Month: May 2019

The title of King of Jerusalem, is one of the official titles of our monarch Felipe VI. But where does this title come from? Did the Bourbons ever really reign there?

Let’s see how the title is born, and how it reaches our monarch… Godfrey de Bouillon, conquers Jerusalem at the head of the first crusade in the year 1099, and takes the title of King of Jerusalem.

The title passes reasonably until the fall of Jerusalem itself and the death of most of its successors. Thus, when the third crusade arrives (of the most famous with the participation of Ricardo Corazón de León and Felipe II Augusto of France), there are two contenders for the title. Guido de Lusignan, consort of Sibila, but who loses the right to the title when his wife dies, and Conrad of Montferrat, married to Sibila’s sister.

Conrado is favored and Ricardo sells Cyprus to Guido to compensate him. Despite this, Guido continues to use the title of King of Jerusalem until his death. However, Conrad dies as soon as he takes possession, at the hands of the assassins, and his wife Isabella marries Henry of Champagne and, after his death, with Aimery de Lusignan, Guido’s brother, who had already inherited Cyprus from his father. brother.

Again fate is capricious. After Saladin’s death, the Ayyubid kingdom disintegrates, and Aimery awaits the fourth crusade to conquer Egypt, but it will never come, as he ends up conquering Constantinople, and Aimery and his wife Isabella die having started the attacks. Queen Isabella’s youngest daughter with Conrad of Montferrat, Maria. Maria marries Juan de Brienne and dies after giving birth to his first daughter, Isabella. The pope confirms John as King of Jerusalem until his daughter can take over.

The fifth crusade focuses on Egypt with the conquest of Damietta and the wait for the arrival of Emperor Frederick II. But Federico does not arrive and al-Kamil recovers Damietta by overflowing the Nile. Juan de Brienne wanders around Europe asking for help and Federico agrees to marry his daughter Isabella. Isabella dies giving birth to her first son Conrad IV who will never go east.

Denier minted by John of Brienne at Damietta

In any case, Frederick still did not leave for the holy land and the pope excommunicated him in 1227. He commanded an advanced army, and in 1228 he led the sixth crusade and did finally go to the Levant. His army was not large due to the excommunication, but without a doubt his mere presence was enough to obtain important cessions from the Ayyubids without a single battle. Thus, he obtains the cession of Jerusalem and other important cities for Christianity, but the opposition of the papacy means that they are not really integrated into the Kingdom.

Meanwhile, John of Brienne (Frederick’s ex-father-in-law), leads the papal army that invades Frederick’s lands in Italy, and forces Frederick to return to Italy. On the other hand, in the holy land the so-called War of the Lombards intensifies between the imperial side and the local nobility, identified above all by the Ibelins and the Montforts. Finally the local side wins when Conrado comes of age. Conrad dies in 1254 and inherits his rights his son his Conradin, but neither will ever go to the holy land, and local nobles control the regency. With the death of Conradino in 1268 at the hands of Carlos de Anjou, disputes began again.

Imitation dirhem minted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1251

Thus, Hugh III of Cyprus and Mary of Antioch dispute the Kingdom, but the Jerusalem courts reject Mary’s candidacy and Hugh is established as King of Jerusalem. However, in 1277, Maria sold her right to the throne of Jerusalem to Charles of Anjou with the approval of the pope. Hugh, fed up with the squabbling in the Kingdom, had left for Cyprus the previous year, and for the remainder of his reign it would be effectively under Angevin control.

After the Sicilian vespers the situation of the Angevins changes, having to send troops back to Sicily to defend the fiefdom against the Aragonese. Thus, when Hugo III dies, Carlos de Anjou continues to dispute the throne of Jerusalem with Juan I, but when Henry II of Cyprus inherits the throne of his brother with Carlos de Anjou already deceased, he will have no problem regaining control of the Kingdom .

Gros of Henry II of Cyprus with the Jerusalem cross on reverse

The Mamluks had become more belligerent towards the Crusaders since Baibars replaced Qutuz in 1260, and they had gradually driven the Franks out of all the cities. In 1291 the final conquest of Acre, Beirut and Sidon takes place, and Henry II flees to Cyprus where he will continue to use the title of King of Jerusalem.

This Cypriot line will continue to use the title of King of Jerusalem with a division into two lines due to internal disputes. One that will end up in the house of Savoy and the kings of Italy, and another in the Republic of Venice (where Caterina Cornaro deposited her rights). The other important line would be the Angevin line, where the Kingdom of Jerusalem was considered feudatory of the Kingdom of Naples from the moment Charles of Anjou bought the rights of Mary of Antioch with papal approval. That is why when the Aragonese conquer Naples, they also take the title, and in this way it reaches Felipe VI, which is where we wanted to go from the beginning. So no, the Bourbons have never reigned in the holy land, and the closest the Aragonese were, were the dalliances of the Almogavars and the counties of Athens and Neopatria.

The Almogavars were light shock troops, whose origin and name go back to groups of robbers from Al Andalus. The Aragonese were the first to adapt their tactics, and for this reason their light infantry was called in this way. But when they really became famous, and for what they are remembered centuries later, it was for the activity of a group of these in the Byzantine empire at the beginning of the s. XIV.

