The battle of Caldbeck 1066

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If they weren't Dorset they would have been Beothuk and AFAIK they didn't use ochre either, but I'm not so sure about that.

The Beothuk did use red ochre, and were the original "red Indians". I've often wondered if the Beothuk mixed with the Dorset people, there are signs of Dorset activity on Newfoundland, but also continuous occupation by the Beothuk.

As for Markland, I'm going to use Markland for both Newfoundland and Labrador, probably calling Newfoundland "Ostmarkland". I just don't buy Vinland being that far north, goods at L'Anse show that the inhabitants had butternuts, which grew much further south, in MY Vinland.
 
If they weren't Dorset they would have been Beothuk and AFAIK they didn't use ochre either, but I'm not so sure about that.
OTOH, if your Marklanders take over the entire island, they may forget (or not really recognize) that the Skraelings on the north coast are different from the ones in the interior. And so little is known of the Beothuk (aside from their primitiveness) that you can probably invent quite a bit.
Of course, I'm quite sure that 'Markland' was the Labrador coast - but again, none of this is verifiable exactly, and in any case, those locations weren't cast in stone - if later settlers renamed places, well.....

I remember reading an episode of "Prince Valiant" (from 25 May 1947) many years ago in which the author, Harold Foster posited that the Beothucks may have been the descendants of Vikings who were wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland. He mentions fair hair, blue eyes and fair skin disguised with ochre pigment.
Anyway, back to your story, please.
 

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I remember reading an episode of "Prince Valiant" (from 25 May 1947) many years ago in which the author, Harold Foster posited that the Beothucks may have been the descendants of Vikings who were wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland. He mentions fair hair, blue eyes and fair skin disguised with ochre pigment.
Anyway, back to your story, please.

Recent DNA analysis of Beothuk remains have suggested that they shared a purely Native American origin with the Micmac, but it seems to be contradicted by linguistic evidence. There were also blonds amongst certain Greenland Inuit groups, but that may go back to the origin of the Inuit in Siberia, where related ethnicities sometimes have fair-haired members.
 

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From "The Isles" by Leofwine Rabinowitz

The battles of 1082 were the opening act of an increasingly cruel and bloody civil war.

The kingdom of Aengland was divided in four; north of the Tees lay the lands of Earl Uhtred Oswulfson, which operated as an independent fiefdom, receiving support from his cousin Gospatric, chief of the Britons of Carlisle and also from the Aenglish subjects of the King of Scots in Lothian. Uhtred constantly raided into Northumbria proper, conducting, in the name of Harold MacHarold, a brutal series of razzias which left hundreds of non-combatants dead, and tied up the forces of Northumbria in defence of Northern Yorkshire. From the Tees to the Solent stretched the lands loyal to Harold Haroldson, encompassing most of Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex, but excluding Cheshire and southern Lancashire which was in the hands of the sons of Harold MacHarold and their Irish followers. East Anglia, Kent, and the lands immediately to the west of London, the wealthiest region of the island, was the heartland of the Gyrthsons and Leofwine Godwinson. This south-eastern territory was ruled from London by the shadow king, Harold Godwin MacHarold, while the defence of young Harold Haroldson’s lands was coordinated by Edmund MacHarold, from his base in Winchester.

Although several large battles were fought between the warring factions (Stanwell, Leicester, Ratby and of course, the deciding encounter at Wallbrook) the War of the Godwinsons was typified by the low-level warfare of raid and counter raid, in which combatants were more likely to be counted in hundreds than thousands. As today, what this type of warfare lacks in scale it makes up for in brutality. Large sectors of the country became waste, as the inhabitants fled for areas away from the new internal frontiers which had appeared suddenly, as if conjured by some malign sorcerer. Particularly badly affected were northern Yorkshire, the area of the Welsh border between Shrewsbury and Chester, and the region around Huntingdon and Northampton, which suffered the constant raiding of the MacHaroldite Hereward the Wake and his fen-men.

