Medieval Iberian Studies in the United States

In the United States of the mid-twentieth century, Iberian studies was pursued less than English, French, German or Italian history since these latter fields were perceived as having more relevance to American developments and interests. ¹ There had been honorable exceptions of course, beginning with William H. Prescott. His History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) bear comparison with other works of European history by American authors. ² Of course Prescott’s subjects—I can recall still having discovered them with delight in the years of my early teens—were also central to the development of much of the Americas. As such they found worthy and linear succession in the work of Roger B. Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire in the Old World and in the New, whose four volumes I stumbled across in the stacks as a college freshman. ³ More usual, and later, was the outstanding work of Garrett Mattingly. His Catherine of Aragon and then The Armada dealt with Iberian phenomena of importance certainly, but whose import, for him, stemmed from their impact on early-modern English history. ⁴