I first heard of the project that resulted in the publication of León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I more than five years ago. Bernard Reilly had long been planning to write a history of the reign of Sancha and Fernando; he remarked on the need for the project all the way back in 1988, in his study of the royal couple’s son, Alfonso VI, and again a decade later in his study of the reign of Alfonso VII. [1] In these notes, apparently as much to himself as to his readers, Reilly noted the scholarly progress that made the intended project more tenable and more necessary--increasing numbers of published cartularies and collections of cathedral archives, and the ever-growing historiographical chasm between the decades-old Spanish-language studies of the period and the state of the field of medieval Iberian studies, already burgeoning when Reilly was one of its emerging anglophone exponents. Even so, the project developed slowly, though the years continued to pass. Already well into his ninth decade, Reilly decided his long gestating, but still quite unfinished project would be better off in younger hands, and he entrusted it to Simon Doubleday to complete. Though Reilly, who died in December of 2021, did not live to see the finished book, there is little doubt that he would have been quite satisfied.
León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I is very much the “adequate history” of the reign that Reilly envisioned. As with Reilly’s other reign-studies, the new book takes its reader on a chronological tour of the reign of its royal subjects, pausing along the way to examine certain themes. The first chapter, “Contours,” considers the political and, especially, geographic context of the period, emphasizing the distinctive characteristics of three “ecosystems” of northwest Iberia: Asturias and the land north of the Cantabrian Mountains, Galicia and what would eventually become northern Portugal, and the meseta of León and Castile. Reflecting Reilly’s instinct that Galicia and Portugal played a far more important role in the reign of Sancha and Fernando than has been traditionally appreciated, Doubleday explains the choice of the composite “León and Galicia,” pointing out a distinct lack of consistency in the contemporary labelling of the realm. The careful geographic considerations of this chapter also introduce one of the book’s most welcome interventions--numerous maps (created by John Wyatt Greenlee) free of the solid borders which modern convention often imposes on a past. In reality such definitive frontiers were more the exception than the rule.
The following, mostly chronological, chapters 2 and 3, highlight the book’s reliance on charter evidence, so central to Reilly’s methodology, and so vital to the study of the era. The difficulty of using these sources--many of which do not survive as original copies, but rather as later copies and in cartularies, into which it was far too easy and attractive for people to insert later interpolations and outright forgeries--is made clear in the careful reconstruction of surprisingly ambiguous topics. For example, the process by and degree to which Sancho III (Fernando’s father) managed to wrest the Kingdom of León from Vermudo III (Sancha’s brother) is remarkably difficult to trace in the surviving diplomatic evidence, and even as central a topic as the marriage of the two royal offspring is difficult to pin down within a three-year range.
The middle of the book is composed of thematic chapters highlighting the monarchy’s relationship to the secular nobility (chapter 4) and the church (chapter 5). Chapter 4 attempts successfully to understand the reign of Fernando and Sancha in light of the plethora of research demonstrating the corporate nature of medieval monarchy. The role of royal women is particularly emphasized, both because Queen Sancha was the natural heir to the throne of León and the foundation of her husband’s (and dynasty’s) legitimacy, and because medieval Iberian history in particular has benefited from a wellspring of scholarship on the topic. The authors also emphasize the centrality of personal relationships to royal authority and argue against any tendency to see in eleventh century León-Galicia any nascent state formation, which “was a change that took place in the late thirteenth century” (2). Chapter 5 focuses on the strong relationship between the monarchy and the monasteries, particularly the favorite royal residence, Sahagún. Here the authors offer a corrective to the traditional view that the patronage of Cluny began in earnest under Fernando, arguing instead that there is scant evidence for any such relationship until the reign of his son, Alfonso VI. The chapter also traces the “delicate” relations with Bishop Cresconio of Iria-Compostela, the “most important source of tension in León and Galicia during the mid-eleventh century” (153).
The remaining chapters return to the chronological progression of Sancha and Fernando’s reign. Chapter 6 takes up the theme of the “soft power” (95) of artistic and cultural patronage, especially the numerous illuminated manuscripts associated with the royal couple (and especially the queen herself). The chapter also covers expressions of hard power, including the fratricidal battle of Atapuerca in 1054 that left Fernando and his realm in a rather powerful position, though not one of imperial hegemony, as later reputation would have it. Chapter 7 goes further in tempering the image of Fernando standing astride the Iberian Peninsula, arguing that the contemporary evidence for the extensive parias tribute which later chroniclers insisted he could extract from his Andalusi neighbors is quite thin. Rather than extracting imperial tribute, or even an elaborate protection racket system, it would seem that Fernando continued to intervene in the affairs of his Muslim neighbors as a paid ally, but perhaps not much more. Indeed, nearly all the king’s expansionary efforts were made along his western frontier in Portugal, where the conflict between the taʿifa kingdoms of Sevilla and Badajoz created an opportunity for expansion. This would culminate in 1064 with the capture of Coimbra, a victory achieved very much with the collaboration of the local Mozarab community. Chapter 7 also narrates another of the royal couple’s great victories: the translation of the bones of Saint Isidore from Sevilla to León. While traditionally cast as a product of the tribute which an imperial Fernando could extract from al-Andalus, the authors emphasize the role of Queen Sancha in initiating the project and the cooperation of the al-Muʿtamid of Sevilla. Moreover, it is insightfully argued, the symbolism was part of an effort to relocate the Visigothic legacy to León, rather than part of a project to restore Christian hegemony over the whole of Iberia.
The book narrates the end of the reign, and the failure of the royal couple’s dynastic strategy, with the same cautious revisionism. The decision to divide the realm between the three brothers, Sancho, Alfonso, and García, is presented not as an inherited necessity, but rather a pragmatic arrangement “to ensure family control in a way that placated all three brothers and other powerful figures” (129). In the end the scheme was a failure, and the fratricidal tendencies of Fernando’s own reign continued into those of his sons. The Epilogue reiterates that it was to the reign of the sons, in particular Alfonso VI, that many of the traditional characteristics attributed to the reign of Sancha and Fernando belong: the growing relationship with Cluny, the expansion of tribute extracted from the taʿifas, and the hardening of relations between the Christian north and the Islamic south.
Overall, then, the book is a success and indeed fits well into the collection of Reilly's earlier studies of the reigns of Urraca, Alfonso VI, and Alfonso VII. Doubleday has done an admirable and important job guiding the book to completion and ensuring that it is in conversation with the most important historiographical trends in the field.A number of the editorial choices, from the borderless maps to the consistent avoidance of anglicized place and personal names, are very welcome. As always, one can find points of criticism. León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I lacks the kind of “appraisal of the reign” conclusion which one finds in its older half-siblings. The book has, naturally, very extensive endnotes, but no bibliography whatsoever! No doubt this is a decision of the publisher, which is disheartening; the University of Pennsylvania Press has long maintained a prestigious place in the world of medieval scholarship, but these kinds of cost-cutting decisions, which make the book less useful for other scholars, endanger that reputation. But despite this surprising omission, I heartily endorse a book that brings long-needed precision and detail to a tremendously important period of Iberian history.
--------
Note:
1. Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065-1109 (Princeton University Press, 1988), 8; The Kingdom of León-Castilla Under King Alfonso VII (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 3n3.