Marginalized women. The case of the Castilian concubines
David WAIMAN
Original title: Mujeres marginadas. El caso de las concubinas castellanas
Published in Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Peninsula Cultural History
Keywords: Castile, Concubinage, Concubines, Middle Ages, Sexuality.
Concubinage has been, over the past decade, several investigations. While increasingly know more about concubines and late medieval concubinage. This time we will try to give a new look to the pasts in Castile in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Added to this will be analytical axis as the role of women in concubinage, seeing in them the various forms that are part of that reality.
Pedro I and Enrique II of Castile: the construction of a monstrous king and the legitimization of a usurper in the Chronicle of Chancellor Ayala
Cecilia DEVIA
Original title: Pedro I y Enrique II de Castilla: la construcción de un rey monstruoso y la legitimación de un usurpador en la Crónica del canciller Ayala
Published in Relations between History and Literature in Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Castile, Chronicles, Enrique II of Castile, Late Middle Ages, Pedro I of Castile, Violence.
To justify the confrontation between Pedro I and Enrique II of Castile, culminating in the murder of an unquestionably legitimate king in hands of his usurper brother, the chronicler Pero Lopez de Ayala build gradually a negative and somehow monstrous of Pedro I. Meanwhile, he attempts to prove that the count of Trastámara does not dethrones Pedro because of a personal ambition and breaking the rules, instead, he seems to be prevented to carry out with the mission of saving the kingdom from the terrible ills caused by the monstrous actions of his stepbrother. We will analyze the dichotomy between the negative and irrational portrait that Chancellor Ayala, one of the biggest responsible for that Pedro will be remembered as “Rey Cruel”- builds with skill, and what the practices he reveals says themselves. A meticulous scrutiny of the documents reveals a policy of regional power building through practices in which different functions of violence. Ware involved: economic, socializing, with exchange, symbolic, of justice, foundational, cultural, etc. We present here what might be called a cross dichotomy, which would face two internally contradictories terms: a monstrous but legitimate king against a usurper who is a providence’s instrument. What the construction realized by the trastamarist propaganda would have made, which from the chancellor Ayala would be the most brilliant exponent, is the conversion of a legitimate king in a illegitimate one, by nature of its own monstrosity, and the conversion of a usurper who -as shows the definition itself, is illegitimate- in a legitimate king, in function of the realization of a divine mission.
Que me podiesse lamar e sea daqui adelant principe de villena e de la otra tierra que jo he en el vuestro senyorio. Don Juan Manuel and the Crown of Aragon
José Vicente CABEZUELO PLIEGO
Original title: Que me podiesse lamar e sea daqui adelant principe de villena e de la otra tierra que jo he en el vuestro senyorio. Don Juan Manuel y la Corona de Aragón
Published in
Keywords: Castile, Crown of Aragon, Juan Manuel, Kingdom of Valencia, Villena’s Manor, XIV Century.
This paper analyzes the relationship of the Manuel family (mainly through the nobleman Juan Manuel) with the Valencian domains of the King of Aragon through his properties in La Mancha and Murcia. These properties are studied from the time of the conquest of the Kingdom of Murcia by James II to Juan Manuel´s death in the mid-14th c. We also study the relationship between Juan Manuel and the kings of the Crown of Aragon regarding Castile within the context of contemporary Iberian historical event.
Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid (1048-1099), very good knight and from great lineage
Olga PISNITCHENKO
Original title: Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid (1048-1099), muy buen cauallero e de grande linaje
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
Keywords: Castile, El Cid, Estoria de España, Leon, chivalry.
This article proposes to analyze the image of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar constructed by Estoria de España of Alfonso X and as chronicles derived from it. Our research is concentrated not so much on the study of political and military abilities of El Cid, but mainly on the knightly model that is elaborated from its image by the chroniclers that represent a voice of the king in the analyzed historical works. According to the chronicles, Rodrigo acts as a vassal of the three kings (Fernando, Sancho and Alfonso) who succeed each other on the throne of Castile and Leon, constructing with each one of them peculiar relations that introduce to the reader or listener of history a wide spectrum of situations in which Rodrigo continues to remain within the line of behavior of an exemplary vassal.
