The Lead Books of Granada

Hailed as early Christian texts as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls, yet condemned by the Vatican as Islamic heresies, the Lead books of Granada, written on discs of lead and unearthed on a Granadan hillside, weave a mysterious tale of duplicity and daring set in the religious crucible of sixteenth-century Spain. This book evaluates the cultural status and importance of these polyvalent, ambiguous artefacts which embody many of the dualities and paradoxes inherent in the racial and religious dilemmas of Early Modern Spain. Using the words of key individuals, and set against the background of conflict between Spanish Christians and Moriscos in the late fifteen-hundreds, The Lead Books of Granada tells a story of resilient resistance and creative ingenuity in the face of impossibly powerful negative forces, a resistance embodied by a small group of courageous, idealistic men who lived a double life in Granada just before the expulsion of the Moriscos.

“Across the book’s eleven chapters, the author surveys the history and use of the forgeries from their discovery to the present day, focusing particularly on questions of authorship and contexts of production and reproduction. … there is much in this book that will be of use to scholars and students alike, and the translations and summaries of sources are particularly welcome.” (Rosa Vidal Doval, Modern Language Review, Vol. 112, October, 2017)

“Drayson’s well-written book is a timely addition to a renewed scholarly interest in early-modern forgery and its role in the cultivation of new forms of critical inquiry along with the cultivation of religious and national heritage through antiquities (forged or authentic), as exemplified in the works of Katrina Olds and Katie Harris, among others. … for non-Spanish speakers, Drayson’s translations throughout the text and in the appendices will be of particular value.” (Claire Gilbert, The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 102 (1), Winter, 2016)

“This excellent book by Elizabeth Drayson, the first full-length study in English of the events surrounding the discovery in Granada in the late sixteenth century of strange manuscripts … is therefore a very welcome addition. The story itself is straightforward enough: how it evolved, who it involved, and what it was all about are, however, anything but straightforward and Drayson does an excellent job in navigating the at times treacherous waters on which some of the protagonists were sailing.” (Trevor J. Dadson, Hispanic Research Journal, Vol. 17 (3), June, 2016)

“The target audience for this book will be Anglophone readers in search of a manageable overview of the affair of the lead books. The book’s usefulness is increased by its appendices of primary sources in translation, including an English translation of one of the plomos, a comprehensivelist of all twenty-two lead books, and a brief summary of each. For these efforts the author is to be commended.” (Katrina B. Olds, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Vol. 93 (9), 2016) 

Elizabeth Drayson is Senior College Lecturer in Spanish at Murray Edwards College and Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, UK. She specializes in medieval and Early Modern Spanish literature and cultural history, and her monograph The King and the Whore: King Roderick and La Cava was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007.