Conquest of Valencia (1238)

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Conquest of Valencia
Part of the Reconquista and the Crusades [1] (Aragonese conquest of Valencia)
Entrada triunfal en Valencia de Jaime I el Conquistador (Museo del Prado).jpg
19th Century evocation of the entry of King James I in Valencia (Prado Museum)
Date22 April – 9 October 1238
Location
city of Valencia, Spain
Result Crusader Victory [2]
Belligerents
Aragon arms.svg Crown of Aragon Taifa of Valencia
Commanders and leaders
Aragon arms.svg James I of Aragon Zayyan ibn Mardanish

The conquest of Valencia also called Valencian Crusade [3] [4] was a Crusade under taken by the Catalan and Aragonese troops of King James I of Aragon took place on 9 October 1238.

Contents

Background

Valencia was under Islamic rule since 711, with an eight-year interruption between 1094, when the city had been conquered by the Christians under command of El Cid, and 1102, when it was retaken by the Almoravids.

In 1229, Valencia (Balànsia) fell into the hands of local leader Zayyan ibn Mardanish, after dethroning Zayd Abu Zayd, the last Almohad governor of the province. Zayd Abu Zayd fled to Aragon, where he became a vassal of King James I of Aragon, who could now represent the conquest of Valencia as a mere intervention in the civil war of the Muslims. [5]

In 1233, two knights, the Occitan Hug de Follalquer, a master of the Knights Hospitaller, and the Aragonese Blasco I d'Alagón, who had just returned from a few years of exile in Balànsia, informed the young King James I, about the riches in the Muslim Taifa of Valencia and they encouraged him to conquer it.
It was decided that the campaign would begin with the conquest of Burriana in the same year 1233. Three years after conquering Burriana and all the territories north of this city, El Puig was conquered in a battle led by Bernat Guillem de Montpeller, uncle of King James I, in the spring of 1236, and fortified. [6]

As El Puig is the key position for the Horta of Valencia and the northern access to the city, Zayyan ibn Mardanish gathered a large army in order to reconquer it, but was defeated in the memorable Battle of El Puig on 20 August 1237, in which James I did not take part because he was in Lleida.
The Aragonese army could now advance towards the city of Valencia. [6]

The Siege

On 22 April 1238, James I arrived at the village Grau de Valencia to start the siege of the city, and established his command post at Russafa. [7] Numerous knights from Aragon, Catalonia, Provence, and also Germany, Hungary, Italy, England, etc. joined the siege, after calls by the King and the Crusade bull granted by Pope Gregory IX in February 1237. In the middle of 1238 the then Archbishop of Tarragona, Pere d'Albalat, assisted James I by offering his personal services in the crusade against the city of Balasinya, in addition to contributing 5,000 marks of silver to the cause, as well as a considerable contingent of knights. [8] His brother Benet d'Albalat, noble and knight, was officially named the commander of the troops. [9]

Zayyan ibn Mardanish, seeing himself surrounded by Christian troops, asked the other Muslim sovereigns for help, but only Abu Zakariya Yahya, King of Tunis, to whom Ibn al-Abbar had been sent, reacted and sent a fleet of twelve ships to Balânsia. On 17 August 1237, the fleet arrived in Balànsia, but they did dare to disembark, because the wall was already attacked and shelled by the Aragonese.
Since food was scarce in the city, Zayyan, having lost all hope of relief, began negotiations for surrendering the city to James I. Balànsia, which had resisted the Cid for two years in 1092–1094, now only endured the attack by James I for five months, but he was provided with better siege weapons. [6]

On 22 September, the capitulation was signed [10] with the decisive intervention of Violant of Hungary, wife of James I, in setting up the conditions for the surrender. Zayyan and the Muslims who wanted to leave could do so south of the Júcar river and the Moors who wanted to stay could do so safely, but under Christian rule. To make the capitulation public, on 28 September 1238, the Valencian Moors hoisted a Royal flag of Aragon and Catalonia, later called the Pennon of the Conquest , on the tower of Alí Bufat. On Saturday 9 October 1238, James I officially took possession and entered the city. [6]

Today, 9 October is still celebrated as the Dia de la Comunitat Valenciana, the official holiday of the Valencian Community.

