Battle in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula: 11th to 13th century Castile-Leon. State of the art

Abstract

Since the 19th century, the analysis of planning and execution of battles, tactics and strategies in Castile-Leon during the High Middle Ages had been in the hands of professional militia and was strongly influenced by positivist assumptions. Starting in the 1970s, the gradual extension of major historiographical currents —mainly Annales and Marxism— which were highly focused on socio-economic aspects, at Spanish universities, along with certain political prejudices existing at that time, kept these topics on the periphery of professional medievalism interests. Only starting in the mid-’90s would a renewal in these fields begin to come about, with influences from English-speaking and French historiography, which has made it possible to bring this subject into the academic mainstream at the present time.