Christian Culture Lecture

Last Thursday I attended the Christian Culture Lecture Series, where the topic of Jewish, Christian and Muslim influences in Medieval Spain was discussed. Other than the fact that I knew the topic would take place in the historical context of the Medieval period, I had no other background knowledge. This made it a bit difficult for me to keep up with the speakers, as I had no prior knowledge of the literature of which she referred to throughout the speech. Although I did have a difficult time understanding everything, the main aspect of the speech was very clear to me: the influence of the Arab language during this time. First, I have never thought of the Arabic language as being prominent in Spain, despite the Moorish background. I have always thought of it as a heavily Christian society, therefore, Latin would have been the language of the writers. However, there was a time when the Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together and were influence by the Arabic language. Arabic culture clearly influenced this society, as there is evidence of Arabic art and architecture even in Jewish synagogues.
So, even though I had a difficult time understanding every detail of the speech, due to my lack of knowledge of Spanish literary history, I did pick up on some main points. Had I had a little more background on the speech, I may have been able to absorb a few other aspects of the speech, but I think that the affect of the Arabic language and people was the significance of the speech.