A fresh historical and archaeological approach to examination of the societies of medieval Iberia.
Frontiers were an integral feature of every medieval polity, and their spaces were defined by opposing spheres of influence, contact and connectivity. As these polities expanded and contracted, often as a result of military conquest and territorial annexation, their permeable edges became defined by transformative cultural landscapes. Here, the encounters between native or resident and incoming populations, from small elite groups through to larger numbers of migrants from diverse social backgrounds, resulted in varying degrees of cultural hybridity. This came to define frontier societies, and left an enduring impact even as borderlands continued to move. They also saw the reconfiguration of political, economic and religious landscapes as frontier authorities invested in both old and new centers, with varying degrees of continuity. Today, the remains of their fortified residences represent the most striking monuments associated with former frontiers. They remain at the center of public narratives regarding state formation and cultural conflict.
Adopting the definition of frontiers as both the spaces at the edges of polities and the composite societies resulting from their territorial expansion, this book presents a multi-disciplinary study of their dynamics. Focusing on the western Mediterranean, it draws on case studies of cultural landscapes shaped by two contrasting periods of conquest, regime change and state formation: the Castilian and Aragonese conquests of al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia) and the French annexation of Occitania following the Albigensian Crusade. Integrating perspectives from settlement and landscape archaeology, geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, archaeometallurgy and isotopic analyses, this book provides a new framework for the study of the transformative spaces of medieval frontier societies.
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1) Frontier Societies in the Medieval Mediterranean: Historical Framework and Concepts
Guillermo García-Contreras, Michelle Alexander and Aleks Pluskowski
2) Studying Frontier Societies: Theory, Scales, Methods and Chronology
Aleks Pluskowski, Guillermo García-Contreras, Michelle Alexander
PART 2: IBERIA
3) Sites in Iberia: The Historical and Archaeological Data
Guillermo García-Contreras, Luca Mattei and Aleks Pluskowski
4) The Cultural Landscapes of Medieval Iberian Frontiers
Luca Mattei and Guillermo García-Contreras
5) Landuse in Medieval Iberian Frontier Societies
Rowena Banerjea, Luca Mattei, Lionello Morandi, Alex Brown, Aleks Pluskowski
6) Geoarchaeological Perspectives on Medieval Iberian Castles
Rowena Banerjea
7) Plant Consumption and Frontier Dynamics in Late Medieval Iberia
Jérôme Ros
8) The Zooarchaeology of Frontiers in Medieval Iberia
Marcos García García
9) Diet, Husbandry and Mobility in Medieval Iberia: Isotopic Perspectives
Michelle Alexander and Marcos García García
10) The Use and Exploitation of Metal After the Christian Conquests in Iberia
Yaiza Hernandez
11) Mortars and Building Materials in Medieval Iberian Frontiers
Kevin Hayward
12) The Conquest of Western Catalonia
Helena Kirchner, Antoni Virgili and Jesús Brufal
PART 3: OCCITANIA
13) Sites in Occitania: The Historical and Archaeological Data
Carole Puig and Aleks Pluskowski
14) The Cultural Landscapes of the Medieval Occitan Frontier
Carole Puig (et al)
15) Landuse in the Medieval Occitan Frontier
Jean-Michel Carozza, Aleks Brown, Carole Puig, Aleks Pluskowski
16) The Zooarchaeology of the French Conquest of Occitania
Audrey Roussel and Dianne Unsain
17) Plant Consumption and Cultural Change in Medieval Occitania
Jérôme Ros
PART 4: SYNTHESIS
18) Impacts of Conquest, Regime Change and Migration in Medieval Iberia and Occitania
Aleks Pluskowski, Michelle Alexander, Guillermo García-Contreras
Aleks Pluskowski is Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Reading, UK. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2003. His main research interests include environmental archaeology, frontier societies and religious transformation in medieval Europe.
Guillermo García-Contreras is Profesor Contratado Doctor Indefinido at the University of Granada. He completed his PhD at Granada in 2013. His main research interests include the archaeology of al-Andalus, feudalism in Iberia and cultural landscapes.
Michelle Alexander is Professor of Bioarchaeology at the University of York. She completed her PhD at Durham University in 2010. Her main research interests include isotopic and biomolecular analyses, food culture and multi-faith and multicultural societies in the medieval Mediterranean.
