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Siege Of Oreja
The siege of Oreja was a siege by the forces of Alfonso VII, Emperor of Spain, on the Spanish town Colmenar de Oreja that lasted from April until October 1139 when the Almoravid garrison surrendered. It was the first major victory of the renewed ''Reconquista'' that characterised the last two decades of Alfonso's reign. Principal sources The main source for the siege of Oreja is the contemporary '' Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris'', a narrative of Alfonso's reign in two books. According to this source, at the time it was "the largest campaign that had been conducted in the combined regions of Toledo and Extremadura."Book II, §156. Historian Bernard Reilly has succinctly explained the "virtues and vices" of the ''Chronica'' as a reliable historical account: ". . . the second book of the 'Chronica''is made up largely of a series of popular tales originally composed separately and only subsequently tacked together in a literary, Latin text appended to the more traditional and staid an ...
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Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, in which the Christian kingdoms expanded through war and conquered al-Andalus; the territories of Iberia ruled by Muslims. The beginning of the ''Reconquista'' is traditionally marked with the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), the first known victory by Christian military forces in Hispania since the 711 military invasion which was undertaken by combined Arab- Berber forces. The rebels who were led by Pelagius defeated a Muslim army in the mountains of northern Hispania and established the independent Christian Kingdom of Asturias. In the late 10th century, the Umayyad vizier Almanzor waged military campaigns for 30 years to subjugate the northern Christian kingdoms. His armies ravaged the north, ev ...
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Medieval Household
The medieval household was, like modern households, the center of family life for all classes of European society. Yet in contrast to the household of today, it consisted of many more individuals than the nuclear family. From the household of the king to the humblest peasant dwelling, more or less distant relatives and varying numbers of servants and dependents would cohabit with the master of the house and his immediate family. The structure of the medieval household was largely dissolved by the advent of privacy in early modern Europe. Variations were immense over an entire continent and a time span of about 1000 years. Yet it is still possible to speak of a classical model of the medieval household, particularly as it evolved in Carolingian France and from there spread over great parts of Europe. Historical background Neither Greek nor Latin had a word corresponding to modern-day "family". The Latin ''familia'' must be translated to "household" rather than "family". The ...
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Catapult
A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stored potential energy to propel its payload. Most convert tension or torsion energy that was more slowly and manually built up within the device before release, via springs, bows, twisted rope, elastic, or any of numerous other materials and mechanisms. In use since ancient times, the catapult has proven to be one of the most persistently effective mechanisms in warfare. In modern times the term can apply to devices ranging from a simple hand-held implement (also called a "slingshot") to a mechanism for launching aircraft from a ship. The earliest catapults date to at least the 7th century BC, with King Uzziah, of Judah, recorded as equipping the walls of Jerusalem with machines that shot "great stones". Catapults are mentioned in Yaju ...
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Berber People
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber flag, Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , pop2 = 9 million to ~13 million , region3 = Mauritania , pop3 = 2.9 million , region4 = Niger , pop4 = 2.6 million, Niger: 11% of 23.6 million , region5 = France , pop5 = 2 million , region6 = Mali , pop6 = 850,000 , region7 = Libya , pop7 = 600,000 , region8 = Belgium , pop8 = 500,000 (including descendants) , region9 = Netherlands , pop9 = 467,455 (including descendants) , region10 = Burkina Faso , pop10 = 406,271, Burkina Faso: 1.9% of 21.4 million , region11 = Egypt , pop11 = 23,000 or 1,826,580 , region12 = Tunisia , ...
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Trans-Sierra
Trasierra is a municipality located in the province of Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain. According to the 2014 census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ..., Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) the municipality has a population of 659 inhabitants. Local celebrations *''Fiesta del Santísimo Cristo del Socorro'' or ''Fiesta de los Manoletes'', 20 April. *San Isidro Labrador, 15 May *San Antonio de Padua, 13 June *''Fiestas Patronales.'' Santa Marta, 29 July. *''Fiesta de La Chaquetía'', 1 November. References External links * Municipalities in the Province of Badajoz {{Badajoz-geo-stub ...
