Iberian Peninsula (c. 500-1500)

The unique Arabic version of the Iberian canon law code 'Collectio Hispana' preserved in a mid-eleventh-century manuscript of the Royal Library of El Escorial has been deemed “the most distinguished and characteristic” work of medieval Andalusi Christian writing. It represents an exceptional source witness to the internal legal organisation of Christian communities in Muslim-dominated al-Andalus as well as to their acculturation to Islamicate environments. Yet the Arabic collection has received only little scholarly attention so far. This volume presents the results of a recent interdisciplinary research project on the Arabic canon law manuscript flanked by contributions from neigbouring fields of research that allow for a comparative assessment of the substantial new findings. The individual chapters in this volume address issues such as the origins of the Arabic law code and its sole transmitting manuscript its language and translation strategies its source value for both the persistence and transformation of ecclesiastical institutions after the Muslim conquest or the law code's position in the judicial practice of al-Andalus. The volume brings together the scholarly expertise of distinguished specialists in a broad range of disciplines e.g. history Arabic and Latin philology medieval palaeography and codicology archaeology coptology theology and history of law.

Isabel Alfonso is one of the finest scholars on the rural and political history of the European Middle Ages. She is widely known for her contributions to the study of the peasantry social conflict and political discourses. Her research has transcended the boundaries of medieval studies incorporating insights from disciplines beyond including legal anthropology philology and discourse analysis among others. Over her academic career Isabel Alfonso has made a continued effort to make the work of international scholars known in Spain and to communicate advancements in Spanish historiography to international audiences; and yet most of her own research has only been published in Spanish. As a means to acknowledge her long-standing commitment to bridge different historiographies and overcome national boundaries this unusual Festschrift offers a selection of her most relevant publications many of which appear in English for the very first time. Each paper is preceded by commentaries by leading scholars that discuss the enduring relevance of Isabel Alfonso’s work its richness and complexity and its potential to inspire further research along a vast array of lines.

Commentaries by Jean Birrell François Bougard Warren Brown Peter Coss Wendy Davies Chris Dyer Ros Faith François Foronda Paul Freedman Piotr Gorécki John Hudson André Evangelista Marques Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco Phillipp Schofield Stephen D. White Chris Wickham.

The landscape around us is largely the result of man-made transformations. It consists of villages farmsteads cities fields ditches and roads. This book examines how the landscape of the Mediterranean country of Catalonia was created and transformed. Although Catalonia’s history goes back before the Middle Ages it was during the medieval period that it saw significant development which has continued ever since. Understanding the landscape helps us understand political social economic and cultural changes. In this book we discover how the settlements built around a castle or a church were created and what the open villages and new towns were like both in Catalonia and in neighbouring territories. The book also explores the formation of cities and towns as well as the significance of hamlets and farmsteads based on data provided by written documents and archaeological excavations. It also explores the formation of fields ditches and irrigated areas and shows the importance of understanding the boundaries and demarcations that enclose valleys villages castles and parishes. Finally special attention is devoted to place names and cartography as these shed light on numerous historical realities.

Over the past several decades scholars of medieval and early modern Iberia have transformed the study of the region into one of the most vibrant areas of research today. This volume brings together twelve essays from a diverse group of international historians who explore the formation of the multiple and overlapping identities both individual and collective that made up the Iberian peninsula during the eleventh through seventeenth centuries. Individually the contributions in this volume engage with the notion of identity in varied ways including the formation of collective identities at the level of the late medieval city the use of writing and political discourse to construct or promote common political or socio-cultural identities the role of encounters with states and cultures beyond the peninsula in identity formation and the ongoing debates surrounding the peninsula’s characteristic ethno-religious pluralism.Collectively these essays challenge the traditional dividing line between the medieval and early modern periods providing a broader framework for approaching Iberia’s fragmented yet interconnected internal dynamics while simultaneously reflecting on the implications of Iberia’s positioning within the broader Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds.

This volume presents recent archaeological research on the agriculture and society of al-Andalus during the Middle Ages especially from the perspective of ‘hydraulic archaeology’ - an avenue of research developed by Spanish researchers which focuses on the analysis of irrigation systems created by Islamic colonists from the eighth century onwards. More recently this research perspective has incorporated the analysis of other agricultural systems such as dryland agriculture and pasturelands. All of these agricultural regimes are complementary in peasant-led subsistence agricultural systems. From a methodological perspective this archaeological approach is highly innovative and uses a wide range of techniques (aerial photography cartographical analysis field survey archival research and archaeological excavation) in order to outline the size and boundaries of cultivation and grazing areas to define specific plots of land and the related road networks and to identify other associated facilities such as watermills.

In connection with these topics several issues are discussed: the earmarking of rural or urban farming areas for irrigation draining or dryland agriculture; the process of construction and the subsequent evolution of these farming areas; the transformations undergone by these areas after the feudal conquest; and finally the identification of pasturelands and the analysis of the evidence concerning their management.

