There were many successful warriors, notably William the
Conqueror, but the greatest commander within this period was undoubtedly
Richard I. Richard took risks as a matter of policy and it was this which
endeared him to his own generation. He too sought advice, but in the end he had
the personality to impose himself on others and the skill to recognize military
opportunities. At Gisors, he moved quickly to inflict a severe defeat upon
Philip Augustus, although he later admitted that his counsellors had been
against the risk. During the Third Crusade he managed to control a very
disparate army and to adapt to conditions in the East. He also had a keen
strategic grasp: he threw a network of alliances around Philip Augustus, while
in the Holy Land he wanted, above all, to strike at Saladin's real heartland,
Egypt. But whereas we have only an external picture of Richard, one notable
commander of the age, James I of Aragon (1213-76), has left us a personal
memoir which is worth examining for the insight that it provides into the mind
of a medieval commander.
James was only five in 1213 when he was captured after the
Battle of Muret, in which his father was killed, and, throughout his long
minority, relations with his important vassals were difficult; in Aragon, he
had to face open noble defiance and in Barcelona he was not fully recognized
until 1228. He first came to prominence in the successful expedition to
Mallorca of 1229. This was a Catalan project, and it was their church and
nobility who took the initiative to create the army and fleet that sailed on 5
September 1229 - the Aragonese did not participate. James was not allowed to
land until a bridgehead had been secured, and when he involved himself in a
skirmish he was reproved by the nobles. On 12 September, the main Muslim force
came to battle at Santa Ponza. James, in his memoirs, presents himself as being
in charge. However, he admits that the nobles made their own decisions and that
he could not control the Catalan infantry, who in the end joined them. However,
the king acquitted himself well in what seems to have been a confused battle, apparently
winning it with a charge uphill. This gallantry, and the death of the
influential Moncada brothers, enabled James to take a more active role in the
siege of Mallorca, when he stayed in the dangerous camp with his personal
following, wielding a crossbow in the final assault. He makes much of the
decision of many of the Muslims of the interior to submit to him personally;
this probably simplified supply and thereby raised his prestige in the army.
However, when the Mallorcans wanted to surrender on terms, the council of nobles
rejected the idea against the king's wishes, because they wanted revenge for
the loss of their compatriots. After the fall of the city on the night of 30-31
December, they imposed their own division of the spoils upon him. James was not
the prime mover in the Mallorcan campaign, and others dominated it, but he was
an opportunist who skillfully exploited every chance that it provided to
enhance his reputation.
The Mallorca campaign gave James great prestige, and by June
1233 he was in a position to support the Aragonese attack on the kingdom of
Valencia. In 1234, the border between Christian and Muslim lay just north of
Peñiscola, which at first resisted his attacks. The assault on Burriana was a
vital phase of the campaign. James presents this as the opening of a grand
strategy to seize Valencia, but this was post facto rationalization. The
initiative to attack Burriana came from the Aragonese nobles, and James was
drawn into it because he feared that the greatest of them might establish
themselves as independent powers. The garrison was determined and the city
strong, forcing James to deploy a wide range of machinery. Mining was attempted
and throwing- machines used, but the greatest effort was put into an elaborate
siege-tower. A road of logs was laid for it and, under the cover of mantlets,
iron rings were driven into the ground on the edge of the ditch in front of the
city, so that it could be drawn up on ropes by men moving away from the enemy
fire. The tower was intended to dominate the defences with firepower, but it
was shattered by enemy throwing-machines. James's main problem was to hold
together the barons of Aragon in the enterprise. A vital element in this was
the provision of supplies, which he achieved by floating an enormous loan of
60,000 sols, guaranteed by the Orders of the Hospital and Temple. With this sum
he was able to pay ships to bring food and subsidize the nobles. Ultimately
they insisted, against his wishes, on allowing Burriana to surrender on terms.
The surrender of Burriana was not immediately followed up,
because James had preoccupations elsewhere, and it was the Aragonese nobles who
pressed on to force the capitulation of Peñiscola and Morello. But James worked
hard to interest the Catalans in the attack on Valencia, and a joint meeting of
the Cortès of Aragon and Barcelona in October 1235 agreed to it.
In 1236, the campaign entered its decisive phase when James
attacked Puig de Cebolla, 3km inland and only 17km north of Valencia. Because
of earlier defeats, Zayyan ben Mardanis, ruler of Valencia, had dismantled this
hilltop fortress. James re-fortified the place, attracting further
reinforcements to his 2,000 foot and 130 horse, and repulsed enemy attacks.
Although James reports successful raiding, supplies ran low and he was forced
go to Tortosa to borrow 60,000 sols; in his absence, his forces repulsed an
attack from Valencia. James took an active part in raiding and supervised the
transport of horses from Burriana for those who had lost them in the fighting.
