Local meetings and meeting places in early medieval León

Abstract

This article explores the written evidence for local meetings and meeting places in early medieval León between the tenth and early eleventh centuries. It considers the functions of local meetings, as well as the role they played in the negotiation of social relations within the localities. The analysis of meeting places – among which churches feature prominently in the record – provides further insight into the ways in which links between the localities and the overarching social and political framework developed, and reveals the different forces that could lead to the institutionalization of local meetings.

Assessing place‐based identities in the early Middle Ages: a proposal for post‐Roman Iberia

“…80 The material expression of these spaces of social interaction are extremely evasive, but local churches acted as common places for these types of local meetings in later centuries. 81 But in Domingo García (Segovia) we know of a site were assemblies were called, as evidenced by the repeated use of the place, including the carving of glyphs on rocks. 82 These conventūs highlight both the political involvement of rural communities (comparable, at a different scale, with municipal administration) and the existence of performative spaces within a community's territory, in which place-based identities were constructed and opposed.…”