Siege of Cordoba

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The siege of Cordoba in 1236 was a step towards the complete conquest of Spain by the Christian kings during the so-called Reconquista and diminished the presence of Islamic domains on the Iberian Peninsula , which was caused by the fall of Granada in 1492 (39 years after the loss of Christian Constantinople to the Ottomans ).

Cordoba was on June 29, 1236 by the troops of King Fernando III. conquered and thus fell to Castile . After the fall of Córdoba, the Mezquita de Córdoba , then the largest mosque in the world, was converted into a Christian cathedral.

Siege and conquest of Cordoba

Towards the end of 1235, Christian soldiers (the so-called Almogàvers ) succeeded in penetrating the eastern part of Córdoba with the help of “Muslim traitors”. The Almogàvers sent a message to King Fernando III urging them to support the attack. Alvar Pérez de Castro (? –1240) and other officers of the king rushed to their aid. The king himself was in the Kingdom of León when the news reached him in January 1236. Some of Fernando's courtiers urged him not to go to Cordoba in the middle of winter, because the roads were bad and almost impassable with rain and snow. They also feared that Ibn Hud and the Moroccans would Córdoba shock . King Fernando, a Miles Christi ('Soldier of God'), "put his hope in the Lord Jesus Christ" and made the decision to join the besiegers of Cordoba.

Fernando urged his vassals to join him and quickly set off with his entourage to the south. On February 7th, 1236 he arrived with only 100 knights in the retinue before Córdoba. To prevent the defenders of the city from moving freely towards the areas in the south ruled by the Almohads , King Fernando and 200 knights occupied an area south of the Guadalquivir opposite the bridge of Alcolea, blocking the way to Écija . Ibn Hud gathered a force of allegedly 4,000 to 5,000 mounted fighters and 30,000 foot soldiers in the south, plus 200 Christian knights in his service, and moved towards Écija. Inexplicably, he did not call the Castilian siege army to fight, but withdrew to Seville . After Easter 1236 the weather improved and the besiegers were reinforced from Castile , León and Galicia .

The defenders of the besieged city realized that the balance of power had changed to their disadvantage and negotiated the surrender . However, when they learned that the besiegers were short of food and that the soldiers would withdraw from León after three months of service, they withdrew their consent to surrender. King Fernando then concluded an alliance with Ibn al-Ahmar , who was enemies with Ibn Hud. The defenders recognized their hopeless situation and again offered to surrender on the condition of safe conduct and the possibility of taking their movable goods with them. Some of Fernando's advisors advised him to take the city by storm , but the king accepted the offer. On June 29, 1236 his troops entered the city. Together with Ibn al-Ahmar, Fernando concluded a six-year truce with Ibn Hud. During this time Ibn Hud was to pay Fernando an annual tribute of 156,000 maravedís . However, Ibn Hud was murdered as early as 1238.

literature

  • Francisco Ansón: Fernando III, Rey de Castilla y León . Ediciones Palabra, Madrid 1998, ISBN 84-8239-233-6 .
  • Josef W. Meri, Jere L. Bacharach: Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia . Routledge, London 2006, ISBN 0-415-96690-6 .
  • Joseph F. O'Callaghan: Reconquest and crusade in medieval Spain . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2004, ISBN 0-8122-1889-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Francisco Ansón: Fernando III, Rey de Castilla y León . Ediciones Palabra, Madrid 1998, p. 151 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ^ Josef W. Meri, Jere L. Bacharach: Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia . Routledge, London 2006, p. 176.
  3. ^ A b c Joseph F. O'Callaghan: Reconquest and crusade in medieval Spain . Philadelphia 2004, pp. 94–98 ( limited preview in Google Book search).