Isabella of Spain and the Reconquest of Granada

Real Crusades History presents a full documentary dealing with the epic Crusade to reconquer Granada that took place between 1482 and 1492. Queen Isabel I of Castile, known to history as Isabella of Spain, played a vital role in this long war, helping to organize and inspire the Christian armies that waged crusade against the Moors of Granada.

5 Questions About the Crusades: Answered

J Stephen Roberts tackles five common questions about the Crusades.

The Battle of El Puig, 1237

     After his successful crusade to take Majorca, James the Conqueror’s next great project was a campaign to capture the Moorish power directly south of the Kingdom of Aragon: the Taifa of Valencia.

            The Valencian Crusade was announced at a general court celebrated in 1236 in Monzón. The campaign began with the capture of the Moorish fortress of El Puig, situated within striking distance of Valencia. Here, in 1237, James installed a garrison under the command of Don Bernat Guillem d’Enteca. Then the King departed for Tortosa to secure more supplies for his troops at El Puig.

            With the King gone, the Mohammedan ruler of Valencia, Zayyan ibn Mardanish, decided to attack El Puig. Zayyan knew that, so long as the Christians held El Puig, Valencia was in serious danger. Zayyan hoped to destroy the garrison at El Puig before James could return with more forces.

James I of Aragon in council

            Zayyan assembled a large army of troops drawn from Xàtiva to Onda – a considerable area of his Taifa – and then moved at dawn on El Puig. Meanwhile, ten Aragonese horsemen, engaged in a raid on the Valencian countryside, discovered this movement of Zayyan’s army and rushed back to El Puig to inform Don Bernat Guillen. Don Bernat ordered the garrison knights to hear mass, arm themselves for battle, and then assemble before the castle. Don Bernat believed that his men stood a better chance facing Zayyan’s troops in the field rather than waiting to be trapped in the castle by a siege.

  

            Zayyan’s troops arrived, and organized a strong formation with a well-armed infantry screen in the front. Zayyan was first to attack, and initially his men managed to drive back Don Bernat’s knights. However, the Christians rallied, invoking the Mother of God by shouting, “Santa Maria! Santa Maria!” After a powerful Aragonese charge, the Moorish lines began to falter. At this point, Zayyan’s formations became crowded, and some of the troops in the rearguard began to flee. Now Don Bernat’s knights made a fierce attack on the Mohammedan vanguard, and this broke Zayyan’s front lines. Soon the Moors were in total rout, and the Christians pursued them all the way to the River Sec.

The Battle of El Puig

            Zayyan’s army endured heavy casualties. Meanwhile, the Aragonese lost only a handful of men. One of the few knights who died was Ruy Ximénez de Luesia, who drove deep into the enemy ranks during the first attacks, and wasn’t seen again until his comrades found his body after their victory.

            James was at Huesca when Guillem de Salas, one of the knights who’d fought at the battle, arrived to deliver the news, his face still bandaged from a wound he’d received in the fighting. James rewarded Guillem, and proceeded immediately to the cathedral to offer prayers of thanks. James had the clergy sing the Te Deum Laudamus to praise God for the victory.

            The Christian victory at El Puig meant that James was very likely to capture Valencia. Zayyan had gambled on being able to dislodge the Aragonese from their strategic occupation of El Puig, but instead ended up losing a large number of his fighting men. In the end, James would achieve total victory, conquering the entirety of the Kingdom of Valencia. The courage and skill of his knights at the Battle of El Puig did much to make that possible.

The Battle of Uclés, 1108

Ever since the loss of Toledo to the Christians in 1085, a major goal of the Moorish powers of al-Andalus in southern Spain had been to recapture that important Iberian city. In 1108, for the first time in six years, a major Almoravid army set out to attack the Christian territory of Toledo. This army was led by Tamin ibn-Yusuf, brother of the Almoravid Emir Ali ibn-Yusuf. Tamin’s army included forces from Granada, Córdoba, Murcia, and Valencia, making it a numerically enormous coalition.

For his first move, Tamin attacked Uclés, some one hundred kilometers east of Toledo. The town itself fell on May 27, but the castle resisted, obliging the Almoravids to dig in for a siege.

