Conquest of Zaragoza (1118)
| Conquest of Zaragoza (1118) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Reconquista | |||||||
.jpg) Conquest of Zaragoza | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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Kingdom of Aragon Kingdom of Navarre Viscounty of Béarn | Almoravid dynasty | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Alfonso the Battler Gaston IV Centule II | Ali ibn Yusuf | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
The Conquest of Zaragoza of 1118 was a military operation led by Alfonso I the Battler, king of Aragón and Pamplona, who It allowed him to take the city of Zaragoza from the Almoravids.
History
[edit]The city, which had once been the capital of the Taifa of Zaragoza,[1] had about 25,000 inhabitants counting its periphery.[2] It had been previously besieged by Alfonso VI of León in 1086, by Sancho Ramírez in 1091,[1] and by Alfonso I of Aragon himself in 1110.[3] Within the attacking contingent there were, in addition to Aragonese, French, Castilian, Navarrese, and Catalan, beginning the siege in May 1118.[4] Together with the Aragonese king, who joined the siege once it had begun, nobles such as Gastón de Béarn fought or Centule II, Count of Bigorre.[5] The monk Pedro de Librana carried the indulgence papal,[6] granted by the pontiff Gelasius II in December 1118.[7]
The small defending Almoravid contingent, which lacked a leader after the death of Governor Ibn Tifilwit in 1116, received external support from troops commanded by the Granada governor Abd Allah. ibn Mazdali,[7] who died on November 16, demoralizing the defending troops.[8] These capitulated on December 11, 1118, and the Christian troops triumphantly entered the city on the 18th of that month.[4] Despite the abundant siege weapons arranged by the army of Alfonso I during the siege, the capitulation of the city must have been more due to the hunger suffered by the besieged.[9] The Christians also suffered from hunger, leaving part of the siege of the Frankish troops.[7]
After the conquest of Zaragoza, Alfonso I proceeded to continue the military campaign, with the conquest of Tudela and Tarazona the following year.[10] Also as a result of the taking of the city, the city of Jaca would lose political importance.[11]
References
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Mouton, García (1980). "The French in Aragon" (PDF). Zaragoza: Archive of Aragonese philology. pp. 7–98. ISSN 0210-5624.
- Montserrat, Grau (1958). "Contribution to the study of the cultural state of the Ebro valley in the 11th century and early 12th century". Barcelona: Bulletin of the Royal Academy of Good Letters of Barcelona. ISSN 2340-3241.
- Guichard, Pierre (2001). Al-Andalus facing the Christian conquest: the Muslims of Valencia, centuries. Madrid and Valencia: New Library; University of Valencia. ISBN 84-7030-852-1.
- Corbera, Laliena (2005). Frontier and feudal conquest in the Ebro valley from a local perspective (Tauste, Zaragoza, 1086-1200). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 115–138. ISSN 0213-2060.
- Stalls (1995). Possessing the Land: Aragon's Expansion Into Islam's Ebro Frontier Under Alfonso the Battler, 1104-1134. Leiden, New York and Cologne: The Medieval Mediterranean. ISBN 90-04-10367-8. ISSN 0928-5520.