The festive sensory model of John II of Castile (1406-1454)
Martina Magali DIAZ SAMMARONI
Original title: El modelo sensorial festivo de Juan II de Castilla (1406-1454)
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
Keywords: Castile, Festivities, Fifhteen century, John II, Senses.
If we want to know and be able to understand how medieval men and women perceived, felt and thought their world, we have to turn our gaze to their festivities and the role that the senses played in them. Spaces for the exchange and circulation of a wide range of sacred, profane and magical practices, they presented themselves as unique opportunities for the manifestation of power by kings and nobles, especially in the late middle Ages. From the thirteenth century, the records of the different court’ celebrations show a growing artistic spectacularity associated with the intention of transmitting and reinforcing official ideology by evoking images aimed at making an impact and generating a strong sense of identity. In the fifthteen century, this can be clearly seen during the reign of John II (1406-1454) of Castile, signified by conflicts with the nobility, as well as by the war against the Moors of Granada. At this juncture there was a renaissance of the ideals of chivalrous and warrior’s life reflected in the multiplication of the organization of tournaments, jousting, reeds and other games. On this basis, through the contributions of the History of the senses – a transdisciplinary perspective that brings together the contributions of History, as well as Anthropology – we will analyse the Chronicle of the Falconer of John II, by Pedro Carillo de Huete, in order to identify and analyse how vision, taste, hearing, touch and smell intervened in the configuration of a particular festive sensory model.
The image of women in the Crónica del Halconero de Juan II
María del Pilar RÁBADE OBRADÓ
Original title: La visión de la mujer en la Crónica del Halconero de Juan II
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Castile, Chronicles, Juan II, Querelle des femmes, XVth Century.
This work analyzes the image of women in the Crónica del Halconero de Juan II. The chronicle was written during the reign of this king, and his author, Pedro Carrillo de Huete, was a courtier of the Castilian monarch. Through its study we’ll try to verify if the image that it offers of women is or not influenced by the debate concerning women that developed during the reign of Juan II.
The legislative panorama of the territories of the Castile’s Crown in the beginning of the reign of Alfonso X, The Wise
Jaime Estevão dos REIS
Original title: O panorama legislativo dos territórios da Coroa de Castela no início do reinado de Alfonso X, o Sábio
Published in Monastic and Scholastic Philosophy in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Alfonso X, Castile, Legislation, León, Territories.
This article has the objective of discussing the effective legislation in the territories of the Castile’s Crown in the beginning of the reign of Alfonso X, The Wise (1252-1284). In the middle of the thirteenth century, the territories belonging to the kingdoms of Castile and León, unified in 1230, by Fernando III (1217-1252), father of Alfonso X, had their own legislation, without a unity among the several juridical codes. In the kingdom of León, as well as in the territories belonging to him, the rights originating from the visigothic Liber Iudiciorum remained. In the territories of the Castile’s kingdom, the old Castilian right was in force, the Fuero Viejo of Castilla, codified in the beginning of the thirteenth century for Alfonso VIII (1158-1214). In the Andalusia territories that were incorporated to the Castilian crown by Fernando III, the Fuero Juzgo ruled, adapted to the local reality. The main task of Alfonso XI in the beginning of his reign was the one of idealizing a project of juridical unification of the several codes on going in the territories of the Castile’s Crown.
The royal entries in the kingdom of Castile towards the end of the Middle Ages: the sound universe of power
Gisela CORONADO SCHWINDT
Original title: Las entradas reales en el reino de Castilla hacia el final de la Edad Media: el universo sonoro del poder
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
Keywords: Castile, History of the senses, Royal entries, Sounds.
In this study, we will make a first approximation to one of the most complex festive events of the Castilian low - medieval world, as were the royal entries in the urban spaces of the Kingdom. From the point of view of perception, we consider that these acts of celebration operated on the sensory universe of the community to strengthen the presence of the Crown by establishing social relations that cemented the bonds between the subjects and the representations of royal power. To verify this, we will analyse, through the theoretical and methodological postulates of the History of the senses, the role that the auditory sense and the sounds played in the actual entries and other events that occurred in the urban scenarios during the reigns of The House of Trastámara sovereigns to that of Charles of Habsburg, recounted in various chronicles and official documents.
