Almogavres

The Almogavres ( almogàvers ) were soldiers mercenaries with the service of the Couronne of Aragon-Catalonia, mainly Catalans and Aragonese, made up in companies which had been born in the Iberian peninsula at the time of the wars against Buckwheats, between XIII^e and XV^e century.

The completed Reconquest, they took part then in the War of Sicily, the service of the king Frederic II. They were famous for their skill and their aggressiveness with the combat. Out of enemy ground, they lived of plundering, but in times of peace they caused problems by being caught some to the inhabitants campaigns.

Etymology

Arab to mugâwir , indicating that which carries out an enemy ground incursion, verb gâwar , to carry out a forwarding. One can find in French the form Almogavare but of use to be avoided because in conformity with the pronunciation of the Catalan word.

The first infantry

Almogavres were regarded as one of the best infantries of their time. They are recognized by military historiography like the precursors of the war of harassing or guerilla.

At one time when the knighthood was the preferred weapon of the armies and in which the chivalrous ideal was the model of the warrior, Almogavres used the ground with their advantage, fought of night, always went barefeet and did not carry an armor, which made them very mobile.

It also should be stressed that they did not constitute an army strictly speaking, but that they carried out a very hard life, combatant under the glance of their children and their women, with whom they always moved, which thus learned soldiering. They did not practice any trade besides that of the weapons and were useful on the inhabitant, which made them extremely hateful in time peace for some monarch that it is.

They thus lived of the state of war between the Islamic world and Christian, but their sedentarisation involved their disappearance.

Description that makes of it Bernat Desclot (2^nde half of XIII^e century)

Here description of Almogavres celebrates it which one finds under the feather of Bernat Desclot in his chronicle entitled Livre of king Pierre d' Aragon and of his predecessors , more known under the title of the chronicle of Desclot . (C. 79, where it shows the preparations of the departure for El-Koll - anc. Collo, port of the department of Constantine (Algeria), with O. golf of Stora. The fleet of Pierre II occupied it (1282) to come to assistance of Ibn Al-Wazir, lord of Constantine-):

“These people whom one calls Almogavres do not live that by soldiering. They live neither the cities nor the boroughs, but in the mountains and wood, and they guerroient the every day against Buckwheats: they penetrate a day or two on their premises, plundering and seizing the people, then they are turned over from there with their many prisoners various buckwheats and much of spoils. They live thanks to these catches and support very hard conditions of existence, that the common run of people could not endure. They can perfectly remain two days without eating if they cannot make differently, or then they can be nourished without problem of grass of the fields. They are guided by commanders scouts ( adalils ) who know the country and the ways. They are not vêtus, be like winter, that of gonelle, or lines, very short, and carry to the legs of fit extremely narrow out of leather and with the feet of large shoes in skin. They have a good large knife and a good belt from where hangs a rifle to sharpen. They carry each one a good lance and two darts, as well as a leather bread basket with the back, in which they transport their bread for two or three days. They are strong and fast, as well in the retirement as in the continuation; they are Catalan and Aragonese mountain dwellers. ”

History

The first testimony of their existence of which we laid out goes back to XIII^e century, when in groups of a dozen men they were devoted to incursions of one or two days out of ground sarrasine. They advanced under the control of a captain ( almugatèn ), and when they were to deliver a more important attack, they received their orders of a commander ( adalil ) appointed by the King. They remained primarily of the spoils which they made, as that was said by Desclot.

The name that one gave them, of Arab origin, shows in a clear way that their military organization was borrowed from the art of the war of the Moslems. This is corroborated by the names which their chiefs carried, so much adalil (of Arabic dall , to show the way) that almugatèn (Arab Al-mucaddem , that which directs).

They formed an important army: Pierre (Father) Large the (1276-1285) took it about fifteen thousands during its forwardings in Africa and Sicily, under the command of Roger de Lauria, or Loria, (Llúria). Number of them remained in Sicily, to defend the son of Pierre, Frederic (Fadric) II, fights about it against Angevins. But after the Peace of Caltabellotta (1302), they did not have anything any more to make on the island.

At this point in time was created the Catalan Compagnie of the East, under the orders of Roger de Flor. Their war cry, “Upright, irons! Upright! ” ( Desperta, ferro! Desperta! ), that they pushed by striking the stones with the points of their lances, with an aim of impressing their enemies, before launching out in the battle remained famous. The count de Brienne would have exclaimed with the sight of the sparks and din thus produced: “We fell on demons! ”, as reports it Ramon Muntaner in chapter 191 of its Chronique . After the assassination of Roger de Flor with Turkey-red cotton, they had to be defended against the Greeks and their allies in their districts of Gallipoli where their enemies had come to attack them. This heroic episode is told by Muntaner, which was there as a treasurer of the Company and which took an active share with the engagements. Then Almogavres devastated during two years the Empire as reprisals, being delivered to famous the .

See too