ABSTRACT
This paper proposes that Alfonso VI may have acquired captive artisans from his occupation of the Taifa (Æā’ifa) city of Toledo in 1085 and that he may have put them to work on churches in Galicia, León and Castile. Some of the earliest Romanesque sculpture in Spain at Santiago de Compostela, San Isidoro de León and San Salvador de Nogales is revisited to identify links with Taifa stone- and ivory-carving. This route may have gone on to provide some of the expertise that was central to the development of early Romanesque sculpture. The context provided for this theory includes the broader use of enslaved labour from the 10th to the 15th century and documented ambivalence towards Islamic artistic skill in the Christian kingdoms. I further suggest that skilled labour, enslaved or freed, may have been exchanged across the papal friendship circle and that Cardinal Richard of St-Victor de Marseille may have played an important role.
