Battle of Valdevez
Battle of Valdevez | |||||||
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Azulejo panel depicting the Battle of Valdevez at the São Bento railway station, Porto | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of Portugal | Kingdom of León | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Afonso I of Portugal |
Alfonso VII of León |
The Battle of Valdevez (
Course of the conflict
At the start of Alfonso VII's reign, Afonso of Portugal was his
At Valdevez, the primary combatants on both sides were mounted
Primary sources
The
. . . the Emperor [Alfonso VII] commanded the Counts from Castile to prepare for daily attacks on King García [
Gutier Fernández, and others. Alfonso VII mobilized a large force and departed for Portugal. He captured several powerful castles there while destroying and plundering the land. The King of Portugal likewise mobilized his army and marched out to fight the few men who had foolishly been separated from the Emperor's main force. The Portuguese confronted Count Ramiro [Ramiro Fróilaz] who was attempting to conquer their land. They joined in battle, and Ramiro was defeated and taken prisoner.
The Emperor stationed his camp facing the castle at Penha da Rainha which is located in Portela de Vez. The Portuguese King pitched his tents facing the Emperor's camp on a higher and rougher terrain with a valley lying between the two. Many nobles from both armies came down and engaged in individual combat. The Emperor's knights did so without his consent. Many on both sides fell from their horses and were captured.The older Portuguese nobles witnessed this and said to their king, "Sir, it is not advantageous for us to carry on war with the Emperor. We will not always be capable of resisting his forces which are greater than ours in strength and number. The situation is indeed growing more dangerous. If there had been peace between us, our brothers would not have perished at the hands of the Moors in Leiria. Therefore, you must take precautions so that the Almoravides and the other Moors do not return to attack our cities and castles across the Duero River. If they do, there will be greater destruction than before. Send some of us to the Emperor to request a peace treaty. Let us return all his castles which we now hold, and let him give back the ones which his knights captured in our country. It is much better for us to live in peace than in war."
The anonymous Chronicon Lusitanum, a Portuguese source, records the battle under the year 1140:
. . . the Emperor Don Alfonso, son of Count Raymond and Queen Doña Urraca, daughter of the Emperor Don Alfonso, having assembled his entire army of Castile and Galicia, wished to enter the kingdom of Portugal and arrived at a place called Valdevez. But the king of Portugal, Afonso, joined with his army and coming in the manner he wished, drew up his tents, some in that place and others elsewhere. Certain people came from the Emperor for a game [ex parte Imperatoris ad ludendum], which is popularly called a “bufurdio” [Bufurdium], and immediately the men of the king of Portugal came down and fought them. They took many captives, including
Vermudo Pérez, and Varella, son of Fernando Yáñez, brother of Pelayo Curvo, and Rodrigo Fernández, father of Fernando Rodríguez, and Martín Cabra, cousin of the consul Don Ponce, and many others who had come with them.[6]
Memorials
There is a commemorative azulejo mural of the battle in São Bento railway station.[7] In Arcos de Valdevez a monument by sculpture José Rodrigues commemorates the battle as a joust. In the Museu de Arcos de Valdevez an artefact from the so-called Torneio de Cavaleiros is permanently on display.
Notes
- ^ The former date comes from the Chronicon Lusitanum, which places it in the Spanish era 1178.
- ^ Reilly (1998), 70.
- ^ Pereira Felix (2009), 14.
- ^ a b Reilly (1998), 71.
- ^ War in the Middle Ages (Wiley-Blackwell, 1986), 291, cited in Barton, 182.
- ^ Medieval Latin:
Per idem tempus Imperator D. Alfonsus filius Comitis Raymundi, & Reginae Donnae Orracae filiae Imperatoris magni D. Alfonsi, coadunato omni exercitu de Castella, & de Gallecia, voluit intrare Regnum Portugalliae, & venerunt usque ad locum qui dicitur Valdevez; sed Rex de Portugal D. Alfonsus occurrit ei cum exercitu suo, & obsedit iter, per quod ille venire volebat, fixitque tentoria sua, isti ex hac parte, & illi ex altera parte, cumque veniret aliquis ex parte Imperatoris ad ludendum, quod populares dicunt Bufurdium, statim egrediebantur ex parte Regis Portugallis occurrentes eis, & ludentes cum eis, qui in exercitu comprehenderunt Fernandum Furtado fratrem Imperatoris, & Consulem Pontium de Cabreira, Veremundum Petri, & Varella filium de Fernando Joannis germanum de Pelagio Curvo, & Rodericum Fernandi patrem de Fernando Roderici, & Martinum Kabra consobrinum Consulis D. Pontii, & alios multos, qui cum eis venerant.
- ^ Porto, azulejos de la gare Sao Bento, en bas la bataille d’Arcos de Valdevez
Sources
- Barton, Simon (1997), The Aristocracy in Twelfth-Century León and Castile, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
- Lipskey, Glenn Edward, ed. (1972), The Chronicle of Alfonso the Emperor: A Translation of the "Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris", with Study and Notes, Chicago, Illinois: Northwestern University
- Pereira, Felix John (2009), Abridgement of the History of Portugal, Charleston, South Carolina: ISBN 978-1-110-33521-3
- Reilly, Bernard F. (1998), The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126–1157, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 978-0-8122-3452-7