%0 Journal Article
%A Connie L. Scarborough
%D 2025
%C Berlin, Germany
%I Peter Lang Verlag
%J Mediaevistik
%@ 2199-806X
%N 1
%V 37
%T Bernard F. Reilly, and Simon R. Doubleday, León and Galicia under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024. 233 p., 14 ill., 5 maps.
%R 10.3726/med.2024.01.59
%U https://www.peterlang.com/document/1672644
%X Before his death in 2021, Bernard Reilly was preparing a book originally entitled Fernando I and the Resurgence of Christian Iberia, 1037–65. Simon Doubleday had completed that project and changed the title to reflect the important role that Fernando’s wife, Sancha, played in the political, legal, and territorial aspects of their rule in León and Galicia between 1038 and 1065. The book begins with a prologue in which Doubleday points out the pioneering efforts of Reilly to study the history of Spain in the eleventh and first half of the twelfth centuries. Beginning with archival investigation in 1964, Reilly set out, primarily focusing on charters, to reconstruct an era that had previously had little, serious historical investigation. To complete Reilly’s final book project, Doubleday maintains Reilly’s basic premise that Fernando was primarily concerned with affairs in northwest Iberia and presents him as a traditional Asturian-Leonese king. He also follows Reilly’s conclusion regarding the relative lack of crusading sentiments during the reign of Fernanda and Sancha. While refocusing some of Reilly’s initial points, he maintains the thesis that the relationship between the Leonese monarchs and Muslim kingdoms to the south and east was a complex one, at times, hostile, but, at others, cooperative – a fact that led Doubleday to remove the idea of “Christian resurgence” from Reilly’s original title. Doubleday emphasizes that far from the concept of Fernando and Sancha as representatives of centralized authority, power during their reign was what he terms a cooperative and collective enterprise, with women playing important roles within a network of shared powers.
%K bernard, reilly, simon, doubleday, león, galicia, queen, sancha, king, fernando, middle, ages, series, philadelphia, university, pennsylvania, press