattered groups met and, thus, a point of information and exchange where alliances and pacts were made, conflicts solved, marriages agreed, and regional cohesion consolidated, among many

 59 Retamero, La contínua il·lusió.  60 Benet, ‘Mercados explosivos’, p. 240.  61 Troin, Les souks marocains, p. 88.  62 Benet, ‘Mercados explosivos’, p. 245; Bonniard, Les marchés de la Tunisie, p. 43.  63 ‘Historically, the most important strategy for coping with risks of all kinds to the provision of food and the maintenance of production, and especially for coping with the unpredictability of the weather, has probably been redistribution’ (Horden and Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, p. 178).

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other features.64 This cohesion was based on the sūq as the market of the group, that is, the point of convergence of the clan or the tribe, before the market was established in a specific place, such as some colonial ethno­ graphers have observed.65 Retamero indicated that the cyclical market was also a moment of precise regularity within the rural productive ‘disorder’, where one could gain access to agricultural production and carry out fiscal capture.66

Integration of the Manacor Case into the General Casuistry of the Irrigated Spaces of al-Andalus Meticulous fieldwork in an ample framework of regional studies showed the presence of regularities and repetitions to those researchers focused on the question of the Andalusi irrigated spaces. These evident repetitions were analysed in an inventory and typo­logy published in 2006 and revised and completed in 2008.67 In this latter work the 178 cases of known hydraulic systems were collected together in a database and a statistical analysis was carried out of the mentioned sample. The principal variables analysed were the surface area and length of the irrigated spaces, the types of capture, the number of irrigation canals in the systems, the number and type of watermills, the type and number of terraces, the position of the settlements, and the linked place names. The majority of the irrigated spaces considered formed part of the regional studies carried out on the Balearic Islands and hence the results are representative for these territories (Majorca, Menorca, and Ibiza).68

 64 Chalmeta, El señor del zoco, p. 80; Jemmali, Les souks hebdomadaires, pp. 130–44, 307–47; Smith, ‘West African Market-Places’, p. 351; Troin, Les souks marocains, pp. 43, 88, and 246.  65 Troin, Les souks marocains, p. 88; Jemmali, Les souks hebdomadaires, p. 347.  66 Retamero, La contínua il·lusió, p. 193.  67 Sitjes, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía’, pp. 263–91; Sitjes, Assentaments i sistemes hidràulics.  68 It is fundamental to know the characteristics of the areas studied: the island of Ibiza has been systematically prospected (thus, 100 per cent of the sample is available), and the results have been published partially in different articles. Barceló, ed. El curs de les aigües; Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’, pp. 291–321; Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’; Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’, pp. 120–86; Kirchner, ‘La reconstrucció del disseny original’, pp. 11–38. On Menorca the prospection work in the ravines of the south of the island has been completed and published in Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats. Prospection work on the rest of the island has also ended and, although this is not yet published, it enables one to indicate that there is only one other Andalusi hydraulic system on the island (personal communication from Fèlix Retamero). Various regional studies have been carried out on Majorca, Barceló, and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Argemí, ‘Segmentación de grupos bereberes’, pp. 373–86; Argemí, A les vores dels torrents; Argemí, ‘El sistema de molinos andalusí’, pp. 259–71; Sitjes, Assentaments i sistemes hidràulics; and other studies of sporadic cases: Barceló and others, The Design of Irrigation Systems; Barceló, Los Banū Ru’ayn.

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The inventory permitted the verification of the repetition of small irrigated areas and confirmed the validity of the module of one hectare on average, for these. The global average of all of the zones is 1.19 ha. Specifically, for each island the result is the following: the average area of the systems on the two islands systematically studied, Ibiza and Menorca, is almost identical: respectively 1.08 and 1.083 ha. Apart from the calculations of centralization as the average, the objective was to verify to which extent the sample was uniform and homogeneous. The dispersion figures of the principal numeric data of the inventory were calculated, and the minimum dispersion of the sample and, in consequence, its great homogeneity, was proved. The length of the systems and their channelling has also been studied. The average length of the hydraulic systems on the Balearic Islands is 465 m. The great majority have a single canal (147 of the 178). Only thirty have two canals and, in a single case, there are three canals. There are thirty-four irrigated areas in which the water flow is so irregular or little abundant that it must be held in a reservoir from which it is possible to irrigate, because it enables artificial flow when the reservoir is full. There are different types of capturing the water, but this deals with a relative variety, since the four principal solutions are always repeated: conditioned springs are the majority (31.25 per cent of the total), followed by natural springs with no structures in them (23.8 per cent), sluices are used in 19.9 per cent of the cases and the qanāts represent 18.75 per cent.69 Two types are much less frequent: six irrigated spaces are directly fed and two come from norias (water-lifting wheel). The total number of known watermills in the hydraulic systems studied is seventy-two. This represents a ratio of 0.4 watermills per system. The seventy-two watermills are all same type: the arubah design with a horizontal wheel and penstock, a type well described by M. Barceló.70 There is no variation in the type of milling machinery, but rather total homogeneity. It was not only this that was similar everywhere, but also its position within the hydraulic system. All the watermills in the inventory are at the end of the irrigated space or the end of the blocks of land within the system, closing these.71 The use of databases has greatly facilitated the analysis of an enormous quantity of data and has enabled the confirmation of the morpho­logical

 69 ‘Conditioned spring’ is a term used for the springs that have been subject to work/ constructions in order to facilitate the flow of water, be this by excavating tunnels to widen the mouth of the spring or construction of structures to protect it. Qanāt(s) are drainage galleries of oriental origin. For the building characteristics of the Qanāt(s) of al-Andalus, see Barceló and others, Les aigües cercades; Kirchner, ‘Qanāt(s) y espacios irrigados’.  70 This type is distinguished by the existence of the ‘cubo’ (penstock), a tower where the water gathers and comes out at the bottom under pressure, driving the millwheel. Barceló, ‘The Missing Water-Mill’, pp. 255–314.  71 Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’; Kirchner, ‘La reconstrucció del disseny’, pp. 11–38.

