EAA2021: Abstract

Traditional historiography has considered the castles situated along the river Segre, in its middle section (northeast of the Iberian Peninsula), as "husun", fortresses from Al-Andalus, built in the context of a castle building programme promoted either by the State or by the muladi family of Banû Qasí, former Christians, throughout the 9th and 10th centuries. These castles were assumed to be part of the defence system of Al-Andalus set in front of the territories of the Christian counties. Nonetheless, the concept of “frontier” has been revised as a moving and dynamic space, where the Catalan counties and the Caliphate of Cordova were able to impose their authority, although in an unstable way. So, these castles were occupied and transformed after the feudal conquest of this area by the counts of Barcelona and Urgell. In the feudal written records, they appear as "castri" and some of them were linked to settlements and means of production, such as mills or irrigated systems, that evolved to permanent settlements. Most of them have endured until the present day.

Without setting aside the military role they played in the frontier, these fortifications developed into a network of castles with no jurisdictional gaps between them created by feudal lords. Castles served as centres of management and control of the population, which transformed the rural landscape. Through the archaeological and historical study of these buildings and their construction materials, as well as the study of their landscapes and their productive spaces, we aim to define their chronology, military function in the frontier, and their role in the colonisation process and control of the land’s population after the feudal conquest.

Castles, Medieval, Landscape Archaeology, Archaeology of Buildings

 Abstract (PDF)

Ariadna Closa Ribera¹