The King and the Whore

The King and the Whore investigates the legend that made the sexual misconduct of the Visigothic king Roderic and the revenge of Florinda la Cava’s father responsible for the Muslim conquest of Iberia in 711. Drayson begins with the sparse and contradictory evidence for Roderic’s reign and defeat, then shows how later Christian and Arabic writers turned a political and military collapse into an intimate story of rape or seduction, dishonour and betrayal.

Tracing the narrative through chronicles, ballads, drama, opera, historical writing and modern fiction, the study demonstrates how each age reshaped Roderic and Florinda to express different anxieties about gender, religion and national identity. Particular attention is given to Miguel de Luna’s fabricated Arabic history and to the way censorship, romantic nationalism and changing attitudes towards sexual violence altered the legend’s meaning.