ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Contested Hydraulics: Morisco Expertise in Granada’s 16th-Century Water System

• In Event: Heavens, Earth, and Water in the Early Modern Iberian World

English Abstract

In 1501, Isabel and Ferdinand established Granada’s Juzgado de Aguas (Water Court), the court of final appeal for water-related disputes in the newly conquered city and its hinterland. Founded following a morisco (forced converts from Islam) rebellion, the court began as an experiment in interfaith water management, originally comprising three Christians and three moriscos. Practical concerns necessitated this collaboration. In the first decades after the conquest, Christian officials lacked the specialized technological knowledge necessary to maintain the complex hydraulic system. A 1500 report highlighted their limited sabiduría (wisdom or knowledge), attributing it to a noticeable decline in the surrounding fertile agricultural plain after the city’s capture by Christian forces in 1492.

The hydraulic system was essential, connecting urban and rural areas via acequias—communally managed irrigation ditches—that channeled water from the Darro and Genil rivers and Sierra Nevada snowmelt. This system, part of a technological package introduced centuries earlier by the Umayyad Caliphate, transformed the landscape and facilitated new crops in regions like Andalusia. While numerous post-conquest Christian sources pay homage to Muslim expertise with water, the process by which this specialized knowledge was transmitted in practice remains unclear. Legal historians have studied the persistence of Muslim legal thought in Christian statutes, but they have not addressed the transfer of technological knowledge.

This paper argues that the Juzgado de Aguas served as a crucial learning-site for Christian city officials. Through archival research into the court’s lawsuits and administrative papers at the Municipal Archive of Granada, this paper explores how moriscos shared their expertise. This transfer occurred for various reasons, including willingly (e.g., to secure building contracts) and under duress. By foregrounding the technological expertise of morisco workers, this analysis underscores the persistence and adaptation of Islamic science and hydraulic management under Christian rule.

Author

• Camila Roxana Marcone, Yale University