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and dimensional homogeneity of the systems and hydraulic structures used by the Andalusi groups. The case of Manacor is added to the other known Andalusi hydraulic systems without problems, that is, the same patterns of settlement construction and agrarian spaces are seen. Indeed, this again allows to confirm the great homogeneity of these agrarian spaces, which is in direct relation to the peasant knowledge available to these Andalusi groups at the moment of their migration to the Balearic Islands in 290 ah./902 ce72

Discussion In the first place, the usefulness of a systematic inventory and statistical analysis of all of the Andalusi irrigated spaces studied following the same methodo­logy, hydraulic archaeo­logy, has been demonstrated. With the use of databases and statistical analysis, it has been possible to store a great amount of data and also to describe and quantify the procedures used in the construction of hydraulic systems. Thanks to these statistical calculations, the great homogeneity of the settlements and agrarian spaces of the Andalusi groups in the Islands has been verified, a fact that demonstrates the existence of the same selection criteria. The method was applied to a coherent territory in the Andalusi era, Manacor (Majorca) and two new tools (DB and SGI) were added and have supposed an interesting methodo­logical innovation because they enable a precise analysis and representation of large amounts of geo­graphical data. Manacor was a region where there was an extensive constellation of scattered rural settlements (132 alquerías and forty rahales), which implies a density of one establishment every 1.9 km.2 All of them were small, adapted to the size of family groups, a fact that has been confirmed very especially in the documentation (where groups of two or three houses, with their lands and farmed spaces — irrigated or not — are mentioned). It has been possible to verify his phenomenon in other regional studies.73 Of the rural production networks detected, in addition to their farming spaces and the remains of settlements, maps of the place names preserved in the documentation have been elaborated. Thanks to the toponymic study, there is no doubt that it was a segmentary society, clannish and tribal, and the presence of segments of well-localized groups in the territory is verified in Manacor. Additionally, the maps show the relations of proximity among rural settlements and the connectivity between alquerías. This was by means of a radial network of roads that had an evident centre, Cariat Açoch, the market alquería, the meeting point for the network of rural and

 72 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’, pp. 291–321.  73 Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Kirchner, ‘Original Design’; Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats.

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stock-rearing groups in Manacor. The presence of alquería networks testifies to a society founded on alliances and pacts between the clans starting from the moment of migration and subsequent settlement in the islands, until the Catalan Conquest. The presence of the central market guaranteed contacts and cohesion among the groups in this territory and, of course, ensured a centre for redistribution to balance possible productive deficiencies, such as facilitating the transmission of techniques and plant and animal species. The market and the relations among groups were strategies that minimized risks to the subsistence of these rural and stock-rearing groups. There was another rural strategy, irrigation, which although minor (only 15 per cent of the settlements had an irrigated area) was a priority for these groups, since it guaranteed more stable and secure crops (not dependent on the irregular Mediterranean rains) and yielded plant products that could not be obtained, or at least not regularly, outside the irrigated areas. The morpho­logical and dimensional characteristics of these irrigated spaces are repeated in all of the zones studied. The homogeneity in the dimensions and the technical features of these irrigated spaces has been confirmed thanks to the statistical analysis of the available sample of 178 Andalusi hydraulic systems, the seventeen irrigated areas in Manacor being coherent with the global results. The analysis shows the compactness and homogeneity of these Andalusi agrarian spaces, which, logically, is not coincidental, but rather the result of a selection that occurred at the moment when the Andalusi groups migrated to the Balearic Islands. These people came from the Peninsula with precise knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry, made the appropriate observations and choices in order to ensure their subsistence when they settled, observations which were congruent with the size and quality of the group.74 No objection can be made to this rural organization, since its continuity until the Conquest of James I was guaranteed: archaeo­logical prospection has shown the presence of Andalusi pottery from the thirteenth century in all of the sites, which demonstrates that they were active until the Catalan Conquest of 1229. Their fortune was not the same from then on. The extinction of the indigenous people was rapid and definitive, this population being substituted by settlers from the Peninsula. However, the documents reflect all too frequently the difficulties of these new colonizing groups who, thirty–fifty years after the Conquest, had only been able to occupy a part of the agrarian spaces left by the Andalusi groups. There is, thus, no doubt regarding the success of Andalusi colonization of the islands, in networks of small settlements, forming a densely populated territory. Nor is there any doubt about how this rural order was interrupted in 1229, in a radical, brutal, and irreversible way.

 74 Barceló, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad’, pp. 25–39; Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’, pp. 291–321.

