The governmental organization of the municipalities in medieval Iberia offers a diverse and evolving field of study. The Central Middle Ages witnessed the origins and growth of towns whose individual histories reveal a labyrinth of developmental paths affected by such variables as century of emergence, geographical location, economic opportunity and military need. For example, the availability of a coastline for commercial development dramatically influenced the evolution of many Asturian, Galician, Portuguese and Catalan towns; the lack of sea access similarly had its restrictive impact on Leon-Castile. Similarly, the concentration of Roman cultural influences in the south and east of the Peninsula affects the municipal history of that area. As if geographical and cultural differences weren't sufficient to create ample complexities for the investigator, the relative paucity of source materials for much of the Peninsula prior to the twelfth century limits our patterns of understanding. This last is especially true for Leon-Castile, where the municipal documents for the eleventh and early twelfth centuries have a poor survival rate, and many charters exist only in copies made a century or two later. This has not prevented a number of historians from attempting theoretical models of early municipal governmental growth. Sacristán pioneered such an examination in the later nineteenth century, and Carmen Carlé and Gautier Dalché in the last fifteen years have offered more recent explorations of the topic limited to Leon-Castile. Font Ríus has given us the best works in the Catalan field. Bernard Reilly, a scholar largely critical of the sources, provides in a chapter from his book on Queen Urraca an excellent brief [94] overview of the limited state of municipal governmental growth down through the first quarter of the twelfth century.⁽¹⁾

The towns themselves present a variety of origin, growth and elaboration patterns with commerce, cattle, the church and fortification all making important contributions to the eventual municipal management and landscape. The basic task lay in settling land conquered from its former Muslim rulers in order to maintain control over its use. To achieve this end, methods appropriate to each situation were employed. The chief sources of towns were the agglomeration of church parishes (aldeas) which became more densely settled and drew together for protection while constructing an extensive wall around themselves (examples being Salamanca, Ávila, Segovia, Burgos, Valladolid and Soria), and the siting of a castle or other fortified area in an area, from which settlers would begin to radiate in a settlement pattern, if given the necessary encouragement.⁽²⁾ This process became rather more complicated when larger Muslim towns which had been major Islamic administration centers began to fall under Christian control.

Our sources suggest a comparatively restricted development of the machinery of government in the towns prior to the mid-twelfth century. While one has to be aware of distinctions to be made among such dissimilar regions as Catalonia, the Santiago pilgrimage towns of northern Spain, and the plains of the Trans-Duero and the Tajo Valley, the fundamental pattern shows the towns under the control of a powerful king or count, or a regional merino, señor or churchman (archbishop, bishop and even an occasional abbot as at Sahagún). Even though some of these towns have complex sub-structures, based on the variety of peoples settled within them (such as the Mudéjars and French settlers in Toledo), the ruler often chose to deal with these separate groups independently rather than as a single unit. In these instances, segments of the Mozarab and Mudéjar population (Christians who had been living under Muslim rule, and Muslims who chose to live under non-Muslim rule, respectively) remained in already well developed urban concentrations (Toledo in the eleventh century, Zaragoza and Lisbon in the twelfth century, Valencia, Córdoba and Sevilla in the thirteenth). While one finds occasional reference to a group of residents called a concejo in the documents, at best this seems to have been an advisory body to the bishop, señor, castellan or the king himself, possessing no genuine authority to act independently. At least this is how matters appeared until the central twelfth century.

The growing independence and increasing articulation of municipal government became the major development of the later period from the mid-twelfth through the later thirteenth century. By the time of the great [95] Cuenca-Teruel and Coria Cima-Coa fueros toward the end of the twelfth century, the concejo has evolved as a well-developed organ which elected officials formerly appointed by outside authority, such as the juez (a combination of chief executive and judge) and the alcalde (a former Muslim official with powers similar to that of the juez, but associated with a particular district of the town and under the authority of the juez). The expansion of the frontier south of the Tajo-Tejo and the deeper penetration of the Iberian Cordillera to the southeast provided the theater in which the developments took place. Since Carlé and Gautier Dalché offer a good general view of the process, the present work will focus on the military law being generated by the situation, and what can be discerned from that regarding the major causative factors behind the growth of more independent urban governmental forms. Here the answer probably lies in the twelfth-century emergence of competing Christian states to Leon-Castile in Portugal in the west and the state of Aragon in the east, especially after the latter was linked by a dynastic marriage to the County of Barcelona.

The invasion of the Muslim Almohads in the middle of the century also made an important contribution that most scholars have assumed played the dominant role in the emergence of Christian municipal institutions. Yet, it is most interesting to observe that the most rapid development of municipal law generates not along that frontier with the Almohads, but rather along the Aragonese-Castilian frontier from where the Cuenca-Teruel laws originate and the Portuguese-Leonese frontier where the Coria Cima-Coa group springs forth. Thus, Christian competition in the wake of territorial expansion appears the driving force, with the Muslims functioning more as a catalyst than as a creator.⁽³⁾ Nonetheless, as we will see, many of the military terms for officials, tactics and the like have Arabic origins, leading one to be cautious in downplaying Muslim influence. Indeed, the interplay of determined and expansive Christian monarchs, latent custom, Muslim culture and rapid territorial absorption is still not fully understood by scholars.

Whatever else might be ventured regarding the origins and growth of municipal government, it is clear that the penetration of the Tajo-Tejo, the Cordillera and the Ebro placed heavy military demands on the settlers in the newly-conquered or created towns. These agents of territorial expansion, whether backed by crown, church or noble, required the ability to assemble a military force for both offensive and defensive missions to be an effective (and more than temporary) factor on the frontier. Indeed, the military organization of the town was crucial to its very existence. [96] Without it the municipality could not hope to assemble its militia, retain its territories (alfoz), or make its weight felt effectively on the frontier in which it was situated.

The towns mustered their militias for combat in the following way. Once the call had been sounded throughout the municipality and its territories, and the vecinos and aldeanos were collected in the center of town, the officials who were in charge of the urban force readied their forces for departure. The direction of the militia by the end of the twelfth century lay in the hands of the juez and alcaldes, administrators of the town and its collaciones, respectively. The juez, formerly an appointee of the king or his señor, but elected in the Cordilleran towns by the end of the twelfth century, was in command. The alcaldes ranked below the juez, but could make command decisions in the absence of the juez, and were often consulted regarding matters particular to their own collación. If the collaciones maintained their integrity as separate units when the militia left the town, the alcaldes probably remained with their respective district residents on the march. Their part in the militia was largely administrative since battle commanders took charge when the threat of combat loomed near.⁽⁴⁾ Scouts, both mounted and unmounted, were selected at the outset by the juez and the alcaldes of each collación along with guards and animal tenders.⁽⁵⁾ In addition to these, clerks accompanied the expedition, making regular inventories of the stock and provisions and assisting with the records for spoils division. Chaplains took care of spiritual needs while surgeons (as contemporary Iberia understood that term) tended the body.⁽⁶⁾ When the entire force was mobilized, we can assume that some prearranged order of march was established for the collaciones so that the militia could move across the countryside in orderly fashion. Marching at the front with the standards in the command position could be one of several dignitaries in charge of the force: the king's señor of the territory, the juez or alcalde from the town, a bishop or archbishop, a master of a military order or a royal merino.⁽⁷⁾ If the militia had mustered for defense or its own aggressive project, these leaders might remain in command until the force returned to base. Frequently, however, they merely took the place of the king or led the militia to the location where it would join the royal army with the king in personal charge.

The military organization which formed and directed the militia evolved through the Central Middle Ages in close parallel with the government of the municipality, the structures of which gave it its shape. Municipal military service began with a general summons to the vecinos to serve as a body, usually with the king, for short range defensive or offensive [97] operations. All persons who owned a house in the town came under the category of vecino, unless some other grant to the town gave them special standing. Apellido denoted service called under the duress of invasion or other local emergency, while fonsatum, exercitus and hueste indicated service initiated by a Christian offensive. As the towns grew during the twelfth century, occupied more strategically exposed terrain, and developed a more complex organization, their militias became more sophisticated while the range and length of service of these forces increased. As the towns' military capability expanded, an organizational system was forged to meet the challenges and deal with the new problems. By the end of the twelfth century, the longer collections of municipal law indicate the emergence of a militia composed of various units designed for battlefield flexibility, one best defined in the cattle towns of the Castilian-Aragonese Cordillera and in Leonese Extremadura and Portuguese Beira Baixa and Alentejo where our evidence is the richest. This age of increasing rights and privileges for townsmen carried with it the concurrent growth of military responsibilities, not unlike a similar process at work in the early days of the French Revolution with its levée en masse.

