USA news on Youtube Oct 21 2017

Welcome to the Archivo Histórico Nacional, sección nobleza, here in Toledo.

We have the great pleasure of working with the nobility archive

over the next couple of weeks

to discover new entries, new manuscripts that are available here.

So, we'll visit with the director to kind of get a sense about her own background

and career here at "nobleza," as well as to kind of get a sense of the history of the institution.

Can you talk a little bit about your career here in nobility and a little about the history of the archive?

Well, my name is Aranzazu Lafuente.

For me, as a historian,

and an archivist, it's a privilege to work in a building like this one,

which is from the 16th century.

And, running an institution which is public,

under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, the Spanish national government.

We are two civil servants here.

But, the documentation that we curate is documentation produced by families.

Right.

In this case, families from the nobility,

whose archives began to accumulate documents,

since the 14th or 15th centuries.

OK.

But, there are documents that go as far back as the 11th or 12th centuries.

Wow!

They're the oldest.

The oldest document we have is even from the 10th century.

(The year) 998, if I'm correct.

And, within that collection, how many families do we have historical data about?

Is it a lot?

In this archive, we have 147 archives

that have entered directly,

plus a series of loose documents,

that come from, well, that have accumulated at the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid,

and that have come here, with which there are, today, more than 250 archives.

OK.

Of varying volume.

The average is between 600 and 1000 boxes,

in which there are sources such as the Archive of the Dukes of Osuna, which has around 9000 boxes of documents.

Or, in the last archive I've deposited, belonging to the Marquises of the Holy Cross, there are 1,300 boxes.

The dates they hold, well,

between the 11th century

and the day before yesterday.

Wow! Almost 1,000 years!

Almost 1,000 years, yes, 1,000 years of history, yes.

Yes, it can seem a bit overwhelming.

So, about the importance these archives have, why would a public archive that is run by the administration

hold documentation that is of a private origin?

Because of Spain's own historical complexity,

the different kingdoms that have shaped Spanish history,

the nobility has always been near the crown,

and it has been one of the most important elements for controlling the territory,

Of course.

controlling power, and administrative power, all kinds of power.

Ecclesiastical power, military, judicial, diplomatic activities.

Throughout all these centuries,

apart from how the families went on accumulating properties and territories by royal delegation,

which were the "señoríos,"

for controlling the area that was shaped in the time of the Reconquest,

since the year 700 up to 1492,

-yes-

when the Jews were expelled or converted

-right-

and Granada was taken over.

In those 1,000 years it was necessary to control the territory, as it was expanding southward,

and the Christian kingdoms went on occupying territory,

there was a problem, there was a lack of people, so they had to secure control of the territory.

And a way to secure control of the territory was to leave it in the hands of the nobles.

Yes, we have so much historical data because we have data about the nobility

but also about the people who were living in that place. Good!

So, let's explore.

Let's explore.

Something I would like to do,

before saying goodbye,

is explain a little about how these documents we're talking about got here.

What archives they are and why they're here in this public archive,

and the documents we're talking about come from archives, all of them, private in origin.

In this archive not all the documents are about the nobility,

all the archives from the Spanish nobility,

but rather only those that, because of the owners' own choice, they have deposited them here

under a judicial act called commodatum,

by which they maintain their ownership of the archive, but we have the right to use it.

What we do is organize them, identify them and describe them, digitize them,

and make them accessible in the research room, where we are now,

for consulting the original documents,

or they can also be consulted, remotely, on the web site,

and, above all, through the "Portal de Archivos Españoles," PARES.

So, we're making a very important effort,

on those archives that are deposited under commodatum,

which, at some time, perhaps,

in future generations,

their owners want to take them back,

so what we're doing is

is quite an important effort,

digitize them completely

to put them up completely so they're available on line through the web site.

In this case, well, we'll be uploading more than 901,000 images to the web.

In the case of the Archive of the Counts of Luque,

we've begun to digitize the resources, as well as the last sources that were just deposited.

That's the Archive of the Counts of Villagonzalo.

It has very important Medieval documentation as well.

