Por São Jorge e Santiago! - A Reconquista TL

I. Magnus Dux Portucalensium (1107-1112)
Magnus Dux Portucalensium

The Emperor was dead.

And the people of León mourned his passing, for he had been a powerful Prince, that had expanded the borders of his Kingdom further south than any of his predecessors. Under him, the armies of Christ had reconquered the old capital of the Visigothic Kingdom, Toledo, which at the time had been seen as a clear sign that he had been blessed by God himself and that this true heir of Hercules would be the one to unite the Peninsula under Christ.

But alas, such things were not be, and now the South was in the hands of the Almoravids and the Heir to the Throne was dead, killed at the field of Ulclés, where the flour of the Leonese nobility perished with him.

Some said the Emperor had been murdered, others that he had been killed by grief, having no wish to live now that his destiny laid in ruins, and other that God himself had called him to His realm. The truth was probably something more mundane, the Emperor had been old after all, and he had never recovered from an old battle wound, but how he had died mattered little for those still living. All that the Nobles of the Kingdom cared about was that he was dead and for the Counts of Portucale and Galicia, two cousins from the lands of Frankia, his death presented them a golden opportunity, for they had long been planing for the day El Bravo would join his ancestors.


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Henrique e Raimundo de Borgonha

For the Count of Galicia, Raymond de Bourgogne, the death of Emperor Alfonso was dream come true, for this son of Count Guillaume le Grand, was married to the last surviving legitimate daughter of the Emperor, Urraca de León, and with the death of the heir to the throne, Sancho Anfónsez, at the Battle of Ulclés, she was the last living, legitimate, scion of El Bravo, making him married to the future Queen of León, Castilla, Galicia and Toledo, and making him future King of all those lands.

There were others that could contest Urraca's position as Queen, for the Emperor had many illegitimate daughters, and the most powerful of them was Teresa Alfonséz de León. Luckily for Raymond, she was married to his cousin, the Count of Portucale, Henri de Bourgogne, who was his long time ally in the Court of León. As one of the most powerful counts in León, Henri's support was vital, for as Count of Portucale, he was also Lord of Braga, the seat of the Archdioceses of Braga, whose Archbishop was not only Papal Legate but also one of two claimants, the other being the Archbishop of Toledo, to the title of Primaz of all Hispania.

With the Archbishop of Toledo, Bernard de Sédirac, having no love for Raymond's cause, the support of Henri, and by extension, of Archbishop Maurice Bourdin, was vital for his cause, for without the support of the Frankish Clergy, Urraca's, and Raymond's, reign would be tumultuous, thankfully, Raymond, had long planned for this moment.

Per the alliance the two cousins had made in 1097, Henri was honour bound to support Raymond and in exchange for his support, Raymond had vowed to give him the Kingdom of Toledo and a third of the royal treasury, if he ever became King and if he was unable to give Henri the Kingdom of Toledo, then the Kingdom of Galiza would be instead given to the Count of Portucale. At the time this alliance had cause a great uproar inside the Imperial Court, with Emperor Alfonso doing all he could to break the bound between the two cousins, but thanks to the efforts of Hugo de Cluny, the alliance between the two had stood firm, and now Henri's support was secured, and with it the support Frankish faction inside the Court.

Despite all of Raymond's deeds, the small nobility, mostly made up of Leonese without ties to the Franks, was opposed to have Toledo under the control of Henri, for the city had been the capital of the old Regnum Gothorum, and for them only the King should have control of the old capital and threatened Raymond with rebellion if he dared to give it to the Count of Portucale.

Raymond had no wish to give Henri Galicia, for not only it had been where he had ruled for the past decade, and where he was King in all but name, he had also made Galicia into a powerful stronghold, loyal only to him. Still he wouldn't dare to betray Henri and lose the support of the Frankish Nobility and Clergy in León, he still needed them and he knew that if he lost their support he would be finished, for the Leónese nobility held no love for him.


