The Throne in the Courtyard

The Middle Ages were a time of major trade expansion, and the Iberian Peninsula was an important crossroads of the Mediterranean world.

Between the eighth and twelfth centuries, the Iberian slave trade was controlled by Muslim merchants, who transported Christian and pagan slaves to the Middle East and North Africa.

Beginning in the thirteenth century, this process reversed, and the slave trade came under Christian control. The Crusaders expanded the Church's power over Islamic lands and enslaved Muslims captured in war. Jerusalem was occupied in 1187, while Christian conquests extended into Muslim Iberia: Toledo was taken in 1061, Córdoba in 1236, Valencia in 1238, and Seville in 1248.

Slavery was undoubtedly a dark page in human history. The first and second centuries AD were the height of the Roman Empire, which dominated the Mediterranean region. Yet by the third century AD, Roman slavery had entered a severe crisis. Agriculture declined, politics grew unstable, and slaveowners indulged in extravagance and debauchery. Their residences were often magnificent buildings. They contained colonnades for exercise before bathing, as well as interconnected heated rooms of varying temperatures. Each room one entered was hotter than the last.

This style of bathing was now called a Turkish bath. People usually brought lavish food boxes into the bathhouse, filled with kebabs, kidneys, yogurt, hazelnuts, and other foods and dried fruits. After bathing, old friends and new gathered together to eat, drink, and chat. Such "bathhouse banquets" often lasted nine hours. Afterward, they rubbed fragrant ointments all over their bodies to prevent freezing in winter and shield themselves from the sun in summer.

To flaunt the Empire's splendor, emperors often used various festivals and anniversaries as excuses to hold grand events. In AD 106, Emperor Trajan held festivities for 123 consecutive days to commemorate his victory in Dacia.

In