Power and Rural Communities in Al‑Andalus: Ideological and Material Representations eds. by Adela Fábregas and Flocel Sabaté (review)

This collection of essays addresses relationships between the central government in Nasrid-era Granada and various regions and localities within the kingdom. It highlights the growing strength of research-led archaeological research into medieval Spain, focusing on a range of methodologies, issues, and sites, and collectively revealing something of the societal structures of a relatively ill-documented phase of Spanish history. It also puts the current state of historiographical play under the gaze of an English-reading audience. As a complement and challenge to older historiographical traditions, and as a recognition of the way that archaeology can complement and contribute to more traditional documentary studies, it is a welcome volume.

Each of the papers queries whether and how power relationships can be identified archaeologically, and how such signs can be interpreted to develop a more complex picture of early medieval Spain. As such, many of the contributors offer early commentary and findings from broader and ongoing archaeological projects, turning some of the data and findings towards questions of external and internal socio-political and cultural influences and exchange. As one of the editors notes in the prologue, this means the book's intention is linked to its constituent research trajectories, offering in combination 'a series of steps towards a new approach, rich in potential' (p.xv), with wider research ramifications than just a specific Spanish geography.

In the first chapter, which serves as something of an introduction to the volume, Adela Fábregas offers a sort of relational schema for approaching alcaides, royal agents generally placed in regional centres, and contends that the Nasrid period 'experienced a decisive transformation' in the relation between state and subjects, where royal authority increased in a more direct fashion than had existed in the preceding more 'classic Islamic society' (p. 3). This is followed by a chapter examining the Banū Salīm region in the eighth to eleventh centuries, where Marisa Bueno Sánchez posits the existence of three distinct social structures which can be used to examine change in a complex and unstable frontier: the local, supra-local regions with ruling families, and areas subject to Caliphal state power. Sánchez points, for instance, to differences and continuities in pottery between near-urban 'Arabized' areas and more distant 'villages where the old Roman tradition and handmade pottery survived beside the Islamic types' (p. 41).

Deploying a regional case study, Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz examines 'the organization of these societies from the perspective of the organization of their spaces' (p. 54). Turning to regional settlement patterns and features to address gaps in chronicle traditions, Ruiz highlights the significance attached to state control of a territory and its resources, despite their seemingly peripheral role in standard sources. Yet here too there is a twist, as Ruiz highlights that not all 'towers' were necessarily state built, but could in fact serve the needs of local peasantry. Jorge A. Eiroa Rodriguez too offers a view of local initiative and agency that develops a more nuanced appreciation of the processes of state formation. Rather than fortifications and settlements reflecting a central organising force, he argues that these show evident signs of local concerns, reflecting the needs of resource management. However, he notes that this in turn reveals a relatively organic process of nucleated settlement formation, with regional centres developing in relation to various areas and needs. Again, this theme of local development is addressed by Alberto Garcia Porras, who notes how 'the location of castles was not based on defensive criteria alone' (p. 117). He examines the stages of fortification construction to chart shifting usage, but in doing so brings into relief some of the impact of Nasrid developments within local scenes, as fortifications developed a greater residential role for royal administrators and therefore the administration and projection of royal power...