De rebus Hispaniae

De rebus Hispaniae, also known as Gothic History or History of the facts of Spain, is a history of the Iberian Peninsula from the time of the Iberians to the middle of the XIII century , written in Latin by the Archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, during the first half of the XIII century and dedicated to the King of Castilla y León, Fernando III el Santo.

Description

De rebus Hispaniae consists of nine books, which collect the chronicles of the Peninsula from the first towns to the year 1243. Jiménez de Rada used for the first time in Hispanic historiography the help of sources:

1. Sources of informative character: San Isidoro de Sevilla, Jordanes, the Tudense, Albeldense Chronicle, Alfonso III Chronicle in its two versions (rotense and Sebastian), Crónica mozárabe and Crónica najerense.
2. Legendary or playful sources, eliminating novel aspects.
3. Poetic sources citing verses of Virgilio, Ovid, Lucan, Juvenal or biblical verses.

Thus, it is probably the first work to use Andalusian sources.

He also developed a vision of the events that occurred in all the peninsular territories as a whole:

1. It deals with the different villages settled on the peninsula: Romans, ostrogotes, Huns, Vandals, Suevos, Alanos, Arabs, etc.
2. Dedicates a large part to the domain of the Visigoth kingdom; the title of the chapter, history gothicaIt was extended to the whole.
3. It addresses both the kingdoms of Aragon, Navarre and Portugal as well as those of Castile, Lion and their predecessors, the Asturian kings.

It is an "absolutely original work in Spain of the 13th century" and its author can be classified as "an innovator in the field of medieval Spanish historiography". Innovative character both for the use of sources and the account of the events as by "his previous conception of what he wants to write".

"Not all of the chronicle is composed from previous sources, but there are also first-hand testimonies in it," says the Latin philologist Juan Fernández Valverde in the Introduction to the Spanish translation of the work. As a historical character, as well as a writer, he appears as the protagonist in the final part of Book VII.

For this translator, Fernández Valverde, we would be facing "the masterpiece of medieval Hispano-Latin chronicles in the double sense of the expression: the most important and the last." For Jiménez de Rada the concept of Hispania refers to to a geographical entity "limited by the Pyrenees mountains, which extend from sea to sea, by the ocean and by the Mediterranean."

Dating

Although the chronicle ends by stating that it was completed "on Thursday, March 31, 1243, when the Apostolic See had been vacant for a year, eight months and ten days", the data itself is inconsistent since it would have been a Tuesday and not a Thursday the day of the week corresponding to that date. The Apostolic See was occupied by Gregory IX, who died on August 28, 1241, one year, seven months and three days before that date.

In the list of events, a gap is perceived from 1236 that raises many questions about the accuracy of that date.

Scope

This work was widely accepted and was translated into different Romance languages. For centuries it has been a crucial source for the study of the History of Spain. For some historians, even, such as Derek W. Lomax «it is practically the first history of Spain and served as a framework for the Estoria de España by Alfonso the Wise and for the other general chronicles that descend from it, to Ocampo, Mariana and Lafuente."

It forms part, with number 72, of the Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaeualis (CCCM 72) published by Brepols.