Quite apart from being a catastrophe for Aengland, it is important to remember that the War of the Godwinson’s was a family tragedy. At the battle of Leicester in 1083, the twin brothers King Harold III and Ulf Haroldson narrowly escaped death at the hands of their cousin Aethelread Gyrthson and their half-brother Harold Godwine MacHarold, who was so enraged by their escape that he ordered the massacre of 900 prisoners. Three weeks later Aethelread Gyrthson would be lying dead on the field at Ratby, dead at the hands of troops commanded by his cousin Edmund MacHarold, with Harold Godwine MacHarold only just managing to escape the same fate by fleeing to the island of Ely, in the dank marshes of East Anglia. A year later, Ulf Haroldson was killed at Chester after being captured whilst attempting to take the city from a Hiberno Norse army under the command of his cousin Konnall MacHarold, who, it is said, beheaded the young Earl personally. This litany of bloodshed is by no means exhaustive, by 1086 six direct male line descendents of Earl Godwin of Wessex had died violently. And that is before the infamous “Battle of the five brothers”.

One common misconception about this period is that the War of the Godwinsons was a war of Celt against Teuton, a kind of prelude to the War of Partition. It is true that the legitimist faction, led in all but name by Edmund Earl of Cornwall, included many southwestern Britons. However, the border between Briton and Saxon lay many miles to the west of where it does today, and much of the Army of the Southwest would have been Aenglish speaking. It is also true that Edmund made use of Breton auxiliaries and counted on the help of his allies from the kingdom of Morgannwg, whereas Harold Godwine MacHarold tended to rely on Norwegian, Danish and Hiberno-Norse mercenaries. Yet, Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, King of Powys, was allied with Harold MacHarold, and managed to extend his domain to the gates of Shrewsbury during the war. The “party of the usurper” also counted with Earl Uhtred of Bamburgh, scion of a mixed Aenglo-Celtic family who employed British troops loaned from the Kingdom of Strathclyde.
 
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from "The war of the Godwinsons" by Maelcun of Exeter

After four long years of war, hunger and death walked the land. Many families had been driven from their homes by fear of raiders, and much good land was abandoned to wolves and bandits. The forests crept into the meadows. The low people felt God had abandoned Aengland, as plagues spread through the land, following the ragged dispossessed who tramped wearily in search of sustenance.

One day at Corfe, I found a young girl dead by the road, around her mouth was the green vomit of those who, hunger driven, have gorged on grass. A crying girl-child suckled at her dry breast.

Thus were the glorious reaving-days bards sing of, and which old axe-bitten warriors remember so fondly. And well they might, for there was always food enough for the killers, and those we paid to glorify our sins.

In June of 1086 a council of the Earls was held at Winchester. The true King Harold, his brothers Edgar Haroldson, Earl Magnus and Earl Edmund were joined by the sons of Morecare and Eadwine. Earl Edmund spoke most gravely of the state of Aengland, and vowed that no peace would be known in the land until the usurper was dead or in King Harold’s power. It was known that Harold the usurper had made ready an army of Danes to attack us, and that he was massing his host in London. In addition to this, Earl Magnus, who had friends amongst the Jews of London, had received news that fighting men of Sweden were expected in July, and that Harold MacHarold’s agents were buying up provisions in readiness for a long campaign.

All present agreed that MacHarold was planning a campaign of conquest, and that the Earldoms of the English would be forfeit to these foreigners as spoils of war. There was great anger at the usurper, and a great preoccupation. The Earls and the King were of one mind, they should bring Harold MacHarold to battle before the gentiles of Sweden arrived.

So an Aenglish army again marched on London. King Harold led the Wessexmen to battle, in his 20th summer . He was followed by Wihtgar Eadwineson, Earl of Mercia, Earl Edmund of Cornwall, at the head of the knights of the Aenglish and the Bretons, Earl Magnus of Devon, who led the infantry of the Southwest, and the retinue of Edgar Haroldson, who marched with the men of Morgannwg.

We gained the Thames at Staines, unopposed, for the supporters of Harold Godwine MacHarold in the borderlands fled our host, warning their false liege of our arrival. We camped at Brentford, awaiting the usurper, but after two days he showed no sign of leaving the safety of London’s wall. So Earl Edmund ordered us to strike camp for the Wallbrook where Earl Harold’s Danes were camped. So on the morning of the twenty-first day of July, the usurper Harold MacHarold, and his Kentish, East Anglian and Danish allies faced King Harold in battle at the Wallbrook, this battle will be known forever as the battle of the 5 brothers.