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Works Cited Manu­scripts and Archival Sources Palma de Mallorca, Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca (Royal Archives of Mallorca), Escrivania de Cartes Reials Palma de Mallorca, Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca (Royal Archives of Mallorca), Lletres comunes Manacor (Mallorca), Arxiu Municipal de Manacor (Municipal Archives of Manacor) Primary Sources Códex Català del Llibre del Repartiment de Mallorca, ed. by Ricard Soto (Majorca: Conselleria d’Educació i Cultura del Govern Balear, 1984) Diplomatari del monestir de Santa Maria de la Real de Mallorca I. 1232–1360, ed. by Pau Mora and Llorenç Andrinal, 2 vols (Majorca: Pagès editors, 1982) ‘El códice Latinoarábigo del Repartimiento de Mallorca (texto árabe)’, in Homenaje a Millàs-Vallicrosa, ed. by Jaume Busquets, 2 vols (Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1954), I, pp. 243–300 La Remenbrança de Nuno Sanç. Una relació de les seves propietats a la ruralia de Mallorca, ed. by Antoni Mut and Guillem Rosselló (Majorca: Conselleria d’Educació, Cultura i Esports del Govern Balear, 1993) Poveda, Àngel, ‘Repertori de toponímia àrabo-musulmana de Mayūrqa segons la documentació dels arxius de la ciutat de Mallorca (1232–1276 / 1229–1300)’, in Fontes Rerum Balearium. Miscel·lània de fonts documentals per a la història de les Illes Balears, 3 vols (Majorca: Biblioteca Bartolomé March, 1980) Secondary Works Argemí, Mercè, ‘Segmentación de grupos beréberes y árabes a través de la distribución de asentamientos andalusíes en Yartān (Mayūrqa)’, Arqueo­logía del paisaje. Arqueo­logía Espacial, 19–20 (1998), 373–86 Argemí, Mercè, A les vores dels torrents. Una prospecció dels assentaments pagesos andalusins de Pollença (Pollença: Ajuntament de Pollença, 1999) Argemí, Mercè, ‘El sistema de molinos andalusí del guz de Yartān (Mayūrqa)’, in II Coloquio de Historia y Medio Físico. Agricultura y regadío en al-Andalus, ed. by Lorenzo Cara and Antonio Malpica (Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1995), pp. 259–71 Ballesteros, Paula, Helena Kirchner, Jorge Eiroa, Margarita Fernández, Julián Ortega, Juan Antonio Quirós, Félix Retamero, Eugènia Sitjes, Josep Torró, and Alfonso Vigil, ‘Por una arqueo­logía agraria de las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas. Propuesta de un protocolo de investigación’, in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perspectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades

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medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford : BAR International Series, 2010), pp. 185–202 Barceló, Miquel, ‘Sobre la divisió administrativa de Mayūrqa’, Bolletí de la Societat Arqueològica Luliana, 36 (1978), 238–45 Barceló, Miquel, Sobre Mayūrqa (Palma de Mallorca, Museu de Mallorca, 1984) Barceló, Miquel, ‘Un topònim berber més: Manqur. Mankur> Mancor, Manacor’, Bolletí de la Societat Arqueològica Luliana 41 (1985), 35–36 Barceló, Miquel, ‘Els molins de Mayūrqa’, in V Jornades d’estudis històrics locals. Les illes orientals d’al-Andalus, ed. by Guillem Rosselló-Bordoy (Palma: Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics, 1985), pp. 253–62 Barceló, Miquel, ‘La arqueo­logía extensiva y el estudio de la creación del espacio rural’, in Arqueo­logía medi­eval. En las ‘afueras’ del medi­evalismo, ed. by Miquel Barceló, Josep M. Lluró, Ramon Martí, and José M. Torres (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1988), pp. 195–274 Barceló, Miquel, ‘Los límites de la información documental escrita’, in Arqueo­logía medi­eval. En las ‘afueras’ del medi­evalismo, ed. by Miquel Barceló, Josep M. Lluró, Ramon Martí, and José M. Torres (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1988), pp. 73–87 Barceló, Miquel, ‘El diseño de espacios irrigados en al-Andalus: Un enunciado de principios generales’, in I Coloquio de Historia y Medio Físico. El agua en zonas áridas. Arqueo­logía e historia, 2 vols (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1989), vol. I, pp. xv–xlv Barceló, Miquel, ‘Saber lo que es un espacio hidráulico y lo que no es, o al-Andalus y los feudales’, in El agua. Mitos, ritos y realidades, ed. by José A. González Alcantud and Antonio Malpica (Granada: Anthropos, 1995), pp. 240–54 Barceló, Miquel, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad de los espacios hidráulicos en al-Andalus’, in El agua en la agricultura de al-Andalus, ed. by Antonio Malpica (Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1995), pp. 25–39 Barceló, Miquel, ‘Els Ait Iraten i els altres: immigració i assentaments berbers al šarq al-Andalus’, in Acculturazione e mutamenti. Prospettive nell’archeo­logia medi­ evale del mediterraneo. Quaderni del dipartimento di archeo­logia e storia delle arti sezione archeo­logica, ed. by Enrica Boldrini and Riccardo. Francovich (Siena: Università di Siena, 1995), pp. 29–52 Barceló, Miquel, ed., El curs de les aigües. Treballs sobre els pagesos de Yābisa (290–633H / 902–1235 dC) (Ibiza: Consell Insular d’Eivissa i Formentera, 1997) Barceló, Miquel, ‘Immigration berbère et établissements paysans dans l’île d’Eivissa, 902–1235: à la recherche de la logique de la construction d’une nouvelle société’, in Castrum VII. Zones côtières et plaines littorales dans le monde méditerranéen au Moyen Âge: défense, peuplement, mise en valeur, ed. by JeanMarie Martin (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2001), pp. 291–321 Barceló, Miquel, Los Banū Ru’ayn en al-Andalus. Una memoria singular y persistente (Granada: AL-Baraka, 2004) Barceló, Miquel, ‘The Missing Water-Mill: A Question of Techno­logical Diffusion in the High Middle Ages’, in The Making of Feudal Agricultures?, ed. by Miquel Barceló and François Sigaut (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 255–314

