‘‘Not such an unfriendly land’’. Contacts and reception of foreigners in the port towns of Asturias in the Middle Ages

Abstract

Certain testimonies characterize Asturias until the 12th century as an unpleasant land due to the hostility of its inhabitants. But that was soon to change: the port town of Avilés would soon be founded, and in the next two centuries, a dense network of small new towns would cover all the Asturian territory. Among them, there would be several port towns that would reach a greater level of morphological, political and socio-economic development. The Asturian ports would become the starting and ending points of trade routes with the interior of the kingdom, points of contact of the region with other kingdoms and territories of Europe. This coast would be a place for contact and settlement of foreigners, who would become specialized immigrants in Asturias. This paper aims to rethink the mechanisms of attraction that a port and its economic activity could exert on foreigners. We believe that Asturian port towns constitute, between the 14th and 16th centuries, an excellent comparative laboratory.