Las milicias concejiles castellanas a finales de la Edad Media. Un estado de la cuestión y algunos datos para contribuir a su estudio

Abstract

Spanish historiography is well acquainted with the fact that, at least since the twelfth-century, council hosts often participated in the diverse military campaigns carried out during the Reconquest. Furthermore, such military duties of the Castilian neighbours have been properly spread thanks to the scientific work of many historians and to the abundant quantity of documents kept at the city council archives related to this particular obligation. This work tries to offer a sample of what has been published so far on the contribution of town neighbours to those campaign and, above all, to provide some estimate on the geographic distribution and evolution of the number of combatants. The information comes from Andalusian archives as well as from the Simancas General Record Office, and it will allow us to assess the participation of Castilian towns in the military efforts undertaken by this Kingdom throughout the fifteenth-century.