Examines the political development of Portugal between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Taking place amid the struggle between Christendom and the Islamic world for control over the Iberian Peninsula, the formation of Portugal also depended on the growing European influence felt throughout the peninsula during these centuries.

STEPHEN LAY has been Lecturer in History at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and later Executive Officer of the Monash University London Centre. He is currently Graduate Studies Assistant at the University of Oxford, and has published several journal articles. His essay 'The Interpretation of the Magna Charta' received the Romanzi award and was published as a monograph in 2004.