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All quiet on the western front? Royal politics in G alicia from c. 800 to c. 950
Author(s) -
Portass Robert
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
early medieval europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1468-0254
pISSN - 0963-9462
DOI - 10.1111/emed.12019
Subject(s) - elite , politics , front (military) , historiography , ninth , history , key (lock) , political action , genealogy , humanities , political science , art , law , geology , archaeology , physics , computer science , computer security , acoustics , oceanography
For complex reasons pertaining to the course of S panish historiography throughout the twentieth century, the region of G alicia has been seen as politically peripheral to the initial stages of the R econquista . In this article I argue that G alicia was a key marcher region in the ninth and tenth centuries, and that its magnate class, far from being marginal, was closely implicated in the rudimentary political structures of the kingdom. I propose that documents which seem to disclose little more than idealized abstractions of the political relationships between A stur‐ L eonese kings and G alician magnates reveal aspects of elite political practice in action.