Battle of Viadangos

The Battle of Viadangos or Fontedangos (Fonte de Angos) was fought in the autumn of 1111 between the forces of Alfonso I of Aragon and the Galician allies of his estranged wife, Urraca of León and Castile, at Villadangos north of Luna, some twenty kilometres from León. Alfonso was victorious in a rout, but Urraca's son and co-ruler, Alfonso Raimúndez, escaped.

Background and preliminary manoeuvres

Shortly after the Battle of Candespina, where Alfonso and his ally, Henry, Count of Portugal, had defeated the Castilian troops of Urraca on 26 October, the queen sought to pull Henry away from his alliance with Alfonso. An agreement was reached between her representatives, led by Fernando Garciaz de Hita, and Henry at Sepúlveda.[1] The queen and her new ally then retreated to Palencia, away from Alfonso's army, to finalise a partition of the realm which would have given Henry a greater share than Alfonso had offered. The fortified southern city of Zamora and the royal castle at Ceia north of Sahagún, both in León, were offered to Henry on top of his Portuguese possessions, as were some territories in Castile.[2]

Henry appears to have demanded more than his assistance to her cause could command, however, for Urraca soon entered into secret negotiations with her husband; before leaving she left orders with her men to surrender Palencia to him. The Crónicas anónimas de Sahagún attribute this to the ambitions of Theresa, Urraca's half-sister, Henry's wife, who coveted a queenship and had joined her husband at Palencia.[2] From there the trio split: Henry turned to Zamora to possess it, while Urraca and Theresa went first to Sahagún before the queen moved on to her capital, León. Alfonso moved rapidly to seize Palencia (as agreed with his wife) and he almost captured Theresa while taking Sahagún, before he moved on to León.[3] Probably fearful of her husband's dominance Urraca retreated into the hills of Galicia, probably cut off from contact with her supporters, who were thus left unaware of the new situation.[4]

Battle and aftermath

It was into this new situation that an army organised by Urraca's allies, the count Pedro Froilaz de Traba and apostolic archbishop Diego Gelmírez, ignorantly marched, with Urraca's young son from a previous marriage, Alfonso Raimúndez, in tow.[5] It is possible that Diego and Pedro were intending to have Alfonso receive the homage of the magnates jointly with his mother at León.[6] Eastern Galicia had been in Alfonso's hands since his campaign of 1110. Urraca's allies now recaptured Lugo and, perhaps diminishing their numbers with a garrison in that place, moved in the direction of León. At Viadangos they were ambushed by Alfonso and his Aragonese. According to the Historia Compostelana they possessed no more than 266 knights while Alfonso had 600 cavalrymen and 2,000 infantrymen with him.[7] Pedro Froilaz was captured and the few who escaped captivity took refuge in Astorga.[8] Among the dead was a certain Fernando, misidentified in the Historia Compostelana with the aforementioned count Fernando Garciaz.[9]

Diego, when defeat was turning into a rout, took the young Alfonso and fled in forti Castello Orzilione (quod Castrum est in Castella) ("in the strong castle of Orzilio [which castle is in Castela]"), uniting the boy with his mother.[10] The place where Urraca was staying and where Diego brought Alfonso was probably Orcellón in the diocese of Orense in a district known as Castela, not in Castile, as the text seems to be saying.[11][12] After delivering Alfonso to Urraca, Diego returned to Astorga to retrieve the wounded and others and lead them back to Santiago de Compostela, from whence they had set out.

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References
  1. According to Bernard F. Reilly (1988), The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109, (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 76 n101, citing Julio Puyol y Alonso (1920), "Las crónicas anónimas," Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 76:247–249, the name of Urraca's chief envoy, supplied by the Crónicas anónimas, inspires confidence in the source.
  2. Reilly, 75.
  3. Reilly, 76.
  4. Reilly, 77.
  5. Diego had crowned Alfonso in the cathedral of Saint James on 19 September, cf. Reilly, 77.
  6. R. A. Fletcher (1984), Saint James's Catapult: The Life and Times of Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 135.
  7. Simon Barton (1997), The Aristocracy in Twelfth-Century León and Castile (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 165.
  8. Reilly, 78.
  9. José María Canal Sánchez-Pagín (1984), "Don Pedro Fernández, primer maestre de la Orden Militar de Santiago: Su familia, su vida," Anuario de estudios medievales, 14, 45–46.
  10. Reilly, 78, writes: "Whether the prelate acted out of pure panic, the direst necessity, basic loyalty to his queen, or a combination of all three, the result was the same. For the first time during her reign Urraca had the priceless advantage of physical custody of her son, who constituted the most potent rallying point for any opposition to her own rule."
  11. Barton, 169.
  12. Reilly, 77 n102, adds that a castle named Orzilio mentioned in the Historia under the year 1121 is clearly in Oriense. He argues that the confusion caused by certain lines concerning Urraca's subsequent movements after leaving her son—ad Gallaetiam proficisci disposuit. Ad asperos itaque Astures montesque lapidosos iter aggrediens, per Ovetum transitum fecit ("she was disposed to depart for Galicia. Through violent and rocky Asturian mountains, to Oviedo the crossing was made")—results because Oriense was not then considered a part of Galicia (Gallaetia). For contrast he cites José Campelo, ed. (1950), Historia Compostelana, trans. Manuel Suárez (Santiago de Compostela), 126 n1, who believed Urraca and Alfonso were in the province of Burgos. Historian José María Lacarra believed the castle where Urraca was staying to be Monzón de Campos, perhaps relying on Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, who, in his De rebus Hispaniae, writes, as quoted in Reyna Pastor (2003), "Mujeres y la guerra feudal: reinas, señoras y villanas. León, Galicia, Castilla, (siglos XII y XIII)", Las Mujeres y las guerras: el papel de las mujeres en las guerras de la Edad Antigua a la contemporánea, ed. Mary nash (Icaria Editorial), 56, who wrongly dates the battle to May 1111:
    . . . su regreso por la zona de Castilla destrozó a los partidarios del conde Pedro y, saliendo tras ellos los copó en Monzón, cerca de Palencia, donde huidos se habían refugiado con la reina, y logró capturar a algunos de ellos; de esta manera regresó a León distinguido por dos triunfos.
    ". . . [Alfonso's] return through the zone of Castile destroyed the partisans of the count Pedro and, trailing them, he cornered them in Monzón, near Palencia, where they had taken refuge with the queen, and he succeeded in capturing some of them; in this manner he returned to León distinguished by two triumphs."

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