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Vannini, G.et Nucciotti, M. (eds.), La Transgiordania nei secoli XII-XIII e le 'frontiere' del Mediterraneo medievale, (BAR International Series 2386: Limina / Limites: 1), Oxford, p. 277-288 , 2012

Limina / Limites Archeologie, storie, isole e frontiere nel Mediterraneo (365-1556) 1 Published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England bar@archaeopress.com www.archaeopress.com BAR S2386 Limina / Limites Archeologie, storie, isole e frontiere nel Mediterraneo (365-1556) 1

Speculum, 2019

The Historians Magazine Website, 2023

As part of my undergraduate degree at the University of Malta I was required to write a dissertation. Being passionate about the medieval period and crusading I wanted to work on these principles. My Supervisor, Mr Charles Dalli, suggested working on a comparative study of two major cities/regions in the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista and, thus, ‘The Two Kingdoms of the Reconquista’ was born in the summer of 2021. After extensive secondary research of works by authors, such as, R. Burns and J. Hillgarth, Valencia and Granada were chosen as candidates. Granada was the perfect candidate for this kind of study, for, among other reasons, that it was the last Muslim kingdom in Iberia. This fact gave a perfect starting point for the cultural shift from Islamic to Christian culture to take place in a relatively short period of time (1238-1492). However, why choose Valencia over other regions, such as Toledo, Seville and Cordoba? The crusade against Valencia had the largest effect on the future expansion of the Aragonese Empire, and after its capture, the Christianisation process took time to take hold over the Islamic presence there, both in the regional and urban contexts. Therefore, Valencia was the perfect candidate to undertake a comparative study against Granada, which went through the process much faster and affected the future expansion of Castile-León. Therefore, the dissertation covered these points, noting how certain treaties and alliances affected the way the Christian Kingdoms dealt with the Islamic Taifas after their capture, how they affected the rate at which the Christianisation process unfolded and how this Christianisation process can be seen through the archaeological record today. It is through these factors that the eventual cultural shift can be seen and how two regions, which are relatively close together, evolved so differently from each other.

Imago temporis: medium Aevum, 2024

The ideology of the reconquest pursued a clear objective: the recovery of a nation illegitimately occupied by Muslim invaders and the restoration of Christianity in Peninsular territory. This process necessarily entailed the submission, if not the expulsion, of al-Andalus’s Muslim population, as well as the erasure of any sign of its presence, culture or religion. The Christians demonstrated great efficacy in this operation through a series of different actions leading, first of all, to the effective control over the territory and its fortresses, places of worship, and spiritual landmarks. Then by resignification through different symbolic and religious elements. And, finally, developing an alternative collective memory, one that would justify their actions, sustain the new and victorious Christian society and subdue the vanquished Muslims.

In the 950s and 960s Borrell II, Count of Barcelona and several other territories, faced the forces of Islam across an open frontier to his south and west, which he spent most of his long rule (945-93) attempting to manage. During that time Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos was also seeking, with episodic success, to manage another long frontier with Islam. More than contemporaneity and Muslim enemies makes these rulers comparable, despite their very different standings: both their fathers retired to monastic life, they both had to share initial power with siblings and both sent embassies to the same rulers of Córdoba and Rome. More importantly, while some of their approaches to their problems were extremely different, particularly in the military sphere, they both made extensive use of carefully-engineered versions of the past to justify, legitimate and build upon their status and power. This paper will use Constantine's De Administrando Imperio and De Ceremoniis, with a suitably critical eye, in comparison with Borrell's equally but differently complex charter corpus, to deepen these comparisons and ask what we can say about their management and description of their frontiers that brings us closer to what the tenth-century frontier was for its contemporaries.

Artistic and Cultural Dialogues in the Late Medieval Mediterranean, 2021

By considering the building regulations of medieval Christian societies of the Iberian Peninsula with the ones contained in Islamic sources from al-Andalus, it is possible to verify how much the former were influenced by the latter. This legacy is, indeed, evident in the official responsible for applying these rules, whose purpose was to control various urban areas. In fact, the Portuguese almotacé, the Castilian almotacén or the Aragonese mustaçaf derive from the Islamic muḥtasib, which in turn has an ancient and complex history, as an authentic product of the Mediterranean. The transformation in medieval Christian building rules and their transmission to non-European territories, which have been in force for much longer, truly certify the evolution of an Islamic institution as a transtemporal and transcultural phenomenon.

