Battle in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula: 11Th to 13Th Century Castile-Leon
BATTLE IN THE MEDIEVAL IBERIAN PENINSULA: 11TH TO 13TH CENTURY CASTILE-LEON. STATE OF THE ART FRANCISCO GARCÍA FITZ UNIVERSIDAD DE EXTREMADURA SpaIN Date of receipt: 30th of July, 2015 Final date of acceptance: 3rd of February, 2016 ABSTRACT Since the 19th century, the analysis of planning and execution of battles, tactics and strategies in Castile-Leon during the High Middle Ages had been in the hands of professional militia and was strongly influenced by positivist assumptions. Starting in the 1970s, the gradual extension of major historiographical currents —mainly Annales and Marxism— which were highly focused on socio-economic aspects, at Spanish universities, along with certain political prejudices existing at that time, kept these topics on the periphery of professional medievalism interests. Only starting in the mid-’90s would a renewal in these fields begin to come about, with influences from English-speaking and French historiography, which has made it possible to bring this subject into the academic mainstream at the present time.1 KEYWORDS Medieval war, Tactics, Strategies, Castile-Leon, Central Middle Ages, State of the art. CAPITALIA VERBA Bellum mediaevale, Res militares, Strategiae, Castella et Legio, Centralis Mediun Aevum, Status quaestionis. IMAGO TEMPORIS. MEDIUM AEVUM, X (2016) 25-53 / ISSN 1888-3931 / DOI 10.21001/itma.2016.10.01 25 26 FRANCISCO GARCÍA FITZ 1. A society organised for war 1An analysis of the historical evolution of the Christian kingdoms on the Peninsula during the Middle Ages highlights a reality that is hard to deny: in all of them, war had become an innate element of society, which had to adapt its structures, means of organisation and relational mechanisms to the constant demands of omnipresent military conflict.
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