I have a vague understanding of medieval towns in Germany: Guilds, city councils, burghers, "Stadtluft macht frei", free imperial cities, ... But can you tell me something about Spanish towns, especially towards the end and after the Reconquista? I'm mainly interested in the smaller cities and towns. How were they ruled? Did they have special privileges? How were they organized? Anything else interesting or noteworthy?
Quote from: Pyromancer;980416I have a vague understanding of medieval towns in Germany: Guilds, city councils, burghers, "Stadtluft macht frei", free imperial cities, ... But can you tell me something about Spanish towns, especially towards the end and after the Reconquista? I'm mainly interested in the smaller cities and towns. How were they ruled? Did they have special privileges? How were they organized? Anything else interesting or noteworthy?
Read the Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kaye. It's an early Reconquista setting with the numbers filed off.
http://www.medieval-life.net/medieval_history_spain.htm and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain_in_the_Middle_Ages might be useful to you for broad strokes. You'd probably need to do some research on your own as Spain tends to be neglected in English and most books about medieval life I have seen tend to focus on England, France, and other Northern European locales.
I've got several books on my nightstand on this very topic and related subjects...if you're still interested, I'll tell you more after I've read them. I'd also recommend reading The Poem of the Cid: Dual Language Edition (Penguin Classics) (Spanish Edition), The Christian Recovery of Spain: Being the Story of Spain from the Moorish Conquest to the Fall of Granada (711 to 1491 A.D.), Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400 to 1000, Celestina (Penguin Classics), Imperial Spain: 1469 to 1716, Lazarillo de Tormes and the Swindler: Two Spanish Picaresque Novels (Penguin Classics), Calderon de la Barca: Six Plays, Three Major Plays by Lope de Vega (Oxford World's Classics)...some of those are during El Siglo de Oro, the Renaissance, but things didn't change all that much in Spain in the villages from what I've read so it should still be applicable. And of course everyone should read Don Quijote.