This study focuses on post-Visigothic Latin chronicles as testimonies of an intense search for models of stability and social cohesion on the Iberian Peninsula. As the principal source of Iberian political thought between the eighth and mid-thirteenth centuries these texts have long been regarded from the perspective of modern-day national boundaries of a political entity called Spain. From the post-national perspective of Mediterranean studies which considers Iberian centres of power in cultural contact with the broader world post-Visigothic Iberian chronicle writing is seen as a cultural practice that seeks to reconcile the imperative of unity and stability with the reality of diversity and social change.

The book examines firstly the Andalusi Christian narrative of Visigothic political demise which originated in Iberian dhimmī communities between the mid-eighth and mid-ninth centuries. Second it explores the narrative of sovereignty developed in Asturias-León from the late ninth century onwards. Finally it examines the historiographical manipulation of both of these traditions in Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada’s Historia de rebus Hispanie (1243).

The ongoing contact between Iberian Latin textual communities and the broader Mediterranean is interpreted as central to both the development of Iberian historical mythology and its historiographical renovation.

Muslim law developed a clear legal cadre for dhimmīs inferior but protected non-Muslim communities (in particular Jews and Christians) and Roman Canon law decreed a similar status for Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe. Yet the theoretical hierarchies between faithful and infidel were constantly brought into question in the daily interactions between men and women of different faiths in streets markets bath-houses law courts etc. The twelve essays in this volume explore these tensions and attempts to resolve them. These contributions show that law was used to try to erect boundaries between communities in order to regulate or restrict interaction between the faithful and the non-faithful-and at the same time how these boundaries were repeatedly transgressed and negotiated. These essays explore also the possibilities and the limits of the use of legal sources for the social historian.

This book of essays is dedicated to the memory of Riccardo Francovich one of Europe’s most eminent Medieval archaeologists who died in 2007. It began as a one-day conference held at the British School at Rome the day after Riccardo Francovich would have been 65 years old on the 11 June 2011.

The book takes as its core theme a comparison of Italian and Spanish Medieval Archaeology in each case challenging the status quo and attempting to move the boundaries of our historical discussions ever forwards. The volume attempts to evaluate if the Medieval Archaeology of these two important Mediterranean countries largely unfamiliar on the international stage with their different ‘histories’ can be compared. To do this a key moment in their formation is reviewed - the passage from the Ancient to the Medieval world. This approach highlights not only the identifi cation of singular conjunctures (the impact of the new ‘barbaric’ aristocracies on the social structures of the Roman world and how Islam was established for example in the peninsula as in Sicily) but also parallel evolutions at the macro-structural level (for example conditions in towns and the countryside). Taking the paradigm of fragmentation as a basic starting-point that characterizes the western world after the fall of the Roman Empire it offers comparative archaeologies in terms of themes but above all else in terms of shared methods.

The Catalan philosopher and theologian Guido Terreni (ca. 1270-1342) is one of the most outstanding fi gures in the history of the Carmelite order. The articles gathered in the first part of this volume explore the extremely rich though still understudied oeuvre of the Bishop of Majorca and Elne which comprises philosophicotheological polemical biblical and juridical texts. Since many of these works remain unedited the second part of the volume contains selected text editions from Guido’s commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and the Decretum Gratiani as well as from his influential Quodlibetal Questions. Altogether the sixteen contributions in this volume offer a comprehensive and up-to-date appraisal of Guido’s major contribution to the intellectual and political debates of his age and beyond.

This volume presents the impressive corpus of studies by Robert I. Burns SJ on the topic that he has spent a half-century exploring in meticulous detail: the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia. These studies focus on one of Europe’s greatest medieval monarchs James the Conqueror of Aragon-Catalonia who made an enduring contribution to Western civilization.

James I ‘the Conqueror’ conquered Mediterranean Spain from Islam during fifty crusading years (1225-1276). Not only did he contend with ‘infidel’ powers around him he frequently vied with warring Christian neighbours. This book presents a rich depiction of King James’s warrior neighbours Muslim and Christian from the king who was his greatest ally and greatest rival Alfonso X the Learned (1212-1284) to the redoubtable and resourceful al-Azraq a Muslim adventurer rebel and leader of one of the most formidable Islamic countercrusades in Spain. These studies illuminate such themes as cultural conflict and interchange border tensions and frontier relations medieval warfare and crusading piracy brigandage and reprisals grievance management medieval queenship and papal relations the role of Jews in a pluri-ethnic kingdom Mudejars and Moriscos and the warrior heroes of Islam. King James presided over a society more complex than any in Christendom and these studies unlock the details of this stunning achievement.

Robert I. Burns SJ Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University) Doc. es Sc. Hist. (Fribourg University Switzerland) was Professor Emeritus of History at UCLA and Director of the Institute of Medieval Mediterranean Spain. He was an elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and of the Hispanic Society of America and a Guggenheim Fellow. His distinctions include the Haskins gold medal of the Medieval Academy of America seven national book awards eight honorary doctorates and the Order of the Cross of St George.