O, soon, the Archive of the Marquises of the Holy Cross,

which isn't so Medieval

but it is an important collection, above all for the 16th and 17th centuries.

The family name is Bazan,

the same ones that were at the battle of Lepanto.

And, on other occasions, the sources have been deposited because they've become public property,

because they either were abandoned,

or they've been inherited,

or they've been turned in to pay taxes.

And check out the tax situation: instead of paying them with money,

they are paid with Spanish documentary heritage goods.

And, in other cases, well,

in very special cases those archives have been acquired

on behalf of the administration.

And those are the more difficult cases, taking into account, of course: How much does an archive cost?

The monetary value of a heritage item... it practically doesn't have any value.

A price can't be established.

What resources do we have? Well, today we have more than

255 sources.

There are sources of one or two boxes,

others of almost 9,000,

from different territories,

and, I've already explained, they contain documentation and information

not only about the territory, the "señoríos," the families,

but also the positions these people had, throughout the centuries,

in the Spanish administration.

There's very interesting documentation

on the vice regencies in New Spain,

on the Vice Regency of Peru,

Chile,

California,

New Mexico,

of course, from where New Spain was, right?

But also from, well, diplomatic activities,

military activities,

well, as much from America

as from regions that formed part of what really was the Spanish Empire,

and also about the conflicts.

Between Spain and different countries, the wars with England,

the wars with France, the wars with Holland,

and, well, to sum up, in war and peace, you know, those have been forming

a series of very important information that has remained in our archives.

For example, some important archives,

like the documents we've been taking out and looking at,

well, archives like that of the Dukes of Osuna,

which also has

the families who, over time have tied themselves to other families,

with all that,

they aren't just the archives about the Osuna but also the families that, through matrimony, or

through inheritance, have gone on interrelating with each other

and accumulating documents in that archive.

For example, the Archive of Osuna has, in turn,

the Archive of the Dukes of Arcos,

the Archive of the Dukes of Infantado,

who were all Mendozas,

the Archive of the Dukes of Gandia, who were the famous Borgias,

heirs to Pope Alexander VI.

To the Borgia Pope, also there are documents here having to do with the Borgias.

The Archive of the Duke of Frias, with all the constables of Castile.

So, a significant number of archives that, well,

over the ages have gone on accumulating papers

in the nobility archives, in the Spanish historical archives,

they started out in the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid,

and, since this archive was created

in 1989,

and began to operate in 1994,

well, archives have gone on being deposited.

Practically every year we receive a varying number of archives that, well

people have deposited.

This year the famous Archive of the Marquises of the Holy Cross has been deposited,

and next week we'll be receiving another archive,

which is from the Dukes of Arion,

and, well, we are studying another series of archives.

This is a historical archive,

but it's an open archive because we are constantly receiving resources.

And the most interesting thing about those resources

is that they're unedited.

They were in families' private possession.

And well, although they conserve them well enough they aren't accessible.

Therefore, the importance, I believe, of this institution

is that it makes archives accessible that are now

in a well preserved condition and many cases,

in other cases not so well,

but I can make it accessible to the public because what we're dealing with in this case is

preserving documentary heritage

that isn't only Spanish,

but that is also tied to many places all over the world.

For more infomation >> Deciphering Secrets MOOCs: An Introduction to the Archivo Historico de la Nobleza (Toledo) - Duration: 12:05.

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Deciphering Secrets MOOCs: Resurgent Christian Kingdoms (711-1212 CE) - Duration: 11:34.

With the collapse of the Visigothic Kingdom at the hands of Islamic invaders in 711,

Christians regrouped to the north. And there a series of new independent Christian kingdoms were founded.

Let's investigate the Christian Kingdom of Castile and Leon and the origins of the Reconquest.

It was a blending of Asturias Leon and Castile these collections of people.

Castile and the Castilians were born from ancient origins and out of necessity to protect northern Spain from the Islamic armed intrusions.