Few men in battle understand what is happening around them, for the fear and rage blind them to all but their comrades at their side and their foe in front of them. It is a wall of steel and blows which opens suddenly into a field of fleeing men, if the day is won they are foemen, if it is lost they are allies. That day I fought at the side of Earl Magnus, locked in the deathly embrace of a Danish shieldwall, the slaughter was terrible, and many of my comrades were slain. After hours of fighting the Danes broke and we pursued them to the gates of London, cutting with the savage glee of men who know they have survived another battle. That is all I know first-hand of this battle, but I have since spoken to men who fought in both armies, and I will endeavour to set down what happened as best it can be deduced.

Our armies met in the shallow valley of the beck, the infantry of the two armies was evenly matched, and a savage attritional struggle, body against body endured for most of the day. In the centre of our line were the men of the west, commanded by Earl Magnus, facing the Danes of Knud Copsigson. To our left were the men of Wessex commanded by King Harold, square to the Kentish led by Godwine, the son of old Earl Leofwine. Earl Edmund hoped to harry this flank with his cavalry and lure the usurper’s inferior personal cavalry to the slaughter at the flattest point of the valley. Tight to the wall of London, our Welsh and Mercian allies faced the East Anglians, under Earl Sweyn, on the higher bank of the valley behind the Welsh, our archers fired volleys on the rear ranks of the enemy, on the other side our enemies did the same from a slightly worse position.

Earl Edmund initially harried the ranks of the Kentishmen, but their rear ranks had brought long staves to ward of the Cavalry and the marshy terrain prevented them from getting behind the Danes, so instead he attempted to reach the archers on the drier ground on the other bank of the Wallbrook. At this point Harold Godwine MacHarold charged the Wessexmen with his cavalry, the strength of the charge upset their lines, and forced King Harold to bunch his troops to stop the Saxon Knights from splitting our shieldwall, our archers and the enemy’s concentrated their fire on this melee. Realizing the King was in danger, Earl Edmund raced back to aid him with his Breton knights, they smashed into the Saxon cavalry and sent the usurper fleeing away from London. Sensing a chance to slay his twin brother Edmund pursued ferociously, but Harold MacHarold gained the higher ground and ordered his men to charge back down the hill at Edmund's Bretons. The knights met in a savage horseback melee, for an hour there was a brutal conflict which only ended when Harold MacHarold was unhorsed and cut down by a Breton named Conan Bihan.

Earl Edmund ordered his twin brothers head cut off to be shown to his troops. It was a good thing that the usurper fell when he did, for the line of Harold King was bent and close to breaking, the Kentish advantage in numbers was beginning to tell. But when Ealdric of Lyme rode behind our lines holding on high Harold Godwine MacHarold’s head by his bloodied grey hair, our foes broke, and, exhausted we chased down the Danes and the East Anglians to the gates of London. We men of the West and our Welsh brothers looked in askance at our Wessex comrades, for they had not pursued the enemy and had let almost all the Kentishmen escape.

What we did not know was that King Harold III lay dead at the heart of his warband, slain by a single arrow, which had somehow crept between the nose and cheek guards of his helmet, and struck him in the left eye.

Aengland had started the day with two kings, it finished it with none.
 
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The Peace of London from Gerilyber Hanysiddol (Exeter 1973)

The peace of London (1086) was an Aenglish historical agreement between the combatants in the War of the Goodwinsons (1082-1086), bringing the war to an end and electing Magnus MacHarold (Magnus I, 1086-1100) king. The war folowed the battle of Wallbrook, in which the two main contenders for the throne were both killed. Magnus was elected over his older brother Earl Edmund of Cornwall because Edmund was unacceptable to the Gyrthsons of East Anglia and Earl Leofwine of London, due to his leadership of the pro-Harold Haroldson faction in the war.

The conference is notable for its division of the Aenglish Earldoms into smaller units, and the creation of the new Earldom of Bretland in the southwest of Aengland, which would become the nucleus of the future Tirbritan. The new Earldom was granted to Earl Edmund of Cornwall.

The peace enshrined the principle that future kings of Aengland should be descendents of Harold Godwinson, a principle which endured until the end of the Aenglish monarchy in 1709.
 
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Earldoms of Aengland in 1100

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(taken from "The Isles" by Leofwine Rabinowitz)

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Language and power in the Earldom of Bretland.

From "Bret, Brezhoneg, Cumbro and Aengle. Language and power in the Earldom of Bretland, 1086-1213" by Elfira Benkadi, Ustadha of Celtic Studies, University of Valencia. Published in "Brennus - Journal of Celtic studies", 1976.

