This work deals with the reign of Pedro I of Castile (1350-1369), known as “The Cruel,” one of the most notorious and misunderstood figures in the annals of peninsular history. This is the first book on the subject that analyzes Pedro's rule in light of social, political, diplomatic, and economic conditions in mid-14th century Castile. Using extant primary documentation from archival sources and the most recent findings of scholars from various fields, the book explores in detail the historical basis for Pedro's reputation and the extent to which this reputation unfairly rests on the testimony of Pero López de Ayala, the reign's principal chronicler. The book provides fresh insights into various aspects of Pedro's career, such as his political aims, relations with religious minorities, and fiscal policies.

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This is an evocative, vividly imagined novel about one of history's most famous and controversial queens--the warrior who united a fractured country, the champion of the faith whose reign gave rise to the Inquisition, and the visionary who sent Columbus to discover a New World.

This work, the first of a two-volume set, brings together essays of European and American scholars on the wider regional and topical aspects of the Hundred Years War as well as articles that revisit questions posed and supposedly "solved" by traditional Hundred Years War scholarship.

By the middle of the fourteenth century, Christian control of the Iberian Peninsula extended to the borders of the emirate of Granada, whose Muslim rulers acknowledged Castilian suzerainty. No longer threatened by Moroccan incursions, the kings of Castile were diverted from completing the Reconquest by civil war and conflicts with neighboring Christian kings. Mindful, however, of their traditional goal of recovering lands formerly ruled by the Visigoths, whose heirs they claimed to be, the Castilian monarchs continued intermittently to assault Granada until the late fifteenth century. Matters changed thereafter, when Fernando and Isabel launched a decade-long effort to subjugate Granada. Utilizing artillery and expending vast sums of money, they methodically conquered each Naṣrid stronghold until the capitulation of the city of Granada itself in 1492. Effective military and naval organization and access to a diversity of financial resources, joined with papal crusading benefits, facilitated the final conquest. Throughout, the Naṣrids had emphasized the urgency of a jihād waged against the Christian infidels, while the Castilians affirmed that the expulsion of the "enemies of our Catholic faith" was a necessary, just, and holy cause. The fundamentally religious character of this last stage of conflict cannot be doubted, Joseph F. O'Callaghan argues.

This book takes a fresh look at the Hundred Years War by gathering the latest scholarship on several aspects of the conflict that have not been amply studied before and several that have become “gospel” by numerous scholarly treatments. The collection focuses on the following subjects: (1) the Hundred Years War as a wide-ranging struggle that effected many European regions, (2) the battle of Agincourt and its political and emotional aftermath, (3) the Iberian theater of war that sprang from the main conflict, (4) the impact of the crossbow and longbow on the great battles of the conflict, (5) great leaders of the war, and (6) economic, literary, and psychological aspects of the conflict. Contributors are: William P. Caferro, Megan Cassidy Welch, Kelly DeVries, Donald J. Kagay, Ilana Krug, Russell Mitchell, Steven Muhlberger, Clifford J. Rogers, L. B. Ross, Dana Sample, Wendy Turner, Richard Vernier, L. J. Andrew Villalon and David Whetham. Winner of the 2014 Verbruggen Prize of De Re Militari (the Society for the Study of Medieval Military History) given annually for the best book on medieval military history.

Most studies of medieval warfare in the late 14th and 15th centuries concentrate on the Hundred Years' War between England and France and the Wars of the Roses. But meanwhile, on the Iberian peninsula, the foundations of Spain's military 'Golden Age' were being laid as the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon under the Trastamara dynasty grew in power, ambition and success. Featuring spectacular full-colour artwork, and rare manuscript illustrations, this book depicts the fighting men whose skill and tactical flexibility made Spain into a world power at the close of the Middle Ages, carving out empires from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean.

Martyred saints, Moors, Jews, viragoes, hermaphrodites, sodomites, kings, queens, and cross-dressers comprise the fascinating mosaic of historical and imaginative figures unearthed in Queer Iberia. The essays in this volume describe and analyze the sexual diversity that proliferated during the period between the tenth and the sixteenth centuries when political hegemony in the region passed from Muslim to Christian hands. To show how sexual otherness is most evident at points of cultural conflict, the contributors use a variety of methodologies and perspectives and consider source materials that originated in Castilian, Latin, Arabic, Catalan, and Galician-Portuguese. Covering topics from the martydom of Pelagius to the exploits of the transgendered Catalina de Erauso, this volume is the first to provide a comprehensive historical examination of the relations among race, gender, sexuality, nation-building, colonialism, and imperial expansion in medieval and early modern Iberia. Some essays consider archival evidence of sexual otherness or evaluate the use of “deviance” as a marker for cultural and racial difference, while others explore both male and female homoeroticism as literary-aesthetic discourse or attempt to open up canonical texts to alternative readings. Positing a queerness intrinsic to Iberia’s historical process and cultural identity, Queer Iberia will challenge the field of Iberian studies while appealing to scholars of medieval, cultural, Hispanic, gender, and gay and lesbian studies. Contributors. Josiah Blackmore, Linde M. Brocato, Catherine Brown, Israel Burshatin, Daniel Eisenberg, E. Michael Gerli, Roberto J. González-Casanovas, Gregory S. Hutcheson, Mark D. Jordan, Sara Lipton, Benjamin Liu, Mary Elizabeth Perry, Michael Solomon, Louise O. Vasvári, Barbara Weissberger