Uncle and Nephew, Part 1

André de Montbard (5 November c. 1097 – 17 January 1156) was the other child of Count Bernard I de Montbard (1040–1103) of Burgundy and his wife Humberto de Roucy who survived past childhood. His sister was Alèthe de Montbard. Alèthe had several children who survived to adulthood, and after her death in 1107, eventually all of her sons followed her son Bernard to Cìteaux Abbey (a daughter took up Holy Orders elsewhere). Alèthe's husband, too, retired to Cìteaux.

André's career also veered into a Holy Order, but he took a different turn.

The Cistercians whom his nieces and nephews joined prized discipline and austerity as part of piety. Bernard was very influential in promoting this lifestyle, even to the detriment of his health. He ate simply, and not much. Bernard's piety also was comfortable with the idea that killing in the name of Christ was right and proper.

André, meanwhile, needed help. He and eight others had begun a new (holy and militant) Order in 1120 with the support of Baldwin II of Jerusalem. The Order was designed to provide protection to pilgrims coming to the Holy Land, which had opened up tourism after the Crusades. They called themselves Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici, or The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.

The name was accurate: they were poor: their symbol was two knights riding the same horse. Admirable, but not sustainable. Baldwin had given them a wing of a former mosque now being used as the royal palace, but donations from pilgrims who had already spent a great deal of money to travel could not support the Order.

But André had a link to his nephew, Bernard, whose fame as a holy man was spreading far and wide. He went to Cìteaux to speak to Bernard, asking for his support. Bernard agreed with their mission, and wrote a letter "In Praise of the New Knighthood." This endorsement from the saintly (and eventually an actual saint) Bernard of Clairvaux changed everything. I'll explain tomorrow.

His Mother Was a Saint

Count Bernard I de Montbard (1040–1103) of Burgundy and his wife Humberto de Roucy had several children. Sadly, most of them died very young—not uncommon at the time—but a son and daughter, André and Alèthe, survived past childhood. Originally intending to enter a convent, Alèthe (1070 - 1107) was married at the age of 15 to a Burgundian knight, Tescelin le Roux (c.1070 - 1117).

Alèthe and Tescelin had several children: Guy, Gerard, Bernard, André, Barthélémy, Nivard, and Ombeline. Tescelin's rank was not as high as his wife's, but (perhaps through her father's influence), the couple lived very well, able to give their several children good educations while living at the Château de Fontaine-lès-Dijon. The couple were considered by later chroniclers to be notably virtuous. (The illustration shows them both in a stained glass window made for Mariawald Abbey; the whole picture shows them above their son, St. Bernard of Clairvaux.)

Alèthe built a chapel in 1102 near their castle dedicated to St. Ambrose. Her piety strongly influenced her children. When she died at the age of 37, we are told her son Bernard was deeply affected (as I am sure the whole family was). Bernard made the decision to become a monk. Looking for a proper venue, he chose the Abbey at Cîteaux. Legend says that he had a vision of his mother, dressed in white, telling him that God had great plans for him and that he should persuade his brothers to join him.

Bernard and all his brothers went to Cîteaux. All became saints, Bernard of Clairvaux (named for the monastery he himself founded a few years after entering Cîteaux) becoming one of the most celebrated of them. Their sister, Ombeline, entered Holy Orders in 1132 and became abbess at Jully Les Nonains after Bernard demanded the building (a 10th-century castle) to become a convent linked to Molesme.

Alèthe's body was originally interred in the chapel she had built, and she was already considered a saint by the locals. In 1250 the abbot of Clairvaux had the remains brought to Cîteaux to be entombed next to her son, Bernard. At the end of his life, Tescelin joined Cîteaux.

Alèthe had a brother, Andre, who also followed Bernard into Holy Orders, but his life took a slightly different direction from the contemplative: a familiar life, in fact, for readers of this blog. We'll tell the story of André de Montbard tomorrow.

Bernard Comes and Goes

In 1107, a Burgundian woman from a noble family died. Her name was Alèthe de Montbard, and she had several children, one of whom was named Bernard. Bernard—who had been educated by priests and thought of becoming one—in 1113 led 30 members of his friends and family to Cîteaux Abbey to join the order.

