Calatrava

Who holds it

Name

Martín Martínez

Title

Master of the Order of Calatrava

Since

1199

Confidence

medium

Fifth master in the usual list, from 1199 to 1207, succeeding Nuño Pérez de Quiñones (master 1182-1199), Alfonso VIII's companion at Alarcos who led the order through the disaster and its recovery. The order is Cistercian, under the abbot of Morimond. The exact month of Nuño's death and Martín's election is not pinned.

What it holds

• Salvatierra: an isolated castle seized in 1198, the order's head house, cut off inside Almohad territory
• Zorita de los Canes and its district on the Tagus, with Almonacid de Zorita (granted 1174; fuero of 8 April 1180)
• The house at Ciruelos, the refuge of 1195
• Claimed but lost to the Almohads: Calatrava la Vieja and the Campo de Calatrava (granted 1158, lost 1195)
• In Aragon: Alcañiz (see the separate record Alcañiz)

How it was acquired

Calatrava was given to Abbot Raymond of Fitero in 1158; Zorita by Alfonso VIII in 1174; Salvatierra taken by force in 1198.

How things stand that morning

Zorita is firmly held. Salvatierra is held but besieged in all but name, supplied across a no-man's-land of raided country between the Montes de Toledo and the Sierra Morena. Calatrava la Vieja is an Almohad fortress. The 1197 truce between Castile and the Almohads holds, but Salvatierra is the obvious target if it breaks.

Wealth

Rents and justice of the Zorita district; the Tagus crossing; flocks and their grazing rights; booty; papal and royal privileges. The order lost the pastures and mills of the Campo de Calatrava in 1195.

Threats

• An Almohad siege of Salvatierra (it falls in September 1211)
• The end of the 1197 truce
• The cost of holding an isolated castle

Advocates and rivals

No advocate: the master answers to the Cistercian abbot of Morimond and to the pope. The Order of Santiago is its rival for royal favour and frontier lands; the archbishop of Toledo contests its churches' tithes.

Places of note

• Castle of Zorita: Castle and bridge over the Tagus

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Alarcos, Ciruelos, Salvatierra (1198) and Zorita (1174) are well attested; one source gives 1196 for Salvatierra, most give 1198. The master's dates come from standard lists.

On the map: Salvatierra is a disc because it is a lone castle, not a district. The Zorita district of 1200 is approximated by two modern municipalities. Lost Calatrava lands are not drawn.

Primary sources for Castile

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Chronicle of the World (Lucas of Tuy), Lucas de Tuy (1236, for Queen Berenguela). The Leonese counterpart to Rodrigo, written at San Isidoro for Berenguela. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• Chronicle of Roger of Howden, Roger of Howden (about 1192 to 1201). The fullest single narrative for the year. Read online
• The Complete History: the passages on the Maghreb and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athir (about 1220 to 1231, at Mosul). The year entries for 595 to 597 of the Hijra (late 1198 to 1201) record the death of Yaqub al-Mansur, the accession of al-Nasir and the opening of Yahya ibn Ghaniya's war in Ifriqiya; the following years follow Yahya and the Ghuzz captain Qaraqush through Tripoli, Gabès and Mahdia to al-Nasir's reconquest in 1206, with the best eastern account of Qaraqush's career. Read online
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• Deeds of Philip Augustus, Rigord (about 1186 to 1206, in stages). The French court's own chronicle for the year, from the monk of Saint-Denis who called himself the king's chronographer. Read online

13 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.