Hueste (in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
), hoste (in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
/
Galician), host (in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
) or ost (in
French) was the designation, used in the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, during the Middle Ages, to refer to a group of armed men under the command of a ''prelado'' or ''rico-hombre'', with the objective of executing expeditions or warfare. Huestes were initially drawn from the broader population, but later became more selective as combat skills became more specialized.
Etymology
The terms, in the several Iberian languages, come from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''hoste'' or ''hostis'', meaning "the enemy".
At the start of the Middle Ages, there was no term in the Iberian Peninsula to signify a group of men with military objectives. The Castilian term ''hueste'' appeared in the ''
Siete Partidas
The ''Siete Partidas'' (, "Seven-Part Code") or simply ''Partidas'', was a Castilian statutory code first compiled during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile (1252–1284), with the intent of establishing a uniform body of normative rules for th ...
'' of the 13th century, with a meaning similar to the modern Castilian word ''tropas'' ("troops").
External links
Las huestesat Geocities {{in lang, es
Military history of Spain