muzarabs

Updated: May 20, 2025

Consequently this art, born on Iberian soil, cannot be regarded as foreign. Much of what is called Moorish art owes its existence to the Christians, to the Muzarabs and Jews who inhabited cities which were dependent upon or belonged to the Moors. In the same way, much of the Oriental taste of the Spanish Christians was inherited from the Moors and received in Spain the generic name of Mudejar.

Charles Rudy - The Cathedrals of Northern Spain

In our barbarous times, when the Franks, the Germans, the Bretons, the Lombards, the Spanish Muzarabs, knew not how either to read or write, there were instituted schools, universities, composed almost entirely of ecclesiastics who, knowing nothing but their own jargon, taught this jargon to those who wished to learn it; the academies came only a long time afterwards; they despised the foolishness of the schools, but did not always dare to rise against them, because there are foolishnesses that are respected provided that they concern respectable things.

Voltaire - Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary