Teruel

Who holds it

Name

Pedro Ladrón (1196-1200)

Title

Señor (royal lord) of Teruel

Confidence

high

Lord in 1200

Pedro Ladrón, senior of Teruel and holder of Mora (see Ladrón).

Overlord

Peter II of Aragon

How things stand that morning

Royal town under its own council, at war with Valencia in the ordinary way of the frontier.

Wealth

Sheep and transhumance, frontier booty and ransom, the road to Valencia.

Military

Walls and castle; the council's mounted militia; advanced post at Mora (Pedro Ladrón).

Threats

• Almohad raids on the villages
• Disputes with the Templars of Alfambra over pasture (general; not pinned for 1200)

Fuero

Occupied by Alfonso II in 1171 (Berenguer de Entenza installed as tenant in October 1171) and resettled on 1 October 1177 with its own fuero and territory, separate from Daroca. The Fuero de Teruel gives infanzones and commoners one law and makes the townsman-knight (caballero villano), who keeps a horse, shield, lance and helmet and a house in the town, the core of the council.

Council

An annual judge (juez) and alcaldes chosen from the townsmen-knights: Martín de Marcilla was judge in 1192-1193 and Pascual Muñoz in 1205-1206; the judge for 1199-1200 is not pinned. The Marcilla are the leading caballero family.

Communities

Settlers from Aragon and beyond; Muslims and Jews (not pinned for 1200).

Militia

Townsmen-knights are freed from royal taxes in return for serving in the host or in the council's raids (cabalgadas) on Valencia; Teruel's militia will march on Ademuz in 1210. No numbers.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Founding and fuero from Teruel's historians cited by Nicolás-Minué; extent drawn for 1200 from the later community minus later conquests.

On the map: Drawn smaller than the later community: Sarrión, Camarena, Manzanera and the Rubielos lands were still Muslim. Villel was held by a Martín Pérez de Villel up to 1198 (tenentes list); its holder in 1200 is not pinned. The Templar villages of Alfambra and Orrios are cut out.

Primary sources for Aragon

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
• 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
• 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 the Counts of Barcelona, Anonymous (monks of Santa Maria de Ripoll) (first version 1162 to 1184; continued in the later 13th century; final version 1303 to 1314). The house chronicle of the counts of Barcelona.
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• The Pleasant Book: a Summary of the History of the Maghreb, Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi (completed in 1224, in the East, after the author left the Maghreb in 1217). Abd al-Wahid was a boy of fifteen at Fez and Marrakesh in 1200 and later moved in Almohad court circles, so his account of Yaqub al-Mansur (died January 1199) and of the first years of Muhammad al-Nasir is partly from memory and from men he knew: the character of the new caliph, the weakness that let the Banu Ghaniya overrun Ifriqiya, the Majorca expedition of 1203 and the Ifriqiya campaign of 1205 to 1206. Read online
• Official Letters of the Almohad Chancery (1140s to 1260s; the letters nearest 1200 are of the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Nasir). Circular letters from the caliphs to governors, tribes and towns announcing victories, appointments and policy, preserved in later manuscript collections.

7 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.