Thus, in 1302 a group of Almogavar mercenaries under the leadership of Roger de Flor, most of them veterans of the war in Sicily (unemployed after the peace of Caltabellota), are hired by the Byzantine Empire to help in the reconquest of places in Anatolia.

The great Catalan company, as it was called, arrived in Constantinople at the beginning of 1303, and with its arrival, sparks flew, first with the Genoese, leading to a strong conflict between the two. Finally, the emperor sends the Almogavars on his mission, and they reap victory after victory against the Turks, even in strong numerical inferiority as in the battle of Aulax, after which they manage to lift the Turkish siege of Philadelphia

After securing the area, they occupy Magnesia, under Byzantine rule, raising anger among the local leaders, who see Roger de Flor not as a mercenary, but as a true governor of Anatolia.

Leaving a garrison in Magnesia, along with the treasures confiscated to date, the Almogavars continued to sow panic among the Anatolian Turks, scoring a great victory at the Battle of Kibistra, against a vastly outnumbered enemy again. But when they returned to Magnesia from Cilicia, where they arrived harassing the Turks, they saw that the detachment left behind had been eliminated, so they laid siege to the city. Emperor Andronicus II again called the Almogavars to the aid of the Bulgarian tsar to quell an uprising, where they went, lifting the siege.

The excesses of the Almogavars against the Greek population throughout this journey, plus the ambitions of Roger de Flor, made them many enemies, and finally, at a banquet to which they had been invited by the emperor in Adrianopolis, Roger de Flor was assassinated. along with 100 Almogavar knights. The order was given by the emperor’s son and co-regent Michael. Later they tried to finish off all the Almogávares that remained without success, coming to lay siege to Gallípoli where they were. The Almogavars finished off the Byzantine army and plundered the regions of Macedonia and Thrace for years, leaving for posterity a memory of limitless violence, known as Catalan revenge.

In 1311, after not receiving the agreed payment for their help, they conquered the Duchy of Athens and named King Frederick II of Sicily Lord. In 1318 and 1319 they added lands from Thessaly and formed the Duchy of Neopatria united to that of Athens. They kept these duchies under Aragonese sovereignty until 1388-1390, when they fell under the Florentines, associated with the Navarre Company.

It seems clear that the Catalan company must have minted coins, but there are no types in the name of the Aragonese King. It is assumed that they kept the previous types, although this does not make much sense either. Pieces in the name of Guy II are attributed to the later Florentines, with a dot on the cross on the obverse and with a very peculiar style from the legends, and therefore, it is assumed that the Catalans did the same. While Metcalf thinks that some of the normal types could be from the Catalans, Malloy attributes to these the anonymous types that Metcalf attributes to the Guy I minority, which makes clear the mess that exists in the attributions of this period.

Malloy also attributes to them the large number of types with unintelligible captions that were produced at the time, but more like these faux period pieces, which certainly need further study.

Hello, I start the blog of the store with one of the grandfather’s war stories.
Actually, I am going to tell you something that I read a long time ago, and that I found shocking. Not because I like battles or anything like that, but because of how curious it seems to me that everyone has heard of Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar in Spain (and that we lost), and yet hardly anyone has heard talk about this battle of Cartagena and Blas de Lezo.

I must admit that since I read this story the first time, the public’s sensibility has changed, and many more people know this character, but anyway, I’m going to do the minimum tribute, remembering his exploits.

This legend is part of a very curious war called the Jenkins ear war.
You have to see if it has a literary name, and yet, nothing, they don’t tell this in schools…
This Jenkins was an English smuggler, intercepted by the Spanish and apparently had his ear cut off as punishment. The English warmongering side used it in the House of Commons to get the declaration of war.
Since the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, England had had the “permission ship” which was allowed to trade with the Spanish colonies (before that, trade was an exclusive privilege of the metropolis through the house of contracting). , but because it was insufficient, the English continued to resort to smuggling. English commercial power had really reached a point where they could aspire to dominate the entire American continent, and that is what they tried in this war.

His plan was to put an end to Spanish rule, through the conquest of the main ports of Spanish America, Havana, Portobelo, Veracruz and Cartagena.
In the action against Cartagena, they would find such a big stumbling block that they would be forced to end the war (well, it was finally framed within the war of the Austrian succession, ending the hostilities in America).
The numbers are incredible, some 27,000 English, distributed in 186 ships of various types, compared to 3,600 on the Spanish side and 6 ships of the line, plus of course the magnificent defenses of Cartagena.
It was the largest amphibious attack in history before the 20th century (Gallipoli and Normandy), and yet as I say, few people know about it. The fact is that surprisingly, the English did not achieve their objective, which caused the fall of the English prime minister Walpole.
Who achieved such a feat? Well, the Spanish admiral, Blas de Lezo y Olabarrieta, from Pasajes to be exact, and therefore Basque 😉

Great soldier and a peculiar guy of course, his nickname was legpalo or mediohombre (oneleg for the English). The battle of Cartagena is his last military action, since he died of illness at the end, but the man was made a chrome, without an eye, a leg, and with his right arm disabled (not from this battle, but from those that had fought throughout his life). Let’s go men like before… 😀
In short, such a victory over the English, and hardly mentioned in Spain, neither the battle nor the architect of it. Of course, we have to learn a couple of marketing things from the English…
I hope you liked the story. For more information

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_del_Asiento

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blas_de_Lezo