• Examines the most significant phase of Spanish mainland development
• Considers the profound intellectual consequences of Christian advances into Islamic Spain
• Explores the varying fortunes of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and focuses on the reign of the learned Alfonso X of Castile
• Utilizes the vast body of primary and secondary source material published over the past 30 years

"This is a masterly revisiting of the period, every clause of Linehan's sentences embodying not only that eloquence of rhetorical style he so admired in the work of another Fellow of St. John's, Prof. John Cook (see the obituary by Lineham in The Independent, 15 September 2007), but a freshness and vitality of vision that find their fullest expression in his portrait of King Alfonso el Sabio." (Speculuma Medieval Studies, April 2011)

Peter Linehan is Fellow and Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, Fellow of the British Academy, and Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy of History.