PhD in Medieval History
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Thesis Title: Orígenes y desarrollo del poblamiento medieval en la cuenca media-baja del río Nora hasta el siglo XIII
This doctoral thesis analyzes the origins and development of the high medieval settlement in a specific area, the medium-low basin of the river Nora, located in the central region of Asturias, which includes part of the current councils of Siero, Noreña, Llanera, Oviedo and Las Regueras. The study starts from the historical development of this area until the thirteenth century, paying special attention to the heritage of antiquity in the spatial system of the High Middle Ages. The data indicate that during the Roman period that space formed a unity articulated by a population centre, Lucus Asturum (Lugo de Llanera), and a major road network that would converge precisely to that administrative header. Similarly the fortified settlement of pre-Roman times had changed because of the foundation of open farming establishments in relation to the road network. The disintegration of the Roman state system along with the prevailing economic and administrative structures involved the restructuring or abandonment of some Romans establishments, but various archaeological discoveries indicate that some of them would remain in operation during the last Roman centuries and the Late Antiquity. The decomposition of the Roman framework also caused a weakness of the elites, even though these ones did not disappear, and a substantial improvement of the social situation of different communities. However, this aristocracy found new means of territorial control and influence over those communities through the occupation of fortifications or castella, and the erection of churches. His authority would be exercised at the local level after the fragmentation of Roman territorial frames. Although the period from the fifth century until the eighth century is still little known in the area under study, some data suggest the existence of local authorities prior to the time of the Asturian monarchy. These elites would be the inheritors of the possessors of the low Roman empire and would be at the base of the subsequent aristocracy of the High Middle Ages. On the one hand, some settlements continued acting as centres of power in the early medieval centuries while introducing changes in their morphology and function. It would be the case of the erection of ecclessiae in some old establishments and the link between ancient settlements in height, the hill forts, with individuals belonging to the aristocracy of the High Middle Ages. Furthermore, the data of the ninth century indicate that the process of agrarian and population growth had to start before the eight century. Such growth was also carried out over spaces and enclaves designated by a place name based in a possessor, which puts us on the track of the importance of the initiative of those local powers in the process. Early medieval territoriality appears as a complex reality in which there are mixed logical articulation of space belonging to the previous periods. Some smaller territories are based in the ancient hill forts, in old farming establishments or patrimonial spaces fossilized with names that remind from an ancient possessor. These spaces are sometimes reused as the basis of a new parochial network. Lugo of Llanera, the former Lucus Asturum, would continue playing an important role in the spatial articulation during the Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages with an own territory, although its central position in the area under study was gradually transferred to Oviedo because of its new status as an episcopal seat and sede regia. However, Lugo de Llanera was remembered as a civitas in the High Middle Ages and over the old Roman site was erected the church of Santa Maria, which seems to be the most significant centre of power in Llanera during the High Middle Ages. The growing importance of Oviedo also leads to the disappearance of old power centres in its environments, as Paraxuga, appearing at his former fundum villages as Olivares and Aspra.
During the High Middle Ages appeared in the documents a territory called Planera linked to Oviedo that extends the current councils of Siero, Llanera and Las Regueras. Due to its high agricultural potential, this space would be gradually forming the economic alfoz of the city, so the relations between Oviedo and this rural environment called Planera can be understood from a socio-economic and geographical proximity, because the data doesn’t prove any kind of juridical or administrative attachment of that space to Oviedo. In the twelfth century, the concessions of Llanera and Las Regueras to Oviedo's mitre and the assertion of Siero as a dependent territory of a royal delegate temporarily coincides with the disappearance of references to that Oviedo's alfoz of Planera in which the three spaces were integrated .
