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An in-depth study of Castilian bishops, politics, and the church during the long Twelfth Century.

In this magisterial work, Joseph O'Callaghan offers a detailed account of the establishment of Alfonso X's legal code, theLibro de las leyesorSiete Partidas, and its applications in the daily life of thirteenth-century Iberia, both within and far beyond the royal courts. O'Callaghan argues that Alfonso X, el Sabio (the Wise), was the Justinian of his age, one of the truly great legal minds of human history. Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Agehighlights the struggles the king faced in creating a new, coherent, inclusive, and all-embracing body of law during his reign, O'Callaghan also considers Alfonso X's own understanding of his role as king, lawgiver, and defender of the faith in order to evaluate the impact of his achievement on the administration of justice. Indeed, such was the power and authority of the Alfonsine code that it proved the king's downfall when his son invoked it to challenge his rule. Throughout this soaring legal and historical biography, O'Callaghan reminds us of the long-term impacts of Alfonso X's legal works, not just on Castilian (and later, Iberian) life, but on the administration of justice across the world.

Building on recent research in medieval optics, physiology, and memory in relation to the devotional practices of the late Middle Ages, Jessica A. Boon probes the implications of an 'embodied soul' for the intellectual history of Spanish mysticism.

To many medieval Europeans north of the Pyrenees, the Iberian Kingdom of León-Castile was remote and unfamiliar. In many ways such perceptions linger today, and the fact that León-Castile is mentioned at all in current textbooks is the result of efforts begun by scholars some forty years ago. Joseph F. O'Callaghan was part of a small group of English-speaking medievalists who banded together at conferences in the early 1970s to share their knowledge of Spain. O'Callaghan's general A History of Medieval Spain (1975) introduced a generation of English-speaking medievalists to Iberia. Still much of the new scholarly interest over the past decades has been directed toward the Kingdom of Aragon-Catalonia with its exceptionally well-preserved archives. The Emergence of León-Castile brings together the current research of O'Callaghan's colleagues, students and friends. The essays focus on the politics, law and economy of León-Castile from its first great leap forward in the eleventh century to the civil strife of the fifteenth. No other volume in English allows the reader to trace the institutional development of the kingdom with this chronological breadth. At the same time the volume integrates the Leonese experience into the wider discussions of lordship and power. While León-Castile's culture was certainly its own, the kingdom shared in and influenced the institutional and economic development of its fellow Christian kingdoms both in Spain and north of the Pyrenees. The kings of León and Castile were among the first European rulers to invite townsmen to their assemblies. At the same time, they attempted to regulate their economy through sumptuary legislation and wage and price freezes. And, their centuries-long colonization southwards influenced the Germanic expansion across the Elbe, the English drive into Wales and Ireland and the Latin settlement in the Crusader states. In conclusion this collection underlines the fact that León-Castile was not an isolated backwater but a sophisticated state that had an important influence on the development of medieval and renaissance Europe. James Todesca is Associate Professor of History at Armstrong Atlantic State University, USA.

Queen María of Castile, wife of Alfonso V, \"the Magnanimous,\" king of the Crown of Aragon, governed Catalunya in the mid-fifteenth century while her husband conquered and governed the kingdom of Naples. For twenty-six years, she maintained a royal court and council separate from and roughly equivalent to those of Alfonso in Naples. Such legitimately sanctioned political authority is remarkable given that she ruled not as queen in her own right but rather as Lieutenant-General of Catalunya with powers equivalent to the king's. María does not fit conventional images of a queen as wife and mother; indeed, she had no children and so never served as queen-regent for any royal heirs in their minorities or exercised a queen-mother's privilege to act as diplomat when arranging the marriages of her children and grandchildren. But she was clearly more than just a wife offering advice: she embodied the king's personal authority and was second only to the king himself. She was his alter ego, the other royal body fully empowered to govern. For a medieval queen, this official form of corulership, combining exalted royal status with official political appointment, was rare and striking.The King's Other Bodyis both a biography of María and an analysis of her political partnership with Alfonso. María's long, busy tenure as lieutenant prompts a reconsideration of long-held notions of power, statecraft, personalities, and institutions. It is also a study of the institution of monarchy and a theoretical reconsideration of the operations of gender within it. If the practice of monarchy is conventionally understood as strictly a man's job, María's reign presents a compelling argument for a more complex model, one attentive to the dynamic relationship of queenship and kingship and the circumstances and theories that shaped the institution she inhabited.

