ABSTRACT
In this portrait I explore the life of one eleventh-century concubine, known variously as Zaida and Isabel, on two sides of a medieval frontier. In the historiography of medieval Iberia, Zaida is a mysterious figure whose life has repeatedly been subject to generations of ideological and nationalist fantasizing. Like many women in the Islamicate world, Zaida's early life, lived inside the harems in Sevilla and Córdoba, has received almost no attention in comparison to her existence outside it. Yet, unlike her Christian contemporaries, Zaida's years spent as a concubine of Alfonso VI and the mother of his heir have left comparatively few records. Indeed, almost all of the vernacular, Latin, and Arab sources that pertain to Zaida are chronicles, and therefore bear the imprint of their author's interpretations about Zaida's place in medieval society. In order to better understand Zaida's trajectory, I begin with her formative years as a wife and mother in the harems of her father-in-law al-Mu’tamid and his son al-Ma’mun, her flight north to León-Castile amidst conflict, and her later years in the court of Alfonso VI. Informed by the concept of critical fabulation articulated by Saidiya Hartman, my portrait draws upon research about the harems of al-Andalus and the lives of concubines and queens in high-medieval León-Castile in order to imagine the spaces inhabited by Zaida, touching on such themes as women's networks, motherhood, cultural difference, and memory.