Maddalena Betti, Francesco Borri, Stefano Gasparri (edited by), Carolingian Frontiers: Italy and Beyond, Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2024, pp. 61-77, 2024

The Islamic conquest of the kingdom of Toledo brought about the disappearance of central authoritycin certain regions of the Iberian Peninsula. This is what happened on the Duero Plateau, which, between the eighth century and the mid-ninth century, was an area bereft of any type of complex political structure. The paper provides an analysis of certain elements of political organization during that period, defined by fragmentation and the existence of numerous small sixed territories that were associated with the management of common lands. It was in an area on the fringes of Asturians and Andalusians that a blurred frontier was drawn, where some influences of al-Andalus can be identified. After the second half of the ninth century, the kingdom of the Asturias spread across these territories at the same time as the county of Castile became consolidated. This increase in complexity created formerly non-existent struggles against the Muslims, and gave rise to a new frontier, although the areas south of the Duero generally remained outside the scope of Asturian, Castilian and Andalusian authority.

The process of state-building was a defIning characteristic of later medieval European history and rightly holds a prominent place in both general and regionspecific studies of the period. ' The history of the Iberian peninsula i,>certainly no exception to rhis rule, but unlike other 'regions of the medieval West the process of stare-building in Iberia is closely associated with another, more localised, historical and historiographical phenomenon: the Reconqw'sta. As Angus MacKay pointed out in 1977, for many scholars 'the related concepts of the frontier and the reconquest provide the key to Spanish historical development',' morc recendy, and with reference to the kingdom of Portugal, Stephen Lay has argued that 'the successful prosecution of the reconquest appears to have been intricately interconnected with a process of national ronnation'. a In.this context, and given the over-arching thematic and chronological scope of the present volume, an examination of eleventh-and twelfth-century perspectives on the process of statebuilding in the Iberian peninsula suggests itself as a worthy topic for investigation. However, this paper is not so much concerned with the practicalities of statebuilding -the institutions and mechanisms that were developed for the administration of fberian frontier societies, and so forth' -as it is with the ideological frameworks and narrative strategies that were used by those who sought to justify their expansionist activities; in other words, it offers an examination of some of the language and ideas by which various groups and individuals attempted to legitimise their state-building endeavours in the period c.l 050-c. 1I 50. As will be demonstrated, for many contemporaries the process of Christian state-building in Iberia was rarely associated with the extension of political and military authority over virgin territory; rather, it was more often defined by the reclamation and reconstitution of lands that were believed to have been lost to external aggressors in generations past.. 1 In this way, state-building in the Iberian peninsula in the later Middle Ages was inextricably linked with the successful prosecution of what was understood to be a process of territorial reconquest, and thus might be 58 Purkis characterisedat least in ideological, if not practical, tenus -as a process by which Iberian states were being 'rebuilt'.

La Coronica, A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures 41.2 (2013)

Reviews 235 41,315 in 1961, the last year for which he has provided figures in this catego explanation of these dramatic changes ought to be attempted.

Two Kingdoms of the Reconquista: A comparative study of the fall of Valencia (1238) and Granada (1492) and their shift from Muslim to Christian orientation, 2023

