All quiet on the western front? Royal politics in G alicia from c. 800 to c. 950

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.