Rather than postulating prematurely a nation-at-arms concept for Iberia in the Central Middle Ages, some limitations should be underlined. For one, we are only discussing municipal settlements here, not the populace as a whole where the incidence of military service would be lower. Secondly, not all towns were required to render service. Many smaller and less strategic places were given exemption from service, and even among those which did render service, their capability especially for offensive campaigning varied from one region to the next. Finally, there is the question whether all classes served within a given municipality. Occasionally one encounters the assumption that combat in the Reconquest was essentially a cavalry affair with the footsoldier (peón) either excluded from the battlefield or relegated to relatively minor defensive operations.⁽⁸⁾ Yet numerous fueros, forais and cartas pueblas from the age categorically require service from all vecinos without regard to class.⁽⁹⁾ Others specify service for the peones, in particular,⁽¹⁰⁾ although some require only a portion of the class to serve in a given instance.⁽¹¹⁾ The great Castilian codes of Alfonso X, the Espéculo and the Siete partidas, clearly anticipate the participation of peones, and the latter describes the characteristics of good footsoldiers and the men who command them.⁽¹²⁾ As long as one defines a person who fought on horseback as a caballero and one who fought on foot as a peón, both classes served in the municipal militias. Indeed, it was this interweaving of the military function and the social status which creates much of the confusion regarding this issue, while at the same time it is our clearest indication of the mutual interdependence of military and social structures in these towns.

A major complication in the cavalry-infantry question emerges from the military, social and legal roles of the nobility and the manner in which these roles overlapped one another in their municipal context. The two lowest levels of the nobility, infanzón and caballero, often lived in the territory controlled by the town and rendered military service in conjunction with the urban militia.⁽¹³⁾ A number of towns demanded that those who possessed heredades (land holdings) in the alfoz (territory over which towns claimed authority) should do their military service with the town and not with another group or place.⁽¹⁴⁾ In addition, there was a special class directly associated with the towns which stood in the penumbra between noble and non-noble, the caballero villano, the subject of an extensive study by Carmela Pescador. Parallel studies do not exist for Navarre, Portugal and Catalonia, although much similarity exists between the caballeros villanos of Upper Aragon and Castile. The class remained at the non-noble level throughout much of the Leonese Reconquest, despite liberalizing efforts of monarchs like Alfonso VI. As late as the reign of Alfonso IX, the Cortes of Leon issued an ordenamiento preventing any villano from attaining the rank of caballero if he had not been born into that class.⁽¹⁵⁾

The twelfth-century Aragonese Cordillera and the Portuguese Alentejo had already embarked on a different course. On these frontiers those individuals who had reached a certain level of wealth were obligated to take up the responsibilities of the caballero class through the acquisition of its most vital symbol, the horse. At Molina de Aragón, a yoke of oxen and a hundred sheep or land holdings valued at one thousand mankales constituted the property requirement demanding a horse purchase, while in the Évora family a yoke of oxen, ten (later forty) sheep and two beds sufficed to compel the same step. By the end of the century, the Leonese-Portuguese family of Coria Cima-Coa charters revealed a similar law, despite the Cortes ordenamiento, where a monetary level of three hundred maravedís (less the value of his wife's clothing) required the purchase of a horse. Fernando III set the level at four hundred for Toro in 1232. By the later thirteenth century Alfonso X compelled Extremadurans to take the step at the five hundred sueldo level, and Portuguese Beja established a six hundred libras floor. This constitutes the real beginning of the class known in the Later Middle Ages as the caballeros de premia, a group whose status was primarily dependent on economic wealth rather than military service.⁽¹⁶⁾

The horse was central to the status of the urban knight, both in his social position and in his value to the king in the frontier wars. The caballero was expected to bring the animal with him when he came to [99] settle in the territory of the town, and to retain possession of the horse if he wished to be entitled to the rank. The rigors of combat and, failing that, the natural death of the horse invariably led to the need for its replacement, and the caballero had to provide a new one often within a specified time period. In Portugal, the time allowed was one to three years, while in Leon-Castile and Navarre one year was more common. Fernando III had, however, given the knights of Toro one month to replace after selling the horse, two months if the animal had died. The frontier pressures of Alfonso X's reign led him to specify four months for the knights of Arévalo, Escalona and Madrid.⁽¹⁷⁾ At the same time Fernando III and Alfonso X pursued an urban policy leading to a multi-layering of the municipal aristocracy, allowing on one hand those of the peón class who wished to attain caballero status to do so by the acquisition of a horse and the heredades of a caballero, while on the other hand identifying a top level of this group, the caballeros fidalgos, to favor the growth of a closed upper urban aristocratic class. This was doubtless supported by the potential members of that class who sought to consolidate their gains from the frontier wars.⁽¹⁸⁾ The status of caballero was occasionally bestowed on those with skills in archery, especially in Portugal. While the same proviso made an early appearance in Castile at Escalona in 1130, by the thirteenth century Aragon, Castile and Leon accepted both caballero and peón archers. The existence of peón archers manifestly demonstrates that the skill is no longer a gateway to higher status by and of itself.⁽¹⁹⁾

Another requirement appeared during the twelfth century for obtaining caballero status, the possession of and residence in a house in the town itself. Here, however, inducement replaced obligation as the emphasis. House ownership apparently functioned as a device to persuade knights to locate themselves in the towns through the lure of tax exemptions granted to the class of urban caballeros. It was generally understood that the knights would bring their wives and children to reside in such a house, and in Escalona and Toledo it was further stipulated that should a caballero depart for a time he would leave another knight behind in residence.⁽²⁰⁾ By the end of the twelfth century, this obligation had become widespread, penetrating the great charter families of Cuenca-Teruel and Coria Cima-Coa. In the Cuenca family (as distinct from the Teruel branch), the tax exemption did not include wall, tower and fortification levies, unless the knight had a horse valued at fifty mencales.⁽²¹⁾ In time residence came to be regarded as living in the town during the late autumn, winter and early spring, presumably based on the reasoning that if the caballero were based in the frontier town for those portions of the year, he would be there for the campaign [100] season of late spring, summer and early fall, as well.⁽²²⁾ The levy for military service was taken on the basis of one man from each household. Thus, the household functioned as the fundamental unit in the organization of the militia. For the knights to be a part of this militia, their residence in the town was vital.⁽²³⁾

There are clear indications that urban knightly status rested on combat performance, which raised serious questions concerning their status once they were too old to fight and on the status of their wives and children if the caballeros died with their sons immature. If they could send a son from their household, the Cuenca-Teruel and Coria Cima-Coa charters permit substitution to take care of the geriatric problem. Some of the Portuguese charters permit knights to retain their status when too old to do military service until their male heirs mature sufficiently to send as substitutes, and this was probably the general solution. Widows are frequently exempted from military taxes, and the 1109 fuero of Leon given by Queen Urraca begins the precedent for their retention of the caballero status if their husbands should flee to Muslim lands. The same Portuguese forais which deal with aging knights also permitted their widows to retain their status until they died or their sons matured sufficiently to do military service. Several of the Ordenamiento de 1256 charters of Alfonso X also permit this, but the 1256 charter to Cuéllar and the 1262 charter to Madrid underlined a principle which was doubtless widespread: if a knight's widow remarried, she took the status of her new husband.⁽²⁴⁾ Numerous laws pertaining to the inheritance of horses and arms, discussed in Chapter Five, also deal with the preservation of caballero status among widows and children.