King Alfonso VI of León (1040, 1065-1109)

Meanwhile, King Alfonso VI of León was well aware of the Almoravid invasion, and had already dispatched a relief force. The Leonese were led by Count Álvar Fáñez, one of the King’s most trusted commanders. Also included in the army was King Alfonso’s son and heir, Sancho Alfónsez, for the first time taking a command role in a military expedition.

The Almoravid forces broke away from their siege of the citadel at Uclés to meet the approaching Christians. On May 29, just outside of Uclés, the two armies met. Álvar Fáñez may have engaged the Moorish forces too soon, which allowed the numerically superior Almoravid forces to flank the Christian troops. In the resulting battle, the Leonese army was destroyed. Many high-ranking knights were killed, including the King’s son, Sancho Alfónsez. Álvar Fáñez led the survivors out of the encirclement and managed to retreat to Madrid.

Battlefield of Uclés as it appears today

Having won the field, the Almoravids beheaded the Christian dead, which numbered in the thousands, heaping the heads in a ghastly pile. An Almoravid imam then climbed up on top of this mound of heads and preached the Koran to the victorious jihadi troops. The Almoravid triumph meant that Uclés at once passed into Mohammedan hands, as well as the entire south bank of the River Tajo from Aranjuez east to Zorita. Toledo itself was in grave danger, but the Leonese mobilized a defense that prevented the Almoravids from pushing their advance beyond the Tajo. Despite this fantastic victory, Toledo – the ultimate prize – remained out of Almoravid grasp.

The death of Prince Sancho Alfónsez was personally devastating to King Alfonso VI, but also meant that his Kingdom would have to confront the problem of succession. Ultimately the lack of a male heir meant that the King’s daughter, Urraca, would take the throne. 

Reddit's OmarAdelX fails miserably at "debunking" a video by Real Crusades History

So recently one of my friends on twitter sent me a link to a Reddit conversation in which some user called OmarAdelX attacked a video I made for Real Crusades History. However, when I took a look at the link, and the video that OmarAdelX was referencing, I found that OmarAdelX was in fact taking issue with parts of the video where I was reading directly from Joseph O’Callaghan, one of the foremost historians of medieval Spain. So this OmarAdelX wasn’t attacking my ideas, he was attacking Joseph O’Callaghan’s. This is what you call not doing your homework, folks.

The video that OmarAdelX claims he’s going to debunk is “Visigothic Brilliance: Pre-Islamic Spain's Thriving Intellectual Life”. This is a video in which I discuss the fact that Visigothic Spain had a fairly impressive high culture:

OmarAdelX starts his post discussing my video with the following:

“The first 6 minutes were kind of ok , though he is using the what-the-media-is-hiding-from-you conspiracy tone. the Visigoths did have a thriving culture and they contributed many things to modern world like family law, property law and gothic manuscript and the famed gothic art, some good poetry too, though not as bright in philosophy and astronomy and natural sciences”

I wasn’t at all using a “conspiratorial” tone in the video, I just pointed out that not a lot of people are aware of the fact that the Visigoths had a high level of culture. Not surprising that OmarAdelX is attacking something he perceives in my tone, not anything that’s actually in the video.

But let’s continue, because here is where it gets really good.

OmarAdelX continues with this:

“here where comes the real shit. In 6:30 he start to talk about how the later post Visigothic period was long and bleak that interrupted the civilization, ugh well, surprise surprise, it wasn't.”

Once again, OmarAdelX doesn’t actually quote anything I say in the video, he just gives his impression. The only words I actually use in my video that he references are “long” and “bleak”. OmarAdelX takes issue with my use of these terms.

There’s just one problem. When I used those terms, I was reading them: specifically, I was reading them from a book written by one of the foremost scholars of medieval Spain, Joseph O’Callaghan. The book is called A History of Medieval Spain, published by Cornell University. Here is the exact passage I was reading in that video as O’Callaghan wrote it:

"Within twenty years of Julian's death the Muslim conquest destroyed the Visigothic kingdom and interrupted the scholarly tradition to which St Isidore had given such impetus. In the long, bleak centuries ahead, however, the Christian people still drew inspiration from that group of scholars whose work had enlightened the Visigothic age."