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Figure 1.2. Distribution of speakers of British dialects in 1086. Red indicates a British (Welsh or Cornish) speaking majority. Pink indicates the presence of a British speaking minority, existing either as British speaking communities in Anglo-Saxon areas, or as social groups (slaves, foresters, pastoralists) separate from the Aenglish population. Green areas are purely Aenglish speaking. (source Maelcun of Exeter "The History of the Britons in England").

bretland copy.jpg
 

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Language and Power in the Earldom of Bretland (2)

From "Bret, Brezhoneg, Cumbro and Aengle. Language and power in the Earldom of Bretland, 1086-1213" by Elfira Benkadi, Ustadha of Celtic Studies, University of Valencia. Published in "Brennus - Journal of Celtic studies", 1976.

bretland land ownership.jpg

Figure 1.3 Land holdings in 1109.

Key:
Light blue: Land held by a man with a British personal name.
Green: Land held by a man with a Aenglish personal name.
Pink: Lands granted to Bretons by Earl Edmund.
Yellow: Lands granted to Welshmen by Earl Edmund.

In 1066 virtually the whole of the South-West was held by men with Aenglish personal names, with only western Cornwall held by Britons. We can see from this map Edmund's policies of favouring Britons when granting lands left vacant by deaths in the civil war. It also reflects a degree of cultural adaption amongst the Aenglish of Devon and East Cornwall. Note the strategic granting of lands to Bretons on the North Coast (away from Britanny).

bretland land ownership.jpg
 

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From World history gazeteer (published London 1876)

Western Europe

1086

21st March: Normans, Danes and Bretons liberate Geoffrey of Anjou, killing his brother Fulk. Geoffrey swears loyalty to the Crown of Denmark.

17th April: Hugh the Simple of France defeated by a Danish army as he attempts to regain Anjou.

5th of May: Battle of Sagrajas. King Alfonso the last of Leon is killed by the Almoravid army of Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Alfonso is succeeded by his 6 year old daughter Urraca.

3rd of June: Battle of the five brothers, King Harold III and the usurper Harold MacHarold are both killed.

3rd of July: Magnus I crowned, Earldom of Bretland created.

21st October: Toledo falls to Yusuf of the Almoravids. Christian and Jewish nhabitants are expelled from the city.
 

Art

Monthly Donor
the death of William!!!!

HURRAH!!! Someone finally wrote a story in which the Normans under William get fed to the crows. I hate Williams GUTS!!! HURRAH!!!


Men of Harlech come to glory...
 

Deleted member 5719

HURRAH!!! Someone finally wrote a story in which the Normans under William get fed to the crows. I hate Williams GUTS!!! HURRAH!!!


Men of Harlech come to glory...

Good show, all right thinking people loathe William the Bastard. Everything that's wrong with Britain can be traced back to either him, Margaret Thatcher or Sir Alex Ferguson.
 

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As anyone who's been following this tmeline will have guessed, I'm about to move the focus away from Britain to Iberia, focusing on the effects of a much weakened France making Leon weaker. This is presenting me with a slight problem

This is my first attempt at a timeline, and I've been attempting to copy the style of the great Dr Strangelove, using DBWI style sources from this TL. But my early POD means that it's much more difficult to keep to a few consistent sources.

I'd like to know if my jumping from style to style is making the TL difficult to follow, and if I should reconsider my style for the Iberian segment, all advice appreciated.
 
Western Europe

1086
5th of May: Battle of Sagrajas. King Alfonso the last of Leon is killed by the Almoravid army of Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Alfonso is succeeded by his 6 year old daughter Urraca.

21st October: Toledo falls to Yusuf of the Almoravids. Christian and Jewish nhabitants are expelled from the city.

???
Not knowing anything about the time and place, I googled Yusuf 1086. OTL he won a major victory near Badajoz in October, and then immediately left to return to Morocco. Why does he stay in Iberia ITTL - or will he after this?

Why would they expell the Jews (or even all the Christians)? Is this one of the desperately intolerant periods/regimes that Islam (rarely) produces? Mostly Islam welcomed Jews and tolerated Christians...
 

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???
Not knowing anything about the time and place, I googled Yusuf 1086. OTL he won a major victory near Badajoz in October, and then immediately left to return to Morocco. Why does he stay in Iberia ITTL - or will he after this?

Why would they expell the Jews (or even all the Christians)? Is this one of the desperately intolerant periods/regimes that Islam (rarely) produces? Mostly Islam welcomed Jews and tolerated Christians...