Agr a r ia n S pac e s an d t h e A n dalu s i S e t tle me nt s o f Manaco r

Barceló, Miquel, ‘Negre i roig. Els contextos historiogràfics per a l’estudi de la societat andalusina de Menorca i la seva destrucció’, in Els barrancs tancats. L’ordre pagès al sud de Menorca en època andalusina (segles X–XIII), ed. by Miquel Barceló and Félix Retamero (Mahon: Institut Menorquí d’Estudis, 2005), pp. 13–49 Barceló, Miquel, ‘Enganya l’ull. El guerrer, el comerciant i la noble causa en la història medi­eval de Catalunya’, in Notícia nova de Catalunya, ed. by Josep Maria Fradera and Enric Ucelay-Da Cal (Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània. Barcelona, 2005), pp. 13–27 Barceló, Miquel, Maria Antònia Carbonero, Ramon Martí, and Guillem Rosselló, Les aigües cercades. Els qanāt(s) de l’illa de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca: Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics, 1986) Barceló, Miquel, and Helena Kirchner, Terra de Falanis. Quan Felanitx no ho era. Assentaments andalusins i organització de l’espai al sud-est de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca: Universitat de les Illes Balears, 1995) Barceló, Miquel, Helena Kirchner, Ramon Martí, and José María Torres, The design of irrigation systems in al-Andalus. The cases of Guájar Faragüit (Los Guájares, Granada, Spain) and Castellitx, Aubenya and Biniatró (Balearic Islands) (Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 1998) Barceló, Miquel, Helena Kirchner, and Carme Navarro, El agua que no duerme. Fundamentos de la arqueo­logía hidráulica andalusí (Granada: Sierra Nevada 1995 / El Legado Andalusí, 1995) Barceló, Miquel, and Félix Retamero, Els barrancs tancats. L’ordre pagès al sud de Menorca en època andalusina (segles X–XIII) (Mahon: Institut Menorquí d’Estudis, 2005) Benet, Francisco, ‘Mercados explosivos: las tierras altas bereberes’, in Comercio y mercados en los imperios antiguos, ed. by Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson (Barcelona: Editorial Labor, 1976), pp. 237–62 Bonniard, F., Les marchés de la Tunisie du Nord. Thèse sur le Tell Septentrional (Paris: Étude de Géo­graphie Régional, Librairie Orientaliste, 1934) Chalmeta, Pedro, El señor del zoco en España (Madrid: Instituto hispano-árabe de cultura, 1973) Chaouali, Moheddine, ‘Les nundinae dans les grands domaines en Afrique du Nord à l’époque romaine’, Antiquités Africaines, 38.1 (2002) Glick, Thomas, and Helena Kirchner, ‘Hydraulic Systems and Techno­logies of Islamic Spain: History and Archaeo­logy’, in Working with Water in Medi­eval Europe: Techno­logy and Resource-Use, ed. by Paolo Squatriti (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 267–329 Guichard, Pierre, Structures sociales ‘orientales’ et ‘occidentales’ dans l’Espagne musulmane (Paris: Mouton, 1976) Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of the Mediterranean History (London: Blackwell, 2000) Jemmali, Slaheddine, Les souks hebdomadaires du Cap-Bon (Étude Sociale et Économique) (Tunis: Maison Tunisienne de l’Édition, 1986) Kirchner, Helena, ‘Construir el agua. Irrigación y trabajo campesino en la Edad Media’, Arbor. Ciencia, pensamiento y cultura, 155 (1995), 35–64

