Asentar el dominio y controlar el territorio. Funciones de los castillos en la expansión de la monarquía asturleonesael caso de Ardón

Abstract

The construction of hillforts in places of privileged control above the landscape has been understood, traditionally, as part of a military strategy planned by the Astur-Leonese Kingdom for the purpose of protecting its advance toward south. The 9-10th centuries written sources are approached to know their limits at the time of showing the functions of castles in a change moment, such as those of the Leon area’s territo-rial organisation by the Kingdom. The circumstances of castles’ mention in the writ-ten sources allow us to question the unique role of the monarchy in the territorial ad-ministration of spaces recently added to its control. One basic hypothesis presented in this study is that territoriality, in the Astur-Leonese Kingdom, was not only ordered by the installation of defensive points controlling the nearer space to the new capital, Leon. The case of Ardon (León) is evaluated as a useful example to set a nuanced alter-native in which the links between the monarchy and some elites ruling the territorial administration were crucial. Those territories could have been based onto previous dynamics of territorial organisation. All of this considering that castles were not the only form of territorial centre, since there were castles without any function of terri-torial control so as territories without castles.