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El Reino de León a la ascension de Urraca y Raimundo

Still Raymond was a cunning man, and so he gave his cousin a choice. Henri could either choose between half the royal treasury of the late Emperor, more than what they had agreed to, or Galicia. Henri was not happy about this, but he had to admit that it was a generous offer, for the old Emperor had been a rich man, and gaining half his treasury would make him richer than he had even dreamed to be.

It was just thanks to the intervention of his wife, Teresa de León, that the Count choose lands over gold, for she knew a bribe when she saw one and held no love for neither Raymond and or her half-sister. And so on the 8th of April, of the Year of Our Lord 1110, Henri de Bourgogne, was made hereditary Count of Galicia.


Henri, now stilling himself, Magnus Dux Portucalensium, wouldn't live long to enjoy his newfound power, dying in battle, while trying to expand his lands to the south, leaving his three year old son, Afonso Henriques, as the new Count.

The young Count was left at the care of an old companion of Henri, a local Portucalense Lord, Egas Moniz, while his mother ruled as his regent, an act she, and King Raymond, would long regret for while they was ruling, the Lords of Portucale and Galicia were molding Henri's young son, to be the man they needed to achieve their goals.

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Brasão do Conde Henrique, a Cruz de Portucale com a Cruz de Santiago
 
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So, we get a united Portucale and Galicia here? What was the big PoD?
Peculiar...

I guess that the separation that occured between Galicia and Portucale never happens, which would have lots of consequences. I can see the linguistic result here being that Galician-Portuguese never diverge and remains the same language.

Another important change is that IOTL Portugal-Galicia is a bigger, stronger kingdom, so more capability to carry out Reconquista. I wonder if a earlier, more sucessful Reconquista might eventually result in the Iberians finally taking Morocco and other North African lands back to Christendom.

Won't the Almoravids collapse in a few years?
 
First guys sorry for the hiatus, January has been a crazy month, but don't worry this TL is still well alive.

So, we get a united Portucale and Galicia here? What was the big PoD?
Peculiar...

I guess that the separation that occured between Galicia and Portucale never happens, which would have lots of consequences. I can see the linguistic result here being that Galician-Portuguese never diverge and remains the same language.

Another important change is that IOTL Portugal-Galicia is a bigger, stronger kingdom, so more capability to carry out Reconquista. I wonder if a earlier, more sucessful Reconquista might eventually result in the Iberians finally taking Morocco and other North African lands back to Christendom.

Won't the Almoravids collapse in a few years?

The POD is that Raymond lives longer than he did OTL, thus fulfilling the treaty he had with Count Henri.
 
Imperator totius Hispaniae (1112-1118)
Imperator totius Hispaniae

The first years of Raymond reign were marked by his efforts to stand against the Almoravid tidal wave.

Until 1116, all across the Leonese border, the border Counts did their best to resist the Almoravid attacks, indeed it would would be in one such action that his cousin, Count Henri, would die. The Count had been campaigning south, trying to regain the lands he had lost to the Almoravids, when he died in a skirmish while raiding the lands to the south of the Mondego river, still his efforts were not in vain for he was able to regain the majority of the most important keeps, castles and villages, that had been lost in the final year of King Alfonso reign, with the most important being the recovery of Coimbra.

Still despite the successes from the some border nobles in recovering their lands, the Kingdom of Leon was in a bad position. Internally, the disputes between the native nobility and those of Frankish origin were growing, and Raymond knew that he needed a victory, even a small one, to solidify his grip on power, and so in 1114, three years after becoming King by right of his wife, Raymond gathered a strong force of Caballeros Villanos and Infanzones[1] and went south to raid the Almoravid lands.

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Lands of Count Henri at the time of his death. Braga, marked with the red spot, was the traditional capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and under Henri it once more became the center of power of Galicia, while Guimarães, marked with a green spot, was the center of power of the County Portucalense. The close proximity of the two cities was vital to the centralized of power during the regency of Teresa de León.

While raids of this kind were normal during the Reconquista Period, Raymond's was characterized by being constituted by a far large force than it was usual. It seems like the King wanted to force the a battle, and indeed he took great risks for it going raiding deeper, and longer, than it was recommended. Unfortunately for him the Almoravid garrisons didn't took the bait, and while he was raiding their lands, they in turn went north to raid his.

