Talk:Kingdom of León

Vikings

Er, this bit needs rephrasing:

They turned their back on the unnavigable Atlantic Ocean, infested with Vikings and sea monsters, and settled in the meseta, the high tableland of central Spain.

since, while there were certainly Vikings, there weren't any sea monsters. --Saforrest 20:02, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

what a shame I did like that prhase.Jfreyre — Preceding undated comment added 00:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

That it was not infested with sea monsters is our POV, not theirs. The phrase might have seemed flip to someone who had never seen an old map. --Wetman 21:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

PR, not history

Here are excerpts from the third and fourth paragraphs of the "emergence of the kingdom" section:

"In these clashes in an impoverished and isolated culture, where salt-making and a blacksmith's forge counted as industries, the armies that decided the fate of the kingdoms numbered in the hundreds of fighting men.

Directly to the south of León lay the incalculably rich, sophisticated and powerful Caliphate of Cordoba, like a Western Byzantium. Internal dissensions divided Andalusian loyalties in the 11th century, so that the impoverished Christians who had been sending tribute to the Caliphate, found themselves in a position to demand payments (parias) instead, in return for favours to particular factions or as simple extortion."

The phrase "the incalculably rich, sophisticated and powerful Caliphate of Cordoba" sounds like something that Cordoba's PR officers would have written, and not something that you would find in a history textbook. - Todemo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.254.111.250 (talk) 15:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Unknown reasons

"The city of León was founded by the Roman Seventh Legion (for unknown reasons always written as Legio Septima Gemina ("twin seventh legion")."

I think the second part which is written between the brackets schould be deleted.

• It doesn't belong to this article about the the Kingdom of Leon, but to the VII. Legion.
• I question if such formulations like "for unknown reasons" belong to Wikipedia.
• I question if the translation "twin seventh legion" is correct, sounds more like speculation to me.

I don't know the naming convention of roman legions. My first impression is that they are simply numbered in order. 'Legio I' = 1. Legion. Then they get additional designations, something like nicknames, but always attached to their number. Then new legions have been raised with the same number of already existing legions, but with different nicknames. So number and nickname had always to be combined, to assure a differentiation. For example there have been 6 legion with the designation number 'I', differentiated by their nicknames. Thus I wouldn't say, it's unknown why the Legion was named 'Legio Septima Gemina'. It's just roman naming convention. What I don't know is why the Romans used the same number several times. But some historians might know that. [1]

In the case of the legion from Leon, a 7th legion already existed, the 'Legio VII Claudia Pia Fidelis'. I don't know why the Emperor, who created this legion, choose a number that was already used by another region. But the nickname 'Gemina' is easy to guess, as twin of the already existing 7th legion. This is of course a guess, but very likely true, concerning the context, and a historian might confirm that. And there are other legions with the same nickname 'Gemina' but different numbers, numbers they share with other legions of different nickname.

The given translation into English "twin seventh legion" might cause confusion to readers, not only to the translator himself, as he expressed, accompanying the translation. I think the number should be taken as number and can be translated, while the nickname should be taken as name and thus remain untranslated. A better translation might be "7th Legion Gemina", "Legion 7th Gemina" or "7th Gemina Legion". Or better, as I read in other texts "7th Gemina". In any way in this order: first number, second nickname. Truchses 18:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Fernán Gonzalez, King??

"at which time count Fernan Gonzalez of Castile began a campaign to expand Burgos and make it independent and hereditary. He took upon himself the title King of Castile, after the numerous castles in the area, and continued expanding his kingdom at the expense of León by allying with the Caliphate of Cordoba, until 966, when he was stopped by Sancho".

This isn't correct. Fernán Gonzalez never strived (or achieved) a kingly title. Castile was at the time the 'eastern' mark of the Leonese Kingdom, and a series of counties. What Fernán Gonzalez did achieve was the unification of all these counties in his own person, establishing a united, hereditary and autonomous County of Castile. The title 'King of Castile' appears much later, and is first used by Ferdinand I, son of Sancho the Great of Navarre and founder of the Navarrese dinasty. If you take a look at the entry dedicated to 'Ferdinand I of Leon' (he became King of Leon later) you will see the correctness of this information, and the kingly title of Castile as a new creation of the time.

Cheers.

 62.175.18.115 11:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)Manuel

Amazing!

The sentence "In doing so, they turned their backs on the unnavigable Atlantic Ocean, dominated by Vikings at the time, and settled in the meseta, the high plateau of modern central Spain." at the lead, comes from this [2] edition, made by an anonymous editor that asserted: "They turned their back on the unnavigable Atlantic, infested with Vikings and sea monsters, and settled in the meseta, the high tableland of central Spain." It has been surprisingly respected and unquestioned at the lead since 2004! The Vikings did very few trips, with authentic heroism, to Greenland, Iceland and they reached America, what is far far away to dominate or to infest the Atlantic Ocean. They left the British Islands to the South, in their few voyages. What does it have to do with the Kingdom of León? Absolutely nothing.--Garcilaso (talk) 21:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Flag and Crest of León

Why is it that every site I have looked at, especially a few national León sites say that and show that the flag is in a purpure (royal purple) field with an argent (white or silver) crest with a gules (royal red) rampant lion crowned royal with a crown of or (gold) set in a border of a crown royal of or (gold)? - Questioning Reasercher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.238.92 (talk) 12:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

"Coronation"

I've posted here the following from Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities:

Modern kings of Spain are not crowned at all. In fact, no King or Queen of Spain has been crowned as such. The last coronation ceremony performed in what is now Spain was the coronation of King John I of Castile. I have no idea what the Kingdom of Leon article is trying to say regarding "coronations". Surtsicna (talk) 16:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Editors may want to re-examine the article's text.--Wetman (talk) 22:56, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Acurate versions of flag and coat of arms

These're more acurate versions of the Flag and arms before the union between Leon and castile, please don't revert--Heralder (talk) 20:51, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

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Sources?

This article doesn't cite any sources (especially, not any primary sources) for the naming convention used for the Kingdom of León. Modern Spanish historiography attributes that name to the kingdom that ruled the north-west of the iberian peninsula (and international historiography follows suit), but in period sources that entity is commonly referred to as Galleciense Regnum, Gallaecia, or some variation thereof ([1] [2] to cite but a few samples) -- at most, its kings are called «Kings of Galicia and Leon». The only episodes of an «independent» Kingdom of León I can think of is the short reign of Garcia, before Ordonho inherits his throne and re-joins León to Galicia. Can someone provide with sources testifying «Kingdom of León» or some similar usage in period sources? If none appear, shouldn't we somehow add a note adressing this issue (something like «Kingdom of León is the name modern historians give to the entity known at its time as Galleciense Regnum»)?Gatonegro (talk) 19:40, 20 November 2014 (UTC)