Sources and Research on Early Modern military history: The "Archivo General Militar" of Segovia, the oldest Spanish Military Archive

Abstract

In this article, conceived from the perspective of the researcher, we start from a short introduction to the state of the art of Early Modern Military Historiography and the return to the primary sources. From this point we focus on the Archivo General Militar, Segovia, the oldest document repository of the Spanish Armies. As the oldest military archive, we make an approach to the documentation generated by the Army over the centuries and preserved in the Alcázar, to its specific document types, and to their use as instrument for the historical research. The analysis of these documentary resources is a valuable tool for research in Early Modern Spanish Military History.