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Kirchner, Helena, La construcció de l’espai pagès a Mayūrqa: les valls de Bunyola, Orient, Coanegra i Alaró (Palma de Mallorca: Universitat de les Illes Balears, 1997) Kirchner, Helena, ‘Husun y alquerías campesinas en las Islas Orientales de alAndalus’, in L’incastellamento. Actas de las reuniones de Girona (26–27 noviembre 1992) y de Roma (5–7 mayo 1994), ed. by Miquel Barceló and Pierre Toubert (Roma: École Française de Rome, Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueo­logía en Roma, 1998), pp. 249–69 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Tierras de clanes. Espacios hidráulicos y clanes andalusíes en la isla de Yābisa (Ibiza)’, Arqueo­logía del paisaje. Arqueo­logía Espacial 19–20 (1998), 351–72 Kirchner, Helena, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos rurales andalusíes de la isla de Ibiza’, in Asentamientos rurales y territorio en el mundo mediterráneo en época medi­eval, ed. by Carmen Trillo (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2002), pp. 120–86 Kirchner, Helena, La ceràmica de Yābisa (Eivissa). Estudi dels fons de ceràmica del Museu Arqueològic d’Eivissa i Formentera (Ibiza: Museu Arqueològic d’Eivissa i Formentera, 2002) Kirchner, Helena, ‘Qanāt(s) y espacios irrigados en las Islas Orientales de alAndalus. Su identificación arqueológica y documental y sus características constructivas’, in Las galerías de captación en la Europa mediterránea, ed. by Emmanuel Salesse (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2003) Kirchner, Helena, ‘La reconstrucció del disseny original dels espais irrigats andalusins i de les modificacions posteriors. Exemples d’Eivissa’, in Estudiar i gestionar el paisatge històric i medi­eval, ed. by Jordi Bolòs, Territori i Societat a l’Edat Mitjana: Història, arqueo­logia, documentació, 4 (Lleida: Universitat de Lleida, 2007), pp. 11–38 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Archeo­logia degli spazi irrigati medi­evali e le loro forme di gestione sociale’, L’acqua nei secoli alto medi­evali, Atti delle LV Settimane, Spoleto, 2 vols (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2008), vol. I, pp. 471–503 Kirchner, Helena, ‘Original Design, Tribal Management and Modifications in Medi­eval Hydraulic Systems in the Balearic Islands (Spain)’, World Archaeo­ logy: The Archaeo­logy of Water, 41 (2009), 151–68 Retamero, Fèlix, La contínua il·lusió del moviment perpetu. La moneda dels reges, dels mulūk i dels seniores (segle VI–XI) (Barcelona: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2000) Riera, Maria Magdalena, Prosopografia dels ‘Ulamā’ i els Fuqahā de les Illes Orientals d’al-Andalus (Mallorca: Museu de Mallorca, 1985) Riera, Maria Magdalena, and Guillem Rosselló, ‘El nivell andalusí de la sala hipòstila del poblat talaiòtic d’Hospitalet (Manacor/Mallorca)’, Butlletí de la Societat Arqueològica Lul·liana, 51 (1995), 289–92 Rosselló, Guillem, L’Islam a les illes Balears (Majorca: Daedalus, 1968) Rosselló Vaquer, Ramon, Història de Sant Llorenç des Cardassar. Segles XIII–XVI (Majorca: Gràfiques Miramar, 1978)

Agr a r ia n S pac e s an d t h e A n dalu s i S e t tle me nt s o f Manaco r

Rosselló Vaquer, Ramon, Història de Manacor. Segle XIV, 2 vols (Majorca: Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de las Baleares, 1978) Rosselló Vaquer, Ramon, Cronicó felanitxer. 1228–1399 (Felanitx: Ramon Llull, 1981) Sitjes, Eugènia, ‘Inventario y tipo­logía de sistemas hidráulicos andalusíes’, Arqueo­ logía Espacial: Espacios agrarios, 26 (2006), 263–91 Sitges, Eugènia, ‘Espacios agrarios y redes de asentamientos andalusíes en Manacor (Majorca)’, in Por una arqueo­logía agraria: perspectivas de investigación sobre espacios de cultivo en las sociedades medi­evales hispánicas, ed. by Helena Kirchner (Oxford: BAR International Series, Archaeopress, 2010), pp. 61–77 Smith, Robert H. T., ‘West African Market-Places: Temporal Periodicity and Locational Spacing’, in The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa, ed. by Claude Meillassoux (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 329–46 Soto, Ricard, ‘La porció de Nunó Sanç. Repartiment i repoblació de les terres del Sud-est de Mallorca’, Afers, 18 (1994), 347–65 Troin, Jean-François, Les souks marocains. Marchés ruraux et organisation de l’espace dans la moitié nord du Maroc (Aix-en-Provence: Connaissance du monde méditerranéen, Edisud, 1975)

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Antoni Ferrer a nd Helen a Kirch ner

Watermills on Ibiza (Balearic Islands) A Documentary and Archaeo­logical Case Study in Santa Eulàlia des Riu* Introduction Between 1992 and 1998, a research programme directed by Miquel Barceló analysed settlement and cultivation patterns on Ibiza during the Andalusi period.1 This programme began in the 1980s as a part of a broader project on the archaeo­logy of the Balearic Islands.2 The programme involved the analysis of forty-eight irrigation areas, which were identified as having an Andalusi origin on the basis of their association with nearby archaeo­logical sites, certain toponyms, and written references.3 The areas under study included the hydraulic systems located along the lower course of the Santa Eulàlia River and its affluent the torrent of Es Ierns. Most of the river valley is currently situated within the municipality of Santa Eulàlia des Riu. Prior to the division of the territory into munic* This research is supported by the research projects, Órdenes agrarios y conquistas ibéricas (siglos XII–XVI). Estudios desde la arqueo­logía histórica (HA2017–82157-P); and Agricultural organizations and Iberian conquests (12th-16th centuries). Comparative Studies (PID2020112764GB-I00), both funded by the Spanish Government’s ‘Plan Nacional de I–D-i.  1 See its major accomplishments: Barceló, El curs de les aigües; Barceló, González, and Kirchner, ‘La construction d’un espace agraire drainé’; Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’; Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’; Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’, pp. 120–86; Kirchner, ‘Migración y colonización’.  2 Barceló and others, Les aigües cercades; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Sitjes, ‘Inventario de sistemas’; Barceló and Retamero, Els barrancs tancats.  3 Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’; Kirchner, ‘Migración y colonización agraria’.