-Joseph F. O'Callaghan - A History of Medieval Spain. Cornell University, 1975. p. 88.

 I would like to point out that I stated specifically in my video that I was about to read a passage from Joseph O’Callaghan. OmarAdelX should have picked up on that, especially if he’s claiming to debunk my video. Normally, one wants to pay attention to the actual content of a video one is attempting to debunk.

At any rate, if OmarAdelX has a problem with Joseph O’Callaghan’s use of the terms “long” and “bleak”, I’ll let him take it up with O’Callaghan. Personally, I have a lot of respect for O’Callaghan as a scholar, and I have no problem making use of his words when I’m making a video.

Hopefully, though, I can help set OmarAdelX’s mind at ease. O’Callaghan isn’t saying that the entire history of Islamic Spain was some bleak, uncultured wasteland, he’s describing the feelings of Christians living under Islamic rule in Spain. These were long, difficult centuries of living under a foreign power, which had a bleak feeling to them if you were a Christian drawing inspiration from the old days when Christians ruled Spain. Similarly, once the Christians re-captured areas of Spain heavily inhabited by Muslims, I’d imagine the centuries ahead might have seemed “long” and “bleak” to those Muslims. O’Callaghan is talking about the feelings of a conquered populace here, not the achievements of a conquering power.

            O’Callaghan describes many of the grand achievements of Islamic Spain in this same book from which I read. And in this video that OmarAdelX is attacking, I point out several times that Islamic Spain achieved a high level of culture and learning. So OmarAdelX is attacking something he perceives in my video (and in O’Callaghan’s writing) that isn’t there to begin with.

            But OmarAdelX isn’t done yet. His post continues:

“then he tries to mend it all with yet more miserable attempt to paint the people of North Africa as barbarians, forgetting the fact that this entire area was roman territory too, and had produced similar amount of philosophers, theologians, historians whom contributed as much as the Visigoths some of them were even Christians (though regarded as heretics), ever heard of St. Augustine dude? He was North African, ever heard of priscian? or Arius? He was North African too, Pope Gelasius? Donatus magnus? so they weren't illiterate barbarians you punk”

Once again, OmarAdelX doesn’t actually address anything specific I say in my video. Indeed, nowhere in my video do I try to portray the “people of North Africa as barbarians”. But it does seem to be the term “barbarian” that bothers OmarAdelX, and I do use that term in this video. But once again, when I use that term, I’m reading from Joseph O’Callaghan, and yes, O’Callaghan is talking about the Arabs and North African Berbers who conquered Spain in the early 8^th century. Here is the quote from O’Callaghan’s book:

"The first Muslims to enter Spain, however, were rude barbarians from the deserts of Arabia and the mountains of Morocco whose contact with Greco-Roman civilization was still minimal. During the first century and a half of their domination in al-Andalus, civil wars and rebellions, the illiteracy of the masses, and the stringent thought-control of the Malachite jurists did not provide a suitable environment for the flowering of literature and learning."

-Joseph F. O'Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain. Cornell University, 1975. p. 158.

OmarAdelX seems to be confused about the people who actually conquered Spain in the 8^th century. It wasn’t North African Romans. It wasn’t Saint Augustine. It was Berber tribesmen and some of the earliest Muslim Arabs. As O’Callaghan points out, the first Muslims to take control of Spain were not a highly literate people with a high level of culture. They were rather rugged types – or, as O’Callaghan calls them “rude barbarians”. Islamic Spain’s high culture developed later.

 So OmarAdelX is just plain wrong if he believes the first Muslims who took Spain were highly literate and cultured. They weren’t. They weren’t Roman philosophers and theologians, as OmarAdelX appears to believe, they were, as O’Callaghan puts it: “rude barbarians from the deserts of Arabia and the mountains of Morocco whose contact with Greco-Roman civilization was still minimal.”

OmarAdelX ends his little failed attempt at a debunk with this:

“In the end of the Video he cited a book and suggested the viewers to read in it, while in fact I doubt he even read it.”

That book I recommend at the end of my video is in fact Joseph O’Callaghan’s A History of Medieval Spain, which I have in fact read, many times. But clearly, OmarAdelX hasn’t read it. I doubt OmarAdelX even knows who Joseph O’Callaghan is.

