The Lead Books of Granada

The Lead Books of Granada is the first full-length book in English to investigate the story of the remarkable forgeries fabricated in late sixteenth-century Spain and uncovered on the Sacromonte hillside in Granada in 1595. The unearthing of twenty-two lead discs, which contained sayings of the Virgin Mary, St Peter and St James written in Arabic, Latin and Castilian, rocked the whole of Spain and attracted the attention of the Vatican. Heralded as astonishing archaeological discoveries as significant as the Ark of the Covenant, the Lead Books were widely believed to be authentic by the Catholic Church in Spain, yet one hundred years later in 1682, the Vatican condemned them as Islamic heresies, consigning them to oblivion in dusty archives until 2000, when they were returned to Granada. Now published for the first time in paperback, this book evaluates the cultural status and importance of the Lead Books, polyvalent and ambiguous texts that embody many of the dualities and paradoxes inherent in the racial and religious dilemmas of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Auteur

Elizabeth Drayson is Senior College Lecturer in Spanish at Murray Edwards College and Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, UK. She specializes in medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature and cultural history, and her monograph The King and the Whore: King Roderick and La Cava was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007.

Résumé

Hailed as early Christian texts as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls, yet condemned by the Vatican as Islamic heresies, the Lead books of Granada, written on discs of lead and unearthed on a Granadan hillside, weave a mysterious tale of duplicity and daring set in the religious crucible of sixteenth-century Spain. This book evaluates the cultural status and importance of these polyvalent, ambiguous artefacts which embody many of the dualities and paradoxes inherent in the racial and religious dilemmas of Early Modern Spain. Using the words of key individuals, and set against the background of conflict between Spanish Christians and Moriscos in the late fifteen-hundreds, The Lead Books of Granada tells a story of resilient resistance and creative ingenuity in the face of impossibly powerful negative forces, a resistance embodied by a small group of courageous, idealistic men who lived a double life in Granada just before the expulsion of the Moriscos.

Contenu

Timeline
Acknowledgements
Preface

1. A Mystery Unfolds
2. Books of Spells or Sacred Revelations?
3. History, Religion, Culture: Conspiracy in Context
4. Prime Suspect: Alonso del Castillo
5. Miguel de Luna: Hoaxer, Heretic or Hero?
6. 'As Precious as the Ark of the Covenant'
7. Unification in Opposition: The Strategy Of Ambivalence
8. Opposing Factions
9. Acts of Rebellion
10. Fact, Fiction, Myth: The Afterlife of the Lead Books
11. The Lead Books Today
    Appendix 1. Titles of the Lead Books
    Appendix 2. Summaries of the Content of the Lead Books
    Appendix 3. Translation of the Lead Book entitled Libro de la Historia de la Verdad del Evangelio
    Appendix 4. A Translator at Work
    Appendix 5. 'Al monte santo de Granada', Sonnet by Luis de Góngora
    Select Bibliography
    Index