The First and Last King - A Medieval TL

Sorry I haven't posted, I've had a big project which I've been rushing to finish. Now that it's finished, I should be more regular.

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[FONT=&quot]From ‘The History of Leon, Volume I’ Chapter 4: The Medieval Leonese Rebrote by Vimaro Noçelao[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the aftermath of his victory at Tamaron, Bermudo III was in as secure a position as he could expect. He had won an important military victory and expanded his lands. While his nobles hesitantly supported him before this, they were much more confident in his reign post-Tamaron, and the fact that he had been driven out of his capital by Sancho el Mayor was almost forgotten. Bermudo’s two main foes were weakened and disunited; it was only a lack of desire to spill more Christian blood than was necessary that prevented him from attempting to conquer Castille[1]. Bermudo’s reign was, after a century of Leonese decline, notable for its stability and prosperity, not to mention substantial military success. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the autumn of 1038, Bermudo’s wife Jimena, became pregnant, and in June of 1039 she gave birth to a healthy boy. Not wishing to bring bad luck upon the boy by naming him Alfonso (their previous child, who had died only two weeks after his birth, was named Alfonso) and unwilling to name him either Sancho or Ferdinand[2], Bermudo settled on the name Gonçalo for his son.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Unwilling to expand to the east, Bermudo instead favoured campaigning against the Muslim taifa of Badajoz to the south, which would allow him to complete the resettlement of the depopulated Duero Basin[3]. Badajoz, like most of the Muslim taifas, had severe organisational disadvantages compared to the Kingdom of Leon and other Christian Kingdoms; it had no formal institutions of government and was ruled by whichever strongman had the support to take the throne, leaving it in a perpetual state of political instability. Despite this, its greater population and the willingness of Moorish nobles to form defensive forces outside of the leadership of their King meant that Bermudo could not simply conquer the province, and did not launch any immediate military campaigns. Rather, he began through encouraging Christian settlement and expansion in the borderlands. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In addition, he began to stabilise the currency of the region after the instability of the previous years, issuing new coinage which began to replace barter as the main method of exchange. His most significant action in raising economic prosperity was his encouragement of St James’ Way. One of the most important medieval pilgrimage routes, St James’ Way was preferable to pilgrimages to Jerusalem or Rome to travellers from northern Europe because of the greater stability along the route (excepting, of course, the war between Navarre and Castille in 1046[4]).[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Through letters to other clergy around Europe at this time he extolled the virtues of the Way and promoted the St James’ Way pilgrimage to becoming one of the most used in all of Christendom, providing a great deal of what can only be termed tourist income to his realms[5]. While the amount of pilgrims along the route would be considered small by modern standards, it must be remembered that the medieval economy of this early period, worked on a much smaller scale than it would even two hundred years later, and consequently the additional pilgrims would have greatly increased the amount of money in circulation in Leon, in turn encouraging trade.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]It should be noted that the letters were written at his direction by priests; although he had himself taught to read, a rare skill among kings in his time, he never learned to write.[6] It is generally attributed to his attitude toward the clergy that we have such good sources on Leon during this period; his rebuilding of the Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza in Gradefes using money extracted from the taifa of Badajoz led to the writing of the Chronicle de San Pedro de Eslonza, one of our best sources on the period.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][1]:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Actually, it was only because he didn’t want to have to fight Castille, Navarre and possibly even Aragon at once; Bermudo was smart enough to know he won the at Tamaron because of good fortune as much as anything else, and he doesn’t want to try his luck.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][2]:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Not enough information exists on Bermudo for me to make any reliable estimations of personality, so I’m going to say he could be petty quite often and no-one can contradict me.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][3]:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] The basin was only really used for grazing; no permanent settlements appeared for fear of attacks by the other side. This really annoyed Bermudo, who apparently didn’t understand that ordinary peasants were less fond of war than he was.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][4]:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] I’ll get onto this later.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][5]:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] It’s likely the letters weren’t written at his direction at all, but simply by priests who wanted to increase their own prestige; if he did have them written, it was for the same reason. The ‘tourist’ income from pilgrims certainly didn’t cross his mind.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][6]:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] This is unlikely; it’s only mentioned in one source, the Chronicle de San Pedro de Eslonza (which, as we shall see, isn’t the most reliable of works). In addition, it specifically says that Bermudo ‘was a great admirer of the written word’. Not only does it not say that he could actually read, the use of ‘admirer’ implies that he could not. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Given how rare it was for kings to learn to read in this period, it’s unlikely; perhaps he simply understood that how he would be remembered depended on what chroniclers wrote about him, which could in turn explain why he was so generous to churches.[/FONT]
 