The history that emerges from the Reconquista is something of a marvel when one considers the significance of these crusades and their impact on the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula. Taking into consideration the size of the Iberian Peninsula, as a region, the entanglement of these two similar, but still different religious cultures, shows how complex a scenario of holy war really was. While the thought of holy war, be it a crusade or a jihād, shifts one’s thoughts to the Near East, in particular the Holy Land, the scale and significance of the 800 year-long reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula must not be overlooked. The mixed culture that developed in Iberia after the Islamic conquests of the early 8th century are a unique case in the medieval European sphere of influence. No other mainland European region, with perhaps the acceptation of the island of Sicily, has gone through such a radical cultural change, Christian-to-Islamic-to-Christian, in such a relatively short period of time. Therefore, the rise and fall of al-Andalus as a region of mixed Christian and Islamic culture is an important scenario when one considers the geographical position of Iberia with the rest of Christian Europe. With this in mind, this dissertation attempts to tackle two main goals, one on a region-wide level and the other on a more local level. The first goal is to understand and highlight how treaties between the major political players of the Reconquista affected the regions of Valencia and Granada on a large region-wide scale. Further, this section of the study takes into consideration how the eventual implementation of these various treaties, which ranged throughout the 800 years of the Reconquista, affected the many religious groups of both Valencia and Granada. This importantly notes any changes to both regions economies and takes into consideration any resulting migrations away from these regions. The second goal, takes the region-wide outcomes and analyses these factors on a smaller local scale. This is achieved by looking at the archaeology, architecture, population movements within the local scenario and, most importantly, the Christianization process that took shape in these regions after the various Christian conquests by the northern Iberian kingdoms from the late 10th and 11th centuries till the fall of Granada in 1492. However, these two goals could not be achieved without first tackling the standard terminology used in such a study, and secondly, an in-depth historical background of the major political players that played a role in the history of the Reconquista. Therefore, Chapter 1 of this dissertation highlights the necessary terminology for this type of research, such as the communities referred to as the Mudejars and the Dhimmi. While Chapter 2 gives an in-detail historical analysis of the Kingdoms of Aragon, Catalonia, Castile-León, the Umayyad, Almoravids and Almohads Caliphates, a general overview of the taifas and an in-depth historical analysis of Granada and Valencia. This historical overview ranges from their founding during the Roman period to the end of their respective conquests during the 12th and 15th centuries. From Chapter 3 onwards, the focus then shifts to the factors mentioned above in Valencia and Granada, with Chapter 3 tackling the treaties, alliances and warfare on the regional level and Chapter 4 tackling these outcomes on the local level. This is done through the use of the surviving archaeology on the rural and urban landscapes, while also considering the material culture from a historian’s perspective in reference to the historical literature. The eventual outcomes are then considered and compared, in relation to Valencia and Granada, within Chapter 5. Therefore, this dissertation will tackle the cultural, religious, economic and warfare factors of the Reconquista by comparing and contrasting the regions and cities of Valencia and Granada. Importantly, these main factors will be viewed on both the region-wide level and on the local level, which is further sub-divided into the rural and urban landscapes.

This paper will give a comprehensive overview of how the political collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian and southern Gaulish world changed not only the socio-political and religious, but also the cultural agenda of south-western Europe between the eighth and eleventh centuries. After the Frankish-Carolingian "reconquest" of the north-eastern parts of the Visgothic world, i.e. Septimania and the so-called "Spanish March", a new socio-political constellation of powers between 'Gallia' and 'Hispania' and a new Church organisation, the 'ecclesia Narbonensis', became established. The talk will show how early medieval Catalonia's double-face orientation towards the old Hispano-Visigothic cultural traditions and the new Romano-Frankish knowledge transfer has decisively shaped the political, religious, and cultural physiognomy of this emerging middle ground. My paper will tell the story of a political and cultural interruption which finally led to the political and social disruption on both sides and the formation of a new hybrid society of religious, legal, and political institutions of its own.

Madrider Mitteilungen Bd. 65 (2024) , 2024

Castellar de Meca (Ayora, Valencia) has long been recognized as an outstanding protohistoric archaeological site owing to its enormous size, impressive remnants of cyclopean walls, and, above all, its rock-hewn features which include paths, silos, and cisterns. As a result, the significance of its occupation during the Middle Ages has been overshadowed, despite its substantial material remains. This work aims to analyse the history of Meca during the Islamic period, drawing on surveys, a reexamination of the evidence from excavations conducted by Iron Age specialists, and even historical maps. With this, we seek to demonstrate that the analysis of this site is crucial for two reasons: first, it allows for a better understanding of settlement patterns in the region from the Emirate (9 century) to the Almoravid period (first half of the 12 th century). Second, this was the most important settlement in western Valencia during the 11 century. Previously, the region had barely played a marginal agricultural role, but in the 11 th century it underwent an intense process of colonisation in the wake of the economic revolution that was taking place in al-Andalus and in other European and Mediterranean regions.

