ABSTRACT
The culture shock which Europeans experienced, both on the Spanish frontier and in the Latin kingdom, when they found the local Christians and Moors sipping what appeared to be, and indeed may have been, orange juice together, resounds down the centuries. Although for adventurers from northern Europe, the Spanish frontier may indeed have borne some resemblance to Turner's Wild West for the inhabitants of its hinterland the unremitting tale of those almost eight sometimes hard-fought centuries was one of varying shades of grey. W. P. Webb's celebrated characterisation of America's colonial frontier as 'the fifth column of liberty' appears increasingly inappropriate to the Spanish case, whether in the ninth century or the thirteenth. Yet the fact remains, this at least remains unchallenged: from the very outset, one of the Spanish frontier's salient features was its lack of manpower.