The raid, while bringing more than enough cattle and slaves, was deemed a failure. Even Raymond's more ardent supporters couldn't deny that the King's Grand Raid had done nothing to reinforce his position in the Kingdom.

Realizing that he had failed, Raymond decided to change strategy. Instead of gaining power in battle he would do it by reinforcing Royal power in the Kingdom.

From 1114 to 1118 Raymond would found several Villas Francas along the Path of Santiago and would give several Fueros to villages in the Kingdom. This combined with his policy of giving control of castles and keeps to those loyal only to him ensured that he was never much popular with the native nobility and clergy.

Tensions would continue to rise inside the Kingdom until 1118, when King Alfonso de Aragón y de Pamplona took the city of Zaragoza.

Alfonso, known among his subjects as El Batallador, was the archetipical Crusading King. He had been raised since birth to be a warrior of Christ, and had been feed with histories about the heroes of the wars against the Moors all of his life. No surprise then, that he spent most of his reign at war, fighting to expand his Kingdoms of Aragón and Pamplona south and was among the most ardent supporters of the Military Orders of the Temple, the Hospital and the Holy Sepulcher.

It was with the aid of the Military Orders, and nobles from Occitane and Gascony, among which were the Counts of Urgel and Pallars Jussá, and most importantly Viscount Gaston de Béarn a seasoned Crusader who had been under the command of the Count of Toulouse Raymond de Saint-Gilles during the First Crusade and had been in command of the war machines designed to destroy the Turkish defenses during the Siege of Jerusalem. For his service in the Holy Land he was known as le Croisé.

In early 1118, Alfonso raised his forces and marched south against Zaragoza, at the time one of the richest cities in the Peninsula, and started the siege in May. Little is known of the siege, some chronicles say that it was Gaston de Béarn that blocked the canal of Romareda, that supplied water to the city, but on Christmas Eve 1118, the city surrendered when de Béarn captured the Torreón de La Zuda.

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Statue of Alfonso El Batallador in Zaragoza

Alfonso officially entered the city on the 25th of December[2] and offered the inhabitants several concessions. Starting with the Fuero Totum per totum, that entrusted the protection of particular interests, to secular armed bodies, guaranteeing self-defense, and a system of aljamas[3] that guaranteed respect among religious communities.

He recognized the right of the Muslims to live in the city, with the condition that they started living on the arrabales[4] by the end of one year during which the mosques would keep their function, they would pay the same taxes as until the conquest, they could keep their land and religion and could even keep on being judged by their own laws, those that wished could even leave the city at will. The objective of these concessions was to avoid the depopulation of the city, and it worked, with most of the population staying and with the arrival of new settlers in started expanding beyond the city walls.

And as reward for his actions, he gave Gaston de Béarn lordship over the city, as his vassal.


But that was not all that happened on that fateful December day, embolden by his success, and by the failure of his rival Raymond's Great Raid, Alfonso proclaimed himself Imperator totius Hispaniae, Emperor of all Spains, a clear insult to Raymond and the Kingdom of Léon.

An insult that would be paid in blood.

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[1] - the Caballeros Villanos were a feudal class in Medieval Iberia, who in exchange for privileges, based on the Fueros, had the duty to serve as auxiliary mounted troops during the campaign season. While not part of the peasantry, they were not nobles and mostly vanished after the mid 14th Century when Kings started to favor a money grant from them to pay for soldiers instead of require their military services.

[2] - changed the date from 18th of December to the 24th of December to make it more meaningful to King Alfonso.
[3] - the Aljama was a self regulated Jewish or Muslim community in a town or city. Because they were usually direct subjects of the King, the Aljama was mostly used to collect the taxes of the Jewish, or Muslim, population of that city.
[4] - the best translation I could get for this word was suburbs, basically they were living quarters outside the city walls.

Sorry for the delay on the update, I hope this new Chapter can make it up for you guys.

I hope you enjoy it and please comment so that I can know what you guys think of this TL.
 
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