POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND RURAL LANDSCAPES IN ALCANTARA AND ITS HINTERLAND (13TH AND 14TH CENTURIES)

Abstract

The Military Order of Alcantara developed towards 1250 a jurisdictional model based on the supremacy over its mastership political and territorial structures. In the early 14^th century the model began to rift due to the changes within the Order, its role in the Castilian policy and the social responses from its villages. Focusing on these particular elements, this paper addresses some of the changes in the rural landscape, like enclosures made by the Order or individual owners and the definition of public land.  Finally, this paper holds that the process allowed new changes in the social and political models of both the Order and the human communities within the mastership during the Late Middle Ages.