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Alfoz (territory)
The geographical term alfoz (plural ''alfoces'') was used in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages to describe the rural territory, including subordinate hamlets, under the jurisdiction of a corresponding town (''villa'' in Spanish). The ''villa'' and its alfoz, under the authority of the town's local council (''concejo''), sometimes underpinned what was called a ''Comunidad de Villa y Tierra'', an autonomous political division. At the center of this community, the town (or sometimes a city) comprised an urban area and usually boasted of a castle and a fortified wall. By the 12th century, the alfoces had fiscal, judicial and military functions. Furthermore, they lent themselves to the communal use of land for silvopastoral agriculture; however, in the year 1100, monarchs began to allocate portions of land to the Church and the nobility, an act that undermined the very purpose of the alfoz. The alfoz and its villa formed what would later be known as a municipality. The word ...
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Alcalde
Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) and judge of first instance of a town. ''Alcaldes'' were elected annually, without the right to reelection for two or three years, by the ''regidores'' (council members) of the municipal council. The office of the ''alcalde'' was signified by a staff of office, which they were to take with them when doing their business. A woman who holds the office is termed an ''Alcaldesa''. In New Spain (Mexico), ''alcaldes mayores'' were chief administrators in colonial-era administrative territories termed ''alcaldías mayores''; in colonial-era Peru the units were called ''corregimientos''. ''Alcalde'' was also a title given to Indian officials inside the Spanish missions, who performed a large variety of duties for the Franciscan missionaries. ...
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Álvar Fáñez
Álvar Fáñez (or Háñez) (died 1114) was a Leonese nobleman and military leader under Alfonso VI of León and Castile, becoming the nearly independent ruler of Toledo under Queen Urraca. He became the subject of legend, being transformed by the '' Poema de Mio Cid'', Spain's national epic, into Álvar Fáñez Minaya, a loyal vassal and commander under Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid, during the latter's exile and his conquest of Valencia. Family Álvar derived from the same Castilian noble stock that produced El Cid and is called his "''sobrinus''" (nephew or more general younger male kinsman) in a contemporary document. He married Mayor Pérez, a daughter of count Pedro Ansúrez of the powerful Beni Gómez clan, and had by her (it would seem) two daughters: Eilo who married successively counts Rodrigo Fernández de Castro and then in 1146/8, as his third wife, Ramiro Fróilaz; and Urraca, who married count Rodrigo Vélaz. Courtier and General Álvar was at the royal court at l ...
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Alfonso The Battler
Alfonso I (''c''. 1073/10747 September 1134), called the Battler or the Warrior ( es, el Batallador), was King of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. With his marriage to Urraca, queen regnant of Castile, León and Galicia, in 1109, he began to use, with some justification, the grandiose title Emperor of Spain, formerly employed by his father-in-law, Alfonso VI. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the Reconquista. He won his greatest military successes in the middle Ebro, where he conquered Zaragoza in 1118 and took Ejea, Tudela, Calatayud, Borja, Tarazona, Daroca, and Monreal del Campo. He died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the Muslims at the Battle of Fraga. His nickname comes from the Aragonese version of the ''Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña'' (c. 1370), which says that "they called him lord Alfonso the battler because in Spain ther ...
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Urraca Of León And Castile
Urraca (also spelled ''Hurraca'', ''Urracha'' and ''Hurracka'' in medieval Latin) is a female first name. In Spanish, the name means magpie, derived perhaps from Latin ''furax'', meaning "thievish", in reference to the magpie's tendency to collect shiny items. The name may be of Basque origin, as suggested by onomastic analysis. *Urraca (9th century), purported wife of García Íñiguez of Pamplona *Urraca bint Qasi ( fl. 917–929), wife of Fruela II of León * Urraca Sánchez of Pamplona (10th century), wife of Ramiro II of León *Urraca Fróilaz (fl. 969–978), wife of Aznar Purcelliz *Urraca Garcés (died before 1008), wife of Fernán González of Castile and William II Sánchez of Gascony *Urraca Fernández (died 1005/7), wife of Ordoño III of León, Ordoño IV of León and of Sancho II of Pamplona * Urraca of Covarrubias (died 1038), abbess and daughter of García Fernández of Castile *Urraca, apparently Gómez (died 1039), wife of Sancho García of Castile *Urra ...
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