‘Emotional Diplomacy’: Trust and Political Communication in Thirteenth-Century Iberia
- Autores: Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo
- Localización: A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton / coord. por Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, 2023, ISBN 9789004425460, págs. 95-122
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
Political and diplomatic exchanges are closely intertwined, framing and defining social dynamics and interactions between individuals, institutions, ethnic and political communities. As Simon Barton suggested in his last book, Conquerors, Brides, and Concubines, in medieval Mediterranean contexts, such as the Iberian Peninsula, interfaith liaisons were powerful tools of political and diplomatic negotiation, while also conveying broader cultural meanings. In this chapter, I argue that the rhetoric of emotion and trust functioned in a similarly multi-purposed way to define and shape political and diplomatic exchanges. Focusing on thirteenth-century Iberia, this study examines the centrality of trust in both political and social contexts, and how this unfolded in a variety of communicative acts, including expressing and managing emotions. The case study of James I of Aragon (r. 1213–1276) and his chronicle-autobiography, the Llibre dels fets, helps us reflect upon modes of political and diplomatic communication and how emotional language, gestures and performance were central to promoting and legitimising different types of connections and exchanges beyond geopolitical, linguistic and ethnic frontiers.
