Conceptions of the City in Northern Spain, 9th-12th Centuries

Defining early medieval urbanism on the basic of documentary evidence is a long-standing challenge. It is clear that terms found in the sources such as 'urbs,' 'civitas,' and 'medina,' are not necessarily used in a technical sense. This paper explore the question of urban development using Nájera (La Rioja, Spain) as a case study. The urban status of Nájera in the Kingdom of Navarre and later is frequently assumed without a deep interrogation of what this means in terms of settlement structure. Archaeological and documentary analysis demonstrate that Nájera's urban status was not achieved in a single moment, but was a long-term process deliberately fostered by royal patrons in both Navarre and Castile.