Baja Edad Media

en colaboración con Javier Ortega, Beatriz Rodriguez-Antolin y Nicolas Zambrana

Este libro está dirigido a todos los juristas de habla española sensibilizados con el actual proceso de globalización, que tan directamente afecta al Derecho. También interesará a aquellos estudiantes de las Facultades de Derecho españolas e iberoamericanas que quieran dar sus primeros pasos en el conocimiento del Derecho desde esta nueva perspectiva global

En 1509, Íñigo López de Mendoza, II conde de Tendilla, explicaba que la inclusión del cimborrio en la Capilla Real de Granada era una cosa que da[ba] mucha vista y ahermosea[ba] en gran manera la Capilla y [hacía] el edificio real y magnifico. Para esas fechas tempranas del siglo XVI, el cimborrio se había convertido en un elemento dignificador de la arquitectura religiosa. Al alarde técnico que suponía su construcción, se unía su doble funcionalidad en el templo, ya que permitía aumentar la iluminación interior de los edificios –se trataba, en última instancia, de una figura de luces, tal y como lo definirá Simón García años más tarde–, que servía, a su vez, para subrayar el eje central del espacio religioso allí donde se cruzaban los brazos de la cruz. Estas razones prácticas y simbólicas favorecieron la construcción de este tipo de estructuras en toda la Europa cristiana a lo largo de la Edad Media y parte de la Moderna. El fenómeno también puede observarse en la Península Ibérica, donde comienza muy pronto, y se prolonga hasta fechas muy avanzadas. Trataremos de seguirlo a través de los ejemplos –y de los diseños– conservados.
Íñigo Lopez of Mendoza, the Second count of Tendilla, explained in1509 that the inclusion of the cimborrio in the Royal Chapel of Granada was a thing that gives many sight and embellishes in great way the Chapel and this inclusion transformed the building in to royal and magnificent. At the seearly dates of the 16th century, the cimborio had become a dignifying element of the religious architecture. The advantages were undoubted. First, the technical ostentation that supposed its construction. In addition, it had a double functionality in the temple, since it was allowing to increase the interior lighting and serves to underline the central axis of the religious space where the two parts of the cross were crossing. These practical and symbolic reasons favored the construction of this type of structures throughout the whole Christian Europe during the Middle Ages and part of the Modern one. The phenomenon can also be observed in the Iberian Peninsula; there it begins very early, and continues until very advanced dates. We’ll try to follow it through the examples –and of the designs– preserved.

The Liber Iudiciorum, the renowned law-code of the seventh-century Visigothic Kingdom, has provided a foundation for legal books, historical narratives, nationalist rhetoric and religious fervor in and beyond Greater Iberia repeatedly throughout the centuries since its construction. Despite its subsequent impact, there is still no consensus on the contemporary meaning of the code and its functionality. Even the true authorship and precise dating of the code's construction still elicit debate, with two recent doctoral theses, for example, taking contrasting points of view. Some of the uncertainty lay in the fact that the code was revised twice, but other problems relate to ongoing arguments on the general role of Visigothic monarchs and their relations with ecclesiastical and noble figures, the social practices of the law, the potential 'levels' of literacy of the period, the relation between representation and reality, center and periphery…in short, many of the core concerns for archaeologists and historians of early medieval Iberia. To grasp the meaning of code as it was when promulgated in the 650s by King Recceswinth (649-672) scholars need, this essay argues, to read it as a fine example of Visigothic literature produced in a vibrant ‘moment’ of historical-writing.

This essay firstly presents the Bierzo region as a geographical unit: a large basin surrounded by mountains on almost all its sides. It consequently can be described as a dual region, consisting both of fertile and relatively low areas endowed with a favorable microclimate, and highlands and slopes subject to harsh climatic conditions. Such a duality is starkly apparent in the writings of Valerius of Bierzo (c. AD 630-695) and must be understood as much in a concrete, practical sense – for these were the physical conditions in which he was living – as well as religiously and spiritually. Valerius's eremitical spirituality was by no means original in the seventh century, although the region in which he led most of his life certainly was suitable to forming his binary worldview.

