Conversos, Jews and Convivencias: History Lost in Translation

The colloquial usages of convivencia constitute only one case of the relevance of translation, as they differ from convivencia between religions in medieval Spain and convivencia as it appears in the thought of Américo Castro. In the following lines we set it within the frame of its time, its field of scholarship and its historiographical, theoretical and philological presuppositions. We show that it encompasses precise fields such as food studies. An examination of one concrete example throws into question not only the equation of literature and history, but also the “translation” of medieval convivencia as a romantic image of idyllic, harmonious, friendly relations.