He began 30 years of Almoravid domination of Iberia, in OTL Yusuf left powerful lieutenants behind when he went back to Africa, and later returned to depose the Andalusi princes.

You're quite right about historical Muslim tolerance of Jews and Christians, but the Almoravids were a special case. They were desert Berbers (like today's Tuareg) who tended to disdain the softer (and more orthodox) Islamic attitudes of the great Muslim cities. After 1090 there was a large scale exodus of Christians and Jews into Castille, from Muslim territory.

Also I had Alfonso VI commit a brutal massacre to piss them off (OTL Alfonso expelled the Muslims from Toledo, but didn't mistreat them).
 

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From “Lo Tuareg nello pais del Cid” by Joan Villars

From “Lo Tuareg nello pais del Cid” by Joan Villars in “Jornal della historia cristislamica” (Tolosa, 1946)

The capture of Toledo by Alfonso VI in 1085 sparked a chain of events which would radically alter the balance of power in the Iberian Peninsula forever. It was the high-water mark of the so-called “reconquista”, in which the Christian kingdoms and principalities of northern Spain slowly recovered territory from the Arab and Berber states of Al-Andalus. Ever since the Muslim armies of Tareq ibn Zaid submitted most of the peninsula to Muslim rule, the Christians of the kingdom of Asturias, and later Leon, Pamplona, Castille and Leon had seen it as their divine mission to recapture their lands for the true faith, and for more than 400 years they slowly pushed the frontier between Christian and Moor southwards.

By 1085, the Taifas of the Andalusi paid tribute to Alfonso of Leon, with a timeliness enforced by the threat of violence. When the Emir of Toledo, Al-Mamun, refused to pay tribute and aided Abd-el Malik in his capture of Valencia, Alfonso decided it was time to add the ancient Visigothic capital of Spain to his dominions. The city was unprepared for a siege, and Al-Mamun quickly surrendered the city in exchange for safe passage to Muslim lands for himself and the Muslim population. No sooner had the Moors left the gates, than the Christians fell upon them massacring the men and carrying the women and children into slavery. Christian chronicles defend this action as just punishment for the oath-breaker Al-Mamun, but this action united the Muslims of Spain against Alfonso.

This outrage proved to be disastrous. Showing a rare unity of purpose the Emirs of all the Muslim Taifas of Al-Andalus signed a letter to the Almoravid Emir Yusuf. The letter begged Yusuf’s protection from “the slaughterer of the faithful” and offered to submit to his rule in exchange. This was not an invitation the wily old Tuareg had to think about twice. In December of 1085, a huge African army landed at Algeciras, near Jebl Tariq (1), consciously mirroring the landing place of Tariq ibn Zaid three centuries before.

Yusuf, like Tariq, spoke a Berber dialect, but Yusuf was not a son of the fresh Atlas or the zephyr kissed shores of the Mediterranean, he was a Sanhaja nomad of the desert. A hard, dried husk of a man, not given to any recreation but prayer and military drill, he was old, but far from infirm. He was a religious puritan, and intolerant of those who did not share his strict (though occasionally heterodox) interpretation of Islam. Despite his excessive piety, he spoke no Arabic, and was almost certainly illiterate. How different he was from the poet princes of Al-Andalus, who drank wine freely and talked of Greek philosophy and Hindi art, in palaces of exquisite luxury. This rock from beyond the Atlas had come not just to liberate Toledo from the Kufar, but to purge Al-Andalus of its degeneracy.

Yusuf landed with a force of around twenty thousand men, from all corners of his African empire, which stretched as far as the Senegal river. The force contained Berber cavalry from the coastal plain, Black African warriors from the South and Yusuf’s crack troops, the veiled tribesmen of the Sahara. Crucially, Yusuf could also count on a secret weapon, a large force of camel cavalry, against which the Christians had little experience.

Upon landing, Yusuf sent a messenger to Alfonso carrying a letter written by in flowery Arabic. Despite the embellishments, Yusuf’s ultimatum was severe. Either Alfonso converted to Islam and remained ruler of his dominions, or he would be destroyed. Alfonso’s reply was filled with unjustified bravado, he cordially welcomed his brother king to Hispania, and offered to permit him to return safely to Africa on the completion of the formality of his baptism. To Yusuf’s disgust, Alfonso had signed the letter “Alfonsus, King of the Two Faiths.” Yusuf spent hours with his advisors composing a theological reply, demonstrating the superiority of Islam, and castigating the Christian’s blasphemy, but as the final version was being translated to him, he tore the parchment from his terrified scribe and tossed it into the fire, saying “Write just this. You will see what’s going to happen.” (2)

It is interesting to note that while the Muslim Yusuf had to rely on translators and scholars to render his message in Arabic, the Christian Alfonso is supposed to have written his rash reply with his own hand, and in flawless Arabic. Such was the melting pot of late Christislamic Iberia.