The peones, despite the lesser emphasis placed on them in the charters, were the numerically dominant class. We hear less of them in the municipal sources because these documents are largely statements of privileges of which the caballero possessed the larger share. The peones were non-noble and were primarily peasant land workers and herdsmen, supplemented by craftsmen and merchants. The proportions of these occupations would vary depending on location, size of town and its economic complexity, e.g. merchants were important in the Santiago pilgrimage towns of the north and the larger towns of the interior (Toledo, Córdoba, Seville) and of the coast (Lisbon, Barcelona, Valencia). Like the caballeros, the peones were obligated in many towns to establish residence in a house within the villa, and failure to do so led to loss of privileges, although their lack of a horse and proper military equipment meant they received less in the way of tax exemptions as a result.⁽²⁵⁾ While the general name for the lands under the control of the town was alfoz, individuals were customarily referred to as dwelling in the aldeas, which [101] were villages or concentrations of population usually without their own walls or defenses, legally and militarily attached to the town, and by the later twelfth century dependent on its municipal council (concejo).⁽²⁶⁾ As demonstrated above, the peones class not only met residence requirements and maintained a legal existence in the municipalities, but they also shouldered a military service obligation as well. They constituted the infantry forces the militias could bring to the field.

During the Central Middle Ages in Iberia social fluidity appears constant. Thus, the peón who desired to raise his legal position to that of a caballero usually had the capability to do so. If he were militarily adept and the king had sufficient need of cavalry in a particular area, the footsoldier could acquire the requisite horse and arms from the king. He could also win these things in combat by a happy combination of prowess and good fortune. If the peón through his craft or business skills built a proper monetary or property base, he could be compelled by the king to purchase a horse and take up the obligations of a caballero. If he dwelt in an area which did not permit such elevating of status, he could move to a town closer to the frontier where the liberties did guarantee such mobility. For the peón, caballero status meant better land holdings, better pasturage, better opportunities for booty in warfare, and a special sense of pride, a pride which would become the particular characteristic of the Castilian Meseta and Andalusia.⁽²⁷⁾ Not everyone necessarily sought this reclassification, as for example the newly prosperous merchant or craftsmen who had no stomach for the military burdens of the mounted class. This might indeed explain why the Coria Cima-Coa charters permitted the individual who had reached the wealth status of a caballero to buy a mule (possibly used on the municipal expeditions as pack animals) instead of a horse and forego the privileges of the knightly class.⁽²⁸⁾

The documents indicate that the military organization of the town imitated its urban administrative pattern. By the later twelfth century the lengthy charters of Cuenca-Teruel and Coria Cima-Coa draw their military units and their march order from the municipal unit called the collacio or collación, a residence quarter or section of the town. The term, deriving from the Latin conlatio and meaning a combination, gathering or monetary levy, appears in town charters widely dispersed across the Peninsula from the tenth century onward, with density of references beginning to occur in the twelfth century. Many of the charters which use collacio-collación survive only in later copies, so an exact tracking of the migration of the term in its municipal context can only be tentative.⁽²⁹⁾ By the time of the Cuenca-Teruel and Coria Cima-Coa charters at the end of the twelfth century, collación had not only [102] become a standard term in municipal usage, but its first association with the militia had also become apparent. Individuals had to be registered on the padrón (census list) of the collación to be officially resident in the town. The district elected its own officer and judge, the alcalde, and was responsible for its own security in times of danger.⁽³⁰⁾

While there is no general agreement as to the origins of the term, the ecclesiastical parish seems to offer the best explanation of this grouping of residents. Collación was a predominantly urban term, but other words for areas within and without the boundaries of the walls also appear. Quarto (quarter) was one, and may have been a synonym for collación. Another common term was sexmo (sixth), apparently utilized to deal with rural areas adjoining the town. In 1222, King Fernando III employed all three terms in each of the three charters he gave to Ávila, Uceda, Peñafiel and Madrid, using them as the basis for collecting taxes in those towns.⁽³¹⁾ The only other significant possibility suggested as a basis for militia organization was the guild. This was the system in use in fourteenth-century Valencia, where it may have been a later structural development. There is no indication of the use of guilds in the Peninsula west of Aragon in the Central Middle Ages, save for a brief reference to a colegio de artistas possessing a collective exemption from the military service fee of fonsadera given by Bishop Gelmírez to Santiago de Compostela in 1113, probably to attract the artisans who were to work on the remarkable Romanesque cathedral then under construction. Even this does not suggest that such a guild served as an organization unit for battle. Moreover, the Castilian monarchy in particular strongly opposed the formation of guilds.⁽³²⁾

The evidence is quite clear, however, that the town district was also a substructure for municipal combat forces. There seems to have been nothing so elaborate as standard military units of cavalry, infantry and archers. Rather, detachments of military forces were obtained through levies on the various districts of the town and its territories. The various collaciones, sexmos, barrios and parroquias then mustered forces in response to a call for battle. The municipal charters and codes did not elaborate regarding the procedures employed in each section of town and countryside to assemble the force, and it may be assumed that the basic organization was quite rudimentary, the only classes of troops clearly distinguished being caballeros and peones. Where the individual was assigned in the structure of his militia depended primarily upon two considerations: the part of the town or its alfoz in which he resided and whether [103] he fought on horseback or on foot. Thus, he dwelt in a collación (or its equivalent) and fought alongside his neighbors in time of war. If he rode a horse on the battlefield, he fought with his fellow caballeros in the collación. If he went to war on foot, he was grouped with the other peones of his district. The military organization of the municipalities clearly rested on these distinctions in Leon and Castile. While we lack complete evidence for the other kingdoms, in all likelihood a similar situation was operative in Portugal, Aragon, Navarre and Catalonia as well.

No document states that men of the urban militias arranged themselves by collaciones before going on an expedition or mustering for defense, but there is no other real possibility. From the time they first appear in the municipal charters, the collaciones emerge as indispensable agencies for the keeping of records, tax collection, electoral units in town government, the appointment of military functionaries and for apportionment of booty. The system is best delineated in the Cuenca-Teruel charters. When the call for military service circulated in the boundaries of a municipal district, the forces of the town gathered in the plaza to assemble for departure. At that time, the men of each collación were still assembled as a group, because scouts were drawn from their midst by their alcalde in cooperation with the juez of the town, after they gathered in the plaza but before they departed from the town.⁽³³⁾ Once on the march the men of a collación must have remained together, because they had to send a quadrillero, an officer with responsibility for spoils division, on such occasions when combat could be anticipated.⁽³⁴⁾ Should any cattle captured by the expeditionary force be converted into provisions during the campaign, the quadrilleros saw to the proper distribution of the meat among the collaciones.⁽³⁵⁾ When the troops returned from the field, the quadrilleros divided the booty among the collaciones, whose residents then returned to their homes. Only the Cuenca-Teruel family of fueros presents this much detail concerning militia organization, and there is obvious risk in assuming a total application of these principles far from the Iberian Cordillera where that group of charters initiated. Yet no other system is described in the documents, and the Cuenca-Teruel charters, which went basically to small and medium-sized towns, contain the most elaborate accounts of militia regulations that we possess. Possibly, where there was no use of the collación or its equivalent by a municipal militia in the field, the townsmen served as [104] one large mass under the banner of the town, a procedure inherited from the early Reconquest, when towns were smaller, less autonomous, and less sophisticated in organization.

The system of organization for combat revealed in the Cordilleran charters emerged from several decades of expansion. Unquestionably the product of expediency and experimentation, its evolution probably began to accelerate with the penetration of the Trans-Duero, acquiring modification and some sophistication as the frontier reached into and beyond the Ebro and Tajo-Tejo Valleys. While the origins of the organizational system remain for debate among ecclesiastical, military, social and economic historians, a new development has appeared by the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The municipal structure began to impose itself on new settlements as it pressed southward toward the Vega of Valencia, Andalusia and the Alentejo. As more and more established Muslim towns fell under the control of the Christian kings, increasingly the members of the victorious army received options on the lands inside and outside of the town they had gained. To be sure, in many of the Andalusian municipalities the Muslim population remained, and the Christians contented themselves with holding the citadel and the other significant fortifications. In others, the Muslim population abandoned the town, and a swift land division among the conquerors followed.⁽³⁶⁾ Such a land division came to be known as a repartimiento, and the evidence strongly suggests that the Christian municipal organization of the conquering forces provided the pattern to be laid down upon the captured Muslim town, especially in the case of small and middle-sized settlements. Once a town was captured and its administrative organization put into operation, the monarch expected the vecinos to begin fulfilling their military role. The municipalities had to maintain their own militia for the purposes of both local needs and the royal service obligation. The royal army in all of the peninsular kingdoms was never large in the Central Middle Ages, and it could not be expected to provide sufficient protection for the frontier towns. It was therefore to the town's advantage to lay the foundations of its military system as soon as possible, given the ever-present reality of frontier warfare in its various forms. Thus, a replication in the new town of the system which had proved workable in the old was a natural development in the circumstances.

