From Battles to Conquest

Living in Alcossebre today, surrounded by the hills of Sierra de Irta, it's difficult to imagine the turbulent history of this part of Spain: from the medieval Reconquista, fought against the muslims, through to the Carlist wars of the 19th century, culminating in the fratricidal hatred of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

But this relatively insignificant section of Spain's Mediterranean coast has borne witness to war, siege, and mass movements of population from the medieval period right up to the twentieth century.

In the 1230s the muslim inhabitants of Alcalá de Xivert would have heard from their brothers in Peñiscola of the victorious advance of James I's armies along the eastern coast of the peninsula, south of the Ebro. Indeed James relied on word of his victories weakening the muslim will to fight. Often he could avoid a costly siege simply by pointing to his earlier successes. His Chronicle records a master-stroke of propaganda, in which he "insisted with the Saracens of Chivert and Cervera that since I had taken Peñiscola, they should surrender their castles. For as ... Peñiscola was the most renowned place in that district, and yet had surrendered, there would be no shame or disgrace in their surrendering also. Thereupon the Saracens did surrender the said castles"

But James I's success was underwritten by a hundred years of hard fighting which allowed the Aragonese crown to push forward the frontier against the muslim kingdoms south of the Ebro river.

Alfonso I of Aragon (1073 - 1134) was a remarkable precursor to James I: he was 'el Batallador' (the Battler) who prepared the ground for James I 'el Conquistador' (the Conqueror), Alfonso succeeded to the throne of Aragon in 1104, but at the time of his accession, Aragon was little more than the mountainous fringe of the Pyrenees. Five years later a judicious marriage brought Castile and Leon under Alfonso's control, allowing him to adopt the title 'Emperor of Spain', and assume the responsibility of prosecuting war against the muslims.

Alfonso relied upon fear rather than propaganda to aid in his campaigns against the muslim kingdoms: the Chronicle of Alfonso the Emperor notes that his campaign in the south against Seville was accompanied by the destruction of all the mosques they came upon, "and they killed all [the muslim] priests and doctors of the Law. The sacred books which they found in the mosques were burned"

One by one the various muslim kingdoms in Aragon fell under his control. By 1120 Zaragoza was taken, establishing the city as the capital of christian Aragon. Alfonso el Batallador died in September 1134, worn out by a combination of old age and fatigue, weakened by the wounds received in battle. The work of chipping away at the muslim kingdoms, begun by Alfonso would reach its successful culmination in the thirteenth century when James I established the christian Kingdom of Valencia and Alcalá de Xivert passed into the hands of the Templars.