2 research outputs found
The early Castilian peasantry: an archaeological turn?
[EN]Notions and interpretations of the peasantry of early medieval Castile evolved
significantly during the twentieth century, along the lines of major
historiographical changes. After a period largely dominated by the paradigm of
legal and institutional history, the incorporation of social and economic approaches
in the 1960s gave way to a significant increase in the volume of research and a
deeper understanding of the articulation of local communities within the broader
framework of early medieval Castilian society. This development was firmly
rooted in changing visions of settlement and territorial structures and strongly
biased towards social-political, rather than economic issues. This article aims to
argue that we are now in the initial phase of a major turn defined by the sudden
rise of the archaeology of early medieval peasant settlements. The combination of
material culture and environmental date recovered from those sites are quickly
forming a substantial body of fresh information to combine with a stable wellknown
documentary corpus. These changes are opening the gate to a new, exciting
horizon for research in this field, although they also pose a great challenge for both
historians and archaeologists, who will need to build a hybrid conceptual space
where the hitherto dominant textual information and methodologies can
accomodate the increasing impact of archaeology.The research for this article was supported by a Research Project funded by the Spanish Government’s Plan Nacional de I+D+i, ref. HUM2004–01812/HIST.Peer reviewe