Kingdom of León

The Asturian kingdom moved south onto the plain, and the state that invented the assembly. Leon was a Roman legionary base whose name comes from legio rather than from any lion, resettled and made a capital in 910 when the Asturian kingdom was divided. Ruling the repopulated Douro valley meant governing free peasant settlers and fortified towns rather than a mountain aristocracy, and that produced a distinct political practice: town charters granting privileges to attract settlers, and in 1188 a curia summoned by Alfonso IX which included elected representatives of the towns alongside nobles and clergy. Unesco recognises those Cortes as the earliest documented parliamentary assembly in Europe. The kingdom fought Cordoba, was raided severely by al-Mansur in the 990s, and spent as much energy on its Christian neighbours as on al-Andalus. Castile began as its eastern county and grew more powerful than its parent, and the two crowns separated and rejoined repeatedly before Ferdinand III united them permanently in 1230. Leon's romanesque and gothic buildings, especially the cathedral's glass and the frescoed royal pantheon at San Isidoro, are the visible legacy. The Leonese language survives marginally. The kingdom gave its arms, a lion, to the Spanish coat of arms. Its cathedral has among the largest areas of medieval stained glass in Europe. San Isidoro's pantheon is called the Sistine Chapel of the Romanesque. The kingdom controlled the Camino de Santiago's central stretch. Leon and Castile shared monarchs for long stretches before the final union. The city sits on the Bernesga river.

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