Any: 2020 Núm.: 14

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    Open Access
    For a Genetic and Diplomatic approach to Old Cadastres: Proposals and Advice for Editing Cadastral Sources
    (Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2020) Jean Courret, Ezéchiel
    Old cadastres are largely used as sources in a good many geohistorical publications. Although often reduced to their planimetric aspect alone, they form the kernel of a substantial documentary output. The constraints on the making of these documents (registers and maps), but also the constraints we place on them when using them for ends other than their initial fiscal purpose, must be highlighted so researchers can guard against making improper use of them. Cadastres form the basis of many geohistorical reference frameworks and must be subject to critical editing that is as thorough and true as historians’ editing of texts. The specific features of cadastral sources as documents invite us, to do this, to take up and use the tools of diplomatics and text genetics and ultimately to suggest a few methodological pointers.
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    Open Access
    The Archaeology of the Peasantry in the Early Medieval Age. Reflections and proposals
    (Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2020) Kirchner, Helena
    The archaeology of the medieval peasantry in Spain and Europe has attracted renewed attention in recent decades. This article is an overview of the research carried out in the last 30 years into the peasantry and their cultivated areas in the early-medieval societies in the north of the Iberian Peninsula and al-Andalus. Special attention is paid to the interpretations archaeologists make of the archaeological record. Approaches from two distinct perspectives are analysed, these being the excavation of settlements, and the archaeology of agrarian spaces. Both approaches do not usually come together in the research. It is increasingly clear that the 8th century was a turning point in the forms of peasant settlement and the creation of new cultivated areas. The consolidation of the migration in al-Andalus or the new forms of peasant settlement that arose from the end of the 7th century in the north of the Peninsula were essential for the later urban development. This development is closely linked to the changes in the production of artefacts and tools, as well as how these were distributed (in markets increasingly controlled from the city) and the patterns of consumption by the population, both rural and urban. Ethnic origins and religion have little to do with this process.
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    Open Access
    From Occitania to Catalonia. Catharism: the Current State of Research
    (Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2020) Gascón Chopo, Carles
    This article offers a historiographical analysis of the question of Catharism in medieval Europe, taking as its starting point a proposal structured around two clearly differentiated parts, which respectively focus on an overview of Catharism as a field of study and the perception of its impact in the area of Catalonia. Beyond the potential interest in examining the overall contextualisation prior to presenting a study of a more specific geographical case, the reason for adopting this dual approach lies in the limited interaction that there has historically been between the different discourses put forward on this subject, depending on whether they originated on one side of the Pyrenees or the other, each case being based on very specific interests, concerns and perspectives.
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    Open Access
    Weaponizing Historical Knowledge: the Notion of Reconquista in Spanish Nationalism
    (Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2020) García Sanjuán, Alejandro
    The notion of Reconquista is the product of 19th-century Spanish Nationalist thinking. Although developed as an academic concept, it played, at the same time, a crucial political and ideological role, thus holding a very powerful and potentially toxic ideological burden, chiefly consisting of the idea that Spain is a nation shaped against Islam. Its dual academic and ideological nature makes it a highly problematic concept that greatly contributed to produce a largely biased and distorted vision of the Iberian medieval past, aimed at delegitimizing the Islamic presence (al-Andalus) and therefore at legitimizing the Christian conquest of the Muslim territory. Over the last years and in the framework of the Clash of Civilizations doctrine, conservative and far-right scholarly and political outlets reignited the most ideological version of the Reconquista, thus raising a major challenge for academic historians.
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    Open Access
    Founding and Ineffable Identities: Pelagius, Virgin and Martyr
    (Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 2020) Mérida Jiménez, Rafael M. (Rafael Manuel)
    Raguel’s Vita vel passio sancti Pelagii (c. 967) and Hroswitha of Gandersheim’s poem (10th century) devoted to Pelagius are keywords for the creation of an European literary and symbolic space against Muslims. Both texts were born in a crossroad of religious, political and sexual passions. This article analyses their foundational status in order to understand Christian first imaginaire related to the construction of a virile “Reconquista”, which will underline, in literature and historiography, feminine and sodomitic features in many Jew and Muslim men (but also suspicious Christian) in Iberian Middle Ages.