Writing the medieval Castilian Cortes : from constitutional myth to political representation

This article examines the evolution of historiography on the medieval Castilian Cortes from the nineteenth century to the present, with particular attention to the formation, consolidation, and subsequent crisis of the liberal interpretive paradigm. It explores how the political and intellectual transformations of the modern era shaped interpretations of Castile’s parliamentary past and how the historiographical renewal that developed from the mid-twentieth century onwards challenged the identification of the Cortes as a precedent for modern parliamentarianism. The incorporation of new sources, methodological perspectives, and research questions has made it possible to overcome many of these assumptions and to offer a more complex understanding of the institution, although it has also contributed to the fragmentation of the field. Against this backdrop, the main challenge today is to bring these different lines of research into dialogue through an overarching interpretation that can situate the Cortes within the framework of Castilian political culture and society.