We possess the records of a number of repartimientos of larger towns by the thirteenth century, especially for Valencia, Murcia and Seville. For smaller towns there is less in the way of evidence. Alfonso II (Alfons I) of Aragon demonstrated his experience on the Cordilleran and Catalan frontiers to the northeast in Roussillon and Cerdagne when he transferred the population of Hix, located on an indefensible [105] plain, to Puigcerdà in 1178, while attempting in vain to secure the movement of some settlers from Perpignan to Puig des Lépreux. When Afonso III of Portugal gave Melgaço a foral of the Numão-Trancoso pattern in 1258, the number of settlers is given (a very rare instance) as 350.⁽³⁷⁾ However, neither of these unusual explanatory or statistical references tell us anything about the actual settlement itself. The Primera Crónica General offers a description of the repartimiento of Zamora in the 870's which is probably far more appropriate to the contemporary thirteenth century in which it was written. Here the king climbs a hill adjacent to the town, names the site, selects the location of the primary church, delimits the lands belonging to the crown, and divides the remainder among those who had served him well on the campaign.⁽³⁸⁾ The techniques of managing the land division process and their relationship to the collación have not been studied in any detail until quite recently, and then only for towns conquered in the thirteenth century. The chief figure connected with the parceling of landed allotments was the quadrillero, first seen in the Cuenca-Teruel fueros. He had jurisdiction over any disputes concerning the ownership of a heredad. The basic principle involved in his decision centered on who had first worked the land after conquest.⁽³⁹⁾ Since the quadrillero was also associated with the division of booty in each collación serving in the militia, he was the critical link between town conquest, land division and the militia. While no document clearly states this, the quadrillero must have held office from the outset of the campaign of conquest, and retained his position for a year or two in order to monitor settlement should a land division follow that conquest.

An interesting example of land division occurs following the conquest of Cáceres in April 1227. Cáceres represented a royal foothold in the highlands between the Tajo and the Guadiana Rivers in Leonese Extremadura. The town had been a vital Muslim obstacle in the path of the Christian conquest of Badajoz and Mérida. To a considerable extent, the army that won the city was the source from which Cáceres received its Christian population. There were not enough men in the conquering hueste to populate Cáceres and its extensive territories, but the soldiers who chose to stay and settle received the first grants of land. It was Alfonso IX's custom to take what land he wanted for his own use at the outset, leaving the remainder for the town council to divide.⁽⁴⁰⁾ But prior to any awards by the new concejo, the first blocks of land were distributed in the form of an heredad de quadriella, an allotment granted to an individual as his permanent possession, divided by the quadrilleros of the conquering army. The partition of these quadriellas became the first form of private property in the now Christian Cáceres. The new landholders' rights were rather complete, for the property was transmissible and alienable, except to [106] religious and military orders. The soldiers who wished to settle acquired a new status in addition to their military standing, that of vecinos of Cáceres. The remainder of Cáceres' undistributed land was offered to attract new settlers from other regions in a second set of grants called particiones de concejo.⁽⁴¹⁾

Two important connections between land division and military organization can be noted at this point: first, the priority in awarding the heredades to the warriors of the army that captured the town, which in the case of Cáceres included municipal forces; second, the function of the quadrillero. This figure has already been seen in the Cuenca-Teruel family of charters in the context both of land dispute settler and an administrative aide supervising the men of his collación especially as regards the division of booty. As land divider he also appears in the long charter of Cáceres and at two other towns in the Coria Cima-Coa group, Castello-Bom and Usagre. In all three of these towns, the quadrillero remained in control for a period of one year of those heredades de quadriella which were not distributed at the outset. Apparently these allotments remained separate from the Council's particiones. While it is not clear in the context why this was done, in all probability it allowed the members of the army a year to consider settling in the town, and the holdings were blended into the particiones de concejo after that time period.⁽⁴²⁾ In the alfoz surrounding Cáceres, the rural areas or sexmos were placed under the jurisdiction of the sexmero for division, and the unit referred to as quiñón or booty. Subsequently, the sexmero himself was replaced by the aportellado, the official in charge of the sexmo in municipal government. In much the same way, the citizen was the descendant of the soldier of the conquering hueste, with his land allotment taking the place of a share of booty.⁽⁴³⁾ Yet the same fuero that transformed the men of Cáceres from soldiers to settlers also provided for the reversal of the process, for as residents of the town and its términos, they were obligated to perform military service when needed. Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz has summed up this kind of cycle well: "Different men, different regimes, different attainments, but always, always, century after century, following battle, colonization, and after colonization, battle."⁽⁴⁴⁾

Within a decade on the other side of the Peninsula, a far more complex repartimiento than that of Cáceres was undertaken at Valencia. King Jaime deliberately forestalled any prior divisions of the region around the city, some of which were attempted by the municipal militias during the first assaults. The Conqueror wished to undertake a systematic division after the conquest.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Once in occupation of this great city and its territories, Jaime did indeed authorize a thorough [107] and systematic redivision of the city which allowed for continued residence by those Muslims who wished to remain behind as well as lands and houses for members of the conquering army. Generous allotments were set aside for residents from both Aragonese and Catalan towns and even from those north of the Pyrenees, such as Montpellier. The councils of the town militias involved created barrios or districts in Valencia made up of settlers from particular towns.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Whether those barrios were further subdivided into collaciones such as existed in Teruel and other Cordilleran towns, we do not know. Certainly the creation of neighborhoods which would have assembled settlers from the army were themselves possible former neighbors from towns that had mustered the militias. Here, however, the complexity of a city like Valencia required major adjustments in the pattern not needed in smaller Cáceres. Moreover, any duplication of patterns from the towns already taken by Christian Aragon would have been further disrupted by Jaime's inability to fill the Valencian allotments completely with settlers from the particular towns. The same problem may have persuaded the Aragonese monarch to resort to the creation of aristocratic señoríos in lieu of new municipal concejos in establishing settlement on his Murcian frontier after 1266.⁽⁴⁷⁾

A resettlement and redivision challenge similar to Valencia occurred with the greatest urban conquest and occupation of the thirteenth century for Castile, Fernando III's capture of Seville in 1249. The excellent monograph on the conquest and division of the city by Julio González examines many of the areas noted previously for Cáceres. In the case of Seville, several months' time intervened between capture and settlement of the victors, in order to permit the Muslims to evacuate. A large part of the Islamic population elected to depart from Seville to dwell in the principality of Granada or in North Africa rather than live under Christian domination. Once land division commenced, Fernando established a junta superior de partidores to supervise the process of creating and apportioning the city's twenty-four new collaciones. Assisting in the distribution were a number of smaller juntas de collaciones established at the local level. The quadrillero again made his appearance as the individual responsible for land division within his particular collación. He was expected to swear an oath to the king that he would partition honestly the heredamientos placed in his hands. The quadrillero was rewarded for this service with a land holding in the olive groves and another in the grain fields, each with a value of two cavallerías (probably booty shares). The heredamiento in Seville gave twice as much [108] land to the caballero as to the peón, but either holding was complete with a house and a share in both the cereal and olive heredades.⁽⁴⁸⁾ The repartimiento of Seville was obviously the product of a system of land division which had matured considerably during the course of the Reconquest, as was that of Valencia, a system eliminating problems in advance which had had to be resolved on the site in the conquest of towns during the preceding decades.

