EAA2021: Abstract

For hundreds of years, the wars between the Christians and Muslims first, and between the Christian kingdoms later, encouraged the construction of defensive architectures in the valley of the Ebro River and its tributaries, which was known as the Northern Frontier. For this reason, the current Autonomous Community of La Rioja has the highest number of castles per inhabitant in the country, although, unfortunately, many of them are in a dilapidated state.
The objective of this proposal is to analyze the different types of castles that exists in the area, their current state and the restorations that have been carried out in some of them, paying special attention to the Fort-Towers, the most common type in La Rioja, but very unusual in the rest of the country. The actions that have been carried out and the new materials and techniques with which they have been counted will be discussed in order to better understand the history of these castles, demystify and analysing the idiosyncrasy of their construction, value the efforts to rehabilitate them and disseminate to the entire population the new story they offer us. The Fort-Towers represented a change in the mental paradigm of people from the 14th to the 16th centuries, going from a purely defensive mentality for defensive architectures, to a structure that seeks social, economic, administrative, judicial, military, and legislative control and mental of the people that the Lord controls. As there are no monographic studies in this regard in La Rioja and the existing general studies being outdated, an in-depth study and a new point of view in regional castellological studies is necessary.

Castles, architecture, rehabilitations, rewriting history, dissemination, Middle Ages

 Abstract (PDF)

Isaac Martínez Espinosa¹