[FONT=&quot]From ‘The History of the Kingdom of Leon, Chapter 2: The Early Reconquista’ by Absalo Capcir, 1862[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Bermudo’s later reign was notable, and indeed quite prosperous by the standards of the time, but not entirely due to Bermudo’s own actions, despite the assertions of many Leonese historians and indeed historical sources such as the notoriously unreliable Chronicle de San Pedro de Eslonza.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]It is true that there was an upsurge in trade and economic growth (such as it was) during this period, but this was mainly due to the inherent stability that came from having a ruler last almost four decades with healthy heirs (especially compared to the instability and decline of leon over the century before he took power) and due to an increase in pilgrimages along St James’ Way which, despite the assertions of many historians, had nothing to do with Bermudo’s own actions but was a logical consequence of the stability his rule brought. It was certainly safer to journey to Santiago than to take the long and dangerous pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem or Rome, and even so Santiago did not truly become a centre for Christian pilgrimage until the reigns of his sons and grandsons, who took a more active role in drawing in pilgrims. The transfer to money as the primary method of trade was also a consequence of this stability and more general Europe-wide trends.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Indeed, for a King who reigned for over three and a half decades after the death of Sancho el Mayor, he accomplished surprisingly little. He launched two major campaigns against the Moors of the taifa of Badajoz to the south, the first in 1046 and the second in 1057. He was to have the bad luck or poor judgment (it is hard to tell how much he knew of court politics in Castille, Navarre and Aragon) to launch these campaigns just before large conflicts broke out between the other Christian kingdoms, also involving the taifas of Toledo and Zaragoza, which he could have used to his advantage to expand at the expense of either Toledo or Castille. Instead, he was forced to watch from Leon and Lusitania as his opportunities for significant expansion passed him by, his consolation being the birth of his second son Pelayo [date] and his daughter Urraca [date, detail of marriage], ensuring the continuation of his line.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The first campaign in 1046 was not a campaign of conquest, but rather a large raid on the taifa of Badajoz. Bermudo made preparations for war in 1045 and in the March of 1046 summoned his forces and marched south, crossing the Duero in early April. By the end of May he had removed all resistance north of the Mondego River, and crossed the river, bypassing Coimbra. After three months of marauding around the Lusitanian countryside, fighting two minor battles along the way, he forced the taifa of Badajoz to pay a large parias to him.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This parias was used for a number of purposes. Firstly, a great deal was donated to various churches, including financing the rebuilding of the Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza in Gradefes. The monastery was completely rebuilt by the time of Bermudo’s death in 1071, and in remembrance of him the abbot of the time began the writing of what would become the Chronicle de San Pedro de Eslonza, which is filled with a great deal of praise, most of it undeserved, for Bermudo and his works.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The parias was also used in the development of the royal palace in Leon and in the improvement of a number of roads, but these were minor uses compared with the significant funds used to try and encourage settlement in the Duero Valley. This was mainly a failure; Bermudo’s initially considered the victory of his raid enough to ensure that there would be no Muslim attacks on settlers, while his subjects thought differently on the matter, forcing Bermudo to launch his second campaign against Badajoz in 1057.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The second campaign against Badajoz was just as ill-timed, but featured far more permanent success. After a year of preparations, he marched out with his forces after he received the parias in the winter. His forces, thanks to the steady influx of coin from the parias, were far more numerous than they had been in his previous campaign, and of a far higher quality.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]He followed his previous route, passing through the Duero River valley, before laying siege to Coimbra. Despite a relief force arriving sometime in August (which was beaten back) he managed to capture the city by autumn, foring out a number of Muslim citizens as he did so, and set about securing his rule over the surrounding countryside. With the campaign season over, he wintered in Coimbra. Then, in the spring, he and his forces headed south out of the Mondego river valley, leaving a small garrison behind in Coimbra.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]He met a much larger force from Badajoz, led by its ruler Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Muzzaffar [/FONT][FONT=&quot]at Casalinho in the Tejo River Valley, and handily defeated them in May, killing Abu Bakr in the process. Abu Bark’s son, Yahya, was captured in the battle, and Bermudo forced him into a peace deal that would see all the lands of Badajoz north of the Tagus down to the confluence with the Zezere, and all lands above a line that ran roughly east-west from the confluence to the sea. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Although he had won a military victory, Bermudo knew he could not hope to conquer Badajoz entirely, so he settled for this significant portion of it. This was the greatest success of Bermudos reign, and he spent the rest of his life attempting to secure his hold on these regions, which still contained a large number of Muslims, so that it would not be lost when his sons inherited his land.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Bermudo was gifted with an extroadinarily long life for the time period; he died in 1074 at the age of 57, outliving all the other monarchs of his generation. He divided his lands up among his sons after he died, granting the eastern half (as the Kingdom of Leon) to his firstborn Goncalo and the western half to Pelayo as the kingdom of Galicia, as was customary at the time, not knowing how significant an impact on history this would have.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The judgment on Bermudo is that he was a king of moderate success. His reign saw no major failures after Sancho el Mayor died and he reclaimed the throne, and he did expand significantly into Muslim territory, but considering his superior geographic and demographic position in Iberia, his extraordinarily long reign and his obvious military skill, he was far less successful than he should have been. For all the praise heaped upon him by the Leonese, he was not a great king, but merely a competent one.[/FONT]
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The Muzzafarids aren't having much luck, are they?

It's also kind of interesting that so much money went to just one monastery, the parias were pretty substantial iirc.
 
The Muzzafarids aren't having much luck, are they?

It's also kind of interesting that so much money went to just one monastery, the parias were pretty substantial iirc.

Err... I'm not sure you read it correctly :p

[FONT=&quot]This parias was used for a number of purposes. Firstly, a great deal was donated to various churches, including financing the rebuilding of the Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza in Gradefes. The monastery was completely rebuilt by the time of Bermudo’s death in 1071, and in remembrance of him the abbot of the time began the writing of what would become the Chronicle de San Pedro de Eslonza, which is filled with a great deal of praise, most of it undeserved, for Bermudo and his works.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The parias was also used in the development of the royal palace in Leon and in the improvement of a number of roads, but these were minor uses compared with the significant funds used to try and encourage settlement in the Duero Valley. [/FONT]

Emphasis mine :)
 
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