2 - CLASS, FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD

Summary

The origins of the aristocracy of medieval León and Castile are hedged about with doubts and controversy. The rapid conquest of most of the Iberian peninsula by Muslim armies between 711 and 720 shattered not only the power of the Visigothic monarchy, but also, to a large degree, that of the ruling class that supported it. True, there were those like Theodemir, lord of Orihuela and of a handful of other towns in the south-east of Spain, who sought to preserve their privileged status by speedily coming to terms with the invader. But for other Visigothic magnates the Muslim conquest may have spelled exile, imprisonment or even death. Faced with such unpalatable options, some aristocrats may have chosen to emigrate north, to the relative safety of the tiny independent Christian realm that emerged in the region of the Asturias during the decade of the 720s. That, at any rate, was what the chroniclers of the royal dynasty of Oviedo claimed when they came to write up the history of the kingdom 150 years later, by which time the authority of the Asturian kings stretched from Galicia in the west to the fringes of the Basque lands in the east and had even begun to impinge upon the Meseta of León and Castile. Like the phoenix rising out of its ashes, it was believed, the kingdom of the Asturias was the Visigothic regnum reborn, not just in spirit, but in personnel, too.