ABSTRACT
The defensive frontier of Christendom’s western flank had advanced suddenly to the extreme south of Spain. In the fallen kingdom an inimical Moslem culture whose strength and tenacity equaled that of the conqueror stood in possession. The drama of the reconstruction of Valencia lies in the clash between these two cultures, in the uneasy footing of partial compromises, in the purposeful supplanting of the old by the institutions of the new.4 A single important element of this clash, which we shall isolate and examine here, is the problem of the convert from Islam to Christianity. He is a by-product of the main dispute, a kind of displaced person, whose story and status illumine the larger scene. The ever-increasing movement of which he was part had far-reaching social implications and merits close attention, constituting as it does the foundations of a cultural immigration of sorts from one society into another.
