A History of Medieval Spain

This book is a comprehensive narrative history based on an impressively wide reading in the sources and secondary literature. It should prove useful to teachers, students, and general readers in European history.... Soundly traditional in its organization, it gives primacy to political events without neglecting institutional, social, and cultural matters.―American Historical Review

Illustrations, genealogical charts, maps, and an extensive bibliography round out a book that will be welcomed by scholars and students of Spanish and Portuguese history and literature, as well as by medievalists, as the fullest account to date of Spanish history in the Middle Ages.

Medieval Spain is brilliantly recreated, in all its variety and richness, in this comprehensive survey. Likely to become the standard work in English, the book treats the entire Iberian Peninsula and all the people who inhabited it, from the coming of the Visigoths in the fifth century to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Integrating a wealth of information about the diverse peoples, institutions, religions, and customs that flourished in the states that are now Spain and Portugal, Joseph F. O'Callaghan focuses on the continuing attempts to impose political unity on the peninsula.

O'Callaghan divides his story into five compact historical periods and discusses political, social, economic, and cultural developments in each period. By treating states together, he is able to put into proper perspective the relationships among them, their similarities and differences, and the continuity of development from one period to the next. He gives proper attention to Spain's contacts with the rest of the medieval world, but his main concern is with the events and institutions on the peninsula itself.

Joseph F. O'Callaghan is Professor Emeritus of History at Fordham University. He is a past president of the American Catholic Historical Association and the Academy of American Historians of Medieval Spain.

This book is a comprehensive narrative history based on an impressively wide reading in the sources and secondary literature. It should prove useful to teachers, students, and general readers in European history.... Soundly traditional in its organization, it gives primacy to political events without neglecting institutional, social, and cultural matters.

There is no existing substitute for this volume in English for the undergraduate or graduate student seeking a reliable orientation to medieval peninsular history.

O'Callaghan's A History of Medieval Spain is indispensable to the medievalist and to the Latin-Americanist alike. It is encyclopedic in nature, making it a valuable reference tool.... On the whole, it represents considerable familiarity with the sources of information and learned condensation of that material. The chapters on society, economy, and culture give the reader a wider view than a skeletal political history of medieval Spain.

Joseph O'Callaghan has now given us, for the first time, a solid and in-depth survey in English on the peninsular kingdoms, drawing together the myriad recent contributions, with the expertise of a recognized scholar in the field and the practicality of a long-time teacher of the topic.... Competence, thorough inclusiveness, clear organization, and solidity are the qualifiers which best sum O’Callaghan’s accomplishment.

Joseph F. O'Callaghan has met a major, long-felt need with a clearly written, balanced, thorough survey that belongs in every history collection. His Spain is the entire peninsula—Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Portuguese, and Catalonian as well as Castilian. A substantial political narrative is followed by chapters on government, social and economic developments, and religion and culture. The author even-handedly represents the major sides in disputed issues, for his aim is to present the current state of scholarship in a simple narrative form. He has succeeded admirably.