Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

AbstractThis study highlights the relevance of medieval inns (ventas or alberguerías) in the repopulation of Segovia’s southern plains beyond the Guadarrama mountain range, between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Archival records have allowed us to identify 75 percent of these road hostels and describe several ancient routes between the city of Segovia and its southernmost limits in the kingdom of Toledo. Segovian inns would become a priority target for seigneurial abuse in the late Middle Ages. Most of these establishments were involved in jurisdictional disputes and were the origin of modern villages and towns.

AbstractThis study aims to contribute to research on the ailments suffered by king Enrique IV of Castile, through the study of the manuscript 2/MS.46 (ff. 123r-130v) of the Spanish Royal Academy of History (Madrid). To what extent are the diagnoses made so far reliable? To what extent is the information in chronicles objective when dealing with his diseases? What can this medical recipe collection, a professional document, contribute to our knowledge of the king’s diseases? These are some of the issues we explore in this article.

AbstractThere are, as of yet, few studies on demographic movements in the kingdom of Cordoba at the end of the Middle Ages. Hence, this article will focus specifically on migratory movements identified in the southern area of its rural realm during the 15th  and early 16th centuries. Firstly, the written sources used will be identified, the most important of which are lawsuits kept in the Archivo General de Andalucía, the Municipal Archives of Cordoba and the archives of the Real Chancillería of Granada. These innovative records contain ill-known information regarding this topic. Secondly, a total of 510 migration cases are studied, a typology will be established, and the causes that led these groups to migrate will be identified. These cases support a distinct population dynamic at the end of the Middle Ages in this geographical area.

AbstractThe Aza lineage was a modest Castilian aristocratic group that acquired quotas of power and certain fame during certain phases of its existence. However, it has received relatively little attention on the part of scholarship throughout the ages. In fact, for the period between the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, there is only one study by the early-modern genealogist Luis de Salazar y Castro, of questionable merit in certain aspects of his narrative. We seek to examine this aristocratic group over that same period, and with special attention to the trajectory between the reigns of Alfonso X and Alfonso XI of Castile, going beyond a merely descriptive dynastic approach by concentrating on two questions: Firstly, we will consider the position of the family members within the social hierarchy of the moment; and, secondly, we will gauge the family’s economic power and its seigneurial capacity in the northern plateau region (Meseta Norte). 

AbstractCastilrubio is a pastureland located south-west of Medellin (Extremadura). We have detailed its evolution essentially using rich judicial records that have allowed us to combine issues regarding rural society with power structures. Until the middle of the fifteenth century these lands were surrounded by dense vegetation. The process of clearing the land in a context of agricultural growth and political conflict will trigger a phenomenon whereby land will be illegally appropriated, but eventually legalized by royal authority. This land was used for agriculture and livestock by the mid fifteenth century, but later exclusively used for livestock grazing in the context of the rise in the price of pasture. Farmers and rural elites play an important role first as owners and then as tenants of this property.

AbstractThis paper analyses the role of the Church in the ransom of Christian captives who fell under Muslim control.  The role of the ransoming orders—Trinitarians and Mercedarians—in the ransoming process was highly significant.  Less known is the intervention of the cathedral chapter, often working side by side with the municipal authorities.  In both cases, alms were the most important source of income; the charity of their neighbors made a captive’s ransom possible.  This paper focuses on the example of the Diocese of Majorca, a territory exposed to the sea, whose inhabitants were frequently captured.  Based on some mid-fifteenth century registers of subsidies it is possible to know some of the individual characteristics of the captives, the vulnerability of their families, and the behavior of the responsible persons who distributed the charitable money among the captives and their families.

Rio, Alice, Legal Practice and the Written World in the Early Middle Ages. Frankish Formulae, c.500-1000. Nueva York. Cambridge University Press, 2009. xii + 299 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-511-53684-7

AbstractIn the last decade, what has been termed rural élites has become a well-established subject matter in medieval European historiography as well as an analytical category. This notion has been used to identify members of rural communities that occupy a privileged position with respect to their peers. Despite the relative scarcity of studies in this area, there is a broad acceptance that these elites possessed both political and economic power. In this article, we will review this historiographical idea by analysing the relatively ill-known Castilian rural society. This will be brought about through the study of municipal records during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, especially in the territory surrounding Avila. These sources reveal that if at times positions in municipal administration were occupied by the tax-payers of the towns, and access to political posts often lead to their enrichment, the causal effect is not mechanical. Members of the upper strata are not always interested in fulfilling political tasks, nor does the community automatically designate those who have a privileged economic situation. On the other hand, many authors identify the category of rural elites with a sector that uses its political position for their own benefit to the detriment of the common interests of the village tax-payers. Numerous occasions in which rural representatives act in defence of the communities against the practices of the enriched sectors obliges one to nuance these interpretations.

Abstract This article presents a thorough examination of the sociological, anthropological and cultural content of Juan Alfonso de Baena’s Cancionero with three objectives:1. A sociological analysis of the relationship between the 51 poets in order to identify the main protagonists, as well as the relations between them and the compiler, Baena, through the language . 2. An anthropological analysis of the mentality that emanates from the verses of the  Cancionero and that reveals the collective consciousness of an ill-known social group whose members may not hold power, but have a privileged position.3. An in-depth analysis of the most polemical aspects regarding the Cancionero de Baena, like the use of concepts such as «courtly poets» or «nobility» specifically as evidence of the gap that exists between discourse and reality, along with certain conclusions held by current scholarship which deserve to be to be qualified as a result of this study.

AbstractIn the Early Modern Age, the Cistercian monasteries of the Crown of Castile were obliged to undergo a reformation process. The reformers paid special attention to the archives. The image that prevails for the Belmonte monastery is one of a disorganized archive. This article aims to demonstrate that this purported disorganization was induced by recent events of this period rather than caused by systematic neglect.  We will focus on Belmonte’s archive since its origins in the Middle Ages until 1560. We will examine the main process of production, conservation and diplomatic rewriting, as well as the archival practices applied in Belmonte during the Middle and Early Modern Ages.