Frontière et marche, société et noblesse de frontière en péninsule Ibérique

The aim of this paper is to lay down the semantic and conceptual frameworks of “frontier nobility”. First, starting from the frontera, which had appeared in the Aragonese sources in the middle of the 11th century to refer to a zone of contact between Christians and Muslims, a space born out of the Reconquista movement, coveted by men in search of land, fortune and freedom. Then, looking into the “frontier societies”, which were violent, marginal, and specific to the frontier space. Finally, tryning to draw the outlines of a “frontier nobility”, with multiple faces, but always eminently warlike and ambitious, able to get profit out of its situation, in phases of expansion (11th-13th c.) as of stagnation (14th-15th c.) of the frontier