Bernard's dedication and fervor drew even more of his acquaintances and family to join later, including Tescelin de Fontaine, his own father. Cîteaux's membership expanded so rapidly that they outgrew the current abbey.

In 1115, Bernard and 12 monks left to found a new abbey which he named the Claire Vallée, or Clairvaux. Bernard's reputation was so connected to this new abbey that, although he traveled widely, he is now known as Bernard of Clairvaux.

Bernard (seen preaching in the illustration) was as strict a follower of Cistercian austerity as anyone, if not more so: extreme fasting made him often ill. Despite the strictness, followers were drawn to Clairvaux, so many that from Clairvaux there were several new communities founded. Before Bernard died in 1153 there were 60 additional Cistercian abbeys. Not all were founded from scratch: many were converted to Cistercian from Benedictine. (Despite the reputation of the Rule of St. Benedict for austerity, the Cistercians gained a reputation for being more disciplined.)

Bernard was a great motivator and inspiration for the growth of the Cistercian Order, and involved in many other important events, some of which you can read about here.

"Behind every successful man there's a woman." We can account for his religious dedication by looking at his upbringing, and especially the influence of his mother. Tomorrow we'll talk about Alèthe de Montbard, mother of a saint who became a saint herself.

The Road to the Cistercians

After Robert of Molesme returned to Molesme monastery to restore strict adherence to the Benedictine Rule, Alberic of Cîteaux was elected abbot of the abbey at Cîteaux. Alberic was a planner, and considered the physical needs of the abbey.

He first moved it a mile north to be near a better source of water. He then made what some might think a more radical change. Benedictines wore black garments. Alberic abandoned black for undyed wool, giving the monks a much lighter look. For this reason they are sometimes called the White Monks.

He also made agreements with temporal forces. He managed to get a donation of a vineyard from Duke Odo I of Burgundy, as well as materials for building a church. (The illustration is of the current abbey.) Alberic is given credit for getting their new order recognized by Pope Paschal II.

Alberic died on 26 January 1109, and the English monk Stephen Harding (c.1060 - 28 March 1134), one of Robert's original followers, became abbot. Prior to joining Molesme, Stephen had experienced life with both the Camaldolese and Vallombrosians. Stephen knew that it was important to codify the practices of this new order, and he wrote the Carta Caritatis (Charter of Charity), the Cistercian constitution that outlined a life of work, prayer, and austerity.

Stephen gained more land for the abbey, only accepting donations of undeveloped land that the monks would then cultivate. At Cîteaux they followed the strict observance of the Rule of Benedict in regard to the Divine Office, which meant praying every few hours throughout the day and night. Because of the wakefulness demands of the Divine Office, they took on lay brothers for help in working the land to support the abbey.

In 1113, Cîteaux was joined by a charismatic young man in his 20s named Bernard, and the Cistercian Order really started to grow. We'll see his influence tomorrow.

Who Were the Cistercians?

In 1098, some Benedictine monks from the monastery of Molesme in France (Duchy of Burgundy) founded a new abbey at Cîteaux. Molesme was only a quarter-century old, having been founded in 1075 by Robert of Molesme. Robert had been a prior at another abbey, then abbot at Saint-Michel in Tonnerre, but the lax attention to the Benedictine Rule bothered him.

Therefore, when a group of six hermits asked him to lead them in a new community, he founded Molesme. They built an extremely primitive abbey, but a visiting bishop saw their situation and provided them with food and clothing. Word spread of this holy situation, but their membership grew too quickly with too many people who did not want the level of austerity and manual labor Molesme demanded.

Disillusioned with this new abbey, in 1098 Robert of Molesme, an English monk named Stephen Harding, and only the most rigorous members of Molesme followed Robert to Cîteaux where they founded a new Benedictine abbey. They were determined to live in austerity and to support themselves with manual labor, largely agricultural.

