Los almogávares (Spanish Edition)

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In times of war, the kings and local nobles encouraged these activities, which yielded the King's fifth of the booty obtained. They were born during the violence of the frontier between the Islamic and the Christian world, and actually were often the cause of the frontier tensions. The frontier with the Saracen, not very attractive for people who wished for a life of quiet work, was a refuge for adventurers, of people who enjoyed living with risks and who lived by the fist and by looting enemy territory.

During the wars they joined the army, most of the time without a salary, but in exchange for rights on the loot, and being fed. Their mission consisted of exploring the land where the army was advancing, standing at forefront and flanks, harassing the enemy, attacking their garrisons by surprise and intercepting their convoys. They preferred to fight in open order, but if they were in trouble they could form a compact mass to fight off repeated cavalry charges, as happened against the Moors in Alcoll.

Almogavars acted as light infantry and could act in collaboration with the heavy cavalry, but unlike other medieval infantry troops they did not require the support of them. In the mercenary companies, besides Almogavars, there were units of "knights, infantry, archers, scudars, and men guarding the weapons of galleys", each one with a specific mission and that could be coordinated in the battlefield. They always retained their autonomy and were a permanent militia, because their modus vivendi consisted of making raids in enemy border territory.

These could easily last 2 or 3 days before getting to villages with decent booty. In the Europe of those times armoured heavy cavalry was the dominant shock force, so their tactics proved to be an innovation. The Almogavars were uncomfortable riding, and always fought afoot. They also got into the enemy formation to cut the hocks of the animals with their heavy knives, or impaled them with spears. In the melee they did not hesitate to use their heavy knives or maces to disembowel horses, and when the agonized mounts collapsed they rushed at the horsemen with their knives to kill them.

The Almogavars of the Crown of Aragon originally from Aragonese , Catalan and Valencian origins are the best known because of their deeds and international protection, both in the Mediterranean expansion , as well as the Catalan Company, an Almogavar unit of great fame.

They formed a numerous host, as Peter III of Aragon led 15, of them in his expedition to Tunisia and Sicily, and they also fought in the Principality of Catalonia during the crusade against the Crown of Aragon , under the leadership of Roger of Lauria , participating in the battle of the pass of the Panizas Coll de Panissars, in Catalan. The Catalan, Aragonese, and later, Valencian Almogavars played an important role in the advance of the Crown of Aragon against the Islamic States, participating moreover in countless raids, in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa , in the crusade against Majorca and in the conquest of Valencia In , Almogovar armies took the strategic enclaves of Ares and Morella , opening the doors to the conquest of Valencia.

The Almogavars formed the most effective element of his army. Their discipline, ferocity and the force with which they hurled their javelins made them formidable against heavy cavalry of the Angevin armies. They fought against cavalry by attacking the enemies' horses instead of the knights themselves. Once a knight was on the ground he was an easy victim of an Almogavar.

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This crusade was declared based on King Peter's intervention in Sicilian affairs against the papal will. Most of the conflict took place in Catalonia, although the first episode took place in the frontier of Navarre and Aragon. Roger of Lauria had much more control over his captains than the enemies did. His crews were made up of specialized troops, instead of the more generic types used by his enemies. His archers were used initially, while his oarsmen Almogavars stayed under cover.

These Almogavars were much more agile than the heavily armored knights with swords, as his enemies often used, especially on the moving deck of a galley at sea. Roger used trickery to disguise the size of his force. In addition, he sometimes kept some of his galleys hidden, to attack the rear of the enemy after the battle had started.

Roger was also infamous for the ruthless sackings and the devastation of his actions, often driven only by greed and personal advantage. On the other side, his reputation alone possibly caused some enemies to lose heart during a battle. In , the Peace of Caltabellotta ended the war in southern Italy.

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This company was organized to fight against the Turks , defending the Byzantine Empire. Both kings of Aragon and Sicily agreed with this strategy as a viable alternative to having the Almogavar army standing unemployed in their realms. The Almogavar campaign in Asia Minor to drive back Turks took place in and , and began with a series of great military victories that drove them back from Philadelphia to Cyzicus and in doing so brought great destruction to the Anatolian landscape.

