Once and Future Queen: The Portrait Coinage of Urraca “Regina Hispaniae” (r. 1109–1126)

• Autores: Therese Martin
• Localización: A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton / coord. por Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, 2023, ISBN 9789004425460, págs. 403-434
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This study takes a renewed look at Urraca of León-Castile (c.1080–1126) through the medium of five different coin types with her ‘portrait’ that were produced over the course of her seventeen-year reign. In the past decade, heretofore unknown coins and new examples of little studied coins have been published by numismatists, and together they shed fresh light on the complex picture of Urraca as reigning queen. The present study assesses the visual and material evidence together with textual sources to understand the reasons behind the minting of multiple portrait-types coins. In doing so, Urraca both broke with the past and established a pattern that would be followed by her successors. I argue that Urraca’s portrait coins allow us more direct access to her ambitions as ruler, without the intermediation of father, son, or consorts, in a way that an examination of the textual sources alone has not been able to achieve.