Cîteaux will be the birthplace of the Cistercian Order, but I don't wish to neglect Molesme. The monks there realized what they had caused by their laziness, and wished to return to the rigor they had under the inspirational and disciplined Robert of Molesme. They appealed to Pope Urban II to convince Robert to return to Molesme and lead them. In 1099 he returned to Molesme, leading them until his death in 1111.

Meanwhile, at Cîteaux, one of the original hermits that asked Robert to lead them, Alberic of Cîteaux, became abbot. He had been Robert's prior at Molesme and Cîteaux, and was very strict about the Benedictine Rule. It was Alberic who would get the Cistercian Order officially recognized by the pope. For that next step, however, you will have to wait until tomorrow.

Medieval Dyes, Part 2

 

Part 1 covered blue, black, red, yellow, and green. Let's look at some others.

Gray was a humble color, and could be had by using leftover dye from making black. Cistercians and the Friars Minor of the Franciscans wore gray habits.

Pink was easy to make, since madder root used for red or brazilwood could be used in a lesser strength or by soaking the cloth for a shorter duration. Medieval illustrations often show ladies wearing pink dresses, which makes one wonder if pink was considered a feminine color centuries ago. Men also could be painted in pink, but their hosiery, not upper/outer wear. (By the way, the name brazilwood comes from a Portuguese word, pau-brasil, a flowering plant in the Old World. When Portuguese sailors found a related species growing all over the coast of South America, they named the place Terra do Brasil, "land of brazilwood." That's right: the country was named for the plant, not the other way around!)

If you wanted to suggest purity or innocence, you went for white. This was not always a bright white, but linen looked white enough prior to dyeing that it qualified as white. You could also soak linen in lye made from wood ashes, and throw in some lime. Since clothes could get dirty, wearing white was a sign that you afford to not get "down in the dirt" as a farmer. In the 14th century poem Piers Plowman—in which we happened to find the earliest reference to a "Robin Hood"—of all the characters introduced, there are few descriptions of their appearance, except when white clothing is mentioned; it always indicates a person of purity or innocence.*

Brown or russet/orange came in many shades and can be produced by anyone with access to boiling water and walnut shells or bark.

And so we come to purple, the color of royalty; so much so, that the phrase "born to the purple" indicated royalty, and porphyrogenitus was used in Byzantium as a title. Expensive purple candles were reserved for Advent, the "coming of Christ the King." Dressing a king's favorite in purple, as Edward II did for Piers Gaveston, was a clear indication to all the court of the king's favor. A species of sea snail (Murex) was an ancient source of the color, but it took thousands to make 1 gram of purple dye. Its expense made it rare, and its rarity gave it value, and its value made it reserved to the wealthy and ultimately limited to emperors and the highest classes.

There has been lots of research into the history of dyes. Although I do not quote from it, the Innsbruck Manuscript of 1330 (translated here) has instructions on dying. Vassar has a bibliography on works on dyeing. And there are many websites devoted to medieval times that instruct on dyeing the old-fashioned way. For instance, the illustration above is found on one such site.

In the paragraph on gray, I looked for a link to explain the Cistercians, and discovered that I have mentioned them many, many times, but there's no "introduction" to them. Let me correct that next time.

*A little trivia about me: "Clothing Imagery in Piers Plowman" was one of the first papers I ever wrote in grad school in the Medieval Studies program at UConn-Storrs.

Medieval Dyes, Part 1

Yesterday's post about "blue" jeans from Genoa mentioned indigo, a color dye that had to come from plantations in India until other sources of blue were found. Western Europe found a substitute in woad.

Woad was a plant in the mustard family, and ancient burials in Germany and the UK have found evidence of woad being used thousands of years ago. It was not a consistent blue, however, and its result ranged from a grayish-blue to black. It also took several months to produce properly. Indigo was a more reliable blue, though expensive.

Madder root was used to make red, and gave its name to the color rose madder. A darker red could be unstained by repeated dying, or from an import from India called dragonsblood.

