Frontera y Estado feudal en Aragón y Cataluña durante el siglo XII

Abstract

The main hypothesis of this paper states that the frontier does not constitute a structural feature of the Iberian societies in the twelfth century. Conversely, it results from a time-limited process, and thereby traditional ideas according to which the frontier was a physical and social space where a particular society was created and long-term cultural exchanges took place are wrong and based on a historiographical assumption rather than verified evidence. This work develops the argument that growing feudal states could not tolerate fluid and extended borders in social and temporal terms. This was the case in the Ebro Valley and its Iberian edges. Between 1080 and 1130, the conquest destroys the foundations of the taifa sultanates, and disrupts the Andalusian society. Thereupon, between 1150 and 1190, the Catalanaragonese sovereigns impose in border territories, and their aristocratic competitors miss the opportunity to begin the thirteenth century consolidating big autonomous or semiautonomous domains, with the relative exception of Albarracin. This paper studies the way in which this entrenchment of the Catalan-aragonese state took place and impeded the consolidation of a "border society".