Los Godos en la memoria histórica castellana del medievo

The memory of the Gothic past is an essential component of Hispanic historical conscience. It has two dimensions: one political, the other religious. Political Gothicism as an ideological tool helped legitimize the territorial expansion of Hispanic Christian kingdoms in the Middle Ages. It’s character was both dynastic and ethnic. Religious Gothicism also had two facets: the cult of saints Isidore and Ildefonso and the bases of the rights of episcopal sees, especially the primacy of Toledo. The following stages can be observed in the evolution of hispanic Gothicism: foundations (the development of dynastic Gothicism in the Asturian chronicles of the 9th century and the origins of ethnic Gothicism), maturity in the great historians of the 13th century (Lucas de Tuy, Jiménez de Rada and Alfonso X), decline in the royal chronicles of the 14th century, and finally revival in the 15th century, which was linked to the international prestige of Castile and to the role of Alonso de Cartagena as statesman and scholar.