Antoni Ferrer Abárzuza ([email protected]) is a Heritage technician at Consell Insular de Formentera and collaborator of the research group Agrarian Archaeology of the Middle Ages (2017SGR1073) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Helena Kirchner ([email protected]) is Professor of Medi­eval History and Archaeo­logy and member of the research group Agrarian Archaeology of the Middle Ages (2017SGR1073) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Agricultural Landscapes of Al-Andalus, and the Aftermath of the Feudal Conquest, ed. by Helena Kirchner and Flocel Sabaté, TMC 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 65–95 10.1484/M.TMC-EB.5.124541

FHG

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ipalities, which took place in the nineteenth century, the area was known as Quartó de Santa Eulàlia or Quartó del Rei (the King’s Share). Quartó was the word used to refer to each of the jurisdictional districts the island was divided into after the Christian conquest in 1235. To some extent, this division followed the previous territorial structure. Thus, the Quartó de Santa Eulàlia corresponded to the Andalusi district of Šarq (‘orient’, ‘East’ in Arabic). The hydraulic systems located in the lower course of the Santa Eulàlia River were in use until the mid-twentieth century. The research programme undertaken resulted in the identification of the perimeter of the original Andalusi systems and later expansions, as well as in the description of its technical features (channels, secondary channels, derivation dams).4 There were four Andalusi irrigation systems, two on the torrent of Es Ierns and two on the Santa Eulàlia River. A number of watermills were also identified, partially through the records generated by the Christian conquest. The study also attested the expansion of the systems from the eighteenth century onwards. In 2009, the opportunity arose to undertake an archaeo­logical analysis of the building which hosts one of those watermills which is known as Molí de Dalt (Upper Watermill) or Molí de Can Planetes. It is located on the Canal Antic (Old Channel), also called Canal des Molins (Channel of the Watermills) on the left bank of the Santa Eulàlia River. This research made the Interpretation Centre of the Santa Eulàlia River possible, newly created in the watermill and the adjacent house.

Historical Context: The Oriental Islands of al-Andalus5 and the Catalan Conquest Before their actual occupation in ad 902 (290 ah), the Balearic Islands had already been the target of a number of military expeditions.6 However, there is no mention of Ibiza in any of the chronicles that describe these expeditions and there is close to no archaeo­logical evidence, several numismatic finds excepted, that can be confidently dated to between the seventh and tenth centuries on Ibiza.7 In fact, it is possible that there was a significant population decline during this period, to the extent that the Andalusi chroniclers saw no need to include Ibiza in their description of the pacts.8  4 Derivation dams, azud in Spanish, from the Arabic as-sud: normally these are simple structures built with non-perishable and perishable materials (stone, timber, mud, and plants), which elevate a water course and direct it towards an artificial channel.  5 Name used by the Andalusi chroniclers to refer to the Balearic Islands.  6 Guichard, ‘L’intégration des Baléares’, p. 59; Barceló, El curs de les aigües.  7 Retamero, Moneda i monedes àrabs; Retamero, ‘Fulūs y moneda’; Ramon, El Baix Imperi, pp. 24–26; Ramon, ‘L’Antiguitat Tardana’, p. 495; Ramon, ‘La cerámica ebusitana’, p. 565; Gómez, Díes, and Marí, ‘Tres paisajes ibicencos’, pp. 110–15.  8 Barceló, El curs de les aigües.

wat e r m i l l s o n i b iza ( b ale ari c i sland s)

After the mid-ninth century ad, the islands were not mentioned by Arab sources until the official conquest by ʿIṣam al-Jawlānī in ad 902 (290 ah).9 Although these sources only mention the island of Majorca, tribal groups from Šarq al-Andalus (eastern part of al-Andalus) emigrated to all three islands. Since Ibiza is geo­graphically the closest to the Iberian Peninsula, it must also have functioned as a stopover point for those going to Majorca and Minorca.10 The homogeneity of the settlement patterns and the techno­logy employed in the construction of the irrigation systems suggests a brief colonization process.11 According to Barceló, the possibility of colonizing the islands was not considered until the activities of the baḥriyyūn provided the necessary information and the naval requirements were met.12 The baḥriyyūn ahl al-Andalus (‘sailing people from al-Andalus’, who were usually organized tribally) established several naval bases on the Western Mediterranean coasts and Crete, as described by the Carolingian chronicles.13 The technical and agricultural knowledge already acquired on the Iberian Peninsula played an essential role in the occupation of land for cultivation, grazing, hunting, and harvesting.14 The associated skills included the levelling of channels, the implementation of water distribution techniques, the construction of terraces and the creation of valley-bottom field systems, the building of watermills, the operation of different systems for collecting water, either through natural sources, qanāt(s) or water-lifting devices, the application of cultivation techniques and the utilization of precise crop combinations.15 The new colonists preferred irrigation agriculture, but alternative or supplementary survival strategies such as stockbreeding and dryland agriculture were also crucial. Dryland agriculture was preferably done on the edges of marshes and in valley bottoms.16 The spatial choices made by the new colonists are, in consequence, an important clue to understanding the process of colonization.17

 9 Barceló, Sobre Mayūrqa, p. 9.  10 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  11 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  12 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  13 Barceló, Sobre Mayūrqa, p. 39; Moll, ‘Historia política de las Islas Orientales’; Guichard, ‘L’intégration des Baléares’.  14 Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  15 Glick and Kirchner, ‘Hydraulic Systems and Techno­logies’; Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  16 Retamero, ‘On Dry Farming in al-Andalus’, in this volume.  17 Research on large regions of Majorca, Minorca, and Ibiza indicates that settlement patterns and the layout of hydraulic systems were highly homogenous. This can be explained only by an intense and fast migration process, which would not have been possible without a welltested economic strategy. See Barceló and Kirchner, Terra de Falanis; Argemí, ‘El sistema de molinos’; Argemí, A la recerca de la lógica; Argemí, A les vores dels torrents; Barceló, El curs de les aigües; Kirchner, La construcció de l’espai pagès; Kirchner, ‘Tierras de clanes’; Kirchner, La ceràmica de Yābisa; Kirchner, ‘El mapa de los asentamientos’; Barceló and Retamero,

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Map 3.1. Andalusi settlements in Ibiza. Unless otherwise specified, all maps in this chapter are by H. Kirchner.