According to noteworthy historian Stanley Payne,

because of the depopulation and devastation that prevailed for a century in the Douro Valley,

one of the few ways in which Muslim armies could strike directly at the heartland of Asturias Leon was by traveling up the Ebro Valley.

along the old Roman Road Northwest from Zaragoza.

To guard against invasion

from this direction - the Asturian marquis built a series of castles and fortified villages in the mountains above the upper

Ebro where the route could be sealed off. This territory in the modern provinces of Santander,

Burgos, and Alava was known ancient times as Bardulia (after the Celtic-Iberian tribe that had inhabited the region).

By the time of the beginning of the ninth century it was beginning to be called the land of castles

In manner the Kingdom of Castile is a creation of two worlds. An independent-minded

Asturian Leonese community based out of Leon and an equally autonomous group, but heavily influenced one centered around Burgos.

What about the origins of the Reconquest

Well here we should look to King Pelayo and Saint James the Apostle.

The Asturians were shaped by the legendary King Pelayo who ruled from 718 to 737 CE.

And who's remembered as the first Christian nobleman to lead

what would become known as the rRconquest or Reconquista the effort to retake

Iberia from Islamic civilization. At the Battle of Covadonga, Pelayo is said to have won the spectacular battle.

However, the historian Thomas Glick clarifies that the historical accuracy of the reported clash may have been

overstated. He offers:

"The richly embroidered account of the skirmish as it appears in the Chronicle of Alfonso the Third reports the death of

25,000 Muslim soldiers. Their ranks broken by divine intervention

which caused their missiles to fly back against them." The account given by Arabic chronicles is scarcely more accurate.

Describing Pelayo's "band of thirty wild donkeys."

But nevertheless they did give him credit and noted that Pelayo was an ancestor

of the Banu Alfonso (Alfonso's tribe) the traditional enemies of al-Andalus.

This Christian initiative

which had its mythical elements was also closely associated with King Alfonso the Second "The Chaste" who ruled during the latter parts of

the 8th and beginning parts of the 9th century and

discovery of the Sepulcher of Saint James the Apostle --Santiago de Compostella -- in the vicinity at the Galician village of

Iria Flavia.

Here, the patron saint of Spain, Saint James the Apostle,

would transformed into the mythical saint who will protect and lead armies to fight back Muslim aggression.

He was no longer Saint James the Apostle in name, but he was also known as "Saint James the Moor Slayer".

By the 9th and 10th century there was some initial

consolidation of northern Christian kingdoms, and this was due in part to the rule of Alfonso the Second "The Chaste".

The challenge that the king encounter was one of culture and

regional dynamics.

The Castilians had increasingly become their own people, their own culture, with regional counts to administer local districts.

However,

back in Asturias-Leon -- that culture had stayed itself

and it was identified more as a frontier society that was as

Stanley Payne notes:

"Ruder, more militant ,more egalitarian, and more self-reliant."

Thus, there really was a kind of marriage of convenience.

Yes, they were all Christians.

Yes, they spoke a similar version of Spanish, but they weren't distinct communities.

By 1035, another northern Christian kingdom was rising to prominence as well -- the Kingdom Navarre.

Its King Sancho the Third,

Also known as "The Great",

successfully extended authority from Pamplona and into Castile when he pushed the rival Leonese out of the region. The "Cid", or

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar,

was Sancho's most important military leader.

The first king of an autonomous Castile, was King Ferdinand the First who ruled from 1035 to 1065.

who temporally unified Leon and Castile.

Under this consolidated leadership, Castile and Leon became the largest of the Christian kingdoms and extended from Galicia, to the west,

to across northern Spain to the Rioja.

But just as there was conflict and political fragmentation in the Islamic world,

northern Spain experienced similar trends. And there was in a sense, an Anti-Reconquest.

Christian kingdoms,

and the royal noble families who controlled them,

routinely fought each other for political control and sometimes found Islamic kingdoms to be convenient allies.

As Americo Castro highlights in "The Spanish People".

He states:

Historians missed the important of the so-called Reconquest in failing to see it as simultaneously as and quote-unquote Anti-Reconquest.

