Shaping Relations During the Middle Ages in Southwestern Europe

This book deploys the analytic model of centres and peripheries to study medieval southwestern Europe and, more specifically, the Iberian Peninsula. Here, the reader will find engaging, up-to-date scholarship on the monastic management of landscapes and hydric resources; the diffusion of fishing techniques; the roles of epigraphy and consecrations in establishing territorial, cultural, and jurisdictional boundaries; the symbolic aspects of royal legitimacy in late antiquity; the identitarian and memorialistic strategies deployed by trans-national aristocratic dynasties; the expansion of corso-piracy in the Mediterranean; and the transformation in the organization of feudal landscapes. Within this diversity of themes, the intrinsic tension between centres and peripheries serves as a common thread. This inherently comparative approach facilitates the construction of geographical and political systems, inter-regional hierarchies and connections, and, ultimately, a more comprehensive view of past societies. Indeed, medieval societies, territories, and cultures are particularly well-suited for these approaches due to the fragmented and highly localized nature of power, development of diverse languages and cultural systems, and exploitative nature of economic relations.

Pol Bridgewater Mateu is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He holds a BA in History, MA in Medieval Cultures, and PhD in Medieval Cultures from that institution. Xavier Costa-Badia is a Serra Húnter Tenure-Eligible Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He holds a BA in History, MA in Medieval Cultures, and PhD in Medieval Cultures from that institution. Jaume Marcé Sánchez is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He holds a BA in History, MA in Medieval Cultures, and PhD in History from that institution. Laura Miquel Milian is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Valencia, Spain. She holds a BA in History and MA in Medieval Cultures from the University of Barcelona, and a PhD in History from the University of Girona.

1. Centres and Peripheries in the Making of Medieval Iberia: An Introduction Jaume Marcé Sánchez and Laura Miquel Milian.- Part I Diffusion and Reception of Culture, Art, and Forms of Writing.- 2. Implementation and Diffusion of Rites. The Deposition of the Relics According to the Catalano-Narbonese Ordo of Consecration Marianne Blanchard.- 3. Writing on the Edges. Exposure and Discretion in Medieval Epigraphic Practices Vincent Debiais.- 4. Centre-Periphery Relations. The Role of the Consecrationes in the Construction of Medieval Dioceses Irene Pereira García.- Part II Relations of Power: Authority, Violence, and Territorial Control.- 5. The Quest for Central Power Symbols in Post-Roman Kingdoms: Gundovald and Paulus, Two Case Studies of Illegitimate Proclamations Oriol Dinarès Cabrerizo.- 6. Olèrdola and Vilafranca. The Transfer of Power Centres and its Implications in the Settlement Network Marçal Díaz-Ros.- 7. Between Centers and Peripheries: Corsopirates in the Medieval Western Mediterranean (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries) Laure-Hélène Gouffran.- Part III Economic Centres and Peripheries: Managing Resources, Techniques, and Commercial Networks.- 8. From the Core to the Margins, and Back to the Core: The Lordship of Castellbisbal in the Construction of a Dynastic Identity (Fifteenth-Sixteenth Centuries) Pol Bridgewater Mateu.- 9. Reconsidering Monastic Estates: Centres, Peripheries, and Territorial Management in Early Medieval Pallars and Ribagorça (Ninth-Tenth Centuries) Xavier Costa Badia.- 10. Territorial Control from a Female Monastic Centre Using Hydraulic Technology: Las Huelgas of Burgos and San Vicente el Real of Segovia Ester Penas González.- 11. Between Provence and Catalonia: Centres and Peripheries in the Developing and Diffusion of Fishing Gear in the Medieval and Early Modern Period Antoni Ginot-Julià.