So it was that the two armies marched to their encounter, which was to take place at Zallaqah near Badajoz, a place known to the Christians as Sagrajas. The Muslim army was reinforced by the armies of Al-Andalus, most prominent amongst them Al Muttamid, the brave Emir of Sbilia(3). The Christians marched through their own territories, living off the land and gaining in numbers as the Christian peasants, their supplies exhausted by the ravenous horde, were forced to follow the army or starve.

When the two armies met, chroniclers agree they were roughly equal in size. There was, however a massive gulf between them in terms of technology and tactics. Due to the comparatively small number of combatants, battles in Iberia had traditionally been fought as a multitude of individual combats taking place on the same field of battle, with comparatively loose unit cohesion, and the only concession to tactics being choice of ground and position, and the rapid redeployment of cavalry to the enemy’s weak points. The Almoravids had taken part in much larger scale battles in Africa, and habitually used more compact infantry units, deployed in a saw-tooth formation. This made them far less dependent on charges to break the enemy, and less likely to break when charged. The Almoravids also had the advantage of much more effective bow technology, and camels, which terrified the Christian horses, and played a similar role for the Almoravids in Spain as Elephants had for the Carthaginians many centuries earlier.

The only area in which the Christians surpassed their foes was in armour, the desert warriors went into battle protected only by their blue tunics and the veils which made them a faceless terror to their enemies, and the men from the Senegal fought naked from the waist up, protected only by their shields. Even this provided the Almoravids an advantage, they could move at twice the speed of a chain-mailed Christian foot-soldier.

When Alfonso arrived at Zallaqah, he found Yusuf waiting for him, camped near the Guadalrumi (4) river. There was a delay of four days before the battle, as Yusuf and Alfonso had agreed that the to fight on a Monday to allow the Sabbaths of the Christians, Jews and Muslims in both armies to be respected.

Yusuf’s first move was send his Andalusi allies in to attack the Christians, Alfonso’s men made short work of them, sending all but Al Muttamid and his Sbili fleeing the field, with Christian Knights under Alvar Fanez in hot pursuit. Yusuf allowed his ally to be surrounded by the Christians, then sent forward his Berber and Subsaharan infantry to trap the flanking troops between the Africans and the Andalusi. Alfonso, perceiving the danger, charged forward with his remaining Knight to intercept the lightly armoured infantry, this was the move Yusuf had been waiting for. He ordered a wide sweeping charge from his camel-riders, which hammered into the Christians cavalry and drove them into the path of his lighter cavalry who stalled the Christians long enough for the camels to catch up with them. They were eventually driven back into the melee where the Christian infantry was being slaughtered. Seeing the battle was becoming a rout, Alfonso turned to flee, but was unhorsed and hacked to death on the ground.



(1) Gibraltar
(2) This exchange actually took place IOTL.
(3) Seville
(4) River Guerrero
I am in debt to J. Beraud Villars excellent (if a little reactionary) Les Touareg au Pays Du Cid, for much of the detail in this update. Read it if you can find it.
 
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From-Diccionari della lengua Tolosina

Cristislamico (aj reg):

1. Descri cosa relacionata colla etapa de domini cristian e musulman sunio della Peninsula Iberica.

2. Oriunt u Propre nella regio della Oquitania et Iberia dello siclos VIII-XII (sur tot, nella arquitetura).

3. (Rel) Cosa propre al periodo pre-dualista nella Europa occidental.

Christislamic (adj reg):

1. Describes anything related to the age of Christian and Sunni Muslim rule
of the Iberian Peninsula.

2. Originating in, or typical of, the region of Oquitania and Iberia of the 8th to 12th centuries (especially in architecture).

3. (Rel) Belonging to the pre-dualist period in Western Europe.
 