The partition of Seville constituted a particularly good demonstration of the need to put the newly conquered town promptly on a sound military footing. Despite the nearly complete conquest of Andalusia, the large Muslim population base which remained required that Seville establish its organizational structure as soon as possible after conquest. This organization which governed the town also assembled its militia, and the sooner that militia could be put in the field, the better. Since soldiers had often received the first dwelling places in the town, part of the problem was resolved at the start. The partidores of Seville went beyond this point, however. Frequently original infantry units of the conquering army were gathered together on heredamientos along with their commanders both in the city and in its surrounding territories.⁽⁴⁹⁾ Moreover, these grouping of allotments were located at points strategic to the defense of the city, such as the pueblos of the cillero real at Tejada, Alcalá del Rio and Alcalá de Guadaira. It would be valuable to know how perfectly the military units of the occupying force were retained in the settlement of Seville, but the evidence is insufficient to establish a complete picture. In contrast with the conquest of Valencia, where Jaime I assigned various lots to the municipal concejos of his army, the militias settling into Seville lost their unity of origin and were spread at random in the various districts of the city and countryside. Despite the existence, however, of much available information on the municipal settlers (who were the largest single component of Fernando III's army at Seville) and where they came from, the precise locations to which they were assigned remain obscure.⁽⁵⁰⁾

Given what we know concerning the partitions at Cáceres, Valencia and Seville, the repartimiento process in Murcia between 1257 and 1273 does not alter our picture to any great degree. Five separate partitions were needed, due to the complications engendered by the Murcian revolt and the alternate subjection of the city and its territories to Castilian, then Aragonese, and finally Castilian overlordship. The ultimate division established three different classes (mayor, mediano, menor) of caballero and of peón, and kept the heredades small so as to avoid any emergence of vast latifundia, which despite such efforts would one day [109] multiply in Andalusia. Moreover, Muslim land books were employed to assist the partitioning. The ubiquitous quadrilleros appear once more, named by the new settlers, the collación managers who divided the subsectors of Murcia and who sometimes used the drawing of lots to determine the land holders when the men of their district agreed.⁽⁵¹⁾ The number of partitions over so long a period seems to have prevented any simple allocation of settlers out of the assorted armies that took and retook Murcia. As a result we know little concerning their places of origin or of any pattern of original residence which could have imposed itself upon the repartimiento, if indeed any did. The repartimiento records at Jérez de la Frontera and at Lorca are even less informative.⁽⁵²⁾ The only other indications we can obtain are sporadic and occasional, such as the "barrio de Atienza" settled by the residents of that town who assisted in the conquest and settlement of Cuenca in 1177, the cluster of Léridan surnames in the settlement of Catí near Morella in 1239 on the Valencian frontier, and an aldea in Leonese Ledesma entitled "Quadreleros." One might also note the "unwelcome mat" laid down in the Fuero de Plasencia against accepting any settlers from Ávila.⁽⁵³⁾

The association of the military conquest of a town with the subsequent system of land holdings and their organization in that municipality is close in Leon, Castile and Aragon by the thirteenth century. While we have no clear evidence in this area for Portugal, there is no reason to believe that the Portuguese were proceeding differently. However, since much of the documented development does not appear until the later twelfth century, the termination of Navarrese growth by that time makes presumptions regarding the kingdom of Navarre less certain. Seville saw some units transplanted intact from the victorious hueste to the lands of the city, and the same may have been true at Cáceres and Valencia. The quadrillero played an important part in the transition from soldier to citizen, but outside his position as heredad divider in the Cuenca-Teruel charters, Cáceres, Castello-Bom, Usagre, Seville and El Espinar, we do not know as much about him as we would like. These towns could hardly have been unique in their procedures, yet other documents make little or no mention of the division of lands at the foundation or conquest of the site. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the patterns depicted above were created without precedent at the time of capture or settlement. We know that the territory of conquered towns was often divided up shortly after occupation. Since booty was apportioned at the level of the collación by the quadrillero in many places, it seems probable that land would be apportioned in the same manner, especially considering the number of concrete instances already cited. [110] Given the normal linkage of military and municipal organization, it can be inferred that by the later twelfth century, at least, this relationship must have influenced the layout of captured towns, the distribution of land, and the type of military force which the Spanish Christian townsmen put into battle.

Lands were not always gained permanently by the Christians; sometimes the heredades were lost through subsequent Muslim conquest. By the thirteenth century some fueros raise the question of losing one's lands in this manner. The charters which raised this issue resolved it in the simplest manner possible. Córdoba, Carmona, Alicante and Lorca gave to former owners the ultimate right to any heredades lost to the Muslims and then retaken. Since lapse of time could blunt memories and expand claims, the quadrilleros could be very useful in resolving such problems, especially if they had been involved in the original division.⁽⁵⁴⁾ A somewhat ambiguous law added to the end of a number of Cuenca (but not Teruel) family of codes seems to deal with this issue, ruling that any holdings reoccupied in the wake of the conquests of a victorious expeditio or hueste are retained without obligation until the militia returns. This presumes some kind of reassessment of the land title at that point.⁽⁵⁵⁾ No account seems to be taken of those who might lose lands permanently by such misfortune. Possibly by the mid-thirteenth century, Islam no longer seemed to present that kind of threat.

The documents thus suggest that the towns had anticipated most of the organizational problems which might arise either on an expedition or in a local skirmish which required the assembly of the militia. Moreover, the balance struck between central control and small-unit administration fitted the needs of the municipal army and provided a workable organization to maintain direction on the battlefield. It might be argued that a fundamental error lay in carrying civil organization into military operations and that companies would have been more efficient based upon authentic military divisions rather than municipal districts. But, as long as the town militias faced nothing more formidable than the forces of another Christian town or a small or medium-sized Muslim raiding force, they could usually be equal to the occasion. Trouble came when the towns encountered the large expeditionary armies of the Almoravids or Almohads; however, such major invasion forces in the day-to-day experience of the towns were the exception, not the rule. Moreover, the small municipal armies, flexible and pragmatic creations of the frontier, represented by their organization a key ingredient in the formula of success for the Christian Reconquest. Their creative regrouping of settlers and [111] institutions to develop both expansive and defensive capabilities stand in marked contrast to Islamic Spain, where the town was not seen as a cohesive unit or institutional corporation. In Muslim lands, rather, the tribe and the clan with their attendant structures played the dominant role and institutional structures were difficult to impose on the part of the state.⁽⁵⁶⁾ To succeed in their drive into the central latitudes of Iberia, the Christian kingdoms needed to develop institutions and methodologies which could break free of the bases in the County of Barcelona, Jacan Aragon, Navarre, Old Castile, Asturias-Leon and Galicia. The new commercial centers which began to appear in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries in Catalonia and along the Santiago pilgrimage route were insufficient for the task by and of themselves. New structures had to be forged. The frontier towns were the product of the social, administrative and military forces thus released as well as the interaction of these forces. A civil and military symbiosis emerged as a natural result of this interaction, producing a hybrid form of municipality particularly well suited for frontier warfare.

The origins and development of the organizational framework of the municipal militias have been described here in their simplest form. If every militia assembled with every citizen armed and equipped to fight with each call to battle or military opportunity, without substantial regional variations, we would need to go no further. However, the service obligation was by no means this simple. There were many variations in the obligations of the militiamen in different areas, affecting frequency of service, the portion of townsmen who had to attend, the length of the campaign and the distance from home the militia could be taken. There were large classes of exemptions both from service and from tax payment if they served. Connected with both of these matters was the question of arms and armament. Weapons and equipment were a part of the military obligation in some areas, gained exemption from service in others, and had an integral part in municipal warfare. We move next to consider these matters.

1.  Sacristán y Martínez, Municipalidades de Castilla y León, passim. Carlé, Del concejo medieval Castellano-Leones, 229-55. Gautier Dalché, Historia urbana de León y Castilla, 41-48, 343-84. Font Ríus, "Orígenes del régimen municipal de Cataluña," passim. Reilly, Queen Urraca, 314-51.

2.  Torres Balbás, "La Edad Media," 97-104, 136-41. Font Ríus, Origenes, 90-91. Gautier Dalché, Historia urbana, 299-342. For the role of both the church and the fortified enclosure as a focus of towns in Europe in this period, see Ennen, "Les différents types de formation," 62:397-411.

3.  Powers, "Frontier Competition and Legal Creativity," 52:465-87.

4.  FCfs, 16:3-4. FCmsp, 16:1-6. FTL, 58,61-62. FAlbL, 418. FCcv, 2:6:1. FTR, 58-62. FAlbR, 23-24. FP, 167. FAlz, 6:1-6. FAln, 363-65. FH, ff. 49r-49v. FZ, 330. FBa, 400. FI, 398. FAlr, ff. 60v-61v. FUb, 34E. MS8331, 362. FBe, 501-02. FVH, 297-99. Siete partidas, 2:23:4. Valdeavellano, Historia de España a la baja Edad Media, 1:482-83.