The settlement pattern is characterized by the presence of interconnected rural settlements which were spatially linked with the agricultural areas. Many place names are of Berber origins, but Arab names may also be found. On Ibiza, however, all toponyms seem to be of Berber origin.18 They are mentioned in the Catalan documentary sources as alqueria (Arab qarya) and sometimes as rafal (Arab raḥl). The alqueria refers to a territory which can include more than one residential area and more than one cultivation area. Rafals were supplementary agricultural areas linked to the alquerias.19 These settlements were organized in networks which are the result of agricultural land selection criteria. On all three islands (Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza), streams were the main communication axes, and also a central factor in the distribution of settlement networks. The map of Ibiza (see Map 3.1) shows that most irrigation areas were concentrated in the main river basins. These include the basin of the Santa Eulàlia River and the torrent of Ierns, located on the eastern side of the island, the streams of Xarraca, Benirràs, Sant Miquel de Balansat, and Els barrancs tancats; Barceló, ‘De la congruencia y la homogeneidad’; Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  18 Barceló, El curs de les aigües; Barceló, ‘Immigration berbère’.  19 Kirchner, ‘Original Design’.

wat e r m i l l s o n i b iza ( b ale ari c i sland s)

Es Rubió, which flow across the northern part of the island, the streams of Canal de Fruitera and Llavanera, which run into the bay of Ibiza, the stream of Buscastell, which flows into the bay of Portmany (Sant Antoni), in the western part of the island, and a number of smaller streams that run to the southern coast (S’Aigua, Cas Berris-Ses Fonts, Es Cirer-Sa Font).20 On Ibiza, we find the two basic types of irrigated areas typical of rural Andalusi settlements: those built on a valley bottom and those built on a hillside or slope.21 Good examples of the former may be found in Buscastell, the torrent of Ierns, Santa Eulàlia, and Labritja. This type accounts for 60 per cent of the irrigated land on the Balearic Islands.22 Examples of the latter are found in Balansat or in very small irrigated areas (5 – ≤10

22

24.4

>10 – ≤15

16

17.8

>15 – ≤20

19

21.1

>20 – ≤25

12

13.3

>25 – ≤30

6

6.7

>30

3

3.3

Total

90

100

fluvial huertas were bigger because the groups that built them were also larger, and that a small mountain system, with a limited aquifer, was not big enough to maintain. Unfortunately, it is still impossible to calculate how large the group who built an irrigated area of 30 or 35 ha was, this being the size of the largest areas found in the Horta of Valencia. In this work of morpho­logical analysis of all the Horta of Valencia, ninety irrigated areas have been identified in the area under study to date. These range in size from 2 ha in the smallest case to 34 in the largest.26 So, to analyse their areas statistically, the sample was divided into seven intervals of data in line with the Sturges rule, each with a spread of 5 ha. The results are shown Table 5.1 and the histogram in Graph 5.1: As can be seen, the most numerous group is clearly the one with areas between 5 and 10 ha, which represents 24 per cent. Despite this, it can be said that the groups that occupy the centre of histogram are more representative than the most numerous group, as adding the two groups that cover from 10 to 20 ha together gives almost 40 per cent of the total, slightly above the sum of the first two intervals. In fact, the average area of all the sample is 14 ha and, although this data tends not to be very representative in the study of parcelling, the truth is that it is almost equal to the median, which is 13 ha, while the mode is 18 ha, as up to nine irrigated plots had this area. In short, it can be concluded that the bulk of the irrigated places have an area similar to the average, and that the extremes of the sample (the largest and smallest areas) are marginal, especially the largest ones, which are only 10 per cent. In fact, if we observe the line of the tendency in the g­ raph, we can see that it is clearly descending, and this means that the larger the Andalusi irrigated spaces are, the fewer of them there are. Therefore, one  26 See Map 5.5. For the exact areas of the Andalusi spaces identified, see Esquilache, Els constructors de l’Horta.

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should not be misled by the fact that the largest spaces stand out over the smallest when we observe Map 5.5. Moreover, it must be born in mind that the largest space, with 34 ha, is only slightly more than twice the average and the median (14 and 13 ha), so that one cannot say that the largest is particularly big. Indeed, it is possible to state that, despite the considerable difference between the smallest and the largest spaces identified, with 2 and 34 ha respectively, the truth is that the areas of all the irrigated spaces are more homogeneous than they seem.

