Following the story of the Poem, El Cid’s men would have
been able to take the castle of Alcocer after several weeks of laying siege on it and the Moors would have responded by sending a force that besieged El Cid and his men. El Cid would have locked himself in the captured town and wai- ted for the enemy army to retreat. The Moors, however, wanted to force a battle since they had a superior number of troops and because they still were not afraid of the Campeador. So, they cut the town’s water supply forcing
the Castilians to surrender or to go to battle. With no pla- ce to return to -the exile- and with no chances of paying a ransom, the only alternative left was to try to beat the enemy in battle.
The Christian forces left the castle leaving behind a small garrison and went into battle with the heavy cavalry in the centre and the peons on the wings. The Muslims, warned of the deployment, formed two lines on infantry in the centre with their light cavalry on the flanks and, possibly, the noble cavalry in the centre behind the in- fantrymen.
El Cid had a terrain advantage, since he was deployed on a hillock; his plan was to wait for the enemy to begin to
climb the hill before launching the attack. However, Pedro Bermúdez, his standard-bearer, could not stand the wait
and he threw himself down the hill and charged the Moors carrying the Campeador’s standard. El Cid was forced to or-
der the charge against the enemy line so that he would not loose the standard and so that his men would not be de- moralised.
At a part of the enemy line, the Andalusian infantry was broken and a squad of knights put them to the sword. But, the rest of the line held up against the Christian pounding and the action degenerated into a confusing melee in which the Moors’ superior numbers began to ta-
ke effect. It was at that moment when the Muslim cavalry entered the skirmish and the Christian knights began to be knocked off their horses. Alvar Fáñez Minaya, one of the
main champions of El Cid’s army, fell off his horse and El
Cid threw himself into the middle of the clash to rescue him. The Campeador was wounded, but he was able to defeat the enemy leader, who withdrew from combat be- fore continuing the fight with the Castilian. The Castilian situation began to get desperate. Only their defensive we- apon superiority and their leader’s charisma prevented
them from fleeing.
This was the situation when the squadron that had ini- tially broken the Andalusian line returned to the battle- field and charged the Muslims from behind. The surprise and the weight of the attack were too much and the An- dalusian army fled. The Christians followed them to the doors of Terrer and even to Calatayud (some ten kilome- tres away), where the rest of the Islamic army had taken refuge.
The Moors lost around half of their troops, between deaths and prisoners, and the Christians lost 15 knights and an unde- termined number of peons, proof of the Islamic warriors’ hard
resistance5.
Author: Antonio Carrasco Fotography: Anastasio Jiménez Paintings by Gripping Beast & Perry Miniatures
1 The exact location of Alcocer is not clear.Some associate it
with Castejón de las Armas –on the Piedra River, mountain tri-
butary of the Jalon-, but it is more probable that it was in a pla- ce that is now uninhabited, halfway between Ateca and Terrer, known as the Uninhabited Mora, where remains of Muslim ce- ramic from the XI century were discovered. It is believed that the place name Alcocer is actually a hispanicis ed version of the Ara- bic al-Qasr (tower, castle) and that it refers to a fortified town or a watchtower.I am inclined to think that it is, in any case, a small fortification, since the Poem says that El Cid only left a ga- rrison of two peons (sic) to protect it when he left on the Mus- lim expedition.
2This image is copied straight from La Chanson de Roland, so
you do not have to take it as a reliable fact, only as a simple formu- la of the medieval epic poetry. However, I think the poet r eflects the real events in that the presence of a group of Christians in the area would have provoked enough upheavals in the r egion to demand a Muslim military response.
3It is probable that the figure does not correspond with the real
numbers.In medieval poetry, numerology was a constant and, in this specific case that concerns us, it seems that it was a way of in- dicating the presence of the Holy Trinity.
4 The first two emirs, Fariz and Galbe, are fictional characters;
however, I wanted to include them to give the Andalusian gamers a chance to identify themselves with their characters.
5 The Christian losses were extremely high, considering that
they were the winners and that most of the casualties fell during the pursuits. If we accept the figure of 300 knights given in the Poem, this would represent 5% of the knights. It is not bad for a winning force.
I
n 1085, year in which Toledo was conquered, Alfonso VI had been able to organise a powerful army that he could use to thre- aten the deteriorating Taifas. All of the kinglets of Al-Andalus rus- hed to bow before this powerful lord who had not even received a response from the rest of the Christian kings after proclaiming himself Imperator totus Hispaniae in the coveted Visigothic capi- tal. However, too much power, too many incompetent counsellors and flatterers and too little care allowed the Castilian-Leonese sovereign to double their parias and to threaten to invade their kingdoms.In was in this defenceless situation that the king Al-Muttamid of Se- ville had to make a hard decision; he could choose to subject himself to the Christians and be hated by his subjects and fellow kings or ask for help from people he considered to be “the barbarians from the south”, the Almoravides (al-murabit), a Berber sect that practiced a strict and ascetic Islamism and whose African territory reached Senegal.
Some versions say that the Almoravide leader, Yussuf Ibn Texufin, was not sure if he wanted to advance to the Peninsula and others say that he could not wait to do it. Whichever version was true, it seems as though, after the first call for help from all the kings in Muslim Spain, there was a second more desperate cry from Al-Muttamid in which he referred to the defence of Islam: “... they demand our mos- ques and minarets so that they can put up crosses and put them in the hands of their monks...” However, the fakirs on the peninsula thought that the religion in the Taifa kingdoms had gotten too relaxed and that perhaps it was a good idea to have the strict Almoravides re- establish order in the religion. So, in addition to the message from the king of Seville, Yussuf Ibn Texufin received a fatwa that entrusted him with the defence of the Islamic faith on Spanish territory and that na- med him “prince of all believers”. To encourage him even more, the bold Alfonso VI sent him a letter in which he told him to come to Spain, if not, Alfonso himself would search for him in Africa.
So, in 1086, the Almoravide warriors –fierce, experienced, aus- tere and fanatical- calmly crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began their incursion in Spain: This move would put Christianity on the Peninsula in check until the middle of the following century. As so- on as they crossed the strait, they advanced towards Badajoz, which was threatened by the Christians; they encamped near Sa- grajas and waited for their enemies.