The international conference “A Reconquista: Ideologia e Justificação da Guerra Santa Peninsular” (The Reconquest: Ideology and Justification of the Peninsular Holy War) will be held between 29 November and 1 December at the Municipal Library Auditorium in Palmela, organised by the Autonomous University of Madrid and GeSOS – the Order of Santiago Study Office, Palmela Municipal Council, and with the support of the Institute of Medieval Studies, the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University (IEM-NOVA FCSH), CIDEHUS-UÉ – the Interdisciplinary Centre of History, Cultures and Societies of the University of Évora and the Setúbal Peninsula Wine Route.

This event, involving the participation of several IEM members, aims to put forward a state-of-the-art overview of the research carried out during the second year of implementation of the R&D project “Religious Violence in the Peninsular Middle Ages: war, apologetic discourses and historiographic accounts (10th-15th centuries)” (HAR2016-74968-P), including participation by the IEM integrated member, researcher Luís Filipe Oliveira.

The meeting seeks to set out these lines of research that have been striving to rethink and refocus the problems surrounding the construction of the relationship between historical memory and historiography, created and recreated in successive moments of cultural evolution.

Focusing on the ideas and concepts around the Reconquest, one of the most operative constructions which, in the context of the Iberian Peninsula, spurred the clashes between Christians and Muslims, these seminars will seek to clarify perspectives and substantiate hypotheses in relation to a theme that is as worn-out as it is in need of serious historiographical enhancement in order to to situate it in its rightful place as a very effective justificatory discourse.

To this end, the two traditions, Christian and Islamic, are in attendance at this meeting as well as analysing their respective ideological strategies around the reconquering narrative.

Participation in this initiative is free following prior registration.


Organisation: Autonomous University of Madrid; Order of Santiago Study Office (GeSOS) of Palmela Municipal Council
Support: Institute of Medieval Studies, the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University (IEM-NOVA FCSH); the Interdisciplinary Centre for History, Cultures and Societies of the University of Évora (CIDEHUS-UÉ); Setúbal Peninsula Wine Route.