Medieval Iberia

Seminar Questions

To what extent were political and military loyalties in medieval Iberia determined by religious identity?
How useful is the concept of the 'Reconquista' for understanding medieval Iberia?
Did frontiers in medieval Iberia function more as points of contact, or as barriers between communities?

Primary Sources

In the seminar our main focus will be on Part V: The Revenge of the Lords of Carrión, but I would advise you to read the whole poem to get a better understanding of the background.

Essential Reading

Catlos, Brian, 'Sketching a pre-modern colonial elite Muslim communities and their rulers in Medieval Aragón', Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen âge, 124:2 (2012)

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)

Brian A. Catlos, Kingdoms of Faith: a New History of Islamic Spain (London: Hurst and Company, 2018).

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)

Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: a political history of al-Andalus (Longman, 1996)

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)