

The Great Rift. The disaggregation of the old medieval "Regnum Gallaeciae" and the origins of the national feudal monarchy of Galicia (1037-1139 E.C.)
The period between the years 1037 and 1139 was the "century of change" in the northwest of the peninsula, the moment in which the territorial ensemble and political unit that Gallaecia early medieval period, whose origins were traced back to the Roman Empire and the Swabian Kingdom, would reach its end, giving rise to the independent Kingdoms of Galicia and Portugal. Three major historical phenomena frame this decisive stage. First of all, with the defeat and death in 1037 of the last monarch of the Gallic-Leonese dynasty, Galicia and the Gallic nobility lost the leading role they had exercised until then within the Christian peninsular north in favor of Castile and the new Navarre-Castilian royal dynasty and its allies. . In the second place, largely as a consequence of the aforementioned, the reformulation of the nascent national feudal monarchy of Galicia poses serious problems of integration within the Spanish Empire of the kings Fernando I, Afonso VI and Afonso VII, which not infrequently lead to open conflicts, both of the Gallic aristocracy and the monarchy as well as of different sides facing each other. The different solutions adopted, which ranged from greater submission to the court of León to the aborted political existence as an independent kingdom within a dynastic compact, will not manage to generate a broad consensus in the political and social. And so we arrive at the third great historical milestone of the period: the progressive opening of an unbridgeable gap between nuclear Galicia and the remote lands beyond the lower Miño and Limia, which will lead to the proclamation of Portugal as an independent kingdom in 1139 under the aegis of Afonso Henriques, a prince of the royal dynasty and at the same time a Gallic magnate, while the old woman Gallaecia cismiñota will link his political destiny to the Kingdom of León-Galicia of the descendants of his cousin and rival Afonso Raimúndez.
Carlos Baliñas Pérez
(León, 1961)
Degree in Geography and History (1984) and PhD in History (1990) from the University of Santiago and Compostela. He did postdoctoral studies in the UK and was British Academy Visiting Professor at the University of Birmingham. Since 1999, he has been Full Professor of Medieval History at USC, with a destination at the Faculty of Humanities in Lugo. His priority field of research is the Social History of Medieval Galicia (700-1100), with subsidiary lines being the study of the historical landscape, the social projection of medieval urbanism in the city of Lugo and the origins of the territorial organization of Galicia. He is the author of the books Defenders and Traitors: a model of the relationship between monarchical power and oligarchy in early medieval Galicia (718-1037) (1988); From myth to reality: the social and territorial definition of Galicia in the High Middle Ages (8th and 9th centuries) (1992); e Gallegos of the Year Thousand (1998). Likewise, he is co-editor of the collection of studies Sub Urbem: History, society and culture of the city (2012). He has published around 30 articles on his research topics in Galician, Spanish and English in national and international magazines and works, as well as translations of historical works from English to Spanish. It is Corresponding Editor for the Iberian Peninsula from the specialized magazine Early Medieval Europe and scientific advisor for various academic publications. He is Number Member of the "Spanish Society of Medieval Studies". Between the years 2007 and 2017 he was a member of the Provincial Historical Heritage Commission of Lugo of the Xunta de Galicia representing the USC.
