The work published by the UVa “The Soverosa. A noble family in Three Kingdoms”, 2019 Armando de Almeida Fernandes award
The work “The Soverosa. A noble family in the Three Kingdoms. Power and relationship in the Spanish Middle Age (XI-XIII)”, published by the University of Valladolid (2018), has turned into the first work written in Spanish which receives the 2019 Armando de Almeida Fernandes Award, with which the City Hall of Viseu (Portugal) acknowledges and promotes the research studies in Portuguese Medieval History, from the 8th century to the end of the 14th century.
The work is the product of the research done by the professor of the UIB, Inés Calderón Medina, as a member of the GIR León and Castile in the High Middle Ages and the Middle Ages, which is led by the professor of the University of Valladolid, Carlos M. Reglero de la Fuente. The work won the unanimous vote of the jury, formed by María Teresa Nobre, of the University of Coimbra; Herminia de Vasconcelos, of the University of Évora; and José Augusto de Sottomayor-Pizarro, of the University of Oporto; as well as Flávia de Almeida Fernandes, daughter of the researcher who gives name to the award.
The book tells the history of nine generations of the Soverosa, a great noble family in Portugal from the eighth century to the fourteen century, whose origin is founded in the Kingdom of León, particularly in the area of Astorga, and with another family branch in Portugal. The relationships among both family branches reflect the cross-border relationships there were between the Kingdom of León (created then by Galicia, Asturias, part of Extremadura and some places of the current province of Valladolid) and the Kingdom of Portugal.
The history of the Soverosa is a clear reflection of how the Kingdoms of the Middle Age were not a closed space and how the nobility also changed from some agreements to others for their particular interests so that they achieved to extend their power and heritage in the Three Western Kingdoms in a time in which the Iberian monarchies were been built.
The publication is the contribution of the author to the project “Powers, spaces and scripts in the Hispanic Western Kingdoms (XI-XIV centuries)”, and of which they make stock along with the books “Powers, spaces and scripts. The Kingdoms of Castile and León (XI-XV centuries)”, by the professor Reglero de la Fuente, and “the King´s spaces. Power and territory in the Hispanic monarchies (XII-XIV centuries)”, by Fernando Arias Guillén and Pascual Martíenz Sopena, according to the research work developed from 2014 to 2019 by the GIR León and Castile in the High Middle Ages and Middle Age.
The project has allowed learning how the power grows among the powerful people in different spaces, and the relationships established from the local space through the villas, where kings, nobles, councils, monasteries, and bishops come into contact; in the regional space, through the study of the surroundings and the possessions, by taking attention to the relationships which the aristocratic families and monarchs create around them; until the court´s space, where the activity of the noble chancellery and the clergy lawyers creates documents, cartularies and literary works which interfere the noble chancellery relation with the different kingdom´s powers.
A research which has a continuation in a new project “The exercise of power in the Middle Age: Spaces, agents, and scripts (XI-XV centuries) with the Research Group which wants to continue going in-depth in the history of power in the Hispanic Middle Age.
The A. de Almeida Fernandes Award is carried out within the frame of the protocol among the villas of Viseu and Ponte de Lima, to commemorate Armando Fernandes, a professor, researcher and author of the remarkable historical work referring the Portuguese medieval History, what allowed discovering, understanding and evaluating the origins and the identity of several municipalities of the Country. The municipality of Viseu was in charge of organizing the 2017 and 2019 edition.
