Excerpt: A Learner's Abridged History of Europe - Scholastic Supply Press (Textbook), AD 1977
In truth, the extended conflict with the al-Mutahirin is one of the less well-covered elements in Andalusi history. Certainly Mu'izz ad-Din dispatched an army to the central Maghreb alongside several Zenata tribes, mainly those based in and around the Rif. The process of battling the zealots led to a loose alliance between the
Saqaliba, the Zenatas of the western Maghreb and the Igiderids of Ifriqiya, drawn together by a common interest in booting the troublesome Sanhaja zealots out of the region.
The wars dragged on for years, and Mu'izz ad-Din, already an old man, didn't live to see the end of them: He died in 1152 and passed the office of
hajib on to his nephew Bakr on schedule. While a pretender of the Umayyad line attempted to make a bid to restore the privileges of the Caliph while Bakr (who took the name Musharraf ad-Din) was out on campaign, driving the al-Mutahirin from Tiaret, this attempt at a palace coup proved abortive, and the plotters were quickly sent into exile in the Juzur al-Kaledat.[1]
The course of the fighting in the Maghreb took its toll on political dynamics there. The leader of the Ifranids - one Abu Bakr ibn Warmaksan - was killed sometime in 1154 while in action against the remnants of the al-Mutahirin, and the ensuing succession struggle between his three sons saw the Ifranid kingdom erupt into civil war. In need of men now, Musharraf ad-Din forged an alliance with Atiyya ibn Rezki, then the ruler of Oran and a member of the Zenata tribal confederacy. Atiyya, an accomplished warrior, lent a large body of veteran cavalry to Musharraf ad-Din's cause, and the two forged a strong bond as comrades in arms, riding out onto the field to complete the work of routing the al-Mutahirin and driving their remnants into the desert over the decade.
By 1159, beset by revolts and wars from without, the bulk of the al-Mutahirin were reduced to a handful of mountain redoubts in the Saharan Atlas, with many of the local lords swearing fealty variously to the Umayyads, Igiderids and to Atiyya's nascent Rezkids. It would be the first time that much of the Maghreb would work together with the Caliph at Córdoba, foreshadowing future divisions of Islam: With the Abbasid Caliph a mere puppet of Turkmens and lacking the reach to aid the Berbers in their struggles, and the Fatimids continuing to hold court at Cairo for the time, Maghrebi and Andalusian Islam found the beginnings of common cause. In this period, the name of the Umayyad Caliph, Muhammad III, was placed in the
khutbah from Marrakech to Tripoli to Saraqusta.
Truthfully, the ensuing years have less to say about the goings-on of the Umayyads and
Saqaliba than then do of the Maghreb. In Córdoba, Musharraf ad-Din dedicated much of his rule to enriching the nation through economic and building programs, waging the yearly
jihad against Santiago, Navarre and the Provencal world with little serious attempt to gain territory - these raids increasingly seen as somewhat perfunctory.
Atiyya ibn Rezki, however, took advantage of his relationship with Musharraf ad-Din to pounce on the squabbling divisions of the Ifrinid kingdom. With sanction from the
Saqaliba, Atiyya stormed westward and drove Ibn Warmaksan's son Agilas from Fes, seizing the traditional capital of the Maghreb for himself in 1063. Over the next few years he and a series of talented generals would earn the fealty of the tribes west of there, on towards Anfa but not quite up into the mountains, where Sanhaja tribes routinely clashed with the new Zenata overlords of the western Maghreb.
For the next several years, peace was the order of the times, with the men of Santiago making no territorial gains but the men of al-Andalus making only one in return: The arrival of Andalusi sailors on Jazirat al-Liwaril in 1166.[2] The name of its discoverer is not recorded, but while the Juzur al-Kaledat were seen as a minor economic resource, Jazirat al-Liwaril seems to have piqued the interest of the governor of Qadis, who dispatched a small group of ships to settle the island as a forestry colony. While Iberia itself was not devoid of trees, the lush forests of Liwaril tempted Andalusi merchants with the prospect of abundant hardwood.