5.  FCfs, 30:7, 26-28. FCmsp, 30:7, 23-25. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 486-88. FCcv, 3:14:5, 17. FTR, 576, 586. FAlbR, 181, 188. FP, 498, 504. FAlz, 10:7, 26-28. FAln, 599, 616. FH, f. 82v. FZ, 615, 633-34. FBa, 675, 692-93. FI, 646, 663-64. FAlr, ff. 96r, 98r. FUb, 54G, 54V, 54X. MS8331, 696, 708. FBe, 900, 921-22. FCO, 112. FCR, 8:12. FCM, 310. FCA, 177. FCB, 108. FU, 179.

6.  "Fuero de Benavente, 1164-83," 2:626. FCfs, 30:12, 25, 51. FCmsp, 30:11, 23, 48. FTL, 426,444. FAlbL, 486, 488, 492. FCcv, 3:14:8, 16, 31. FTR, 580, 585, 606. FAlbR, 182, 184, 189. FP, 501, 507, 522. FAlz, 10:12, 25, 51. FAln, 604, 615, 632. FH, ff. 83r, 85v. FZ, 619, 632, 656. FBa, 679, 691, 712. FI, 651, 662, 683. FAlr, ff. 96v, 98r, 100r. FUb, 54K, 54V, 54T'. MS8331, 699, 706-07, 724. FBe, 906, 920, 946. "Fuero de Alcalá de Henares," Sánchez, ed., 284. "El fuero de Sanabria," 13:286. "Fuero de Ledesma," 280. Siete partidas, 2:26:34.

7.  Sinués Ruiz, El merino, pp. 191-213.

8.  The advocates of such a position have usually been limited by a highly selective use of the evidence. Mayer, Historia de las instituciones sociales, 1:276-77. Ubieto, "La guerra en la Edad Media," 16:105. The case on behalf of the active participation of the peones which goes with the weight of the evidence has been made since the mid-nineteenth century. See Powers, "Townsmen and Soldiers," 46:641-43. This is the initial study on which the present chapter is based, although this article deals exclusively with Castile. A number of charters do indeed specify that the peones need not come. "Fuero de Fresnillo, 1104," 46-48. The Numão-Trancoso family in Portugal (starting in 1130) exempts the class (see Appendix A). "Fuero de Uclés, 1179," 2:518. Several members of the Évora family, while noting that peones must attend defensive musters under penalty of fine, points out that the portion of the caballarii that does not serve in a given offensive fossadum stays back in the town with the peones, who presumably do not have a fossadum obligation. These towns are Covilhã (1189), São Vicente da Beira (1195), Belmonte (1199), Teiseiras (1206), Penamacor (1209) and Sarzedas (1212) (see Appendix A).

9. "Fuero de León, (1020), 15:487. "Fuero concedido a Jaca por Sancho Ramírez (c. 1076)," 3-4. "Fuero de Argüedas, 1092," 10:57. "Fueros de Barbastro, 1100," 334. "Pedro concede carta de fueros a Caparroso, 1102," 371. "Pedro I concede los fueros a Santacara," 373. "Fueros de Tudela, Cervera y Galipiezo," 418. "Privilegio de D. Alfonso I el Batallador confirmando los privilegios de la ciudad de Barbastro," 357. "Los fueros de Jaca (1134-37)," 129-31. "Fuero de población de la villa de Los Arcos, 1176," 1:511. "(Foral de) Atouguia," 1:450-51. "Jaime I concede franquicias a Miranda de Ebro, (1236)," 246-47. "Carta de Jaime I a Jaca, 1249," 367.

10.  "Fuero latino de Sepúlveda, 1076," 48. "Fuero concedido a Nájera," 2:79-85. "Fuero de Carcastillo," 470-71. "Fuero de Estella," 87. "Fuero de Villavaruz de Ríoseco, 1181," 83. FCfs, 30:3. FCmsp, 30:3. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 485. FCcv, 3:14:2. FTR, 573. FAlbR, 180. FP, 494. FAlz, 10:3. FAln, 593. FH, f. 82r. FZ, 611. FBa, 672. FI, 641. FAlr, f. 95v. FUb, 54C. MS8331, 693. FBe, 895. FCO, 112. FCR, 8:13. FCM, 311. FCA, 176-77. FCB, 108. FU, 178-79. "(Foral de) Mortagua, 1192," 1:482. "(Foral de) Penacova, 1192," 1:483.

11.  "Carta-puebla de Peñafiel, 942," 66:373. "Fuero de Astudillo, 1147," 241-43. "Fuero de Viguera y Val de Funes," 12. "Fuero de Castrojeriz, 1234," 38.

12.  "El espéculo o espejo de todos los derechos," 3:7:14. Las siete partidas, 2:22:1, 5, 7, 26, and 2:26:28. A number of the contemporary chronicles mention the participation of footsoldiers in Reconquest battles. CAI, 92-93, 98-99. "Anales Toledanos I," 23:397. "Llibre dels feits del Rei En Jaume," Ch. 132. Desclot, "Crònica de Bernat Desclot," Ch. 47. CPA, 47.

13.  "Alfonso VII confirma los fueros y usos de los infanzones y barones de Aragón," 1:92-94. "El fuero de Olite," 1:56-57. FCO, 388. FCB, 400. "El Rey Don Sancho rebaja la pecha de Mendigorría, 1208," 87.

14.  The entire Numão-Trancoso family of charters requires this, save the towns of Numão, Moreira and Villafranca. El fuero de Brihuega, 122. "Sentencia del Rey D. Alfonso X, ordenando que el Obispo de Zamora no reciba por vasallos a los moradores del término de la villa de Toro, 1262," 1:201. "Acuerdo del concejo de la ciudad de Toro, 1280," 2:19-20. "Privilegio rodado de Alfonso X al concejo de Murcia, 10 agosto 1266," 1:35.

15.  These distinctions began to be applied to the Mozarab Christians of Toledo in 1101, thus integrating them into the emerging social structure of the Castilian Reconquest town. "Carta de seguridad concedida a los mozárabes de Toledo, 1101," 45:460. Pescador, 33-34:146-47, 151-52. Martínez Ruiz, "La investidura de armas en Castilla," 1-2:208-09. "Texto castellano del ordenamiento de unas cortes de León," 119. See also Gama Barros, História da administração pública, 3:46-60.

16.  Fuero de Molina de Aragón, 77. The Évora family produces a ten-sheep figure in the four earliest charters (Évora, Abrantes, Coruche and Palmela), but thereafter the figure is forty (see Appendix A). Pérez Prendes considers the creation of caballeros through property and wealth to be a Leonese concept, and rationalizes its appearance at Molina as a later addition to the surviving thirteenth-century manuscript of that fuero. "El orígen de los caballeros de cuantía," 9:142-43. Its appearance in contemporary Portugal mediates against his caution, and would have provided him a stronger case, given the tie of the Évora charter to that of Ávila. FA, 169, 183, 187-89. FCO, 163, 175, 179. FCR, 7:8, 8:53, 8:56. FCM, 274, 351, 354. FCA, 165, 178, 182. FCB, 167, 180, 184. FU, 167, 180, 184-85. All seven Coria Cima-Coa charters permit the individual to purchase a mule to meet the same requirement, but give no caballero class advantages for a mule, possibly denoting a non-combatant wealthy class. Coria, Cáceres, Castello Bom and Usagre also eliminate the use of a pack horse for fulfilling the requirement. "Fernando III concede al concejo de Toro facultad para hacer caballeros de 40 (sic) maravedís, 1232, noviembre 3," 2:566-67. The contents of the charter clearly indicate four hundred. "Alfonso X de Castiella, a petición de los habitantes de la villas de Extremadura, desagravia a los de Cuéllar, 1264," 64. "Costumes e foros de Beja," 2:70. The Coria Cima-Coa group offers some contemporary measure of the fee, in that horses killed in defensive action are compensated at thirty maravedís each (ten at Alfaiates), indicating that a man of caballero rank could be worth as much as ten horses in Leonese Extremadura. For a brief discussion of the class in later medieval Córdoba, see Edwards, Christian Córdoba, 42-43, 144-46.

