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As the Muslims conquered Spain one of their first actions was to build a mosque in they settlements they conquered and settled. The Christians replied by loudly ringing the church bells whenever the muezzin called the Muslims to prayer. The significance of the bells should not be ignored since they called the faithful to prayer, marked great happiness and tolled at the death, today they also tell the time. In 997 al-Mansur’s raid on Santiago de Compostelo destroyed the church, burning the entire city to the ground. Evidence of the intensity of the defeat can be gathered from current excavations that reveal a layer of ash and rubble beneath the site of the cathedrals constructed by Alphonso II and III . The only portions of the city not left to burn were the shrine of Saint James and the cathedral bells which were taken booty and carried on the backs of Christian slaves to the Muslim hub city of Cordoba. In Cordoba, the bells were hung from the ceiling of the Great Mosque and used as oil lamps. Over 200 years after the bells were captured from Compostela by al-Mansur and his armies, on June 29, 1236, Christian King Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon recaptured the bells from the Great Mosque at Cordoba and returned them to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. They were not hung to ring again but simply displayed in a courtyard as a spoil of war and symbol of triumph. Now I have not visited the museum in Santiago for years and years and cannot recall seeing them there. , Were the mosque lamps reformed into bells? Did they remain as lamps? Where are they today?
There are three "old" bells on display (see website of the Musea da Catedral de Santiago de Compostela) but no explanation what they all are:Looks like they made one huge bell out of the 11 original ones (to fit the new tower) and it is now resting on a pedestal in a corner of the cloister - replaced by a copy made in Holland when it cracked.....
From Xacopedia: La estancia de Almanzor en Compostela mezcla leyenda y realidad con igual fuerza. Es uno de los momentos más mitificados de la historia jacobea - The Almanzor's stay in Compostela mixes legend and reality with equal force. It is one of the most mystified moments in Jacobean history.
This was in 997. Are the chronicles that tell the story of the raid contemporary eyewitness accounts? How big were the bells then? Were they hung up in Cordoba as intact bells or melted into lanterns, as some modern secondary, tertiary etc online sources say? Were the ones that Ferdinand brought back 240 years later the same ones as the ones Almanzor took away? I guess we will never know but without a doubt compelling stories have been created throughout the centuries and it continues to this day.
A replica of a bell from when?Apparently (from the link mentioned above) the large one on display in Santiago is a replica because the original cracked....
The largest bell currently in use is named “Santiago,” what else would they name it?
Obviously Waldo, because no-one can find him (it).The largest bell currently in use is named “Santiago,” what else would they name it?
So the "modern" bell is dated 1779. A brash new bell. Still ten years older than the first white settlement in Australia!
I see that this question, asked three years ago on 14 April 2018, has not found any interestSo ... there's a wooden thing called carraca in one of the Cathedral's towers and it's got to do with the Semana Santa, the week before Easter. Can someone explain this? Have you heard it? Is this something typical Spanish or can you find it elsewhere? And a question I've been meaning to ask for quite a while: do Spanish bells fly to Rome before Easter, like the French church bells do?
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