A Plural Peninsula embodies and upholds Professor Simon Barton’s influential scholarly legacy, eschewing rigid disciplinary boundaries. Focusing on textual, archaeological, visual and material culture, the sixteen studies in this volume offer new and important insights into the historical, socio-political and cultural dynamics characterising different, yet interconnected areas within Iberia and the Mediterranean. The structural themes of this volume --the creation and manipulation of historical, historiographical and emotional narratives; changes and continuity in patterns of exchange, cross-fertilisation and the recovery of tradition; and the management of conflict, crisis, power and authority-- are also particularly relevant for the postmedieval period, within and beyond Iberia. Contributors are Janna Bianchini, Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Simon R. Doubleday, Ana Echevarría Arsuaga, Maribel Fierro, Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, Fernando Luis Corral, Therese Martin, Iñaki Martín Viso, Amy G. Remensnyder, Maya Soifer Irish, -Teresa Tinsley, Sonia Vital Fernández, Alun Williams, Teresa Witcombe, and Jamie Wood. See inside the book

Building on Simon Barton's influential scholarship, while promoting new multidisciplinary directions in Medieval Iberian, Mediterranean and European Studies, this volume examines 'plural' historical narratives, processes of identity-making, and individual experiences within Iberian local and translocal economic, socio-political and cultural networks.

This book presents an original perspective on the variety and intensity of biblical narrative and rhetoric in the evolution of history writing in León-Castile during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It focuses on six Hispano-Latin chronicles, two of which make unusually overt and emphatic use of biblical texts. Of particular importance is the part played by the influence of exegesis that became integral to scriptural and liturgical influence, both in and beyond monastic institutions. Alun Williams provides close analysis of the text and comparisons with biblical typology to demonstrate how these historians from the north of Iberia were variously dependent on a growing corpus of patristic and early medieval interpretation to understand and define their world and their sense of place. Narrative, Piety and Polemic in Medieval Spain sees Williams examine this material as part of a comparative exploration of language and religious allusion, showing how the authors used these biblical-liturgical elements to convey historical context, purpose and interpretation.

Due to the long presence of Muslims in Islamic territories (Al-Andalus and Granada) and of Muslims minorities in the Christians parts, the Iberian Peninsula provides a fertile soil for the study of the Qur’an and Qur’an translations made by both Muslims and Christians. From the mid-twelfth century to at least the end of the seventeenth, the efforts undertaken by Christian scholars and churchmen, by converts, by Muslims (both Mudejars and Moriscos) to transmit, interpret and translate the Holy Book are of the utmost importance for the understanding of Islam in Europe. This book reflects on a context where Arabic books and Arabic speakers who were familiar with the Qur’an and its exegesis coexisted with Christian scholars. The latter not only intended to convert Muslims, and polemize with them but also to adquire solid knowledge about them and about Islam. Qur’ans were seized during battle, bought, copied, translated, transmitted, recited, and studied. The different features and uses of the Qur’an on Iberian soil, its circulation as well as the lives and works of those who wrote about it and the responses of their audiences, are the object of this book.

This book offers an original perspective on the emergence of early modern Spain from multi-faith Iberia. It uses the eventful career of Hernando de Baeza – an interpreter, intermediary, and author positioned at the intersection of the so-called 'three cultures' of medieval Iberia (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) – as a thread to connect the conflicts, controversies and preoccupations of an age in which Christianising the whole world seemed an attainable dream. Teresa Tinsley draws on a wealth of extensive archival evidence, together with Baeza's own memoir on the downfall of Muslim Granada (translated here for the first time), to demonstrate the widespread resistance to the authoritarian and exclusionary Christianity which would come to be associated with Spain, the Inquisition, and the Catholic Monarchs of the period. In the process, Tinsley provides a nuanced alternative account of the tensions, compromises and competing interests which underlay Spain's emergence as a world power.

