Spain, 1157–1300: A Partible Inheritance

The years 1157 to 1300 constitute one of the most significant periods of Spain s own development as well as of its relationship with the wider world. While the Christian reconquest of most of the part of the peninsula occupied by Spanish Islam proceeded further and faster than ever before, the cultural and intellectual consequences of its contact with the other resonated throughout the schools and universities of Northern Europe. Yet despite this, the underlying weaknesses of a society disorganized by war and overstretched by its endeavours could neither be disguised nor remedied.

Spain 1157–1300 examines this fascinating period of medieval history, focussing on the reign of Alfonso the Learned the ruler of Castile who ultimately failed in his attempt to bring Spain into Europe and his Aragonese contemporaries in the Mediterranean. While questioning the assumption that the history of this period foreshadowed the unified Spain of the still far–distant Golden Age, Spain 1157–1312  draws on a vast body of primary and secondary source material to provide a balanced overview of a crucial period of Spanish as well as of European history.

Preface.

Chronology.

List of Abbreviations.

Tree showing some of those mentioned in these pages.

Map of Spain in the thirteenth century.

1 1157–1179.

Past and Present.

After the Emperor.

Two Royal Minorities.

2 The Age of Las Navas.

Life, Law and Memory.

Three Battles.

Implications of the Vernacular.

Castile Victorious.

3 1214–1248.

Doña Berenguela and Son.

′The Gate is Open and the Way Is Clear′.

Towards Valencia.

Conquest and Colonization.

Toledo and Seville.

After Valencia.

The Mediterranean Dimension.

4 Some Permanent Features.

Jews.

Moors.

Hunger, Kings and Capitals.

5 1252–1259.

Alfonso X: Promising Beginnings.

A Command Economy.

The Law.

Implications of Empire.

6 1259–1274.

Toledo and Translations.

International Complications.

The Mudéjar Rising.

The Alfonsine Histories.

7 1275–1284.

A Reign in Ruins.

France and Aragón.

1282.

Aragón Alone.

The Learned King.

8 The Changed Balance.

Castile after 1284.

A Question of Alliances.

′Neither Truth nor Faith′.

Epilogue.

Bibliography.

Glossary.

Index.

Peter Linehan is Fellow and Dean of St John s College, Cambridge, Fellow of the British Academy, and Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy of History.

"This is a masterly revisiting of the period, every clause of Linehan′s sentences embodying not only that eloquence of rhetorical style he so admired in the work of another Fellow of St. John′s, Prof. John Cook (see the obituary by Lineham in The Independent, 15 September 2007), but a freshness and vitality of vision that find their fullest expression in his portrait of King Alfonso el Sabio." (Speculuma Medieval Studies, April 2011)