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From “Lo Tuareg nello pais del Cid” by Joan Villars

The reconquest of Toledo

Alvar Fañez barely escaped Zallaqah with his life, leading what remained of the Leonese army in a headlong flight for the safety of Toledo. He gained the city with a retinue of 900 knights, a day ahead of a pursuing Almoravid cavalry vanguard. Within days the five month-long siege of Toledo had begun. Toledo was well provisioned and had strong walls, so perhaps Fañez felt he would be able to hold out longer than Yusuf was willing to wait.

Soon an army of 20,000 men was camped outside the walls, Yusuf was preparing for a frontal assault with rams and ladders. Three such attempts were made during the summer of 1086, all repulsed by Fanez and his men. By October, conditions inside Toledo had deteriorated to such an extent that Fanez was forced to negotiate. Fañez, negotiating as Guardian of young Queen Urraca, the six year old daughter of the late King, Alvar recognised Yusuf as “’Emir Al Isbanya”, and as “sole prince of Toledo”.
Fañez was permitted to march out of Toledo, and rode north to Burgos, where he would begin his long rule as regent of Leon, the prelude to the era of the Alvarez dynasty of Leon.
 
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From “Lo Tuareg nello pais del Cid” by Joan Villars

Rebellion in Morocco and Valencia

Emir Yusuf’s main preoccupation in late 1086 and early 1087 was the repopulating of the Emirate of Toledo. Alvar Fañez had agreed to release the captive women and children of Toledo as part of the conditions of surrender of the city, and by January of 1087 they had been returned. Yusuf decided to offer the women as wives to any Muslim who would relocate to Toledo and was capable of bearing arms.

Those who accepted his offer were a mixture of landless Andalusi, Moroccan Berbers and Black spearmen from his domains in the Senegal. This mixed population is what gives Toledo today its distinctly North African feel, and its distinctively dark-skinned population. Toledo became a city of warriors, the furthest bulwark of Islam, and this frontier existence encouraged the development a distinct, more severe Islamic culture.

Having shored up his northern frontier, Yusuf began to turn to the incorporation of his new vassals into the Almoravid system. His conquest had been expensive in men and treasure, and he requested contributions from the petty Emirs of the Taifas. While this may not seem an unreasonable request, given the fact the Andalusi Emirs had begged him to come defend them from Alfonso VI, there was a deal of reluctance to pay amongst the Emirs. It was only after a certain amount of haggling that the Andalusi agreed to open their treasuries to the Berber chieftain.

Most of the Andalusi Emirs paid the Almoravid tax from their own reserves, but Abd El-Malik of Valenica decided to institute a poll-tax in order to pay. The Emir, who had been installed by his Grandfather El-Mamun of Toledo in 1084, was making a major mistake. The citizens of Valencia, aided by members of the city’s garrison stormed Abd El-Malik’s palace and put the Emir, along with seventy Almoravid soldiers were garrisoned there, to death.

The Valencians knew that Yusuf was unlikely to accept the deaths of his soldiers and his vassal lightly, and that their city was lightly defended, so a delegation was sent Rodrigo Diaz, known to the Arabs as El Sid, offering him the crown of Valencia. Diaz held several castles in the mountainous region where Toledo, Valencia and Zaragoza met, and commanded a mercenary force comprised of Christians, Muslims and Jews from all over Iberia, along with men from the county of Tolosa, Oquitania and even Danish Normandy. He had been expelled from Leon in 1081, after a dispute with Alfonso, and had served the Emir of Zaragoza as a mercenary to great effect, absorbing thoroughly the Arabic culture, he dressed in the Arabic style and spoke Arabic, Basque and Castillian fluently.

El Sid entered the city on the 16th of April 1087, and quickly began preparations to defend the city from the massed armies of the Almoravids. The city soon became a magnet for fortune seeking warriors, and Christian refugees from the Almoravids, he used his new manpower intelligently, strengthening the walls, and creating a hastily trained infantry army of Mozarab exiles.

Yusuf arrived in Valencia in late October and sacked Alicante, El Sid marched out of the gates of Valencia on the first of November, at the head of an army ten thousand strong, impressive but much weaker than the Almoravids, However, not a mile from the gates he was greeted by a ferociously galloping messenger. The Almoravid army was withdrawing towards Almeria, the Zenata tribe of Morocco had rebelled against Yusuf, and he had been forced to withdraw from Al-Andalus to protect his homeland.

King Rodrigo Diaz would fight many battles to protect his realm in the next few years, but not until 1092 would he have to face the great African Army of the Almoravids.
 
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