arabesques

Gray is still touring round Spain. He sends me the above photos (of the Alhambra), tells me that he went to a Visigothic mass at the cathedral of Toledo and provides the following explanation:

The Visigothic mass (also known as the Toledan or Mozarabic rite) is the old Spanish form of the Catholic mass, used by the Mozarabic Christians of Toledo under Muslim rule. In 1085, when the Christians reconquered Toledo, they had to choose whether to switch to the standard Roman mass or continue the traditional Mozarabic one. They put the issue to a trial by fire.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: “The two books were thrown into a fire. By the time the Roman book was consumed, the Toledan was little damaged. No one who has seen a Mozarabic manuscript, with its extraordinarily solid vellum, will adopt any hypothesis of Divine interposition here.”

Sometimes Gray is so like me that I wonder if I somehow accidentally cloned myself.