ABSTRACT
A peculiar divide marks the figure of medieval Spain, whether it is deployed in collective memory or explored in sober and meticulous historical accounts. It is, after all, Europe that celebrates medieval Spain. And it is Europe that, over the centuries since 1492, invented a range of regimes and technologies that were predicated on unparalleled forms of legal and linguistic, religious and political exclusivity. It is in this precise context that one could come to speak, and with great pertinence, of 'integrity', the very concept that ultimately sustains and nourishes any discussion of 'integration', and the institutional practices that characterize the Western, Christian or post-Christian polity. And, indeed, such exceptionality is openly presented as such in Western historiography and memory, and precisely by way of a conjuration of sorts, the ritualized invocation of the figure of medieval Spain.
