The royal sacralization and the birth of a symbolic city: The translation of the royal bodies to Granada

Abstract

Granada, ultimate Muslim city of the Hispanic peninsula to be conquered in 1492, is before everything sanctified by the royal presence and the mark of the new power. The translation of the Catholic king’s bodies and the building of the royal chapel reinforce even more Granada’s symbolic status, the city embodying the conquerant monarchy’s values. The kings, buried as saint’s relics in the center of the city, take then naturally for her the part of spiritual as well as temporal patrons. In the same time, the Hispanic royalty finds in the translations and funeral receptions new ceremonial occasions that strengthen it’s sacrality and draw gradually the specificity of it’s power. However, Charles V’s decision to establish his dynastic pantheon in Granada affects the Catholic King’s initial project and throws light on the meaning given to the 1492 conquest, which comes to be no more the emblem of territorial restoration’s height, but of Hispanic monarchy’s doctrinal project.