Simon R. Doubleday's Books

The Lara Family

crown and nobility in medieval Spain

By: Simon R. DOUBLEDAY,Simon R Doubleday

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The Lara Family

crown and nobility in medieval Spain

By: Simon R. DOUBLEDAY,Simon R Doubleday

For much of the Middle Ages, the Lara family was among the most powerful aristocratic lineages in Spain. Proteges of the monarchy at the time of El Cid, their influence reached extraordinary heights during the struggle against the Moors. Hand-in-glove with successive kings, they gathered an impressive array of military and political positions across the Iberian Peninsula. But cooperation gave way to confrontation, as the family was pitted against the crown in a series of civil wars. This book, the first modern study of the Laras, explores the causes of change in the dynamics of power, and narrates the dramatic story of the events that overtook the family. The Laras' militant quest for territorial strength and the conflict with the monarchy led toward a fatal end, but anticipated a form of aristocratic power that long outlived the family. The noble elite would come to dominate Spanish society in the coming centuries, and the Lara family provides important lessons for students of the history of nobility, monarchy, and power in the medieval and early modern world.

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Page Count

209

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674034295

ISBN 13

9780674034297

León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

By: Bernard F. Reilly,Simon R. Doubleday

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León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

By: Bernard F. Reilly,Simon R. Doubleday

Acclaimed historians Bernard F. Reilly and Simon R. Doubleday tell the story of the reign of Queen Sancha and King Fernando I, who together ruled the territories of León and Galicia between 1038 and 1065—often regarded as a period in which Christian kings and their vassals asserted themselves more successfully in the face of external rivals, both Viking and Muslim. The reality was more complex. The Iberian Peninsula remained a space of multiple, intertwined forms of power and surprisingly nuanced relationships between—and among—the diverse configurations of Christian and Muslim authority. Some of these complexities would be obscured by later generations of medieval chroniclers, whose narratives focused on the singular authority of the king and expressed a more binary view of interreligious relations. Through their account of the key events and turning points of Sancha and Fernando’s reign, Reilly and Doubleday propose a revised understanding of its political culture, offering a corrective to accounts that have emphasized a stark opposition between Christian and Muslim powers, a supposedly steady growth and centralization of royal government, and the individual figure of the monarch. Exploring the interplay of crown and elites, underscoring the role of royal women, and rejecting the Reconquista paradigm, León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I reenvisions medieval Iberia at a pivotal stage in European history.

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257

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1512824631

ISBN 13

9781512824636

The Wise King

A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance

By: Simon R. Doubleday

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The Wise King

A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance

By: Simon R. Doubleday

An illuminating biography of Alfonso X, the 13th-century philosopher-king whose affinity for Islamic culture left an indelible mark on Western civilization "If I had been present at the Creation," the thirteenth-century Spanish philosopher-king Alfonso X is said to have stated, "Many faults in the universe would have been avoided." Known as El Sabio, "the Wise," Alfonso was renowned by friends and enemies alike for his sparkling intellect and extraordinary cultural achievements. In The Wise King, celebrated historian Simon R. Doubleday traces the story of the king's life and times, leading us deep into his emotional world and showing how his intense admiration for Spain's rich Islamic culture paved the way for the European Renaissance. In 1252, when Alfonso replaced his more militaristic father on the throne of Castile and Leóthe battle to reconquer Muslim territory on the Iberian Peninsula was raging fiercely. But even as he led his Christian soldiers onto the battlefield, Alfonso was seduced by the glories of Muslim Spain. His engagement with the Arabic-speaking culture of the South shaped his pursuit of astronomy, for which he was famed for centuries, and his profoundly humane vision of the world, which Dante, Petrarch, and later Italian humanists would inherit. A composer of lyric verses, and patron of works on board games, hunting, and the properties of stones, Alfonso is best known today for his Cantigas de Santa Marí/i> (Songs of Holy Mary), which offer a remarkable window onto his world. His ongoing struggles as a king and as a man were distilled-in art, music, literature, and architecture-into something sublime that speaks to us powerfully across the centuries. An intimate biography of the Spanish ruler in whom two cultures converged, The Wise King introduces readers to a Renaissance man before his time, whose creative energy in the face of personal turmoil and existential threats to his kingdom would transform the course of Western history.

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337

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Basic Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0465073913

ISBN 13

9780465073917

The Wise King

A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance

By: Simon R. Doubleday

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The Wise King

A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth of the Renaissance

By: Simon R. Doubleday

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337

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Basic Books

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ISBN 10

0465073913

ISBN 13

9780465073917

León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

By: Bernard F. Reilly,Simon R. Doubleday

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León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

By: Bernard F. Reilly,Simon R. Doubleday

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Page Count

257

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1512824631

ISBN 13

9781512824636

Book's by Simon R. Doubleday

The Lara Family

The Lara Family

León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

The Wise King

The Wise King

The Wise King

The Wise King

León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

León and Galicia Under Queen Sancha and King Fernando I

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