It is hardly proper to characterize as civil the quarrels among the Christians: these were wars between independent states, each

interested in prospering at the expense of its neighbors. Thus

Sancho the Great of Navarre attacked Vermudo the Third, the king of Leon, and left large portions of Galicia utterly desolate.

Between 1029 and 10:30, King Vermudo was forced to take refuge in the mountains of the north

Much as the Christians had done 300 years before in the face of Muslim onslaught.

Castilians and Navarrase fought fiercely at Atapuerca in 1054.

Castilians and Leonese hated each other for centuries without respite.

Rivalry between Castilians and Aragonese in the 14th and 15th centuries kept them from driving the Moors out of their last stronghold,

the Kingdom of Granada.

So in this sense, not until the end of the 15th century did Spanish manage unite fully around the persons of the Catholic Monarchs,

Ferdinand and Isabel. Thus, Spanish medieval history can mean only hold itself together as a complex web of human

relationships the cross religious boundaries.

Among the most prominent splits among the Christians during the 11th century was that between King Sancho the Second and

Prince Alfonso the Sixth.

Carla and William Phillips described the complexities of these Christian relations as follows:

"King Sancho II Castillo embarked on an aggressive policy and seized Galicia and Leon from his brothers,

but he died at the hands of an assassin while laying siege to his sister's town to Zamora.

Alfonso of Leon, who had gone into exile and Muslim Toledo, then succeeded Sancho as Alfonso the Sixth of Castile.

The highlight of Alfonso VI's reign was the conquest of Toledo where he had previously sought shelter.

After a long siege ,Alfonso's forces entered the city in 1085 and made it part of Castile.

Again, what we see is this dynamic where Christian communities, and Christian kings and nobles, were fighting each other for control

as they simultaneously tried to fight the Reconquest.

Thus, we do see a real Anti-Reconquest.

At the end of this period what we notice is the supremacy of the Castilians and perhaps

this is why we speak Castilian Spanish today more prominently than other versions of Spanish.

At the end of the 11th century the Castilians were supreme

among all the Christian communities. Why? Because they had recaptured Toledo in 1085

and were pushing further south

The lose of Muslim Toledo was a crucial victory for Castile. Not only had they been effective in pushing Muslims further south

but the Caliphate of Cordoba had collapsed.

Now Spain was populated by both

independent christian kingdoms to the north and a broad collection of party kingdoms, or Taifas, to the south which were Islamic.

Bruised and battered

the Spanish Muslims appealed to North Africa for help.

And it signaled an arrival of more fundamentalist and fearsome

Islamic rulers. First the Almoravids who ruled from 1040 to

1147 and thereafter the Almohads who ruled from 1121 to 1269.

During this crucial era

Spain would encounter some of its most difficult times in terms of positive coexistence.

Two prominent battles that came to define the Reconquest occurred at this time. The victory of the aAmohads over

Castilian King Alfonso the Eighth at the Battle of Alarcos in 1195 and

the subsequent victory at the combined Christian kingdoms at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in

1212.

This was at the height of the Reconquest.

After 1212, the Islamic kingdoms to the south would never recover.

And they would slowly be and begin to roll back further into southern Spain leaving us only with the Nasrids of Granada.

For more infomation >> Deciphering Secrets MOOCs: Resurgent Christian Kingdoms (711-1212 CE) - Duration: 11:34.

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Coopers Inn History - Duration: 1:15.

The Cooper's Inn is located on historic Shelburne Harbour

with tons and tons of history.

It's very, very nice in the summer to see the regiment along the waterfront.

They are dashing characters in their red coats.

Just a few feet from the inn is a cooperage.

The barrels are made as they were 100 years ago

It's a constant source of curiosity for our guests.

Our garden is very much a part of the Cooper's Inn experience.

We have a stunning peony bush that Blanche Smith planted over 100 years ago.

It is a showstopper.

It's a Georgian style home with 8-room accommodation and all en suite baths.

It was built in 1785 by George Gracie.

He brought a 2-storey log cabin up with him from Boston.

In the foundation we can still see those logs.

It is a serene, calm location.

Everybody that comes here is wowed.