Pertenecer y diferenciarse. Iglesias «locales» y agencia campesina en el noroeste de la Península Ibérica

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse local early medieval societies in north-western Iberia through local proprietorial churches. The existence of private churches active at local scales is well known from the written sources and material evidence. Usually these buildings have been studied and viewed through the prism of the emergence of village leaders and local elites projecting their positions to the wider world by means of participation in client networks with regional territorial powers. This article attempts to explore local societies as arenas of confrontation and negotiation with the wider world through the creation of a politics of belonging, differentiation and exclusion, articulated through local churches. Two regions of the northwest are compared: one characterised by close proximity to the monarchy (Asturias) and the other by its distance from the principal focus of power between the 8^th and 10^th centuries (Basque Country). The local churches are studied from three perspectives: their technologies of construction, the relationship between the churches and other elements constituting the social landscape, and the construction of identities and local societies over the longer-term.