Oh, and I do hope you'll check out O'Callaghan's wonderful book

The Crusades

A pictorial journey through some riveting moments in the history of the Crusades, set to the song "Agnes" by J Stephen Roberts

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Review - "Myth of the Andalusian Paradise" by Dario Fernandez-Morera

Fernandez-Morera strips away the veil created by politically-correct modern historians to look at the real face of Muslim Spain based on contemporary, predominantly Arab sources. Conscious that he is taking on the entrenched academic establishment, Professor Fernadez-Morera documents his book meticulously, quoting numerous sources for each assertion and providing more than 100 pages of notes. 

What emerges is a hideous image of brutal aggression, consciously humiliating oppression, and intolerance on all sides (Muslim, Christian and Jewish).  This book is not a diatribe against Islam. Rather it is a bitter and biting attack on Western historians who in their search for an example to justify their own fantasies about “multicultural harmony” inside Islam have ignored or consciously distorted the facts.  

For example, Fernandes-Morera quotes the following passage from another contemporary historian: “It is important to understand that medieval Islamic civilization had a different attitude toward slavery than that seen in Western Europe. Slaves were much better treated and their status was quite honorable. Furthermore, there were many career opportunities open to a skillful mamluk [slave soldier], and the higher standards of living available in the Islamic Middle East, meant there was often little resistance to being taken [as a slave] in Central Asia and south-eastern Europe.” Fernandes-Morera replies: “One can certainly imagine the throngs of girls and boys in Greece, Serbia and Central Asia clamoring to be taken away from their families to be circumcised, to become sexual slaves, or to be castrated to guard harems as eunuchs, or, in other cases, to be raised in barracks with the sole purpose of becoming fearless slave-soldiers.”

Fernandez-Morera systematically debunks the allegations of a more “relaxed” Islam and multicultural equality.  He does so by quoting Arab sources which (among other things) brag about the wholesale destruction of churches and the slaughter of Christian prisoners, praise the crucifixion of apostates, and texts advising Muslims how to collect the tax from non-believers. (Make them stand before Muslims sitting on a raised platform, call them “enemy of Allah” and then push them around for the amusement of any Muslim “who want[s] to enjoy it.”) He also documents the extent to which Islamic Spanish society was dependent on slaves. For example, Abd al-Rahman had 3,750 slaves in his court, 6,300 sexual slaves in his harem, and 13, 750 slave soldiers. Furthermore, he notes that slaves were a major export of the kingdom, particularly eunuchs (castrated Christian males.) He documents the racism that characterized all blacks as fickle, foolish and ignorant and valued “white” slave girls at almost 15 times that of black slave girls.

Fernandez-Morera reminds readers that in Islamic Spain sharia law was the law of the land, and he goes into considerable detail on the specific form of sharia law applied, namely the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence. He points out that the Maliki school, far from being particularly liberal and tolerant, “is one of the more conservative schools, though not the most conservative — an honor that corresponds to the Habali school, predominant in the Arabian Peninsula.” (Fernandes-Morera, p. 96.)  Fernandez-Morera points out that Maliki sharia law included many niceties like female genital mutilation (even for adult sexual slaves), counted a woman as half a man, and banned musical instruments and singing altogether (as well as painting and sculpture, of course). The law even went so far as to order a man who bought a non-Muslim sex slave and discovered she was a singer to return her (p. 108).  

Obviously, as Fernandez-Morera admits, the elites in Muslim Spain (as all over the world) often ignored the law. Non-Muslim slave singers and dancers are tolerated and even coveted. However, he is right to remind his readers that lapses in the application of law do not constitute a positive culture--much less a shining example of “paradise.”

In short, Fernandez-Morera uses the Arabic sources to create his picture of Islamic Spain, and he applies logic and common sense ruthlessly to expose “political correctness” masquerading as history.  This book is important not just to those interested in learning about Medieval Spain, but as a lesson in how ideology can pervert allegedly scholarly writing. I recommend to everyone with an interest in history and historiography.

Dr Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in History.

She is the Chief Editor of the Real Crusades History Blog.

She is the author of numerous books both fiction and non-fiction, including a three-part biography of Balian d'Ibelin.