25/03/2009
Vitoria-Gasteiz, March 25, 2009 - The conference series
organised by Fundación Catedral Santa María is now coming down this
season´s final stretch. This week, Encounters with the Cathedral will
allow us to enjoy the presence of Margarita Torres, doctor of Medieval
History who will give a lecture entitled Medieval myths and the
historical novel. The lecture will begin at 8:00 p.m. at Palacio de
Villa Suso and admission is free of charge.
Doctor and professor of Medieval History at the
University of Leon, Margarita Torres is a Spanish medievalist and
official chronicler of the city of Leon. Born in 1969 in La Bañeza
(Leon), she was educated at the universities of Voronezh (Russian
Federation) and Cambridge (England), in addition to the University of
Leon. She has also taught at universities in Porto, Santiago de
Compostela, Extremadura, Zaragoza, Alicante, Madrid, Paris and Caen
(France). Through an international merit-based competition in 2000, she
was made Visiting Scholar at prestigious St John´s College at Cambridge
University, where she returned each year until 2006.
Torres has written a raft of books on her own. She has published eight
books, including Linajes nobiliarios en León y Castilla (siglos
IX-XIII) [Noble lineages in Leon and Castile (ninth-thirteenth
centuries)], El Cid y otros señores de la guerra [El Cid and other
warlords], Las batallas legendarias y el oficio de la guerra [Legendary
battles and the war trade], Palat de Rey. El Palacio de los Quiñones,
condes de Luna y su entorno urbano [Palat de Rey. The Palace of the
Quiñones, the Counts of Luna and their urban setting] and La frontera
cristiano-musulmana del reino nazarita [The Christian-Muslim border of
the Nazarid kingdom]. Furthermore, two new works are expected to see
the light this year, one set in the sixteenth century and the other in
that turbulent period of change that was the end of the Roman Empire in
Hispania.
orres has also collaborated on a score of books, including Historia de
León [History of Leon] and Manual de Historia de España. Edad Media
[Manual of Spanish History. The Middle Ages], and published more than
seventy scientific articles and papers for national and international
congresses that focus on the history of the kingdom of Leon, its social
elite, war practices and its diplomacy and relationships with
Al-Andalus and other Hispano-Christian lands during the Middle Ages.
Likewise, Torres is a member of several academies and associations such
as the Madrilenian Academy of Genealogy and Heraldry, the
Hispanic-Belgian Academy of History, the Maltese-Hispanic Academy or
the Spanish Society of Medieval Studies. She has also participated in
nine research projects, national as well as international, including
one she directs on Roman camps on the Iberian Peninsula, which is
funded by the Ministry of Education and Science and Historical,
artistic and documentary study of St Isidoro of Leon (ninth-eighteenth
centuries), which is funded by the Government of Castile and Leon.
Margarita Torres’ lecture, Medieval myths and the
historical novel will begin at 8:00 p.m. at Palacio de Villa Suso.
Admission will be free until seating capacity has been reached,
although members of Santa María Cathedral´s Founders Circle will have
priority admission until 7:45 p.m..