Battle of Calatañazor

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The Battle of Calatañazor is a legendary and presumably made-up military confrontation that is said to have taken place in July 1002.

Prehistory and alleged course of the battle

Almansor , Hisham II's chamberlain and de facto sole ruler in the Caliphate of Cordoba , led a Moorish raid towards Santiago de Compostela and Barcelona in the summer of 1002, as every year . Then the Moors withdrew to their base, the monastery of San Millán .

According to Spanish sources, the troops of Castile , Navarre and León , led by Alfonso V of León , are said to have fought in the province of Soria . Even Sancho I Garcés , grandson of Fernan Gonzalez , had taken part in the battle. Legend has it that the encounter ended with a defeat for the Moors. Almansor himself is said to have sustained serious injuries that made him blind and which he is said to have succumbed to a little later. In fact, Almansor suffered from a serious gout disease in the last years of his life and was overtaken by death in August 1002 on returning from a victorious campaign in Medinaceli .

Falsification of history

During his lifetime, Almansor did not suffer a single military defeat in his campaigns against the Christian empires. Therefore the legend of the Battle of Calatañazor as the only and fatal defeat of this general was written as a propaganda text. The alleged battle is not mentioned in the contemporary chronicles that report the death of Almansor. It appears for the first time in the Chronicon mundi (1236) by Lucas de Tuy († 1249). Lucas wrongly cites Bermudo II of León (956–999) and García Fernández of Castile (938–995) as Christian leaders , both of whom had died years ago at the alleged time of the battle. The ahistoricity of the battle was first established in 1881 by the orientalist Reinhart Dozy . Modern historiography unanimously assumes that battle is an invention.

consequences

The death of Almansor was celebrated as a great victory for the Christian side and served to bolster the moral of the Christian side. On the occasion of the death, the legend of this battle was written, which centuries later appeared in many Spanish school books. The death of Almansor also created an internal crisis in the caliphate.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Reinhart Dozy: Sur la bataille de Calatañazor. In: Recherches sur l'histoire et la littérature de l'Espagne pendant le Moyen Âge. Volume I, 3rd edition. Paris – Leiden 1881, pp. 193–202 ( digitized version ).

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