A real contact zone
Europe’s musical life did not develop in isolation. Between the 8th and 15th centuries, Christian and Muslim societies met in several places: in the Iberian Peninsula, where Muslim rule lasted for centuries, in Sicily, which was under Muslim rule before the Normans took it, and through trade and the Crusades in the eastern Mediterranean. In these regions, musicians and instruments crossed religious and linguistic lines. The question is not whether exchange happened, but how much of European music it explains.
Andalusian music
Muslim Spain, known in Arabic as al-Andalus, had a lively musical culture. The Umayyad court at Córdoba was a center of learning and refinement, and musicians from elsewhere in the Islamic world traveled there. Traditions say that a musician named Ziryab, who came from Baghdad in the 9th century, brought new styles and customs to Córdoba, and was an influential trendsetter. Much of what is said about him comes from later writers, so the details are best treated as partly legend, though he does appear to have been a real and celebrated figure.
“Andalusian music” is also a name given to later traditions in North Africa that trace themselves to al-Andalus. These traditions preserve repertories and forms that were handed down for many centuries, but they were reshaped along the way, so they cannot simply be used as a recording of the 10th century.
Instruments
The clearest evidence for Islamic influence lies in instruments. Several European instruments have names or forms that match Arabic or Persian ones:
- The lute, whose name appears to derive from the Arabic al-ʿūd, with the shape of the instrument closely related to the oud.
- The rebec, a small bowed instrument, related to the Arabic rabāb.
- Nakers, small kettledrums, whose name is linked to the Arabic naqqāra.
- The shawm, a loud double-reed instrument related to Middle Eastern types.
- Various tambourines and frame drums.
Scholars generally agree that such instruments, or their designs, came into Europe through contacts in Spain, Sicily and the Crusader lands, though the exact routes and dates are debated, and the European versions developed their own features. The guitar is a more contested case. Its name may come from a mix of Greek and Arabic words, and the origin of its form is disputed.
Pictures offer supporting evidence. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, made for Alfonso X in the 13th century, illustrates Christian and Muslim musicians playing together, including lutes and other instruments of Islamic type. Records from Christian kingdoms in Spain also show that Muslim musicians were hired at courts and celebrations, which indicates routine contact, not just rare encounters.
Sicily
Sicily gives another strong example. After the Normans conquered the island in the 11th century, their kings ruled a population that included Muslims, Greeks and Latin Christians. The court at Palermo under Roger II maintained a mixed culture, and the painted wooden ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, dating to the 12th century, contains scenes of musicians, dancers and courtly life in an Islamic-influenced style. This is good evidence that Islamic art and entertainment were part of the court environment, though it does not prove which musical ideas passed north.
Poetry and song: the debated question
The most contested question concerns the troubadours. Some scholars argue that the earliest troubadour songs, appearing in southern France in the late 11th century, owe something to Arabic poetry and song from al-Andalus, which had strophic forms (verse patterns with repeated structures) such as the muwashshah and the zajal. Supporters point to the geographical closeness of the two worlds and to similarities in themes of love and longing. Others think the connection is overstated, noting that the surviving evidence for direct borrowing is thin, that Latin church poetry and local folk song offer simpler explanations, and that similar love poetry could develop independently. At present there is no consensus, and a careful position is that contact was possible and some influence cannot be ruled out, but it has not been proven in detail.
Similar disagreement surrounds the origin of the word “troubadour” and the shape of the courtly love tradition. Readers will find confident claims in popular books, and those should be treated with caution.
Theory and learning
Islamic scholars wrote extensively about music as a science, and some of their works were translated or summarized in Latin through the centuries of translation in Spain and elsewhere. The thinker al-Fārābī is among those whose musical writing was known to some Latin authors. How much practical difference this made to European musicians is unclear, and the effect seems greater in the learned world of universities than in everyday performance.
Dance
For dance, the evidence is thinnest. Moorish dances and Moorish-style costumes appear in later European festivals, and some folk dances in Spain and elsewhere are sometimes linked to Islamic roots. The links are often hard to establish for the medieval period itself, so it is best to say that dance probably moved across borders as people did, but we lack detailed records.
Weighing it up
Instruments and performers offer solid evidence of exchange. Poetic forms and the origins of the troubadours remain debated. The most reasonable summary is that Europe borrowed and adapted from the Islamic world in music as in other fields, such as medicine and mathematics, but that the extent of influence differs from one topic to the next, and some popular claims are stronger than the sources allow.