This book addresses the reception of Islamic visual culture by the northern Iberian kingdoms, by systematically comparing works of art from both sides and fleshing out their historical context. This study includes figurative and iconographic motifs, architectural forms, and even the spolia from constructions and Arabic inscriptions that were embedded in Christian buildings. The Islamic visual culture of al-Andalus was often transformed as it was recreated by Christian hands, bringing to the fore various nuances in the relationship between the two religious communities. Artistic transfer was conditioned by social coexistence between Christians and Muslims—both in the caliphate al-Andalus and in the northern realms—and military conflict. To approach the different ways in which Andalusi visual culture was received in the northern kingdoms, while embracing the vast diversity of case studies available, this book is divided into three thematic sections: Reinterpretation, Appropriation, and Artistic Transfers. This book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, and medieval studies.

The Triumph of an Accursed Lineage analyses kingship in Castile between 1252 and 1350, with a particular focus on the pivotal reign of Alfonso XI (r. 1312–1350). This century witnessed significant changes in the ways in which the Castilian monarchy constructed and represented its power in this period. The ideas and motifs used to extoll royal authority, the territorial conceptualisation of the kingdom, the role queens and the royal family played, and the interpersonal relationship between the kings and the nobility were all integral to this process. Ultimately, this book addresses how Alfonso XI, a member of an accursed lineage who rose to the throne when he was an infant, was able to end the internal turmoil which plagued Castile since the 1270s and become a paradigm of successful kingship. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Spain, as well as those interested in the history of kingship.

Beyond the Reconquista: New Directions in the History of Medieval Iberia (711-1085) offers an exciting series of essays by leading scholars in Hispanic Studies from across North America and Europe. At its heart is the Reconquista, without doubt the most important and enduring theme of Iberian historiography of the Middle Ages. The innovative studies collected herein, which treat a diverse array of subjects via forensic analyses of charters, chronicles and coins, shed new light on crucial aspects of medieval Iberian socio-economic, political and cultural history. The result is a collection of essays which marks a decisive and bold turning of the page in Iberian medieval studies, as the reality and ideal of Reconquest come under hitherto unparalleled scrutiny. Contributors are Graham Barrett, Jeffrey Bowman, Alberto Canto, Nicola Clarke, Wendy Davies, Julio Escalona, Jonathan Jarrett, Eduardo Manzano Moreno, Iñaki Martín Viso and Lucy K. Pick. See inside the book.

Communities in Transition brings together scholars from different countries and backgrounds united by a common interest in the transition between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age in the lands around the Aegean. Neolithic community was transformed, in some places incrementally and in others rapidly, during the 5th and 4th millennia BC into one that we would commonly associate with the Bronze Age. Many different names have been assigned to this period: Final Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Eneolithic, Late Neolithic [I]-II, Copper Age which, to some extent, reflects the diversity of archaeological evidence from varied geographical regions. During this long heterogeneous period developments occurred that led to significant changes in material culture, the use of space, the adoption of metallurgical practices, establishment of far-reaching interaction and exchange networks, and increased social complexity. The 5th to 4th millennium BC transition is one of inclusions, entanglements, connectivity, and exchange of ideas, raw materials, finished products and, quite possibly, worldviews and belief systems. Most of the papers presented here are multifaceted and complex in that they do not deal with only one topic or narrowly focus on a single line of reasoning or dataset. Arranged geographically they explore a series of key themes: Chronology, cultural affinities, and synchronization in material culture; changing social structure and economy; inter- and intra-site space use and settlement patterns, caves and include both site reports and regional studies. This volume presents a tour de force examination of many multifaceted aspects of the social, cultural, technological, economic and ideological transformations that mark the transition from Neolithic to Early Bronze Age societies in the lands around the Aegean during the 5th and 4th millennium BC.

Based on the premise that reliable history can only be written on the basis of sources that are contemporary with the events described, the contributors to this in-depth investigation present research that reveals the obscure origins of Islam in a completely new light.