Green was a popular color for interior walls of a house apparently, but for clothing it had different connotations. It could be considered unlucky to wear because it symbolized the decay after death. Chaucer's Yeoman, however, wore green because of its rustic connotation. Bright green clothes were associated with the rich, just as emeralds were the most sought-after gemstone.

To produce yellow there was a plant native to Europe and Western Asia called by many names such as dyer's rocket or weld. When picked before the flowers became too mature, it produced a bright yellow that worked well on linen, silk, and wool.

Black was a difficult color to produce in fabric, but had strong symbolism that made it desirable for different classes. It required a mixture of madder, woad, and weld, and it needed lots of alum. "Alum" refers to a salt (potassium alum, or sodium alum, or ammonium alum), known to Pliny and earlier as an astringent substance helpful in dyeing (and medicine). Black was considered a "humble" color and used for clerical garb. The complexity which its manufacture required also made it desirable by the upper classes. Along with red and purple, black is most often listed as one of the colors restricted to the elite.

I'll share the sources of more colors tomorrow.

Genoese Blue Jeans

Mention "jeans" or "blue jeans" and someone will comment that they were patented in the 1870s by Levis Strauss and Jacob Davis after Davis put rivets on the pockets to make them strong enough to be worn by miners who wanted to stuff rocks in their pockets. They have become a universal symbol of modern Western culture. But why are they called "jeans"?

They were around before Davis stuck the rivets on the pockets, and there is a theory that the name comes from Gênes, the French word for Genoa. Could the fabric be named for a city? Why not? After all, denim certainly is derived from de Nîmes—"from Nîmes"—because the material comes from the twill fabric first made in Nîmes, France.

Genoa produced a fustian cloth referred to as being of "medium quality and of reasonable cost." "Fustian" was a Latin word (fustaneum) for this type of heavy cotton cloth; originally with a linen warp (the vertical threads held together in the loom) and a cotton weft (the threads passed back and forth by the shuttle). "Fustian" can be applied to corduroy, velvet, or moleskin. 

The Genoese navy used this material for trousers because it was durable and wore well even when wet, unlike wool. Denim was higher quality and used for overgarments.

Were they "blue" jeans? This jeans development was in the 14th century, and the blue would have had to come from indigo. The word "indigo" as a color is first used in 1289 (that we know of, in English), and the Genoese may have used it, but indigo could be expensive because it had to come from India (hence its name) until the late 19th century, and we don't know that they bothered to dye their jeans material blue.

I think we should talk more about medieval dyes next

Genoa Grows

After the sack of Genoa by the Fatimids, the city started to recover. One avenue for commercial growth was the Crusades, and the First Crusade gave Genoa opportunities to find goods in the East worth trading.

Genoa contributed a dozen ships and 1200 soldiers (a little over a tenth of it population) to the Crusade, setting out in July 1097. The Genoese provided naval support and supplies to the main army. Theirs were the ships that blockaded Antioch during the Siege of Antioch. In 1099, Genoese bowmen were important during the Siege of Jerusalem.

Joining the Crusade also brought them into more contact with the Eastern Roman Empire. The city made treaties for trading rights with the Byzantines, Tripoli (Libya), Antioch, Armenia, and Egypt.

This was challenged by the other strong naval port on the other side of the Italian peninsula: Venice. The role Venice played in the Fourth Crusade—frequently discussed in this blog, but see here for a start—saw Venice gain control over most of the maritime trade in the Eastern Mediterranean.

On the other hand, when Michael VIII Paleologos in Nicaea wanted to recapture Constantinople he turned to Genoa for help, since Venice was helping the current emperor. This was in 1261, and on 25 July they were successful. Genoa was granted free trade rights in the Nicene Empire, and it used the islands of Chios and Lesbos and the city of Smyrna as local headquarters. Genoa now surpassed Venice as the major trading power on the Mediterranean Sea.

...and then they invented blue jeans, but we'll save that story for tomorrow.

