Until quite recently, historians interested in an integrated treatment in English of the Spanish states during the middle ages were required to read the badly dated first volume of Merriman’s Spanish Empire. Matters have been substantially improved with the publication of two excellent surveys of medieval Iberia, Joseph O’Callaghan’s History of Medieval Spain and J. N. Hillgarth’s The Spanish Kingdoms. O’Callaghan’s emphasis is Castile, centerism and institutional history. Hillgarth takes a dramatically different approach for the period 1250-1516, to be covered in two volumes. The first of these volumes, entitled Precarious Balance, covers 1250-1410. It follows a separatist path with a particularly rich cultural orientation.
In his first chapter, Hillgarth contrasts the sources for a contemporary thirteenth-century sense of Hispanic unity in the peninsular as against their own sense of their diversity. He concludes that regional distinctions are the important ones for securing a clear insight into medieval peninsular evolution. There follows an examination of social and economic institutions, including some interesting recreations of city life and urban-rural contrasts. Emphasis is placed upon the major Catalan cities, Barcelona and Valencia especially. Upland Aragon tends to be grouped with Castile and is underdeveloped in the work. Two excellent chapters on the medieval Spanish church follow, with regional variations in ecclesiastical independence and prosperity being clearly delineated. The interrelationship of the three great religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) in the Peninsula is particularly well done. Here literary, artistic and architectural evidence is assembled to examine the differing impact of the great resident minorities upon Castile and Aragon. This social, economic and religious background is then summed up by presenting four illustrative personalities: Ramón Lull, Alfonso X, Don Juan Manuel and the Archpriest of Hita. Much of this cultural background might have been enlivened by plates, unfortunately lacking here.
The last two parts covering six chapters deal with the political and international evolution of Castile and Aragon in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By and large these chapters are clear and utilize the earlier background material effectively to round out Peninsular evolution. Aragon, and particularly Catalonia, are rather more carefully covered than Castile. Modern works of synthesis are lacking for Castile, and this is reflected in Hillgarth’s somewhat thinner account. Notable here are his doubts concerning any organized imperial interpretation of Catalan Mediterranean expansion in the period, along with an enlightening calculation of what the cost of that Mediterranean focus might have been in the loss of potential Atlantic momentum for Aragon-Catalonia. There is also a much-needed reassessment of the reign of Pedro the Cruel.
Hillgarth acknowledges in his preface a debt to Américo Castro. Certainly Precarious Balance is a good example of the exploitation of literary sources for the writing of history which Castro sought. In my view, Hillgarth succeeds better than Castro ever did. Hillgarth is not tied solely to literary resources, has a sturdy grasp on modern scholarship, and integrates much new research material into this volume. There is a separatist Catalan flavor which may be bothersome to some historians, but this is a valid line of interpretation on which Hillgarth is careful to exercise restraint. It is general history in the best sense of that term, and Latin American scholars should find many valuable insights in this volume and in its successor.