Kim Bergqvist, Kurt Villads Jensen, Anthony John Lappin (eds.), Conflict and Collaboration in Medieval Iberia, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020

List of Illustrations 3 Introduction Peter's Lineages Book; Tiago João Queimada e Silva looks at how this work depicted Muslim-Christian interaction as a means of providing aristocratic legitimation. And, in line with the noble ethos that permeates the work, religious allegiances came a very distant second to nobility, valour and prestige for families when they recalled their ancestors' glories (and thereby their own). Actual, rather than legendary, collaboration, indeed friendship, between members of different faiths is brought into focus by Harald Endre Tafjord, who looks to the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris for its account of the long-standing political relationship between the majestic Alfonso VII of León and Sayaf al-Dawla (or, to Christians, Zafadola), son of the last emir of Zaragoza before the Almoravids' expansion removed the town from their control. Tafjord places the cross-religious friendship within an anthropological frame much used by historians of medieval society. Such a friendship was political, pragmatic, and strategic, in that Sayaf's remaining territories allowed Alfonso a means of projecting his influence; and proximity to Alfonso allowed Sayaf a means of protecting his possessions from the pressure of the Almoravid invaders, on the one hand, and from the Aragonese on the other. Zafadola became, for a while, a trusted counsellor and military leader for Alfonso in his conflict with the Almoravids, as an important link between the king-emperor and Andalusi elements dissatisfied with Almoravid rule, and, before his death, as a trusted free-agent in campaigning in the south of the Peninsula. The early development of a Muslim presence in the Peninsula isdespite the later accretions of legendary and mostly fanciful material difficult to reconstruct. No records such as the Chronica Adefonsi were written in that early period to detail individual relationships across ethnic and perhaps religious divides, and thus other, more impersonal material has to be used. Placenames have thus become a new frontier in the study of post-conquest settlement patterns. David Peterson uses toponymic data from the province of Burgos to establish where Arab/Muslim/Berber settlement may have taken place; here he seeks to identify hybrid toponymns, place-names which contain both an Arabic and a Romance element (such as Villa Mahumet). In order to give a firmer base to the analysis, Peterson brings in a contemporary comparison: hybrid place-names found in the east of England, which show the presence of rapid Danish settlement in their newly conquered territories. A crucial part of this analysis is to establish the reality of Pedro Sánchez-Prieto, Peña pursues the imprint which Jewish intellectuals made upon the text, in particular through the reflexion of traditional Jewish (rather than specifically Christian) commentary on the book of Genesis, and, specifically, the expulsion from Paradise and the sin of Cain. Similarly, David Navarro shows how key rabbinic sources are woven together with the dominant university-textbook, Petrus Comestor's Historia ecclesiastica, in the discussion of the 8 Only 35% of such compounds contain clearly identifiable non-Arabic personal-names; the final 35%, while seemingly incorporating anthroponyms, are of obscure etymology, and among this last group we suspect Arabo-Islamic names will be over-represented given their greater tendency to be distorted over time.

Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum 18 (2024)

Heavily biased by ideological prejudices, traditional Spanish scholarship claimed the existence of sharply divergent approaches between Iberian Christians and Muslims about the perception of the land and the feelings that got them bound to it. Gathered around a shared national project, the Christians would have held highly stable emotional bonds to the land they lived in. Propelled by a strong sense of attachment to their territories, they would have fought tirelessly over eight centuries to recover the lands previously seized by the Muslims. Lacking a similar sense of belonging to the land, the Muslims, bound by agnatic and religious ties, would have considered themselves just temporary dwellers. However, a careful reading of the Arabic sources suggests the existence of parallels regarding the recovery of lost lands. This article seeks to provide compelling textual evidence about the idea of land recovery among the Muslims across the 11th and the 12th century.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 82, No. 1 (2019): 181-183, 2019

Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies , 2019

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 1998