Premio del Rey
Next Award Year: 2020
The American Historical Association awards the Premio del Rey biennially for a distinguished book in English in the field of early Spanish history. It was endowed by a gift of Robert I. Burns, SJ, from his Llull and Catalonia prizes and covers the medieval period in Spain’s history and culture CE 500–1516. See the list of past recipients.
The general rules for submission are:
- The terms of the prize include works on Hispanic history and culture, including the Islamic and Jewish communities of medieval Spain as well as early New World topics prior to 1516.
- Only books of a high scholarly historical nature should be submitted. Research accuracy, originality, and literary merit are important factors.
- Books with a copyright of 2018 or 2019 are eligible for the 2020 award.
- Nomination submissions may be made by an author or by a publisher. Publishers may submit as many entries as they wish. Authors or publishers may submit the same book for multiple AHA prizes.
- Nominators must complete an online prize submission form for each book submitted.
- One copy of each entry must be sent to each committee member and clearly labeled “Premio del Rey Entry.” Print copies preferred unless otherwise indicated. If only e-copy is available, please contact review committee members beforehand to arrange submission format.
Please Note: Entries must be received by May 15, 2020, to be eligible for the 2020 competition. Entries will not be returned. Recipients will be announced on the AHA website in October 2020 and recognized during a ceremony at the January 2021 AHA annual meeting in Seattle.
For questions, please contact the Prize Administrator.
The review committee contact information and prize submission form will be posted by March 1 for submissions due May 15.
2018 Premio del Rey
Michelle Armstrong-Partida, University of Texas at El Paso
Defiant Priests: Domestic Unions, Violence, and Clerical Masculinity in Fourteenth-Century Catalunya (Cornell Univ. Press)
This meticulously researched and documented book uses diocesan visitation records to show that a majority of parish priests in late medieval Catalonia cultivated marriage-like relationships and utilized violence to maintain authority in their communities. Grounded in the history of gender, violence, and the family, and in regional and church history, Defiant Priests challenges commonplace assumptions about clerics in post-Gregorian, post-Lateran IV Europe. Michelle Armstrong-Partida’s evidence and conclusions will be important for Iberianists and medievalists of all stripes.