Spain Archive
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The Finest Castle in the World
Posted on October 26, 2012 | No CommentsRobert I. Burns, S.J., and Paul E. Chevedden describe how a much-besieged citadel became the focus for Christian-Muslim co-existence in medieval Spain. -
A Peripheral Matter? Oceans in the East in Late Medieval Thought, Report and Cartography
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsFocusing in particular on the southern and eastern parts of the Ocean Sea, this article traces the broad contours of a representational and conceptual shift brought about, I argue, by the interplay between geographical thought and social (navigational, mercantile) practice. -
Jewish Lightning Rod: Between Magic and Science
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsPeople learned how to “tie up a portion of lightning” only recently. We have no information aboutany experiments of medieval scientists with lightnings, and even the fundamental dictionary of thehistory of science by Mayerhöfer is silent about it. -
How Rich a Lawyer, How Poor a Tailor? An Economic Hierarchy of Occupations in Fifteenth-Century Spain
Posted on October 18, 2012 | No CommentsA tax record from the Catalan city of Manresa known as the Liber Manifesti of 1408 provides detailed occupational and capital-holding data for the heads of 640 households. -
The Family of Wilfred I, the Hairy: Marriage and the Consolidation of Power, 800-1000
Posted on October 16, 2012 | No CommentsMy principal objective is to reconsider the system of marriage alliances of the counts of the Marca Hispanica during the generations immediately before and after Wilfred I -
What Kind of Medieval History should be Taught and Learned in Secondary School?
Posted on October 15, 2012 | No CommentsThis study presents a reflection on the teaching of history in secondary education. Specifically, it addresses what topics of the history of the Middle Ages are taught and learned and to what end. -
Slavery and Identíty in Mozarabic Toledo: 1201-1320
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsRomán Iberia became thoroughly Romanized early in its existenec. Spain adopted the law, the language, the culture, and eventually the religión of clas- sicat Rome. Moreover, Hispania produced some truly stellar figures in the arena of Latin scholarship, including Séneca, Lucían, Quintilian, Columella, and Prudentius. -
King João II of Portugal “O Príncipe Perfeito” and the Jews (1481-1495)
Posted on September 24, 2012 | No CommentsKing João II of Portugal, who reigned over the Portuguese from 1481 un- til 1495, has enjoyed a rather positive posthumous reputation in Portugal and in Portuguese historiography...In Jewish historiography, however, the ruthlessness of King João II has earned him considerable infamy. -
Mystery of the Newport Medieval Ship Solved?
Posted on September 19, 2012 | No CommentsNew evidence suggests that the Newport medieval ship came from the Basque Country -
Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work
Posted on September 16, 2012 | No CommentsWhat is remarkable about the Jewish translators whose work was sponsored by Alfonso, following an already old tradition of Jewish translation activity, was their concentration almost exclusively on scientific literature and their significant contribution to the development of the Spanish language. -
What is Medieval Times?
Posted on September 10, 2012 | No CommentsWhat is Medieval Times? Medievalists.net decided to see for ourselves and go to the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Toronto, Canada. Here is our report on the show: -
Master Mateo – Skilled Artist or Medieval Engineer?
Posted on September 8, 2012 | No CommentsMaster Mateo received his contract as superin- tendent of the works of Saint James in 1168. He undertook in the following decades several major changes in the cathedrals design, the most spectacular of which was the insertion of the famous Portíco de la Gloria. -
The Sufi Influence on Spanish Jews
Posted on September 7, 2012 | No CommentsBy reintroducing true stories of positive interactions between Muslims and Jews, we can begin to change the contemporary dialogue away from the schoolyard "you're either with us or against us" attitude of this young millennia, towards a more Gandhian approach, where a just peace for everyone involved is the only true option... -
The Secret Society: Descendants of Crypto-Jews in the San Antonio Area
Posted on September 3, 2012 | No CommentsThe history of the converso Jews began in medieval Catholic Spain, which was constantly wracked with anti-Semitism that, many times, led to mass conversions or massacres of the Jewish population. -
Dialogues between religions in Andalusia
Posted on August 27, 2012 | No CommentsThe distinctive way of life that developed in the Umayyad and Abbasid periods lasted for eight centuries in the Muslim West, in the fertile lands of North Africa and Andalusia, until 1492. -
Homicidal Pigs and the Antisemitic Imagination
Posted on August 20, 2012 | No CommentsDrawing on evidence from legal history, forensic rhetoric, cultural anthropology, and contemporary analyses of both violence and antisemitism, I suggest that the French criminal prosecution of pigs for homicide betrays three conjoined epistemological strategies which shed an entirely new light on what R. I. Moore has termed the foundations of a persecuting society. -
King Pedro IV of Aragon, royal propaganda and the tradition of royal speechwriting
Posted on August 15, 2012 | No CommentsIn the archives of the Crown of Aragon in Barcelona is preserved the autograph manuscript of a speech against the rebellion of the Judge of Arborea in Sardinia made by King Pedro IV of Aragon to open the corts, probably that held in Sant Mateu, Valencia in 1369. -
Templars and Confraternities: Organizational Competition in Thirteenth Century Iberia
Posted on August 12, 2012 | No CommentsThe undoing of the Templars was in part a result of their own over-reaching, but it also came because they opened up an organizational arena that other military orders and confraternities came to fill. -
Historia Baetica: Dramatic Play or Historical Document?
Posted on July 26, 2012 | No CommentsWhen the news of the capitulation of Granada reached Rome on the second of February 1492, it was marked by religious as well as public celebrations. -
Moses Ibn ‘Ezra’s “Treatise of the Garden” and Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed”
Posted on July 23, 2012 | No CommentsThe Spanish poet Moses Ibn 'Ezra (1055-1138 ca.) is also known for a Judeo-Arabic book dealing with philosophical and philological questions, the Treatise of the Garden. -
Portuguese ecclesiastics and Portuguese affairs near the Spanish cardinals in the roman curia : 1213-1254
Posted on July 22, 2012 | No CommentsThe lives, families and clienteles of Pelayo Gaitán and Gil Torres, the two cardinals whose actions I wish to analyse here (1213-1254), seem to be a good example of how instrumental, their 'natio' proved to be, in the management of the affairs they were summoned to deal with. -
Health and dietetics in medieval preventive medicine: the health regimen of Peter of Spain (thirteenth century)
Posted on July 22, 2012 | No CommentsHealth and dietetics constitute the basic concepts of preventive medicine constructed by medieval and Latin Galenism, i.e. the medical theories of Galen (second century) transmitted by Arab commentators (Avicenna, among others). Over time, the concept of health with respect to the human body changed according to specific socio-historic contexts. -
Former church caretaker arrested for the Codex Calixtinus theft – manuscript recovered
Posted on July 4, 2012 | No CommentsThe Codex Calixtinus, which was stolen last year from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, has been recovered from a garage in Santiago. -
The legend of Saint Anastasia in medieval Spanish literature
Posted on July 1, 2012 | No CommentsThis MA by Research looks into the legend of Saint Anastasia, a virgin martyr who forms part of the Legenda aurea, a thirteenth century hagiographic compilation composed by Jacobus de Voragine. -
Jewish trading in Fes on the eve of the Almohad conquest
Posted on June 24, 2012 | No CommentsThe status of Jewish communities under Almohad rule has been the subject of scholarly interest for different reasons notably in the framework of the disruption of convivencia in al-Andalus among the people of the three abrahamic faiths.
