Spain, Portugal and the Atlantic Frontier of Medieval Europe (The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000-1500)

As seen from the perspective of 1492, the medieval expansion of Latin Europe was nowhere as dramatic or enduring as in the Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic. Its Christian kingdoms continued their advance against Al-Andalus up to 1492, whereas territorial expansion elsewhere against the Muslim world had either ceased or subsided by the late 13th century. Castile and Portugal also transformed the Atlantic Ocean from the inaccessible dead-end of Eurasia into the most promising avenue for European expansion for the first time in history. The articles collected in this volume explore the causes and the nature of this expansion, from a variety of historical traditions. They investigate the extent to which the 'transference' of Mediterranean traditions aided this process; the characteristics of Iberian conflict that eventually led to the success of its Christian kingdoms; and the motives for launching, and techniques for running, the first European 'overseas empires' in the unfolding Atlantic frontier. In the process they illuminate the new identities and cultural interactions that this expansion produced in its wake, while the new introduction sets them in the broader context Half Title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements General Editors' Preface Introduction Bibliography PART ONE – THE BACKGROUND 1 The Expedition of the Brothers Vivaldi: New Archival Evidence 2 The Role of the Italian Merchant Class in Renaissance and Discoveries 3 The Origins of the European Atlantic PART TWO – PENINSULAR RECONQUESTS 4 The Survival of a Notion of Reconquista in Late Tenth- and Eleventh-Century León 5 Reconquest and Crusade in Spain c. 1050–1150 6 The Frontier and Castilian Liberties 7 Trading with the 'Other': Economic Exchanges between Muslims, Jews and Christians in Late Medieval Northern Castile 8 From the Reconquista to Portugal lslâmico: Islamic Heritage in the Shifting Discourses of Portuguese Historiography and National Identity 9 The Reconquest as Crusade in the Anonymous De expugnatione Lyxbonensi PART THREE – THE CASTILIAN OCEAN 10 The Atlantic Islands and the Development of Southern Castile at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century 11 Castile, Portugal and the Canary Islands: Claims and Counterclaims, 1344–1479 12 An Ecohistory of the Canary Islands: A Precursor of European Colonialization in the New World and Australasia PART FOUR – THE PORTUGUESE OCEAN 13 White Kings on Black Kings: Rui de Pina and the Problem of Black African Sovereignty 14 Prince Henry the Navigator: The Rise and Fall of a Culture Hero 15 Before Columbus: Portugal's African Prelude to the Middle Passage and Contribution to Discourse on Race and Slavery 16 Slavery and Slaving in the Portuguese Atlantic (to about 1500) 17 Feudal and Demesnial Forms of Portuguese Colonization in the Atlantic Zone in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Especially under Henry the Navigator 18 The Settlement of Madeira and the Sugar Cane Plantations 19 How the South was Won – and How Portuguese Discovery Began Index