Medieval Spain

Seminar Questions

How central was religion in motivating Christian expansion?

Did frontiers in medieval Iberia function more as points of contact, or as barriers between communities?

Primary Sources

Essential Reading

Peter Linehan, 'At the Spanish frontier', The Medieval World, Peter Linehan, Janet L. Nelson, Marios Costambeys eds (London: Routledge, 2018)

Further Reading

Simon Barton and R.A. Fletcher (eds), The world of El Cid: chronicles of the Spanish Reconquest (2011)

Nora Berend, El Cid: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary (New York: Pegasus Books, 2025)

Thomas Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon (1986)

Brian A. Catlos, Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614 (2014)

Roger Collins, Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796–1031, (2012)

Olivia Remie Constable & Damian Zurro (eds) Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources (2nd ed., 2011)

Heath Dillard, Daughters of the reconquest: women in Castilian town society, 1100-1300 (1984)

Camilo Gómez-Rivas, Law and the Islamization of Morocco under the Almoravids (2014)

Patrick J. O’Banion, ‘What Has Iberia To Do With Jerusalem? Crusade and the Spanish Route to the Holy Land in the Twelfth Century’, Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008): 383–95

Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (1975)

Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (2003)

Ana Rodríguez (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Medieval Iberia (2015)