that could be easily changed or hidden.58 On the other hand, Muslims may already have often worn their hair differently than did Christians, and possibly preferred to have it cut by members of their own community. Jaume I’s grant of immunity from royal taxes and seigneurial dominion to a Muslim barber from Vall de Gallinera in 1259 (in return for an annual fee paid to the crown) suggests that this man traveled widely, pursuing his craft in the Muslim communities of Valencia and beyond, and he may have cut hair in certain distinctive styles.59 In the first half of the fourteenth century, Muslim men in the Crown of Aragon were forbidden to wear their hair in a style called the garceta, in which the hair was allowed to grow in locks on either side of the face, in front of the ears and falling to about halfway down the ears, then cut back behind to reveal the ears.60 The garceta (which may have been similar to the copete and tapet mentioned in Castilian documents) was favored by Christian men in the thirteenth century, and the style appears in contemporary images.61 But fashions change, as do laws, so that by the middle of the fourteenth century many Muslim men would suddenly be required to adopt the garceta (instead of avoiding it) as a sign of their non-Christian status. Nothing was ever said about hairstyles for Muslim women.
Beards presented a different issue, though again exclusively a matter of male appearance, and they appeared much less frequently in Christian legislation than did hair. This makes it especially noteworthy that early Castilian legislation required Muslim men to wear long beards, with the recognition—quite correctly—that this was part of Muslim tradition, which from the beginning had been intended to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims. Islamic ʾaḥādīth reported the Prophet Muhammad’s injunction that Muslim men should allow their beards to grow, while keeping their mustaches trimmed, because this was “the opposite of what the pagans [or polytheists, al-mushrikūn] do.”62 Beards did often signal difference; they continued to be commonly worn by Muslim men in thirteenth-century Spain, presumably by choice as much as requirement, while their Christian contemporaries were often—but not universally—clean shaven. Thirteenth-century images normally showed young Christian men without beards, although older men might have them (and one of the most famous beards in medieval literature was, of course, sported by the great Castilian hero Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, El Cid).63
Despite the early expression of Lateran IV rulings at the 1239 church council in Tarragona, secular legislation from the Crown of Aragon did not regulate Muslim appearance until the final quarter of the thirteenth century.64 In the late 1270s, the Costums de Tortosa echoed Castilian rulings—though with the notable variation of singling out particular articles of Muslim clothing. Mudejar men were to have their hair cut short all around the head and allow their beards to grow long and, unless they were working, should wear long loose tunics with sleeves (aljubas or al-jubbas) and other loose sleeved garments (almeixias or almejías). Muslim women were to dress as did their Jewish counterparts, in something called an aldifara.65 Nothing was said about color, fabric, or ornament.
Mention of the garceta first appeared in the final decade of the thirteenth century, in Catalonia in 1293, when King Jaume II of Aragon wrote to the bailiff of Lérida with instructions that Muslims could wear their hair long (in contrast to the “pudding bowl” cut), but without the garceta (sin garceta), so long as they looked different from Christians. Apparently the local bishop had recently complained that there was not sufficient visual distinction between the two communities.66 This 1293 ruling may not have been very effective, since less than a decade later (in 1300 or 1301) the king not only had to reem-phasize differential Muslim hairstyles in Lérida (this time requiring that hair be cut short all around the head), but he also had to remind Christians in the city that they should not wear Muslim dress.67 Nevertheless, it would be the first of a deluge of legislation regulating Muslim hair that would continue throughout the fourteenth century in the Crown of Aragon. This preoccupation with hair, and especially with the garceta, was very prominent in fourteenth-century legislation from the regions of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, even while there was very little attention given to Muslim hair in contemporary Castilian law.
Legislation on Muslim hairstyles must have existed in Valencia before 1301, when a Catalan Muslim from L’Espluga de Francoli was arrested and enslaved on a visit to Valencia because he was not wearing the correct haircut (and could not pay the fine). His seigneurial lords, the Templars of Barberá, complained to the king and obtained his release.68 This case was probably related to Jaume’s other rulings about Muslim hairstyles in Catalonia and Aragon, made in that same year. At the Cortes of Zaragoza (also in 1301), he required that all Muslim men in Aragon, Ribagorza, and La Litera must wear their hair cut short around the head, and without the garceta.69 A year later, he wrote to the bailiff of Albalate de Cinca (near Huesca), reiterating these requirements, and in 1306 in Calatayud, he ordered that the bailiff general of Aragon ensure that all Muslims cut their hair differently from Christians, in accord with the recent rulings of the Cortes of Zaragoza.70 This latter ordinance was now to include those Muslims living near the border with Castile, whom the king had earlier released from this requirement during a period of warfare between the two Christian kings.
While Jaume’s attention to this matter suggests a desire to coordinate legislation relating to Muslim hairstyles throughout the Crown of Aragon, it also indicates a tendency toward regional differences in appearance both within his own territories and across the border with Castile. These may have been slight but sufficiently recognizable for a Muslim to be identifiable when he traveled from one place to another. Regional difference could also provide a rationale for exemptions, especially for those who had money and influence. In 1345, Pere IV granted permission to Yahya de Bellvís (a member of a wealthy Muslim family in Aragon and Valencia) to wear his hair in the style customary in Castile, and thus be exempt from Aragonese laws regarding Muslim hairstyles, because he lived in Medinaceli and traveled throughout Castile.71 A decade later, in 1355, another member of the Bellvís family pleaded exemption from Valencian laws regarding hairstyle on the grounds that his branch of the family was from Aragon.72
This latter plea was probably in response to a sudden change in Valencia law, imposed under Pere IV in September of 1347, that now required Muslims to wear the garceta—a reversal of the earlier prohibition.73 This about-face immediately spurred a flurry of court cases and appeals involving Mudejars, their lords, urban administrators, and royal officials, as Muslim men were apprehended in Valencia for not wearing the garceta. In October, for example, the king heard the case of a Muslim from Alfama who was apprehended in Murviedro for not wearing the garceta; Ramoneta, the seigneurial lord of Alfama, had interceded on his behalf, pleading that he had been excused from wearing the garceta because of a wound (presumably to his head). Such cases would persist over the next two decades in Valencia, and it is clear that many Muslims (or their patrons) simply paid for an exemption.74 Eventually, in 1373, the king became tired of all of this legal fuss. Claiming that ambiguous appearance was still causing too many problems, he revoked all of the earlier privileges and exemptions given to individual Muslims and Muslim communities regarding dress and hair. Muslims in Valencia were to wear “a certain Clothing and Appearance haircut” (certa scisione crinium), presumably the garceta, and they must dress as Muslims; that is, in the aljuba, not in Christian clothes.75 Nevertheless, some differential treatment apparently continued. In 1389 Prince Martí (later Martí I) wrote to the governor of the kingdom of Valencia to reprove him for too rigorously punishing Muslims in the Serra d’Eslida for not wearing the garceta, while other (more wealthy) Muslims in the region were not so heavily penalized for this infraction.76
This ongoing legal wrangling in Valencia testifies to confusion, inconsistency, and resistance, especially because (as was clear from the Bellvís appeal in 1355) laws in Aragon had in fact continued to insist that Muslims must not wear the garceta (a fact reiterated in Zaragoza in 1360)—long after the reversal of this policy in Valencia.77 Perhaps in an effort to resolve these differences, Pere IV eventually changed the law in Aragon also, now requiring the garceta for all Aragonese Muslims