Her name is undoubtedly less familiar than that of her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, or that of her famous conqueror son, Fernando III, yet during her lifetime, Berenguela of Castile (1180-1246) was one of the most powerful women in Europe. As queen-consort of Alfonso IX of León, she acquired the troubled boundary lands between the kingdoms of Castile and León and forged alliances with powerful nobles on both sides. Even after her marriage was dissolved, she continued to strengthen these connections as a member of her father's court. On her brother's death, she inherited the Castilian throne outright-and then, remarkably, elevated her son to kingship at the same time. Using her assiduously cultivated alliances, Berenguela ruled alongside Fernando and set into motion the strategy that in 1230 would result in his acquisition of the crown of León-and the permanent union of Castile and León. InThe Queen's Hand, Janna Bianchini explores Berenguela's extraordinary lifelong partnership with her son and examines the means through which she was able to build and exercise power. Bianchini contends that recognition of Berenguela as a powerful reigning queen by nobles, bishops, ambassadors, and popes shows the key participation of royal women in the western Iberian monarchy. Demonstrating how royal women could wield enormous authority both within and outside their kingdoms, Bianchini reclaims Berenguela's place as one of the most important figures of the Iberian Middle Ages.

This book analyses text, image and manuscript layout to deepen our understanding of the different ways in which Alfonso is presented as a learned king in the manuscripts he commissioned, and reassesses the number of manuscripts copied for him.

This work brings together all the documentation of Benedict XIII, held in the Registros Avignonenses and Registros Vaticanos of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, relating to the Crown of Castile. It includes 8144 documents arranged chronologically from the beginning of the pontificate until the withdrawal of obedience by the Kingdom of Castile logically extinguished the issuing of documents for this purpose. The content of the documentation covers all the broad aspects of the Pontifical Chancery: provision of dioceses and abbeys, granting of benefices, spiritual graces and indulgences; appointment of collectors, legates and judges in the most diverse lawsuits. All the politics of the Castilian kingdom and its international implications are reflected in this documentation. And, in particular, in relation to the serious situation of division that the Church of the time was going through. The Documentary Collection is preceded by a Preliminary Study in which some aspects of the Pontificate of Benedict XIII are analysed, some other aspects of special interest contained in the documentary collection are highlighted, and some lines of research are pointed out, together with a bibliographical contribution that allows us to expand on each of the issues analysed. Particularly useful for local history aspects of each of the dioceses and also for prosopographical studies.

Medieval Toledo is famous as a center of Arabic learning and as a home to sizable Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities. Yet its cathedral—one of the largest, richest, and best preserved in all of Europe—is little known outside Spain. In Toledo Cathedral, Tom Nickson provides the first in-depth analysis of the cathedral's art and architecture. Focusing on the early thirteenth to the late fourteenth centuries, he examines over two hundred years of change and consolidation, tracing the growth of the cathedral in the city as well as the evolution of sacred places within the cathedral itself. He goes on to consider this substantial monument in terms of its location in Toledo, Spain's most cosmopolitan city in the medieval period. Nickson also addresses the importance and symbolic significance of Toledo's cathedral to the city and the art and architecture of the medieval Iberian Peninsula, showing how it fits in with broader narratives of change in the arts, culture, and ideology of the late medieval period in Spain and in Mediterranean Europe as a whole.

Si les Juifs castillans eurent très tôt conscience d’être une communauté à part, faisaient-ils partie intégrante du royaume ou étaient-ils des étrangers aux yeux des Chrétiens ? Le concept de « nation » est tardif en Castille et il convient d’examiner la question en précisant la signification des vocables, latins et castillans, de Iudaei et judíos, d’Hebreus, de Iudeorum populus, populus Israelitici, genus ou generatio Iudaeorum, de gentes et de pueblo, dans les discours juridique, historique et religieux produits en Castille dans les derniers siècles du Moyen Âge, afin de comprendre le glissement sémantique qui s’opéra entre le xiiie et le xve siècle, confondant la question du sang avec celle du lignage, et excluant Juifs et conversos de la nation castillane en construction.