The time of this settlement marks the first appearances of the ship known as the
saqin, or knife ship - an evolution of the typical lateen sail-carrying fishing boats used off the Andalusi coast for ages prior, the early
saqin was larger, faster and with a second mast. The ship is apparently so named for its perceived ability to cut through heavy ocean currents and return home from the islands, and it seems to have originated in Denia and Qadis at roughly the same time, not long after the discovery of the Kaledats. The ships still would not prove to be enough to round Ra's Bujadur,[3] and no records of ships sailing past the cape or the Kaledats exist for decades to come. Certainly the early
saqin remained in its embryonic state in the 12th century, not quite refined enough to conquer the cape, much less master the wind cycles - but it proved adequate to the task of helping a small group of daring merchants carry hardwood back from Liwaril and dragon's blood and cash crops back from the Kaledats, the islands having begun to be used to grow sugarcane, dates and lemons.
TEST QUESTIONS:
i.
Explain the differences between Muslim kings in the Maghreb and Christian kings in Francia.
*
The time of relative peace in Andalus came at a time in which Europe continued to grapple with the fallout from the Lateran Wars, among other conflicts - among the more notable, the conflict between Francia and the Anglish Earl of Nodingham[4], who had come into the rule of Brittany through his marriage to Hawise of Nantes and brought his daughter's father-in-law, King Sten Thorntongue of Angland, in on his side against the efforts of the king of the Franks, King Geoffrey II. The so-called Breton Wars dragged on through the 1140s and into the next couple of decades as the eventual death of the Earl of Nodingham saw Brittany fall into his daughter's hands, and through her to her spouse, King Sten's son and heir, Prince Arvid the Black. At various points, half of northwestern Europe was involved in some capacity, with Scotland briefly coming in on the side of the Franks in the hopes of winning back Strathclyde from the Anglish, a few German dukes gnawing on Francia with the consent of the Holy Roman Emperor, and gold flowing into the hands of Norman and German sellswords until it somehow ended with the Pope excommunicating the Count of Lower Lorraine despite said Count not actually being part of the war, Geoffrey dying of dysentery and Count Archambaud of Blois being elected King of Francia in 1163 through his marriage to Geoffrey's daughter and sole legitimate child (leaving aside the dozen or so bastards), and the eventual King Arvid of Angland hanging on to Brittany and some the Cotentin Peninsula except St. Malo while staving off constant challenges from the Duke of Normandy, who wanted his land back with interest.
Events like the Breton Wars are sometimes held up as proof of why al-Andalus survived - after all, Christendom seemed constantly riven by these disputes. But sloppy feudal messes of this nature were far from uncommon in this period - even medieval al-Andalus featured more than its share of feuding over land between local landlords and
Saqaliba-appointed governors, saying nothing of the outright Rezkid conquest of the Maghreb.
However, more than a few events of note played out in these years - the second leg of the Lateran Wars most consequential of all.
TEST QUESTIONS:
ii.
How did inheritance work in Christian law?
*
The death of Pope Leo X in 1033 brought a new succession of pontiffs. He was succeeded in short order by his fellow reformer, Boniface VIII - but Boniface lasted approximately 45 days before dying of a heart attack and bringing a series of short-lived and inconsequential pontiffs. Boniface IX, Gregory VII and John XXII all came and went before 1140 was out and the pontificate passed to Urban III, who made it until 1147 and is notable mainly for marshaling the resources of the Church behind a stunning defense of Hungary against the Turkmens and Pechenegs. The short-lived Lucius II followed until, finally, 1149, when the pontificate was bestowed upon an Italian from Lucca by the name of Guido Simonetti, who took on the name of Pope Sebastian I.
The chain of inconsequential Popes had softened the power of the Papacy just four and a half decades after the Great Deposition, and in that time, more than a few German dukes had begun to appoint their own Bishops again in defiance of the Church. The Emperors themselves sat by and wrung their hands piously, save for a few occasions in which the Billungs did take action to tamp down on rebellious vassals, but while the angry words of the Popes scared a few local lords into line, over time the Popes grew too powerless and too distracted by concerns in the Haemus to keep tabs on the affairs of the Germans.
