The Appearance of the Frontier Concept in the Iberian Peninsula: at the Crossroads of Local, National and Pontifical Strategies (11 th -13 th Centuries)

International audienceThe twelfth-century Iberian Peninsula represents an excellent opportunity for studying the frontier phenomenon because of the presence of two different social and economic systems with their own specific ways of controlling people and lands. These two large ensembles were politically divided into smaller polities: a number of Christian kingdoms to the north, while in Muslim al-Andalus recurring episodes of territorial fragmentation had led to independent principalities centered on large cities. The frontier’s unstable character itself led to permanent readjustments during a time of renewal for political thought in the Latin West, and the Iberian Peninsula was at the forefront in these changes. The Peninsula was a place of social and institutional innovations that answered the numerous problems arising from a context of fervent competition between Christian polities, almost permanent conflict (except during truces) with al-Andalus, demographic growth and efforts to colonize new lands. The Iberian Christian kingdoms in general and those along the frontier in particular were privileged destinations for many clerics and peasant farmers from France. This demographic growth led to a densification of existing settlements through urban growth or rural colonization, as well as the conquest of new territories at the expense of neighbors both Muslim and Christian