"Frenemies": Women, Conflict and Rebellion in Medieval Iberia

Are friendship and enmity always opposite and incompatible? Could friendship be used as a tool to oppose, ostracise, and 'other', as well as to include individuals and communities within specific networks of support? Focusing on the politically, culturally, and socially dynamic world of thirteenth-century Iberia, this lecture will investigate the role that women played in such relationships, especially in contexts of war, rebellion, and social unrest. Gender-based expectations alongside other influential factors, such as the familiar and/or kinship bonds, and ethno-religious belonging of the women involved, are essential aspects to contextualise their experience and how they were presented and understood within contemporary historical narratives. Latin and vernacular historiographical and legal sources from Castile and Aragon, offer fresh insights into the meanings of women’s presence and/or absence in contexts of both local and translocal tensions, as friends, enemies and sometimes both, and how they contributed to shape the collective memories of those events.