Ramón de Bonifaz (1196-1252 or 1256) was a medieval Spanish naval leader best known for breaking a river barricade, leading to the capture of Seville from the Almohad Caliphate.Ruiz, p. 177. Bonifaz made his fortune as a merchant in

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of ...

, a city on the pilgrimage route to

Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...

, and may have descended from one of the many French or Italian families that settled along the

sacred way The Sacred Way ( grc, Ἱερὰ Ὁδός, ''Hierá Hodós''), in ancient Greece, was the road from Athens to Eleusis. It was so called because it was the route taken by a procession celebrating the Eleusinian Mysteries. The procession to Eleus ...

. He had achieved clear financial success by 1227 when he purchased an extremely expensive house. Having made his fortune, Bonifaz served as '' alcalde'' or mayor of the city for much of the early thirteenth century. Sevilla Guadalquivir TorreOro

In 1247, King Ferdinand III of Castile and León ordered Bonifaz to organize a fleet to join in the

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 ...

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

. Bonifaz drew his motley navy mostly from ships in the Bay of Biscay and took them up the

Guadalquivir River The Guadalquivir (, also , , ) is the fifth-longest river in the Iberian Peninsula and the second-longest river with its entire length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is the only major navigable river in Spain. Currently it is navigable from the Gul ...

to attack the

Almohad The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the unity of God) was a North African Berber Muslim empire fou ...

held city. Moorish ships from Seville,

Ceuta Ceuta (, , ; ar, سَبْتَة, Sabtah) is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territorie ...

, and

Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capi ...

met Bonifaz at the mouth of the Guadalquivir.Irving, p. 517. Bonifaz's force of thirteen large ships combined with smaller vessels sunk several ships and drove the others away. In 1248, Bonifaz famously broke the city's river defenses leading to the fall of Seville. The Moors barricaded the river with a

pontoon bridge A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, uses floats or shallow-draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the supports limits the maximum load that they can carry. ...

braced with a heavy, metal chain that stretched from the

Torre del Oro The Torre del Oro ( ar, بُرْج الذَّهَب, burj aḏẖ-ḏẖahab, lit=Tower of Gold) is a dodecagonal military watchtower in Seville, southern Spain. It was erected by the Almohad Caliphate in order to control access to Seville via th ...

(Tower of the Gold) to the opposite bank. The bridge connected Seville to the outlying neighborhood of Triana and became the only

supply line Supply may refer to: *The amount of a resource that is available **Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers **Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission *Supply, as in confidenc ...

for the besieged city. Bonifaz rammed the barrier with fortified boats and broke the barricade. Without a source of provisions, Seville soon surrendered. Bonifaz received many honors for his role in the reconquest of Seville. He was made a royal official in 1252, and may have been the first

Admiral of Castile Admiral of Castile was the representative of the King of Castile at the head of the Navy. It was a dignity created in 1247 that lasted until 1705. Admiral of Castile The title of Admiral of Castile was created by King Ferdinand III the Saint in ...

, although some scholars consider the evidence for Bonifaz having this title weak. Bonifaz's descendants played a major role in the political and social life of Burgos for more than a century after the admiral's death.Ruiz, p. 178. The

coat of arms of Cantabria The coat of arms of Cantabria has a rectangular shield, round in base (also called ''Spanish shield'' in heraldry) and the field is ''party en fess''. In field azure, a tower or crenellated and masoned, port and windows azure, to its right a shi ...

shows Bonifaz breaking the chains across the Guadalquivir.

Works cited

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramon De Bonifaz 1192 births 1250s deaths Spanish admirals People of the Reconquista People from Burgos