The Fatimids Sack Genoa

In the 10th century, Genoa was becoming an important port on the Ligurian Coast in far northwest Italy. Their ships were trading with much of the Western Mediterranean. This made them a target for competition, and additionally a target for the Fatimid Caliphate in 934CE. The Fatimid Caliphate had conquered Ifriqiya (Northern Africa), and wished to dominate the Mediterranean. (The illustration shows the extent of the Fatimids in the 10th century; the red star represents Genoa.)

Although there are no eyewitness accounts of the Fatimid navy attacking Genoa, it was a well-known event to both Christian and Muslim writers not long after. Bishop Liudprand of Cremona (c.920 - 972), writing in 960CE (samples of his chronicling were mentioned here and here), wrote about the Muslims first attacking the city of Acqui, not far from Genoa, and then says:

At the same time, in the Genoese city, which has been built in the Cottian Alps, overlooking the African sea, eighty miles distant from Pavia, a spring flowed most copiously with blood, clearly suggesting to all a coming calamity. Indeed, in the same year, the Phoenicians [North Africans] arrived there with a multitude of fleets, and while the citizens were unaware, they entered the city, killing all except women and children. Then, placing all the treasures of the city and the churches of God in their ships, they returned to Africa.

Liudprand mentions, among the treasures taken away from Genoa, linen and silk. This would have been too early for the West to be developing silk production, and so it suggests that Genoa was prosperous enough to be trading in such valuable materials with the East.

The first Arabic source is from even later, and names the caliph who ordered the attack. Other Arabic sources get very specific in details, although they don't always agree on things like the number of ships (20 or 30). As they approached, the Muslim ships encountered merchant ships, attacking and appropriating their goods and taking prisoners.

Genoa is described here as a well-fortified city, and although other cities would have been attacked, Genoa is the only one named. Unlike Liudprand's report, the Arabic source says the Genoese fought outside the city walls and then on the streets. The city was plundered and burned on 16 August 935. Because of the medieval tendency to exaggerate, we have to consider carefully whether we believe the report of 8000 prisoners taken, including 1000 women sold into slavery.

The fact that Genoese records don't exist in any large numbers before the second half of the 10th century gives further evidence that there was destruction prior to that. The author of the Golden Legend, Jacobus de Voragine, writing 300 years later, claims the attack was successful because the Genoese fleet was away at the time, but they pursued the Fatimid fleet and rescued the captives. (Not very likely, Jacob.)

Genoa slowly recovered, however, and we'll look at its rise to commercial powerhouse starting tomorrow.

Genoa the Superb

Actually, when Petrarch referred to Genoa as "la Superba" he meant "the proud one." Genoa, on the northwest coast of the Italian peninsula, was a powerhouse of commerce from the 11th century until the end of the 18th. It was one of the wealthiest cities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and one of the largest naval powers in Europe.

The origin of the name is uncertain. The Latin genu/genua means "knee," which could refer to its placement in relation to the "boot" of Italy. Because it has mountains on one side and the sea on the other, some say it comes from Latin ianua, "door," because like the derivative that gives us Janus, the two-headed god of the Romans (and January), it faces two ways. Pliny the Elder called it oppidum Genua, "Genoa town."

It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with evidence of occupation from at least the 4th millennium BCE. In the 1st century BCE it traded in honey, skins, and timber. Its alliance with Rome made it a target of the Carthaginians during the Punic wars, and Genoa was destroyed by Carthaginians during the Second Punic War in 209BCE. After the Punic Wars ended in 146BCE, Rome granted it Roman municipal rights.

It was occupied by the Ostrogoths after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE. After the Byzantine Empire under Justinian I defeated the Ostrogoths, Byzantium made Genoa the seat of its vicar in the West. For awhile, Genoa grew slowly, building ships and making commercial connections to the Western Mediterranean.

There was another power—not Ostrogoth, Roman, or Carthaginian—that was making a name for itself in the 10th century, and that was the Fatimid Caliphate. Operating out of North Africa, they wanted to control trade (and destroy infidels). Tomorrow we will see what they did to Genoa.

Valencia Later

After all the political turmoil, Valencia was possessed by James I of Aragon. He forced tens of thousands of Muslims to leave. There were Jews in Valencia, and in 1239 they were given their own quarter in which to live, with a cemetery for Jews on the outskirts. In 1390, this quarter had a high wall erected around its perimeter, with the cemetery still outside. The wall had three gates which were closed each night.