When the Almogavars insisted in receiving the agreed payment, the Byzantine Emperor refused. In , Roger de Flor and his lieutenants were assassinated by orders of the Emperor while meeting to discuss terms on their compensation. This assassination may have been instigated by Genoese merchants, who were conspiring to keep their own position of influence and power. This betrayal resulted in the surviving Almogavars, who resisted for two years a siege in Gallipoli and concentrated on the region of Thrace , leading off the Catalan Revenge, a war of extermination and systematic looting against the civilian population of the Byzantine Empire between and in revenge and retaliation for the murder of Roger de Flor and the attempted annihilation of the Company while it was stationed at Gallipoli.

After a period of internal conflict, the Great Company left the line and moved to Greece where it was hired by the Duke of Athens, who didn't pay what they agreed to; so the Almogavars marched against the Duchy of Athens , under the rule of the French House of Brienne.

Almogavars

They then divided the wives and possessions of the Frenchmen by lot, and summoned a prince of the house of Aragon to rule over them. The culminating achievement of the Almogavars was the foundation of Aragonese rule over the duchy of Athens.

Although the duchy eventually fell, even today the King of Spain still holds the title of 'Duke of Athens and Neopatria '. The Aragonese Almogavars also distinguished themselves in the war against Castile , where they participated in considerable numbers, but in the 14th century their numbers dropped drastically because of the end of major wars of expansion and because a large number of them went to take part in the expedition of Peter the Great to Sicily, from which many never returned but instead continued fighting in Italy, having enrolled in Guelph armies or in the Catalan Company.

The vacuum left never refilled, but yet were so remarkable in the crusade against Almeria , in the campaigns of Granada , against the king of Mallorca , in expeditions to Sardinia , and , and yet again against Castile , but in the latter they no longer made up the bulk of the infantry but rather were special units for dangerous and explorers' raids. Shortly after, they defended the Principality of Catalonia against the invasion attempt of the Armagnac count in , and the next attempt of the Foix count from up to The presence of Almogavars in Castile, despite being somewhat unknown, is well documented.

They had as important a role in the conquest of Andalucia as at the border of Granada. In addition to the aforementioned role in the groups of Alfonso X, they are also mentioned in ballad of said author. There, it is told how a group of Almogavars achieved nothing in their brawls until they decided to hold a vigil in the chapel of Alcazar, after which they came out on horseback and won victory with good booty, offering the Virgin a cloth of purple and gold.

This place was for many years a place of raids by Almogavars of Aragonese, Navarrese and Basque ancestry, especially in places like Pegalajar , Cambil , Huelma and Arenas. To the north of the castle of this locality exists a zone that was known as Campo de Almogavares Land of Almogavars. The beginning of the conquest of the city of Cordoba by the Almogavars is told by Argote de Molina: At , the rich men and Hidalgos low nobility Adalids and Almogavars who were on the border of this kingdom gathered in Andujar and entered into Cordoba lands, where they captured some Moors, who told them how the Cordoba city was very neglected, where no one was controlling or distrusting the Christians.

They arrived in Cordoba on the night of December 23, , with great daring and skill stealth mounted a scale, clambering disguised as Moors seizing the Puerta del Colodro. Almogavars had a relevant presence at the border of Granada, where their ranks were made up of neighbors of the border localities and adventurers looking for booty in the kingdom of Granada. Other times, the reason leading them to become Almogavars was revenge.

The brutal raids of Benimerines and Zenetes coming from North Africa, which especially affected the western area of the border, caused the destruction of entire towns and the enslaving of its inhabitants, which led the survivors, without hope and with their lives broken, to join Almogavar groups commanded by Almocadenes, turning their new life into a continuous feeling of revenge.

This was the case of many of the neighbors of Vejer , Alcala de los Gazules , Medina-Sidonia and Lebrija , who after an attack in where the North Africans kidnapped over captives to sell them as slaves, enlisted in the Almogavar ranks. Besides the looting, they were engaged in other activities.

