Building the Alhambra!

Laborers

Christian prisoners of war provided the bulk of the unskilled labor during the construction of the Alhabmra.  Some of the prisoners may have worn their own original clothing, if it was still in good repair, whereas others might wear coarse clothing provided by their Moorish captors. 


Christian prisoners of war. Click for hi-res image.

Either way, what laborers wore would have been dictated more by economics and function than religion or culture: they wouldn’t have been able to afford garments that consumed large amounts of rich fabric, nor would they want to wear them while working for fear of damaging the precious material.  Fabrics would have been linen and wool, as silk and cotton would be beyond the means of most laborers. Clothing in the medieval period was much more expensive, relative to a person’s wages, than what we enjoy today.

Sleeves would be fairly narrow, or just loose enough to be rolled up.

The tunics would be no longer than knee length, and even then may be tucked up into a belt to keep it from binding around the legs.

Belts would have been worn to keep the tunic from billowing out away from the body, and the tunic would have been fairly close cut in the first place to help minimize this.

Christians wore wool hosen rather than pants, so they would roll down from the thigh to the knees where a garter would hold them up; normally a belt at the waist held up both the braies (underwear) and hosen.  See the Peasants picture below. They may have opted to do without in the heat or in muddy situations.  For any Moorish laborers, the pants would have ended above the knees, if they had been worn at all. Alternatively, leg wraps from knee to ankle could be used as an extra layer for shin protection.  

 Muddy, wet, or otherwise dirty trades would have required wearing the least possible amount of clothing required for decency; skin being much easier to clean than fabric!

For head protection in the Granadan summer, the laborers may have worn straw hats, loosely wrapped turbans, or other white head coverings to help keep the heat off.  Smaller turbans are easier to keep on when working, and the “tail” on the turban can be brought around in front of the face to help keep dust out of the nasal passages. 

Footwear would have been a compromise between the cost of the shoes and the abuse the leather would suffer.  Bare feet or low boots would have been prevalent.

Few pictures survive of actual castle-building, but we can also turn to other figures engaged in hard labor and draw analogies.

Christian laborers:



Muslim laborers:



Click on the pictures for larger images. Links to external websites open in a new window.

As a side note, the easiest way to tell Muslim from Christian men in medieval Spanish miniatures is to look for a beard. While not guaranteed, the probability is that the fellow with a beard is a Muslim.