The death of Bernard III in 1148 brought to the throne a northern Emperor: Duke Ruthard of Havelland's power base lay in the north, in lands reft from the Slavs in Adventures a century prior, and he held a deep cynicism as pertains to matters of faith, finding the Popes to be mere pawns of Italian lords who disdained the rightful successors of Charles the Great. Almost right away, Ruthard and Pope Lucius II clashed: Ruthard's interests lay in the north, where he sought Papal sanction to launch an Adventure in Livland, while Lucius pushed him to send troops to help Hungary rein in Turkmen raids across the mountains. By that time, much of the Haemus below Sirmium and the Hungarian mountains lay in the hands of Turkmens, Patzinaks and Muslim Vlachs, with the remaining cities of the Roman Empire hemmed in and subsisting entirely on maritime grain trade - even Constantinople, the Queen of Cities, was reduced to little more than a city-state.
Disputes between Ruthard and Lucius were only exascerbated by Sebastian's arrival. Zealous and reform-minded, Sebastian was chosen over the protests of the German bishops. His attempts to find a detente with the as-yet-uncrowned Emperor quickly broke down when he insisted that the Emperor do his duty for the faith and send men to battle the Turkmens, threatening to leave him uncrowned.
The German bishops, apparently unprompted, returned home and convened a synod at Cologne, where they appointed the German bishop Ruprecht of Worms to be the rightful pontiff. Ruprecht was quickly ensconced at Cologne as Antipope Urban IV. The Germans largely regarded Sebastian as the antipope and disparaged him as a sodomite who had bought his office from the Devil in the name of destroying Christendom. Emperor Ruthard himself was evidently furious at Ruprecht's appointment, but was eventually won over, and the antipope crowned him Emperor later that year, much to the fury of Sebastian. The Pope and Antipope quickly excommunicated each other; Sebastian excommunicated Ruthard in turn; Urban went on to excommunicate the Italo-Norman King Richard of Apulia, a staunch ally of Sebastian.
The dispute saw much of Europe lining up on either side of the dividing line between the two Popes, exascerbated as the Duke of Narbonne, then one William II, sought the hand in marriage of Marie of Provence, with whom he had already sired a bastard child and whose father disapproved of the marriage for fear of giving William reach enough to claim his title and lands within the remnants of the old Arelat. With the other lords of the Provencal world wary of William's ambitions and plotting to raise arms against him, William launched a full-on charm offensive to win Sebastian over to his side, eventually traveling to Rome in a hair shirt and prostrating himself before the Pontiff. His lobbying bore fruit: Sebastian absolved William and Marie of their sins and presided over their marriage.
The decision immediately drew competing lords in: the Count of Provence promptly appealed to Urban IV, who declared the marriage annulled and excommunicated William. William's vassals came down on the side of Sebastian; the King of Francia came down on the side of Urban; the lords of Aquitaine, Vasconia and Navarre supported Sebastian against the Frankish crown. Brushfire wars tore through much of Europe as a fuzzy dividing line between north and south saw lords at all levels cast arms into each other's teeth. Angland, meanwhile, came down on the side of Rome due to the ongoing disputes with Francia over Brittany, while Denmark sided with the Antipope at Cologne.
This wave of conflict - considered the Third Lateran War - raged on much longer than the first two. When Urban IV died, he was succeeded by Antipope Nicholas II, who remained firmly ensconced at Cologne. Sebastian himself was forced to move after imperial supporters in Rome attempted to kidnap him from the Lateran Palace; he took shelter in the Papal enclave in Reggio, given to the Church not long before the conquest of Sicily, and continued to issue excommunications and interdicts. All the while, the King of Hungary and the Dukes of Epirus and Sirmium cast plaintive looks towards Rome as Turkmens continued to raid across the Haemus.
