Whereas the last two chapters dealt with the administrative and economic structures of mudéjar society in the Ebro region, the present and following chapters examine the social situation of Muslims living under Christian rule. Governmental and commercial norms can be apprehended fairly directly from the documents, but social structures and dynamics tend to be rather more subtle in manifestation and are not, for the most part, described explicitly. This bias of the sources, coupled with the tendency for “Western” observers to idealize Islamic society, have discouraged inquiry into mudéjar ethnicity and discouraged historians from making adequate distinctions between group and individual identity in referring to Muslims under Christian rule.

The present chapter focuses on what may be called “internal” and “external” structural manifestations of mudéjar ethnicity. The internal structures relate to social divisions within the Muslim population, which was anything but an undifferentiated mass of disadvantaged and passive subjects. The documents permit the historian to discern two groups that stand apart from the bulk of mudéjar society, an upper class and slaves, although the actual situation was undoubtedly more variegated. The upper class is not mentioned as such in the contemporary sources, and slaves tend to be thought of as occupying a place completely outside of mudéjar society, yet each of the two groups played a integral role in shaping the mudéjar experience. Next, language and religion – the most visible manifestations of mudéjar ethnicity aside – are addressed.