From Historical Source to Identity Symbol. Julià Ribera and the Edition of the Llibre del Repartiment of Valencia (1929-1939)

Abstract

The so-called Llibre del Repartiment (Book of Land Division), a record of the donations made by James I of Aragon following the conquest of the kingdom of Valencia, was already considered a fundamental historical source by Valencian historians in the 19th century. The edition made of this document by the archivist Pròsper de Bofarull in 1856 allowed its dissemination until the Arabist Julià Ribera, at the beginning of the twentieth century, highlighted its shortcomings and proposed the production of a new edition of a more scientific nature. In order to obtain the support of local institutions and private patronage, Ribera undertook a real campaign to spread the meaning of the Llibre del Repartiment throughout Valencian society, beyond the circle of historians and scholars. In this sense, the Arabist had to stimulate regionalist sentiment by emphasizing the symbolic dimension of the document as the founding myth of Christian Valencia. In this way, a process of transformation of the Llibre del Repartiment from a historical source to a symbol of identity began, in an unfinished process of mythification that was expanding from the conservative regionalist sphere to the incipient cultural and political Valencianism of the 1930s, until this process was halted by the impact of the Civil War.