Seventh-century Bierzo had inherited most of the Roman framework of public roads and settlements. These are the concern of the second section of this essay: across Bierzo at least one Roman road joined Asturica, to the East, with Bracara in Gallaetia; there may have been another itinerary between Asturica and Bergidum, capital of the region, but scholars today tend to doubt the existence of two different roads. The otherplaces named by Valerius are a castrum (Castrum Petrense) and several monasteries, the locations of which are in some cases quite certain and in others still unclear.

The last section of this essay deals with Asturia as an administrative entity. Although included in the Diocletianic province of Gallaetia, it has been claimed, since the 1970s, that Asturia was promoted to a new independent province some time in the seventh century; the main argument for this theory has been taken precisely from Valerius’s works. However, such an idea is insufficiently supported, whether by Valerius’s writings or by the few other pieces of available evidence: the lack of a stronger foundation for the theory should prevent scholars from considering Asturia, Valerius’s patria, as anything other than an ecclesiastical diocese.

El próximo año 2018 se cumplirán dos décadas desde la publicación de Guerre et concurrence entre les États européens du xiv siècle au xviiie siècle, un trabajo colectivo coordinado por Philippe Contamine y editado por Presses Universitaires de France como parte de una gran colección dedicada a los orígenes del Estado moderno (siglos xiv-xviii). Durante todo este tiempo, la historiografía no ha dejado de profundizar en las cuestiones planteadas en aquella obra, de modo que actualmente la cantidad de publicaciones dedicadas a la organización de los ejércitos terrestres, la logística o la diplomacia –por citar tan sólo tres cuestiones clave– se ha multiplicado significativamente. El objetivo de este dossier consiste en reunir una serie de estudios originales dedicados a analizar el papel de la guerra en la evolución de los Estados feudales durante los dos últimos siglos de la Edad Media, a la luz, precisamente, del cuestionario planteado en aquella obra y de su desarrollo por parte de la historiografía más reciente. El contexto escogido para ello es el mundo mediterráneo, concretamente la Corona de Aragón y una selección representativa de los Estados surgidos en la Península Itálica, que incluye el reino de Nápoles, la república de Génova y los dominios de las Casas de Este (Ducado de Ferrara) y Visconti (Señorío de Milán).

This essay explores how writers on monasticism from the Visigothic period in Iberia (mainly the seventh century) conceived of the relationship between ascetic formation and the spatial organization of their communities. It suggests that, in addition to articulating a strong sense of opposition between the monastery and 'the world', writers such as Isidore of Seville and Fructuosus of Braga devised strategies for managing interaction between the monastery and its surroundings. They also had a good sense of how space might be organized within the monastery to further the ascetic formation of the monks and nuns as members of a community. Finally, I suggest that writings about ascetic formation provide interesting models for thinking more generally about processes of identity formulation and dissemination in late antiquity and the early medieval period.

Le Liber Iudiciorum, ce code réformé dans le royaume wisigothique du VII e siècle, a pendant les siècles qui ont suivi sa réalisation servi fréquemment de fondement à des écrits juridiques et historiques ainsi qu'à la rhétorique nationaliste et à la ferveur religieuse, en Espagne et ailleurs. Malgré son impact important, il n'existe toujours pas de consensus quant au sens et à la fonction que revêtait le code à l'époque. L'auteur même du LI et sa datation précise font encore débat, deux récentes thèses de doctorat ayant par exemple défendu des points de vue opposés. 1 Certaines incertitudes proviennent de ce que le code fut révisé à deux reprises, quand d'autres sont liées à des arguments relatifs à la fonction générale des monarques wisigoths et à leurs relations avec les nobles et les ecclésiastiques, aux pratiques sociales de la loi, au niveau d'alphabétisation de l'époque, au rapport entre représentation et réalité, centre et périphérie… En somme, les questions qui se trouvent au coeur de l'histoire et de l'archéologie de l'Ibérie ancienne. Pour comprendre le sens que revêtait ce code au moment de sa promulgation par le roi Recceswinth (649-672) dans les années 650, le chercheur doit – montrons-nous dans la présente étude – le lire comme un bel exemple de ce que la littérature wisigothique était capable de produire pendant un vibrant moment d’historiographie.