But the real crisis came when his commander at Puig died, because the Aragonese
barons urged him to abandon the place. James refused and ostentatiously went to
Puig with his wife and family, and took a public oath never to abandon it. This
show of determination brought about the surrender of a number of local enemy
forts, notably Paterna, which was less than 10km northwest of Valencia, and an
offer of tribute from Zayyan which emboldened James to lay siege to Valencia in
April 1238.
This was a major city with a strong garrison, although it
was probably not as large as the 10,000 suggested by James. He had only 200
knights, 150 Almogavars and 1,000 foot. At the start of the siege, his
Almogavars and camp followers, acting without orders, were ambushed in the
suburb of Rucafa and had to be rescued. But the boldness of his action and the
prospect of rich prizes soon brought reinforcements pouring in. James had
encamped between Valencia and its port, and he persisted with this as his point
of attack, despite being urged to move to the Boatella Gate by the Archbishop
of Narbonne. He argued that there was no gate at this point from which the
enemy could sally, that there were no towers and so the wall was vulnerable,
and that they would in any case need to prevent the garrison communicating with
the sea, a point emphasized when galleys from Tunis appeared but then sailed
off, having been unable to land. James also sent a force to seize Silla to the
south, isolating Valencia.
The panoply of siege warfare was brought against the city,
but the key factors that influenced the garrison were the lack of aid from
Tunisia, which was much distracted by internal problems, and the lack of food,
because the Christians had attacked early in the year before the harvest could
be laid in. Even so, the city hung on until Zayyan came to terms for a
surrender which spared the citizens' lives on 28 September. James accepted the
surrender terms in secret and merely announced them to his barons as a way of
underscoring his success.
The Chronicle of James I is self-serving and often at pains
to conceal the truth, but it reveals the problems and skills of a commander.
First and foremost, he had to persuade, both in the conventional sense and by
exposing his body to risk, by leading from the front. James's problems were
particularly acute because of the independence of the barons and cities that
was fostered by his long minority. Successful war was essential to the
stability of his regime: his bravery and skill were a powerful incentive to
follow him and they were reinforced by a flair for the dramatic, as in the oath
of Puig. But the fruits of success were the most powerful incentive - James
gave out far more land after the fall of Valencia than he had acquired. Like
most kings he had wide interests, especially north of the Pyrenees, but
internal pressures in Aragon and Barcelona drove him first towards Mallorca and
then to Valencia. Once involved, he showed remarkable persistence and a clear
awareness of the difficulties of the Almohad Empire in North Africa, then in a
state of dissolution.
James was far too preoccupied with his diverse interests to
pursue consistent strategies. He claimed credit for devising a plan of attack
on Valencia, but this was effectively dictated by the political and natural geography
of Spain, and the gradual process of nibbling, fortress by fortress, by the
episodic nature of medieval warfare. Much of the early fighting was entirely in
the hands of Aragonese nobles. The Christian outpost of Teruel was 100km from
the coast, but it commands the upper valley of the Guadalaviar which flows down
to Valencia and is close to the valley of the Mijares, at whose mouth stands
Burriana; hence it served as a base for raids. Morella, which James was at
pains to control once it fell, was the only Muslim fortress that could
checkmate it. But James played a major role at Burriana and at a crucial stage
seized the initiative at Puig, where he demonstrated great persistence. He was
keenly aware of the importance of naval support and worked hard to persuade
Barcelona to join the attack on Valencia. Once Valencia was besieged, he
recognized that the key to sustaining the siege was supply, and Catalan ships
guaranteed this to the extent that his army was lavishly supplied even with
"apothecaries from Montpellier and Lerida". The failure of the
Tunisian fleet to land at Valencia or to cause serious damage in his rear at
Peñiscola was largely due to their fear of Catalan sea-power.
In the field, James had a clear view of military realities.
He made great efforts to control his troops properly: he was well aware that
the loose order of his father's army at Muret had caused the disaster. Above
all, he trusted his own household men and rewarded them, for they were the core
of his army. He was careful about intelligence. Like all commanders, he was
keen to keep order in his army and to establish the laws of the camp. The first
such record of such a code that has survived to us is that of Frederick
Barbarossa, drawn up in 1158, but such codes seem to have been an ancient
institution, perhaps deriving from household laws. One of the most elaborate
and stringent of such codes is that of the Templars. At Valencia, James's
policy was skilfully adjusted to his means, and he caused the maximum
disruption to the city at the minimum risk to himself. Only when his army had
been swollen by news of his success did he allow forces to go south of the
river to attack the Boatella Gate, where he was wounded in the fighting.
James deserves his soubriquet, "the Conqueror". It
was a very real tribute to him, because the nature of medieval armies meant
that conquest in the military sense was peculiarly difficult. In his conquests
there is a strong element of consent, albeit constrained. The Muslims of the
Mallorcan countryside came to terms with him in return for recognition of their
rights, and such agreements were frequent in the Valencia campaign. If we leave
aside for the moment the Latin East and the German frontier, conquest in the
simple military sense was difficult within the settled lands of western Europe.
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