CROWN AND NOBILITY

Crown and Nobility

Crown and Nobility

As its subtitle suggests, this lucid scholarly work by Hofstra University history professor Doubleday takes the 300-year odyssey of the powerful Lara family as a case study in the changing relationship between the Castilian aristocracy and the monarchy. The Laras began their rise as protégés of Alfonso VI in the 11th century, when "the royal court was in fact a fountain of aristocratic power." Gonzalo Núñez ("de Lara" was added later to indicate the family's geographic base in northern Spain) gained his king's favor as a talented warrior, the key to ascendancy as the ...