Asturian Kingdom

[EN] The ninth-century chroniclers working for the Asturian King Alfonso III clearly considered Alfonso I a pivotal figure of their eighth-century past. A detailed analysis of the role Alfonso I plays in those narratives, combined with other evidence shows that his figure was largely made up, either from scratch or by displacing onto him features that actually belonged to other, relatively obliterated figures. Alfonso I thus became a discourse node, both in the genealogical equipment of Alfonso III and in the wholesale revisión of the Asturian origins that he effected, and whose paramount aspect was the creation of a new historical identity based upon the strengthening of all sort of links with the distant Visigothic monarchy.

El presente artículo pretende analizar la ideología del bisecular Reino de Asturias a través del corpus documental que constituyen las crónicas del Ciclo de Alfonso III, tal vez uno de los relatos más ideologizados del medievo español. Para ello se recurre a la novedosa aplicación de criterios estadísticos a los textos, interpretando a continuación los resultados; así como se analizan las imágenes tomadas de la mentalidad del momento para la elaboración de dicho discurso ideológico.


This article aims to analyze the ideology of the Kingdom of Asturias through the corpus of documents that constitute the chronic Cycle of Alfonso III, perhaps one of the most ideological of Spanish Middle Ages. This is done though the certainly new application of statistical approaches to text, then interpreting the results, and analyzing the images taken from the mentality of the time for the elaboration of this ideological discourse.

A partir de la segunda mitad del siglo VI, merovingios y visigodos(sustituidos durante el s. VIII por carolingios, asturianos y musulmanes), en sus intentos por controlar el entorno circumpirenaico occidental, tuvieron que hacer frente a la resistencia y a los constantes ataques protagonizados por sus habitantes, a quienes llaman Vascones, así como a los duques de Aquitania que se oponían a la política centralizadora de los monarcas francos. En dicho contexto bélico fueron frecuentes las alianzas militares, la toma de prisioneros de guerra y la entrega de rehenes como aval de múltipletratados. No obstante, no será hasta el s. VIII cuando las fuentes mencionen explícitamente la presencia de mujeres entre éstos, casi todas ellas de estirpe noble y de origen aquitano-vascón, vinculadas de alguna u otra manera a dichos conflictos y trámites diplomáticos. En este artículo se pretende analizar, en un periodo que va desde el siglo VIII hasta la muerte del emperador Ludovico Pío en el 840, los distintos casos en donde estas mujeres fueron víctimas de operaciones militares y/o parte indisoluble de negociaciones de carácter marcial, orientadas generalmente a forjar alianzas o al cese de hostilidades.


After the second half of the 6th century, Merovingians and Visigoths
(replaced during the 8th century by Carolingians, Asturians and Muslims), had to face the resistance and constant attacks carried out by local inhabitants, whom they called Vascones, in their attempts to control the western surroundings of the Pyrenees, as well as the dukes of Aquitaine that were opposed to the centralizing politics of Frankish monarchs. Military alliances, the taking of prisoners of war and the delivery of hostages as endorsements of multiple treaties were frequent in such an atmosphere of war. However, it will not be up until the 8th century that written sources explicitly mention the presence of women in this context, most of them of a noble and a basque-aquitanian origin, related in some way or another to those conflicts and diplomatic agreements. It is the intention of this article to analyse, within the time period from the 8th century until the passing of Louis the Pious in the year 840, the different cases in which these women were victims of military operations and essential elements in negotiations of a military nature, generally aimed towards the forge of military allegiances or in order to cessation of hostilities.

El Reino de Asturias surgido tras la invasión musulmana desarrollará un discurso ideológico legitimador en el que la “continuidad” jugaba un papel fundamental. Continuidad tanto con el ideal hispanogodo perdido como con la propia línea dinástica. Entre los elementos que tendrían gran relevancia en la visión política y la construcción ideológica del naciente reino, destaca el diseño de una memoria regia a través del uso de los espacios de enterramiento reales como instrumento propagandístico de estabilidad del linaje y continuismo legitimador. La construcción de de un panteón regio en cronologías bien tempranas contribuye a cristalizar la idea de un “linaje” o “dinastía regia” consciente, estable y con vocación de perpetuidad. Esto hace del panteón un depósito material de la legitimidad astur y verdadero monumento al linaje; fijándose en su plasmación arquitectónica modelos de conducta entre la casta regia y hasta tipologías artísticas que perdurarían, repitiéndose más adelante y asociándose en la mentalidad a estructuras de memoria funeraria y sobreviviendo incluso al traslado de la corte (que obligaría a erigir nuevos panteones) y hasta al acceso al trono de nuevos linajes.

The Kingdom of Asturias founded after the Muslim invasion developed a legitimizing ideological discourse in which “continuity” played a fundamental role. Continuity both with the lost Hispano-Goth ideal and with the dynastic line itself. Among the elements that would play an important role in the political vision and ideological construction of the fledgling kingdom is the design of a royal memory through the use of royal burial spaces as a propagandistic instrument for maintaining the stability of the lineage and for legitimising continuism. Constructing a royal pantheon dating back to early times contributes towards crystallising the idea of a “lineage” or “royal dynasty” that was conscious, stable and enduring. This makes the pantheon a material deposit of Astur legitimacy and a true monument to the lineage. The article focuses on architectural styles, models of behaviour for royalty and even types of art that would endure, subsequently repeating themselves and associating themselves in people’s minds with funerary memorial buildings, even surviving the court’s change of location (which would mean new pantheons had to be built) and the occupation of the throne by new dynasties.

This article summarizes the main results obtained by means of the stratigraphical study of the Asturian church of San Salvador of Priesca (Villaviciosa, Asturias). After reviewing that historiography related to its study, it is clear the necessity of establishing the main features of the original Project in order to compare it with the rest of the early medieval churches of the Asturian Kingdom

The origins of medieval rural settlement and territories have been studied from various methods and points of view. The classic theories emphasize the continuity from the Roman large states or else the breakdown, as well as the stress on the agrarian growth or the feudal mutation in the High Medieval Age. New perspectives on the socioecomic changes during the final of the Roman period allow us to explain the origin of the medieval rural settlements, modifying the classical breadkdown theory. In fact, the great aristocratic property and its exploitation by means of servile work survived along the Late Antiquity and was the model of feudal exploitation par excellence. Beside the kings and landlords was also significant in the Early Medieval Ages the Christian aristocracy (bishops and family monasteries). So, some ‘villas’ survived turned into aristocratic manors o family monasteries. On the other hand, the crisis of the state, fiscal and commercial system involved also the fragmentation and the diversification in the model of settlements, alowing the origin of autonomous peasant sites or villages, ‘aldeas’, that leaded the agrarian growth before the feudal conquest installed new models of economic, territorial and fiscal organization

Se presentan los resultados de la intervención arqueológica realizada en la vega de Corao, en Cangas de Onís (Asturias), donde se han identificado estructuras de hábitat en llano con evidencias de ocupación altomedieval.
Además de constituir el primer asentamiento aldeano en llano documentado arqueológicamente en Asturias, la trascendencia del lugar radica en su ubicación y asociación al área cántabro-vadiniense donde surge la primera sede de la monarquía astur, ofreciendo algunas respuestas a los interrogantes tradicionales sobre la caracterización del poblamiento y la sociedad astur-cántabra de los últimos tiempos