This article analyses the way that the thirteenth-century Egils saga Skallagrímssonar presents the migration to Iceland of Egill’s father Grímr and grandfather Úlfr, and the creation of a settlement in the area of Borgarfjǫrðr in Western Iceland during the tenth century. The author argues that Egils saga aims to present the migration as a foundational act which enables the descendants of the settlers (the lineage known as Mýramenn) to claim inalienable rights over the lands settled by Grímr.  The saga highlights three main shared marks of identity amongst the family members: their burial in barrows, their skill as farm managers, and the transference of both personal traits and material goods from one generation to the next. This leads to a form of legitimation that combines aspects of an ideology of a quasi-aristocratic lineage of landowners with the typical traits of the self-made men of the frontier. In contrast, it presents martial deeds as less meaningful. Moreover, the saga explores alternative ways (personified by each member of the main family) to deal with the rulers of Norway. This kingdom is presented as the historical homeland of Icelanders and as more central for them than other foreign lands. The author argues that the main alternatives proposed by the saga are service of the kings (expressed by both Þórólfrs) against independence (exemplified by Úlfr, Grímr, and Egill), but that simultaneously each character presents nuances which might reflect ideological variety within a peripheral immigrant society.

The traditional image of Vandal North Africa as a place of oppression, persecution, et al., has largely been shattered under the weight of modern scholarly investigation. In recent years, scholars from various fields have come together to greatly enhance, and fundamentally alter, our understanding of Vandal North Africa.

We tend to view Eugenius II of Toledo as the great Catholic Visigothic poet: born to an aristocratic family in Toledo, trained as a cleric there and in Zaragoza, recalled to the bishopric of his home city by the Visigothic king himself, and commissioned then as court poet. None of these aspects of Eugenius's identity are wrong, but they are used to construct an identity for the poet which is exactly that: constructed. The goal of this essay is to deconstruct and examine this identity in an effort to better understand the poet and the world in which he operated.

In reality, Eugenius’s identity was not so straightforward. Despite the poet’s Toledan origins, the only region to appear directly in Eugenius’s verse is Zaragoza. How, then, does the regionalism of Visigothic Iberia play out in Eugenius’s poetry? As a poet, he employs Iberian sources but relies more heavily on works from North Africa and Gaul. How do these different regional identities fit together? Was Eugenius more a part of the pan-Roman – or rather the pan-post Roman – literary world of Latin letters, where his poems constructed a mental space much larger than his physical locale? Was his use of Iberian dialect a sign of cultural and linguistic constriction or did that matter? Eugenius uses literature from across the Latin West but places it within a context that is regional within Visigothic Iberia itself. What does that tell us about his identity? What was Eugenius’s own perceived position within it? Where, and how, did Eugenius see himself and his artistic/cultural output? Eugenius’s religious identity is likewise complicated: he was both bishop and monastic, both pastoral leader and ascetic. How does this play out in his verse? These questions lie at the heart of Eugenius of Toledo’s verse, even if his penchant for the prosaic and the seemingly frivolous disguises the depth of this conflict. This article will address these layers of identity.

Throughout the seventh century, as Visigothic kings struggled to forge political consensus within their realms, Nicene Christianity became a critical means of conceptualizing, organizing, and integrating the Visigothic kingdom. In this context, royal and ecclesiastical elites began to address the question of liturgical orthodoxy and liturgical diversity on a kingdom-wide, rather than a local, scale. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of the Christian liturgy in Visigothic political discourse, they often treat liturgical ritual as a tool for Iberian actors, as a mechanism to achieve religious unity instead as a nuanced practice with its own contested history. In this essay, I explore how the Iberian bishop Isidore of Seville (b. 600-636), a prominent contributor to Visigothic royal ideology, both embraced and elided liturgical diversity in his writings to accomplish his ideological aims. Specifically, I analyze how Isidore deployed geography to draw a liturgical map of the universal Christian church and to highlight the orthodoxy of Iberian practices. Through his discussions of the Mass and Offices in the Etymologiae, De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, and the Sententiae, Isidore articulated both a dynamic vision of the universal church and the Iberian churches' privileged place within it.