El lexico del paisaje en los Chronica Albeldensia

• Autor(a) principal: Furtado, Rodrigo
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: spa
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/63327
• topic: Chronica Albeldensia; Vocabulary; Ninth-century Iberia; Asturias; Léxico; Península Ibérica (sig. IX)

This paper aims at studying the ways in which the lexicon referring to landscape is employed in the three Ordines that form the central part of the so-called Chronica Albeldensia: the Ordo Romanorum regum, the Ordo gentis Gothorum and the Ordo Gothorum Obetensium regum. The author identifies and studies the names used by the anonymous ninth-century Asturian historians to designate (i) territorial entities; (ii) cities; (iii) fortresses and minor places; and (iv) geographical accidents. In that analysis, he distinguishes proper and common names, and takes into account the sources of those texts. Some comparative material from the contemporary Chronica Prophetica and Chronica Adefonsi III is also adduced. The vocabulary referring to landscape in the three Ordines of the Chronica Albeldensia is conservative but not rich. Its use is conditioned by the typology of the texts: the first two Ordines are epitomes and most of their words referring to landscape are simply picked up in an unsystematic way from the texts they abbreviate. The Ordo Gothorum Obetensium regum, on the contrary, presents a more developed and much more varied narrative. Due to our ignorance of its sources, it is the most interesting text to analyze the lexical options of the Iberian epitomists at the end of the ninth century. The paper also shows how the treatment of geographic space narrows its scope from the Ordo Romanorum regum up to the Ordo Gothorum Obetensium regum: in fact, the latter is not a universal chronicle, since it focuses on the small kingdom of Asturias. While in the first two Ordines, the epitomizers resort to general and extra-peninsular designations, those disappear in the last Ordo, whose interest is just Spain. Besides, instead of giving a macroscopic account of the military process in the Mediterranean or even in Iberia, the author of the Ordo Gothorum Obetensium regum prefers to narrate the military process, its advances and setbacks, mainly at a local and sometimes very detailed level. Finally, when approaching the present, the text becomes more and more exhaustive with the meticulous account of skirmishes and battles, especially in the Castilian region. Nevertheless, one must conclude that in these texts, older Roman geographical and political designations are rarely used; there are also very few words designating urban or fortified settlements; and geographical accidents are used to establish some spatial landmarks in more developed narratives, especially in the last Ordo, although not even here presenting special variety or innovation.