Medieval Andalusian courtly culture in the Mediterranean

"Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture discusses the thirteenth-century unicum manuscript of the Hadith Bayad wa Riyad, the only illustrated manuscript to have survived from more than eight centuries of Muslim and Arabic-speaking presence in present-day Spain. The manuscript is of paramount importance as it contains the only known illustrated version of the love story of Bayad wa Riyad." "The study will place this manuscript within the context of late medieval Mediterranean courtly culture. Texts and images will not, as is often the case, be analyzed in separate chapters; rather, the analysis will serve to point to the cohesion of what might be referred to as the currency of Mediterranean courtly culture, with this latter much changed from the earliest days of its existence as a cultural code in the eleventh and twelfth centuries." "Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture in the Mediterranean is essential reading for scholars with interests in medieval Spain, Islamic art and Mediterranean courtly culture."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.