Memoriales de guerra. Recuerdo y olvido más allá de Las Huelgas

Abstract

This article considers whether structures that are connected with victory and defeat in Medieval Spain can be viewed as ‘war memorials’. It will take Las Huelgas as a starting point, since that abbey was the foundation of Alfonso VIII who experienced both extremes. In 1195 his army met catastrophic disaster at Alarcos. In 1212 his reputation as a military leader was restored beyond all imagining by the victory at Las Navas de Tolosa. The Order of Calatrava had been at the centre of the failed campaign at Alarcos, and the martyrdom of their knights continued to haunt Alfonso VIII. The relatively private cloister of Las Claustrillas at Las Huelgas may have been a place of penance and forgetting, a performative space, whereas the church at Las Huelgas and the fortress of Calatrava enshrined and celebrated the memory of victory.