What is Annales School

Inspired by central ideas of Mediterranean studies, the chapter attempts a comparative examination of typical motifs and patterns as identifiable in royal politics aspiring to organize the multiethnic societies of medieval Sicily and Castile. Far from being conceived as a conclusive study, the text is intended as a first meta-methodological exploration of the possibilities, strengths, and limitations of comparisons between separate Mediterranean cultures within the transcultural framework. At the same time, it gathers historic details under the rubrics of tropes found in historic narratives that are suggestive for comparisons between the situations in Sicily and Castile, in particular during the reigns of Roger II and Alfonso X, who both share astonishingly similar traits, including royal patronage, political pragmatism, the organization of multiculturality through legalism, and the legitimization of royal power based on historicistic myths.