17.  "Fuero del Castillo de Aceca, 1102," 45:462. "Carta de foral concedida a Azurara da Beira," 1:18. Carta de foral outorgada aos moradores de Sátão, 1111," 1:30. "Foral concedido aos povoadores de Tavares," 1:35. "Foral outorgado aos habitantes de Ferreira-de-Aves," 1:48-49. "Foral de Viseu, 1123," 1:82. "(Foral de) Cernancelhe," 1:363. "D. Afonso Henriques dá carta de foral aos habitantes de Leiria," 1:234. "Carta a favor dos moradores de Arouce (Louzã)," 1:287. "Carta de foral concedida aos moradores de Sintra," 1:301. "(Foral de) Castello de Pena-Ruiva," 1:551. "(Foral de) Viseu, 1187," 1:460. "(Foral de) Pedrogam," 1:531. "Fuero de Yanguas, 1188," 4:88. Among the Portuguese towns, Azurara, Sátão, Tavares, Ferreira and Cernancelhe allowed three years for replacement, Leiria, Lousã and Pedrogam two and Viseu (1123) one year, extended to two years in Viseu (1187). Sintra allowed an exceptional five years for replacement. "FAlcalá de Henares," Sánchez ed., 285. FA, 190. FCO, 180. FCA, 182. FCB, 185. FU, 185. "Fernando III confirma y traslada el fuero de Toro dado por Alfonso IX, y concede uno relativo a los caballeros, 1 noviembre 1232," 2:564-65. "Fuero de los escusados o franquicias de Arévalo, 1256," 1:268. "Privilegio del Rey Alfonso X de Escalona, 5 de marzo de 1261," 1:180. "Libro del fuero real y franquezas de Madrid, 1262," 9:55.

18.  FCórdoba Lat, 3:221. "Fuero de Carmona," 4. "Fuero de Alicante," 43. "Fuero de Lorca, 1271," 78. Pastor de Togneri, Conflictos sociales, 188-89. González, Fernando III 1:407. Carlé, "Boni homines y hombres buenos," (1964), 39-40:133-68. "Costumes de Garvão communicados d'Alcácer," 2:80-81.

19. "Fuero de Escalona, 1130," 45:465. In Portugal the law appears first at Miranda da Beira in 1136, at Louzã in 1151, then is picked up by the Santarém family of charters in 1179, and appears outside of that family only at Pedrogam in 1206 and at Sabadelhe in 1220. "(Foral de) Miranda da Beira," 1:373. FLouzã, 1:287. FPedrogam, 1:531. "(Foral de) Sabadelhe," 1:584. For the Santarém family, see Appendix A. The Cuenca-Teruel and Coria Cima-Coa families indicated the existence of both classes of archers, as is also true of Alicante and Murcia in the later thirteenth century. FCfs, 30:5. FCmsp, 30:5. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 485. FCcv, 3:14:4. FTR, 575. FAlbR, 181. FP, 496. FAlz, 10:5. FAln, 595-96. FH, f. 82v. FZ, 613. FBa, 674. FI, 644. FAlr, f. 96r. FUb, 54E. MS8331, 695. FBe, 898. FCO, 112. FCR, 8:13. FCM, 311. FCA, 177. FCB, 108. FU, 179. "Concesión a alicantinos, 1257," 52-53. "Privilegio a Murcia, 14 May 1266," 1:19-20. It would be interesting to know if this indicated some special Portuguese respect for battlefield firepower, or a special shortage of archers in western Portugal.

20.  FEscalona 1130, 45:465. "Alfonso VII confirma los fueros y usos de los infanzones y barones de Aragón," 1:93. FMolina, 64. "Recopilación de los fueros de Toledo, (hacia 1166)," 45:475. "Carta de fueros otorgada al concejo de Zorita por el rey Don Alfonso VIII, 1180," FZ, 423. The newer edition of this 1218 grant suggests that the residence requirement may have been a part of the later confirmation of Fernando III rather than a part of Alfonso VIII's original grant. "Fernando III confirma el fuero de Zorita, 1218," 2:38.

21.  FCfs, 1:6. FCmsp, 1:7. FTL, 8. FCcv, 1:1:6. FTR, 6. FAlbR, 6. FP, 2. FAlz, 1:7-8. FAln, 6. FH, f. 4r. FZ, 7. FBa, 7. FI, 4. FAlr, f. 6v. FUb, 2A. MS8331, 7. FBe, 8-9. FVH, 7. Huete and Zorita set the horse value at twenty mencales for the fortification exemption, Plasencia at ten. FA, 21. FCO, 30. FCR, 2:27. FCM, 47. FCA, 31. FCB, 32. FU, 32. Fuero de Talamanca, 1223, Mss 13094, f. 49v. El fuero de Uclés, c. 1227," 14:322. "Alfonso X el Sabio confirma los fueros extensos de Cuéllar, 1256," 43. "Concesión a burgueses, marineros y ballesteros alicantinos," 52-53. "Privilegio del Rey D. Alfonso X, concediendo a Valladolid," 1:225. "Privilegio rodado de Alfonso X a los pobladores de Murcia, 14 mayo 1266," 1:19-20. "Alfonso X concede tierras y exenciones en Requena, 1257," 166-67. "Carta del Rey D. Alonso X exortando a la paz al concejo de Escalona, mercedes, 1269," 1:254.

22.  "Recopilación de los fueros de Toledo, c. 1166," 45:465. FAlcalá, 285. "El fuero de Atienza," 68:267. "Privilegio del Rey D. Alfonso X, concediendo a la ciudad de Burgos, 1256," 1:97-98. "Fuero de Ávila, 1256," 2:491. "Fuero de los escusados o franquicias de Arévalo, 1256," 1:266. "Privilegio del Rey D. Alfonso X, concediendo al concejo de Buitrago el fuero real, 1256," 1:93-94. FCuéllar 1256, 43. "Privilegio del Rey D. Alfonso X, concediendo a la villa de Peñafiel, 1256," 1:89-90. Fuero de Trujillo, Mss 430, ff.50r-50v. Privilegio de Escalona 5Mar1261, 1:178. "Privilegio del Rey Alfonso X, reformando, a petición del concejo de Escalona, 23 de junio de 1261," 1:187. Franquezas de Madrid, 22Mar1262, 9:53. "Infante don Manuel confirma a Elche sus privilegios," 2:32. The most commonly cited period is eight days before Christmas until the approach of Lent, in the Ordenamiento de 1256 charters of Alfonso X. Elche permits a leave of absence from the town at any time, as long as it does not exceed three months. The Ordenamiento de 1256 group also stressed that substantial houses (mayores casas) were required, suggesting that some were abusing this requirement.

23.  FCfs, 30:4. FCmsp, 30:4. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 485. FCcv, 3:14:3. FTR, 574. FAlbR, 180-81. FP, 495. FAlz, 10:4. FAln, 594. FH, f. 82r. FZ, 612. FBa, 673. FI, 642. FAlr, f. 95v. FUb, 54D. MS8331, 694. FBe, 896. FA, 284. FCO, 282. FCR, 4:24. FCM, 155. FCA, 281. FCB, 281. FU, 289. "Sancho el Sabio, rey de Navarra, concede fueros a Artajona, 1193," 249. "Fuero dado a la villa de Lárraga, 1193," 1:508. "Confirmación de los fueros de Mendigorría, 1194," 28-29. "Fuero de Milmanda, 1199," 2:181. "Fuero concedido a Miranda de Arga," 10:270. Los fueros de la Novenera, Tilander, ed., 87. "FLedesma," 264-65. "El fuero de Llanes," 1:117. "FAlcalá de Henares," 287.

24.  FCfs, 30:4. FCmsp, 30:4. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 485. FCcv, 3:14:3. FTR, 574. FAlbR, 180-81. FP, 495. FAlz, 10:4. FAln, 594. FH, f. 82r. FZ, 612. FBa, 673. FI, 642. FAlr, f. 95v. FUb, 54D. MS8331, 694. FBe, 896. FA, 284. FCO, 282. FCR, 4:24. FCM, 155. FCA, 281. FCB, 281. FU, 289. For the aged knight in Portugual, FLouzã, 1:287, FPedrogam, 1:531 and the Santarém family (Appendix A). For widows, "Fueros de León y Carrión, 1114," 48-49. All of the Portuguese citations in this note also cover widows, and FSintra, 1:300-303 and FPenacova, 1:483 deal only with widows, not aging knights. FCuéllar 1256 and FCuéllar 1264, 43, 63. FArévalo 1256, 1:267-68. FEscalona 5Mar1261, 1:179. FMadrid 1262, 9:54. Ordenamiento para Reino de Extremadura, Alfonso X, 1264, Mss 9-21-7, 4032, Núm. 4, f. 7.

