Wolf, Kenneth, trans., Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain (Translated Texts for Historians. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press)
Text name(s): Mozarabic chronicle; Chronicle of Alfonso III
Number of pages of primary source text: 203
Author(s):
Dates: 575 - 640
Archival Reference:
Original Language(s):
- Latin
Translation:
- Translated into English.
Translation Comments:
Geopolitical Region(s):
- Spain
County/Region:
Record Types:
- Chronicle, Annals
Subject Headings:
- Early Germanic Peoples: Goths Franks, etc.
- Conversion
- War - Military History
- Muslims / Islam
- Crusades
- Historiography
- Religion - Institutional Church
Apparatus:
- Index
- Bibliography
- Introduction
Comments:
This is a collection of Spanish chronicles. The first two were written by John of Biclaro (c.590) and Isidore of Seville (c.625), both detailing aspects of the Gothic colonization. Instead of portraying the Goths as antagonists against the Roman empire, they see them as stewards of Spanish Christianity. The next chronicles represent the Spanish chronicle tradition after the Muslim occupation. Both the Mozarabic chronicle and the Chronicle of Alfonso III drew inspiration from the earlier chronicles, and like Isidore and John, attempted to explain the conquest of Christianity by Islamic invaders.
Introduction Summary:
The introduction discusses the tradition of chronicle writing in medieval Spain, the depiction of the “Conquest” of Spain as found in these chronicles, how the two chronicles presented in this edition fit into that historiographical tradition, and to precisely compare how the Latin chronicles produced in the wake of successive invasions were influenced by other chronicles.
Cataloger: cdb; elc
