An Odor of Sanctity

by Frank Yerby

First published 1965

Amazon

3.8(210)

Alaric Teudisson is a Visigoth nobleman coming of age in the ninth-century Iberian Peninsula, a society where Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Arab, Berber and older local traditions meet under the political dominance of Córdoba. A quest for revenge draws him into the court and into relationships that force him to reconsider inherited assumptions about faith, honour and identity.
Yerby presents al-Andalus as a politically contested and culturally mixed world rather than a simple clash of two religions. Court factions, warfare, slavery, commerce and intimate relationships cross confessional boundaries, while zealotry appears in more than one community. Alaric’s movement through that environment makes the Emirate of Córdoba both a setting for adventure and a study in how people negotiate belief when political power and cultural belonging do not align neatly.