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When groups of bandits from Granada were detected going into in Christian territory, Almogavars hid by the roads they used or by their water sources, in order to surprise them as they passed by these places. Grateful municipalities across the border, such as Murcia or Orihuela , rewarded this activity. When Almogavars deployed throughout the border, it was very difficult for any potential enemy to pass, unless it was a large contingent of troops or someone who knew the area very well and passed through fields at night.

Almogavars also used to work for intelligence services and surveillance, which depended on the municipalities or the royal officers, and were vital to the defense of the border with the Saracens. The mission of the Almogavar scouts was to observe possible entries of enemies and warn of this fact by smoke signals during the day and fire by night.

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These signals were transmitted from one scout to another, so that, after a little while the whole country could be warned. Other monitoring points were located on the main roads, where the mission was to stand guard against the numerous robberies of foot traffic. Sometimes municipalities required services of Almogavars to track Granadian robbers, that they knew well how to spot because they knew how to be quiet when they entered a Christian land; they used to replace iron horseshoes with esparto horseshoes, which left some footprints and often unique pieces of this clothing material.

Free activities of Almogavars originated numerous diplomatic conflicts with Granada, because they didn't respect the signed peace.

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Valencian Almogavars were also a source of friction with the Crown of Castile, because of frequent Granadian reprisals after a raid of Valencian Almogavars, exercised against Murcian border populations, because Almogavars from Valencia or Murcia had caused damage to the neighboring territory. Adalids played an important role in this conflict, as were those who knew the territory better and how to combat Granadians because they were familiar with them.

They commanded hosts of Hidalgos noblemen from Oviedo. Ramon Muntaner recounted some of these battles, such as the occupation of the island of Djerba. Once they conquered Granada, veteran Almogavars embarked to conquer African coastal places, shelter of pirates and corsairs.

John I , coming to the battle of Aljubarrota against Portugal , requested the rapid advent of "those Almogavares". Also hosts of Murcian Almogavars intervened in the early reign of the Catholic Monarchs against aristocratic opposition led by the Marquis of Villena in his advocacy of the rights of the daughter of Henry IV. There are abundant references to the existence of Almogavars in the Kingdom of Portugal, who played an important role in the African campaigns in which they were immersed in the 15th and 16th centuries, where Almogavars and Almocadenes guarded the borders of the Portuguese possessions in North Africa.

The end of the great wars of expansion in the Iberian Peninsula, with only the Kingdom of Granada resisting, meant the gradual decrease in the number of Almogavars. While the Granadian border offered good opportunities of profit, penetrating it was not as profitable as before, since most of the captured Moors ended up being slaves and their price did not justify the risk of crossing the border to catch them.

Moreover, in peacetime royal officials closely watched these activities, so it was very difficult to sell those captives as slaves. This had several implications. On the one hand, the figure of Almogavars was transmuted to the Ballestero de monte mountain crossbowmen and head hunters, who held mainly defensive functions against frequent attacks from Granada. On the other, it meant drift of some Almogavars to banditry. When these activities were illegal in peacetime, some Almogavars from Orihuela soon discovered that it was much safer to make raids in their own territory, where there were also Moors; the Islamic communities at the time of the conquest had accepted Christian domain.

Almogavars took members of these communities as prisoners, hid them in caves and demanded ransom or sold them far away as captives. Often these Almogavars were acting not in their own territory, but in the neighboring one, to better ensure their impunity and further complicate the chase. To do so, they found moral justifications based on the suspicions against the Moors of the Murcian kingdom, accused of helping fellow Granadians in raids on Christian territory.

At a popular level, in addition, the distinction between enemy Moors and Moors who were not was not very clear. Almogavars practicing this crime of kidnapping or "collera" , consisting of taking a free person to sell as slave, were called Collerats. Almogavars were so often dedicated to this activity that the word Almogavar eventually ended up becoming synonymous with Collerat. Some Almogavar groups also committed abuses against the Christian population of the neighboring kingdoms, as in May when a Christian boy of five along with some Saracens had been captured by Almogavars in Murcia and sold as a Moorish captive.