• The Good Noblemen Who Conquered the Kingdom: Islam, Historiography, and Aristocratic Legitimation in Late- Medieval Portugal

    Author(s):
    Tiago Queimada e Silva (see profile)
    Date:
    2022
    Group(s):
    Cultural Studies, History, Late Medieval History, Medieval Studies
    Subject(s):
    Middle Ages
    Item Type:
    Book
    Tag(s):
    medieval, late medieval, Portugal, Medieval Portugal, genealogy, Medieval chronicles, medieval iberian, Medieval Iberian Literature, historiography, islam
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/0wqz-c385
    Abstract:
    This dissertation deals with aristocratic historiography and political legitimation in late-medieval Portugal (late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). It offers a perspective into the historical imaginary of the late-medieval Portuguese aristocracy; an imaginary that underlay the argumentation of members of this social class in defence of their traditional rights and jurisdictions against political centralisation. It examines how the medieval Portuguese aristocracy utilized memories of past interactions with Islam to justify its privileged social status and defend its traditional prerogatives at a time when this social group opposed the royalist policy of political centralization. This research is included into wider debates on the role of culture — in this case, historical culture — as a resource to justify, reinforce, reproduce, and transform an existing social order. When confronting royalty over the ongoing process of monarchical centralisation, the Portuguese aristocracy invoked the war against Islam as the primary argument for its social prominence and the source of its class privileges. The sources studied in this thesis were part of the aristocracy’s political legitimation discourse. They provided the nobility with an indispensable social role for the equilibrium of an idealised social order, while reality was ridden with contradictions and in rapid transformation.
    Notes:
    The uploaded document only has the introduction to the dissertation. The individual articles are only extant in the printed version. If interested, contact the author for a copy.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book     Show details
    Publisher:
    University of Turku
    Pub. Date:
    November 2022
    ISBN:
    9789512990580
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 months ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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