A Castle in Spain

A Castle in Spain PDF

Author: Matthew Parris

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 0241961785

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Walking in the Pyrenees, Matthew Parris stumbled upon a magnificent medieval house. Inspirational and instructional, this is the story of one man's dream to turn a forgotten ruin into his very own castle in Spain.

From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle

From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle PDF

Author: Thomas F. Glick

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9780719033490

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Explores the history of Spain from the Roman province, through the Visigothic and Arab conquests, to the Christian Reconquest and reorganisation of society in the thirteenth century

Poetic Castles in Spain

Poetic Castles in Spain PDF

Author: Diego Saglia

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-12-28

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9004486739

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British culture of the Romantic period is distinguished by a protracted and varied interest in things Spanish. The climax in the publication of fictional, and especially poetical, narratives on Spain corresponds with the intense phase of Anglo-Iberian exchanges delimited by the Peninsular War (1808-14), on the one hand, and the Spanish experiment of a constitutional monarchy that lasted from 1820 until 1823, on the other. Although current scholarship has uncovered and reconstructed several foreign maps of British Romanticism - from the Orient to the South Seas - exotic European geographies have not received much attention. Spain, in particular, is one of the most neglected of these 'imaginary' Romantic geographies, even if between the 1800s and the 1820s, and beyond, it was a site of wars and invasions, the object of foreign economic interests relating to its American colonies, and a geopolitical area crucial to the European balance designed by the post-Waterloo Vienna settlement. This study considers the various ways in which Spain figured in Romantic narrative verse, recovering the discursive materials employed in fictional representation, and assessing the relevance of this activity in the context of the dominant themes and preoccupations in contemporary British culture. The texts examined here include medievalizing and chivalric fictions, Orientalist adventures set in Islamic Granada, and modern-day tales of the anti-Napoleonic campaign in the Peninsula. Recovering some of the outstanding works and issues elaborated by British Romanticism through the cultural geography of Spain, this study shows that the Iberian country was an inexhaustible source of imaginative materials for British culture at a time when its imperial boundaries were expanding and its geopolitical influence was increasing in Europe and overseas.

Lists of Buildings and Structures in Spain

Lists of Buildings and Structures in Spain PDF

Author: Source Wikipedia

Publisher: University-Press.org

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9781230547541

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Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 34. Chapters: List of castles in Spain, List of Barcelona Metro stations, List of airports in Spain, List of monasteries in Madrid, List of tallest structures in Spain, List of equestrian statues in Spain, List of hospitals in Spain, List of tallest buildings and structures in Barcelona, List of tunnels in Spain, List of lighthouses in Spain. Excerpt: Castles in Spain were built mainly for defensive purposes. During the Middle Ages, northern christian kingdoms had to secure their borders with their muslim southern neighbours, thus forcing both christian and muslim kings to grant border fiefs to their liege noblemen so as to keep and maintain defensive fortresses. When the Reconquista advanced, those border castles lost their initial purpose, and, as it happened in the rest of medieval Europe, they were used also as noble residences and fief-keeps. However, due to the forever-at-war context, they kept their military purposes, for enemy invasions were common. In some parts, such as the Basque Country, fiefdoms did not exist as such, and noble families could not afford nor needed huge fortresses, thus appearing many tower houses. On the other hand, in muslim Spain many castle-palaces were built: the petty taifa kingdoms that arose after the fall of the Caliphate of Cordoba were militarily weak but culturally rich, and every emir or king liked those magnificent palaces of which the Alhambra of Granada is an example. During the late Middle Ages, christian kingdoms had secured and enriched themselves well enough so as to support a more courtly lifestyle, thus some more residential castles being built: the Alcazar of Segovia was used as the main residence of the kings of Castile, whereas the Castle of Olite, built in a luxurious gothic style was the seat of the Kingdom of Navarre's royal court. After the Conquest of Granada in 1492, ..