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Atlas

The regional atlas · Iberia & Francia

Crowns, cultures
& crossings.

A marriage joins two dynasties. An inheritance divides a realm. A song crosses a language boundary. Follow the people and places behind the names.

Open the atlas

An atlas of changing connections

Move through the story.

04 / 09 selected moments
Selected dates · uneven intervals
Dynastic agreement1137

Places in this reading. Select a place to open a related moment.
Schematic positions, not borders, routes or a map of belief.

1137 · Dynastic agreement

Aragon meets the House of Barcelona

Ramiro II’s agreement joins the future of his daughter Petronila to Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona. The Crown of Aragon grows from this dynastic connection.

Petronila was an infant at the betrothal; the marriage followed in 1150. Ramon Berenguer governed Aragon without taking its royal title. Their son later combined royal and comital titles.

Look againDid the agreement make every place institutionally identical?

No. A shared dynasty could connect territories whose legal and political arrangements remained distinct.

A way back to the evidence

Follow the record.

DARA introduces Petronila and links her documents in the Crown of Aragon archive. The Generalitat chronology presents the 1137 agreement.

The agreement, marriage and later transfer to their son are separate events. “Married in 1137” collapses them.

Keep this view.

A link remembers your moment, reading view and comparison. Exploring here does not complete a lesson or earn a badge.

Put two histories alongside each other

A crown is not a culture.

Compare political names, language and religious life. These are regional overviews across the chapter’s period; they do not change with the timeline above.

Counties → shared monarchy

Catalonia

Who ruled?
Begin with counties in a Frankish frontier setting. Barcelona’s dynasty later joins the kingdom of Aragon; Catalonia is not simply another name for that kingdom.
What connects the culture?
Catalan is a language, while “count of Barcelona” is a title. Neither describes every resident or every text. Occitan troubadour culture also reached the Crown’s court.
Where does faith fit?
Christian institutions shaped the counties. For relations with other communities, examine a place and period rather than treating the whole region as one believer.

A kingdom within a wider Crown

Aragon

Who ruled?
The kingdom of Aragon and the Crown of Aragon are different scales. The Crown joined territories under one monarchy while political institutions remained distinct.
What connects the culture?
Aragonese and Catalan regional histories should not be flattened into a single culture. A royal title travels farther than a uniform language or identity.
Where does faith fit?
At Muret, a Catholic king fought crusaders. Political interests and religious affiliation cannot be substituted for each other.

Your question about the mountains

A barrier.
And a crossing.

The Pyrenees help locate the Iberian peninsula in relation to the lands to its north. Portugal lies on the peninsula’s western side. Those are different geographic relationships.

The moments above show Frankish conquest at Barcelona, a dynastic connection between Aragon and Barcelona, conflict at Muret and papal recognition of Portugal. Geography belongs in the explanation alongside these recorded actions.

“The mountains kept everyone apart” is a hypothesis these crossings cannot support.

There was conflict. There were also connections across the mountains. To explain a particular border, follow the dates, claims, agreements and people who could enforce them.

Return to the timeline ↑

Go closer · cities of the Atlas

Read a city, building by building.

Explore Toledo’s streets, places of worship, bridge and gate. Follow each place through its people, changing uses and surviving fabric.

Open the Toledo city plan →

Beyond the ruler’s name

What an object can carry.

Muslims, Jews and Christians shared places in medieval Iberia. Artistic exchange coexisted with unequal legal standing and conflict. Neither permanent harmony nor permanent war explains every setting.

I

A royal sign

Fernando II’s lion helps distinguish royal authority after the division of Castile and León. Follow the archive’s examples of documentary signs.

Open the archive exhibition ↗
II

A reused precious object

A panel commissioned by Queen Felicia of Aragon incorporates Byzantine ivory and a sapphire with an Arabic inscription. How the objects reached Aragon is unknown. Their reuse demonstrates contact; it does not establish shared doctrine.

Follow the panel at The Met ↗
III

A book of songs

The Cantigas connect religious devotion, poetry, music and images. Their Galician-Portuguese language belongs in the story of a Castilian-Leonese royal court.

Read the Academy’s introduction ↗

Carry the question further

What crossed the Atlantic?

Continue into Portugal, Africa and the Americas. The Atlantic chapter lets you save its readings and private notes. Its companion lesson uses your learning record and achievements.

Continue to the Atlantic →Read and practise Asturias & LeónOpen your saved work
About this regional edition

This chapter extends the earlier Asturias & León and Atlantic readings, which remain available. Selected events and examples are linked to opened archive, museum and reference accounts. Reading an institution’s introduction is different from inspecting or transcribing its original documents.

The diagram has schematic positions and no reconstructed political boundaries. Connections between places are not a census of language or belief. This edition does not attempt complete histories of Navarre, al-Andalus, Occitania or every community within these regions.

Period labels are intentional: the Cantigas stop represents work across the later thirteenth century. The timeline’s spacing follows the selected stops, not elapsed years. Sources were read on 2026-10-14.