The wall, designed to help Christians feel "safe" from Jewish presence, did not prevent a pogrom in 1391. A parade of Christian youths marched to the Jewish quarter, claiming that Jews should be baptized or die. Thousands of Jews were murdered by the crowd; some converted; the Jewish quarter was destroyed.

Of course, no matter how wealthy or poor, free or conquered, Christian or Muslim or Jewish a European or Mediterranean country could be, sooner or later in the Middle Ages the Bubonic Plague came along. Plague came to the Iberian Peninsula in the spring of 1348, reducing the population of Spain (it is estimated) from 6,000,000 to under 2,500,000.

The Plague returned in waves. It was back again in March 1395; on 6 July the city council of Valencia met to determine how to combat the problem. Charitable donations were suggested to please God (whose anger was the ultimate source of their distress), and a procession to the chapel of Our Lady of Mercy was organized to ask for divine mercy. Funds were authorized for the removal of dead animals that had been thrown into the streets.

Something entirely different was also happening in Valencia that decade. Genoese traders realized that the Valencian climate was good for the growing of white mulberry, a fast-growing tree native to China and India. The important thing about white mulberry is that its leaves are the preferred food of a moth whose scientific name is Bombyx mori, and whose importance is their larvae, which we know as silkworms.

Silk as highly prized, and production had been controlled and kept secret for centuries by China. Once Mediterranean cultures discovered the secret, they worked hard to free themselves from dependence on the Far East. For a time, thanks to the Genoese merchants in Valencia, the area was a major center of silk production. Valencia became an economic powerhouse and entered into a Golden Age of expansion and building.

Unfortunately, a civil war in the 1520s created many internal problems. The city's prominence continued to slide until in the early 18th century the War of Spanish Succession marked the end of its independence.

Now, about the Genoese merchants who started silk production in Valencia. They traded in more than silk. I'll tell you more about them tomorrow, and the medieval slave trade.

Valencia Changing Hands

The takeover of the Taifa (Kingdom) of Valencia by the Almoravids lasted for a couple generations, and then there was swiftly shifting chaos.

In the 1140s, the Almoravid dynasty was losing respect and control, so the surrounding areas started forming their own independent small states again. One problem with the Almoravids was difficulty paying their Andalusian military. In March 1145, a local qadi ("judge"), Marwan ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, tried to manage the increasing mistrust, but the soldiers would not change their attitude about the political leadership and pressured Marwan to take control of the city.

Marwan still did not have the resources to pay the soldiers, so they replaced him with one of their own leaders, Ibn 'Iyad. Months later, in January 1146, Ibn 'Iyad called for a son of the ruler of Zaragoza to come and take control of Valencia. This was Sayf al-Dawla ibn Hud, who took the title of Caliph but was killed within days during a battle with Christians. Ibn 'Iyad then asked Muhammad ibn Sa'd ibn Mardanish to take over. Ibn 'Iyad was killed in battle in August 1147.

Christians weren't the only problem for Mardanish. The Almohads were replacing the Almoravids and becoming the dominant force in northwestern Africa, and were crossing the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia. Mardanish allied himself with Castile to defend against the Almohads, but he died in 1172 and the Almohads had no trouble conquering the Kingdom of Valencia.

The Almohads in Valencia also lasted just a couple generations, weakening so much that the last Almohad ruler, Zayd Abu Zayd, in 1226 agreed to pay tribute to James I of Aragon to avoid war. Abu Zayd's people resented this and rebelled a couple years later. Zayd Abu Zayd and the Almohads abandoned Valencia and a descendant of Mardanish, Zayyan ibn Mardanish, was put in charge.* It was Mardanish who failed to keep Valencia when James I reconquered it after a months-long siege, told about here.

The story of Valencia does not end there. Let's look tomorrow at the later Middle Ages, the Black Death, and that Valencia had a good climate for growing white mulberry.