A synod in 1159 intended to try and resolve the dispute failed to reach an agreement, and the divisions between Rome and the Empire dragged on beyond the death of Sebastian in 1162. The German bishops attempted to assert Nicholas as the rightful Pope, and an army marched on Rome to attempt to force the issue, eventually enthroning Nicholas in the Lateran. Sebastian's successor - Gregory VIII - held court at Reggio, pronouncing all the supporters of Nicholas to be under interdict. Soon, though, Nicholas was driven out of the city by a popular uprising - and the commons promptly elected another pontiff in the person of Antipope Lucius III, whom they considered to be "the people's pope." Lucius lasted about a year before noble plotters threw him in prison, and Gregory was welcomed back. The Schism wound onward for more and more years.
This phase of the Lateran Wars was by far the most consequential, notable for the sustained nature of the German Schism. It established the beginnings of a stark divide between two Europes: Northern Europe, with its Germanic languages and culture and its testy relationship with the faith, and Mediterranean Europe, with its Romance languages, Roman-influenced culture and closer relationship with the church. (Often left unsaid in this equation are the third and fourth Europes: Muslim Europe - in the form of al-Andalus and the then-Patzinaks and Turkmens - and Greek Christian Europe, in the form of the Rus' principalities and the Cuman-Kipchak-Greco-Slavic hybrid culture taking root in the nascent Black Olesh of Taurica.)[5]
[1] Exile to the Canaries: The Elba of al-Andalus.
[2] Island of Laurels - they've found Madeira.
[3] Cape Bojador.
[4] Nottingham.
[5] Just moving things along faster here. We'll get to the Kipchaks of the Black Olesh soon enough.
SUMMARY:
1133: Pope Leo X dies. He's succeeded by Boniface VIII, who dies of a stroke 45 days later and is succeeded by Boniface IX.
1135: Pope Boniface IX dies and is replaced by Pope Gregory VII.
1136: Pope Gregory VII dies and is replaced by Pope John XXII.
1140: Pope John XXII dies. Pope Urban III succeeds him.
1142: Pope Urban III begins to urge the Germans to send troops to battle marauding Turkmens in Hungary.
1143: The Breton Wars. Francia and Angland wrestle over the inheritance of Brittany by the Earl of Nodingham.
1147: Pope Urban III dies. He is succeeded by Pope Lucius II.
1148: Duke Ruthard of Havelland is named Holy Roman Emperor. He almost immediately clashes with Pope Lucius II, desiring an Adventure in the Baltics.
1149: Pope Lucius II dies and is succeeded by Guido Simonetti as Pope Sebastian I. Sebastian attempts to strong-arm Emperor Ruthard into going to war with the Turks. Relations quickly break down.
1150: The German bishops, annoyed with Sebastian I, elect Antipope Urban IV. Urban crowns Ruthard Emperor. The Third Lateran War and the German Schism begin.
1152: In al-Andalus, hajib Mu'izz ad-Din dies and passes rule to his nephew, Musharraf ad-Din.
1153: Pope Sebastian I agrees to wed Duke William II of Narbonne and Marie of Provence, daughter of William's rival and lord over the south of the Arelat. This brings the Provencal lords and those of Francia into the schism. Europe divides along schismatic lines as everyone takes a side.
1154: The Ifranid Kingdom shatters into competing fiefdoms. The lord of Oran, Atiyya ibn Rezki, having already gobbled up much former al-Mutahirin land and earned the trust of Musharraf ad-Din, begins to push west to press for Fes.
1157: King Sten Thorntongue of Angland dies and is succeeded by his son, Arvid the Black King.
1159: The Al-Mutahirin are reduced to a few mountain redoubts in the Saharan Atlas.
1162: Pope Sebastian I dies and is succeeded by Pope Gregory VIII.
1163: King Geoffrey II of Francia dies and is replaced by King Archambaud, the Count of Blois and Geoffrey's son-in-law.
1063: Atiyya ibn Rezki seizes Fes from the Ifranids. He is acknowledged by Caliph Muhammad III as Saqlabid Andalusia's man on the spot in the Maghreb.
1166: Andalusi settlers begin to set up logging colonies on Jazirat al-Liwaril.
