Like Wheat to the Miller

Mary Halavais's Like Wheat to the Miller: Community, Convivencia, and the Construction of Morisco Identity in Sixteenth-Century Aragon reopens the question of the reality of convivencia in Aragon during the 16th century in a tightly-woven examination of two villages, Baguena and Burbaguena, in the Jiloca valley. On the basis of notarial records, parish registers, and ecclesiastical archives, Halavais argues that in these villages local laity and religion made little distinction between old Christians and new (Moriscos): These distinctions were imposed from the outside by ecclesiastical authorities and royal agents. Employing literature on 16th-century Spain along with archival materials, this book provocatively posits that the marginalization of Moriscos was imposed on localities by central authorities and not out of antagonism in the local communities themselves.