* Zayd Abu Zayd stayed friendly with James I and even converted to Christianity in 1236, changing his name to Vicent Bellvis. He married a "local girl," Isabella Roldán, and was gifted some localities to rule in Spain.

El Cid and the Almoravids

After the Almoravids were invited to help control Valencia by a usurping judge and were ultimately driven from the city by El Cid—Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1043 – 10 July 1099)—they continued to consider Valencia a goal. There were two different attempts in 1097 to defeat El Cid and take the taifa (Kingdom) of Valencia. The first attempt came to naught. In the second, the ruler of the Almoravids decided to take matters into his own hands.

Yusuf ibn Tashfin was an Almoravid ruler of Maghreb and the co-founder of Marrakesh. He had, a few years earlier, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar at the request of various Muslim groups in the Iberian Peninsula to help them fight against Christians. In 1090 he deposed the king of Granada, defeated Córdova, and drove the ruler of Seville into exile. Now, in 1097, he set out from Córdova on a mission of conquest. El Cid sent troops to counter him, but did not go himself. Although Tashfin did not capture any fortresses that were part of the Taifa of Valencia, he caused great damage to the land, and El Cid's son Diego was killed in one of the battles.

That same year, Tashfin's son, Muhammad ibn 'A'isha, succeeded in defending against El Cid's military at the city of Alcira. Tashfin was sufficiently confident of their dominance that he went back to Marrakesh, only to return two years later to continue assaults on the eastern provinces. That was in 1099, the same year El Cid died. El Cid's widow, Jimena Diaz, continued ruling Valencia, but in late 1100 an Almoravid force besieged Valencia against. After seven months, afraid of starvation, Jimena ordered the mosque to be set on fire (although her husband had converted it to a church), and fled.

Yusuf ibn Tashfin's Almoravid forces now took control of Valencia, as well as southern Iberia and Western Africa. This empire didn't last, however: in a couple generations it would break up due to civil war. What happened to Valencia then? We'll see tomorrow.

Valēntia

In 138 BCE, Rome founded a colony on the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The name means "strength" or "valor," and according to Livy was given due to the valor of soldiers who had fought against a Lusitania rebel. After Rome fell, the city became part of the Visigothic Empire. Moorish invasions caused it to change hands in 714. Abd al-Rahman I (731 - 788) ravaged the city, after which it is referred to as Balânsia or Balansiyya, and also called Medina at-Tarab ("City of Joy"). It was controlled by the Caliphate of Cordova, until a civil war that broke up the caliphate and created the opportunity for Valencia to become its own kingdom, called the Taifa of Valencia.

In the last decade of the 11th century, a Castilian noble named Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar—but better known today as "El Cid" (c.1043 - 10 July 1099)—was in change of the garrison. While he was temporarily away, a coup d'état took place by a local judge. The judge called for help from the Almoravids, who not only forced out the rest of the Castilian garrison but also killed Valencia's ruler.

When he learned of this, El Cid returned with a combined Christian-Muslim army much larger than the Almoravids, setting up a siege and denying the city any food. The judge agreed to end the siege, and the Almoravids were escorted out of the city. This was in 1092. Negotiations with the judge continued. Another Almoravid force approached the city in 1093, but declined to fight El Cid and turned away.

With the city starving in April 1094, the judge surrendered. El Cid re-entered Valencia on 15 June, taking control as king. The Almoravids later that year returned, starting their own siege. El Cid took a two-pronged approach, sending a force out of the main gates to directly attack, then himself leading a smaller force from a different gate to attack their base camp. Realizing that the judge's existence might be motivation for another attempt to attack the city, El Cid executed the judge by a public burning. (see illustration)

El Cid set about shoring up defenses with a chain of fortresses, and none too soon. An Almoravid army of 30,000 besieged one of these fortresses in 1096. El Cid managed to break up the siege, but the enemy set a trap, ambushing he Christians in a narrow valley. El Cid managed to escape the trap, however.

Hostility between the Almoravids and El Cid continued for the rest of his life, as I'll describe tomorrow.