178 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINThe determining factor was the patronage of the Umayyads, them-
selves the supreme patrons of letters and learning, who could make
or unmake their courtiers at will. The use of honorific titles, offices
and emoluments created a fluctuating court nobility, in the ranks of
which Christians and Jews might be found as well as Muslims. Had we
more prosopographical information, it might have been possible to
detect more of the activities of families of hereditary office-holders
and bureaucrats, as were to be found in other parts of the Muslim
world, but which in Al-Andalus remain largely obscure. However ref-
erences in Ibn al-Qiitiya seem to prove the existence of such dynasties
of administrators in the mid ninth century.75
Outside of Cordoba the roots of status were different, and much
less dependent upon the favour of the ruling dynasty. In the early
stages of the conquest elements of different tribes which entered Al-
Andalus were established in certain areas, especially in the south of
the peninsula. The maintenance of tribal organisation, until deliber-
ately challenged by Al-Man~iir in the later tenth century, meant that
the traditional ruling families in the tribes, or those who had created
an ascendancy in the early period of the conquest, retained their
dominance. Thus the descendants of 'Abd aI-Malik ibn Qatan, the
governor executed in 741, were the lords of Al-Bont (Puente), as well
as having another of their branches numbered amongst the leading
families of Seville. Similarly the descendants of the governor Al-Samh
were still leaders of local society in the tenth century. Such dynasties,
whose power was rooted in tribal tradition and loyalty, did not re-
quire patronage from Cordoba, and could take a very independent,
even rebellious, stand in defence of their own interests.
The same is equally true of the Berber tribes, although their num-
bers probably decreased during the Umayyad period up to the time
of Al-Man~iir and their second wave of immigration, and also of the
muwallads. Powerful factions of the latter, under secure leadership,
revolted against the amirs on numerous occasions from bases in and
around Merida, Malaga and the Ebro valley throughout the ninth
and early tenth centuries. Other muwallad families, such as the Banu
Angelino, were amongst the most influential in Seville, the social and
economic rival of Cordoba. Unfortunately in none of these cases is it
clear how far back the traditions of these families really stretched.
Whether their influence in Al-Andalus had anything to do with status
in the Visigothic past is uncertain, but it seems in some cases that
they claimed it. The Banu Qasi, the leading muwallads of the Ebro