Consequences

Once the Islamic Balânsia was captured, Pere d'Albalat consecrated the mosque into a Christian church and helped Berenguer de Castellbisbal in the organization of the new Bishopric of Valencia. In this way, Pere d'Albalat managed to have the See of Valencia declared suffragan of that of Tarragona, in direct opposition to the pretensions of the Castilian Archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada. [8]

After the Christian victory, the city was divided among those who had participated in the conquest, which is evidenced in the Llibre del Repartiment (Book of Distribution). James I granted the city new laws, the Furs of Valencia, which years later extended to the entire Kingdom of Valencia. Thus began a new stage, at the hands of a new society and a new language, Catalan, which established the foundations of the Valencian people as we know them today. Although an estimated 50,000 Muslims left the city and were replaced by some 30,000 mostly Catalan settlers, the large majority of the population remained Muslim for a long period of time. [6]

From 1239 to 1245, James I of Aragon continued with the conquest of the southern part of the Kingdom. Cullera fell in 1240, Alzira in 1242, Xàtiva in 1244 and Biar in 1245. James I of Aragon could not advance further south, as the coastal Taifa of Murcia had already been taken by King Ferdinand III of Castile in 1243. In 1266, he did reconquer Murcia on behalf of his ally Alfonso X of Castile, after the Mudéjar revolt of 1264–1266. [6]

Reactions

The English chronicler Mathew Paris spoke admiringly of James, labelling him "most Christian king magnificent and vigorous in arms" who had conquered the great city of Valencia. [11] Pope Gregory IX declared:

Our most dear son in Christ ... with many Catholic men, stirred by zeal for faith and signed by the sign of the cross, has ripped the Kingdom of Valencia from the hands of the pagans [12]

Emphasizing the need to protect the new conquest, the Pope also offered crusader status to those who would defend it. French King Louis IX gifted King James with a thorn from the Crown of Thorns relic he had in Sainte Chapelle Church. [13]

On the other side, the Moorish Poet Ibn Amira, a native of the city, lamented:

Like a bird of pray, the enemy seized the city - elegant, beautiful, brilliant Valencia- by the throat... the infidel has destroyed the Muslim faith there and the bell has replaced the call of the Muezzin. [14]


References

  1. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p. 102
  2. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p. 102
  3. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p. 102
  4. ↑ On the Social Origins of Medieval Institutions: Essays in Honor of Joseph F. O'Callaghan. Netherlands, Brill, 2021, pp. 67-69
  5. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (2013-04-15). A History of Medieval Spain. Cornell University Press. p. 345. ISBN   978-0-8014-6872-8.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (2013-09-10). Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 99–105. ISBN   978-0-8122-0306-6.
  7. ↑ Escrig, Joaquim. Cronologies històriques valencianes de Jaume I als nostres dies. Carena Editors, 2001, p. 156. ISBN   8487398456
  8. 1 2 Fita, Fidel (1902). "D. Pedro de Albalat, arzobispo de Tarragona, y D. Ferrer Pallarés, obispo de Valencia. Cuestiones cronológicas". Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia (in Spanish). 40 (quadern IV ed.). Madrid: Tipografía de la Revista de Arch., Bibliot. y Museos: 336. ISSN   0034-0626 . Retrieved October 1, 2024.
  9. ↑ Burns, Robert Ignatius (1967). The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Reconstruction on a Thirteenth-Century Frontier. Vol. I (first ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts, EUA: Harvard University Press. p. 39. ISBN   978-0-674-73165-3.
  10. ↑ Ubieto Arteta, Antonio (1979). Orígenes del reino de Valencia: cuestiones cronológicas sobre su reconquista (in Spanish). Vol. 2 (4th ed.). Anubar. p. 255.
  11. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p.105
  12. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p.105
  13. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p.105
  14. ↑ O'Callaghan, Joseph F.. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. United States, University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2013, p.104
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