EXCERPT FROM SARAS JOURNALApril 6, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
The Sign of Seville
Sevillanos hang skirts of fabric over their balconies during Semana
Santa. On the blood-red fabric there is an ensign. It looks like a figure eight, with
letters on either side. In fact, this curious emblem is emblazoned everywhere in Seville,
from the walls of the Ayuntamiento (City Hall), to the sewer covers, to the sides of the
municipal buses.
It is a play on words. It is Sevilles sign. The figure eight
represents a skein of wool, the Spanish word for which is madeja. On either side of
the madeja are the letters NO and DO. Together they are read, NO (madeja)
DO, or "No me ha dejado", meaning "she has not deserted me".
"She has not deserted me" were the words reputedly uttered by
Alfonso X (the Wise), after Seville remained loyal to him in the course of a dispute with
his son Sancho during the 13th century Reconquest of Spain. The war between the
Moors and the Christians, which started in the north, arrived in Andalusia with a decided
Christian victory at Las Nevas de Tolosa in 1212. Seville and Cordoba were the last to
fall under Christian rule. By the late 13th century only the Nasrid kingdom of
Granada remained under Moorish control. This was when the Nasrid princes constructed the
Alhambra, their "Paradise on Earth"and their ultimate expression of
aesthetic refinement and imperial power, belying an image of imminent decline. Meanwhile,
Christian monarchs like Alfonso X and Pedro I enlisted Moorish craftsmen to build churches
and palaces in the reconquered territories, renaming the people Mudejar, literally
meaning "those permitted to stay". In 1492 Granada finally fell to Fernando and
Isabel of Aragon and Castilla, commonly known as the Catholic Monarchs.