The Structure of the Irrigation Systems: A Reflection of Andalusi Society? The morpho­logy of the external perimeter of the Andalusi irrigated spaces is not especially relevant from the historical and social points of view. The most habitual forms of a pear or a bell are quite logical, as they are the result of the internal arborescent structure of the small channels that carry the water to the fields. Likewise, this structure is a consequence of the slope of the land, which conditions the design to move water by gravity, as well as the shape and area of the cultivated terraces. Indeed, this is a merely technical question, although we must highlight the morpho­logical uniformity of the majority of the ninety Andalusi irrigated spaces identified, as the external form of 71 per cent of these is either pear-shaped or bell-shaped. Another very different question is the structure of the irrigation system, in other words, of the canals that carry the water from the dam to the fields, which are a consequence of the water divisors (partidors). This structure also responds partly to technical questions, like the slope of the land. However, it mainly responds to a social question, given that the main canals were divided into other secondary canals designed to carry the water to each and every irrigated field from the Andalusi epoch that we have seen in the previous section. Each of these farmed spaces was associated with a settlement or qarya, so the divisors really served to divide the irrigation water between the various peasant groups in a pre-established proportion. So, the key to the structure of the system lay in the proportional dividers, which were typical of the Horta of Valencia and other fluvial huertas, both in the eastern Iberian Peninsula and in some parts of North Africa. The basic concept is very simple. A large stone cut in the form of a triangular prism is placed in the middle of a canal and acts like the cutwater of a bridge, separating the water proportionally to each side, that is, to each of the new canals that were formed after this stone (Figure 5.1). If the stone is placed right in the middle, it would divide the water exactly into two for each new canal. If it is skewed to one side of the main canal, one of the new canals would receive more water than the other, depending on the distance between the point of the stone and the sides of the canal. However, independently

s e archi ng fo r t he o ri gi n

Figure 5.1. A proportional divisor from the Canal of Tormos (Horta of Valencia) shown in an old photo­graph. Photo: València Council, 1960.

of the quantity of water available at a given moment in the main canal, the proportion of the division would always be the same, and this was set when it was built.27 The simplest structure of the irrigation system comes about when the divisor divides the water into two equal parts, to carry it to two irrigated spaces with similar areas. Very often, a canal carried water to more than one irrigated space, and this was further divided with another divisor that also split the water into two equal parts, so a symmetric arborescent structure was created. On the contrary, if the divisor separated the water into two

 27 In another place I believe I have shown that in the Andalusi epoch, there was a relationship between the proportion of water that corresponded to each canal in the divisor and the area of land irrigated by each of these canals. See Esquilache, ‘La cuestión de la proporcionalidad’. The study was based on a fourteenth-century document which contains the measurements of all the proportional divisors in the Canal of Favara, in the Horta of Valencia, whose measure­ ments were the same as those from before the Christian conquest in the thirteenth century.

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Figure 5.2. Schematic structure, with Andalusi irrigated spaces, of the canals of Tormos and Favara. Figure by the author.

distinct parts, and one of the canals received more water because it had to supply a larger number of fields, the arborescent structure would be asymmetric. This can be seen perfectly in the irrigation systems of the Horta of Valencia if we present these schematically, as can be seen in Figure 5.2. The divisors in the Canal of Tormos always split the water equally, so the structure of the resulting system was symmetric. On the contrary, in the Canal of Favara the divisors situated in the main canal did not divide the water into equal parts. Instead, these were distinct, so that the result was an asymmetric arborescent structure. In fact, at first sight, some irrigation systems, like Favara and Montcada, seem to have long main canals from where the secondary canals branch out, but the true structure through the divisors is equally arborescent, although asymmetric. In other words, the partition of the water was done the same way throughout all the irrigation systems in the Horta de Valencia, and is a reflection of agreements for its distribution reached by the peasant groups who built them. Nevertheless, these arborescent structures as shown in Figure 5.2 are the final result of the evolution of the irrigation systems. In fact, this same figure illustrates how there were some irrigated Andalusi spaces that were not part of the arborescent structure for the proportional sharing of the water, but that were added later at distinct points of the system. These later secondary canals did not, in fact, take water from the main canal through the same type of proportional divisor with a cutwater, but rather through holes in the side walls of the main canal, called rolls, with a specific diameter. In fact, these tended to be later additions that skewed the proportional structure, and responded to later agreements or even sometimes to measures imposed by a superior power like the Islamic state when this developed over time.

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To sum up, what can be appreciated with this is that the great irrigation systems of the Horta of Valencia were not designed as such from the start. They were more the consequence of evolution with additions over time. In other words, they were built in various phases, and this is what is studied below through morpho­logical analysis.

The Phases of Evolution of the Horta of Valencia in the Time of al-Andalus It is difficult to explain briefly, only through Map 5.5, how the different phases of the construction and extension of the eight irrigation systems of the Horta of Valencia were carried out. However, it is true that in the majority of the cases, the morpho­logical analysis, combined with some specific archaeo­logical excavations that supply chrono­logy, does not leave much room for doubt. In reality, it can very easily be appreciated from the morpho­logy of the irrigation system which the oldest parts are and which were added later, both from the scheme in Figure 5.2 and the real plan on Map 5.5. To distinguish between them, a system of shades of grey has been used in these figure and map. There was a first phase in which the irrigated areas were very close to each other, in other words, forming clusters. This very probably responded to the existence of villages (qurà) made up of various neighbourhoods or settlements (ḥāra) each with only a few houses. Moreover, these groupings with the oldest Andalusi irrigated spaces make up a kind of crown around the city of Valencia and along the river (Map 5.5). On the other hand, it is interesting to indicate that the majority of these early qurà have Latin names, dating from before the arrival of the Muslims in 711. For example, this is the case of Quart (