25.  "Fuero de Soria, 1120," 8:587. "Fuero de los Balbases, 1135," 145-47. "FEstella", 1:107. "Alfonso VIII exime de tributos, salvo de la obligación de ir en fonsado, a los que vivieren todo el año con casa poblada dentro de los muros de Sepúlveda, 1201," 12-13. Costumbres de Lérida, 48. FViguera y Val de Funes, 39-40. Libro de los fueros de Castilla, 153. FCórdoba Lat, 3:222. FCarmona, 6. FAlicante, 44. FElche, 32. FLorca, 76. "Fuero romanceado de Sepúlveda, 1300," 63. Estella, Viguera and the Libro de los fueros all require residence for a year and a day (a familiar phrase outside the Peninsula) of residence to earn the privileges of vecino status.

26.  FMolina, 64-65. The Évora family in Portugal also makes these distinctions (see Appendix A). FCfs, 1:6, 31:3. FCmsp, 1:7, 31:3. FTL, 8. FCcv, 1:1:6, 3:15:2. FTR, 6. FAlbR, 6. FP, 2, 530. FAlz, 1:7-8, 10:69. FAln, 6, 647. FH, ff. 4r, 87v. FZ, 7, 673. FBa, 7, 727. FI, 4, 697. FAlr, ff. 6v, 101v. FUb, 2A, 55C. MS8331, 7, 735. FBe, 8-9, 970. FVH, 7, 543. FA, 21. FCO, 30. FCR, 2:27. FCM, 47. FCA, 31. FCB, 32. FU, 32. Fuero de Guadalajara (1219), Keniston, ed., 17. "Fuero de Salamanca," 140. "FLedesma," 236. González, Repartimiento de Sevilla, 1:395. Clerical and magnate lands within the municipal alfoz maintained exemptions for their peones from such municipal jurisdiction.

27.  Pastor de Togneri, Conflictos sociales, 188-89. Sánchez-Albornoz, "The Frontier and Castilian Liberties," 27-46.

28.  FA, 169, 183, 187-89. FCO, 163, 175, 179. FCR, 7:8, 8:53, 8:56. FCM, 274, 351, 354. FCA, 165, 178, 182. FCB, 167, 180, 184. FU, 167, 180, 184-85. A recent argument has been advanced that this class avidly sought the knightly rank, an argument which seriously errs in overlooking the military burden carried by the class. See Arriaza, "Castilian Bourgeoisie and Caballeros Villanos," 63:517-36.

29.  Powers, "Frontier Competition," 52:476-78. "Filauria y otros ocho, en representación de toda la 'collacio' de Melgar," 78-79. "Carta de población y franquicias de Bell-lloch," 1:20. "Fueros de Palenzuela, 1074," 27. FSepúlveda 1076, 47. "Fuero de Marañón," 2:121. Fuero de Calatayud, 37. FBalbás, 145-47. "Fuero de Daroca, 1142," 369. FMolina, 72, 91. "Martín Franco y su hermana Melina donan al Cabildo de Salamanca la mitad de toda su heredad, 1156," 105. Starting in 1156, the Évora family in Portugal contains the term (see Appendix A). Fuero de Alfambra, 23. "Declaración real resolviendo algunas cuestiones de Zaragoza, 1180," 8:66. "Fueros dados por Raimundo II, obispo de Palencia," 188.

30.  FCfs, 13:20, 16:3-4, 30:1. FCmsp, 13:22, 16:1-6, 30:1. FTL, 58, 60-61, 421, 426. FAlbL, 418, 478, 484. FCcv, 2:3:20, 2:6:1, 3:14:1. FTR, 58-62, 534, 569. FAlbR, 23-24, 172, 179. FP, 167, 492. FAlz, 4:107, 5:1-6, 10:1. FAln, 314, 363-65, 592. FH, ff. 49r-49v, 81v. FZ, 325, 330, 609. FBa, 331, 400, 670. FI, 334, 398, 639. FAlr, ff. 51r, 60v-61v, 95r. FUb, 31:2F, 34E, 54A. MS8331, 325, 362, 692. FBe, 417, 501-02, 893. FVH, 310, 366-67. FCO, 378. FCR, 5:23. FCM, 189. FCA, 379. FCB, 390. FU, 388.

31.  López Ferreiro, Historia de Santiago y su tierra, 1:149. Mayer, Historia 2:248-53. Rau, Sesmarias medievais portuguesas, 27-42. Hernandez Pacheco, El solar en la historia hispana, 238-39. Lacarra, "Les villes-frontières," 69:218-19. "Fernando III otorga al concejo de Ávila un fuero, 1222," 2:202. "Fernando III concede al concejo de Uceda un fuero," 2:204. "Fernando III otorga al concejo de Peñafiel el fuero, 1222," 2:206. "Fernando III otorga al concejo de Madrid el fuero, 1222," 2:208.

32.  Querol y Roso, Las milicias valencianas, 50. In fourteenth-century Barcelona the city district functioned as the basis of organizing the defense, although we lack any clear evidence on the development of that system prior to that time. Marsá, ed., Onomástica Barcelonesa del siglo XIV, 3-212. "Fuero de Santiago de Compostela, 1113," 1:138-47.

33.  FCfs, 30:7. FCmsp, 30:7. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 486. FCcv, 3:14:5. FTR, 576. FAlbR, 181. FP, 498. FAlz, 10:7. FAln, 599. FH, f. 82v. FZ, 615. FBa, 675. FI, 646. FAlr, f. 96r. FUb, 54G. MS8331, 696. FBe, 900.

34.  FCfs, 30:16. FCmsp, 30:14. FTL, 426. FAlbL, 487. FCcv, 3:14:10. FTR, 581. FAlbR, 182. FP, 503. FAlz, 10:16. FAln, 606. FH, f. 83v. FZ, 623. FBa, 682. FI, 654. FAlr, f. 97r. FUb, 54N. MS8331, 701. FBe, 910. FVH, 511. The fueros of Cáceres and Usagre, the Espéculo and the Siete partidas also charge the quadrillero with responsibility for booty division. FCA, 177. FU, 179. Espéculo, 3:7:13. Siete partidas, 2:26:12.

35.  FCfs, 30:35. FCmsp, 30:32. FTL, 431. FAlbL, 489. FCcv, 3:14:23. FTR, 590. FAlbR, 185-86. FP, 512. FAlz, 10:35. FAln, 622. FH, f. 84v. FZ, 641. FBa, 699. FI, 670. FAlr, ff. 98v-99r. FUb, 54E'. MS8331, 713. FBe, 929. FVH, 524.

36.  González, "Reconquista y repoblación," 195-97. Moxó, Repoblación y sociedad, 458-78.

37.  "Concession accordée à l'évêque d'Urgell à la suite du transfert de la villa d'Hix à Mont Cerda, 1178," 62-63. "(Foral de) Melgaço," 1:684.

38.  PCG, 2:379.

39.  FCfs, 2:6, 9-10. FCmsp, 2:6, 9-10. FTL, 298. FCcv, 1:2:4, 6. FTR, 384-85. FAlbR, 126-27. FP, 607, 609. FAlz, 2:6, 9. FAln, 30, 33. FH, ff. 6v-7r. FZ, 21, 24. FBa, 32, 35. FI, 26, 29. FAlr, ff. 10v-11r. FUb, 8:1I-1J. MS8331, 28. FBe, 38, 41. FVH, 31, 34-35. Teruel and Albarracín add to this the right of the individual land disputant to challenge whether the quadrillero deciding the issue was the same quadrillero at the time of conquest. MS8331 lacks the law on the first to work the land. One exception to this was the grant to any commander of a force which captured a town. That leader then selected any house which he chose, its furnishings and its land, a clear invitation for such a capable person to settle on the frontier. FCfs, 31:15. FCmsp, 31:11 FTL, 452. FCcv, 3:15:10. FTR, 622. FAlbR, 192-93. FP, 538. FAlz, 10:80. FAln, 655. FH, f. 88v. FZ, 682. FBa, 739. FI, 709. FAlr, ff. 102v-103r. FUb, 55K. MS8331, 744. FBe, 982-83. FVH, 549.

40.  Floriano Cumbreño, "Cáceres ante la historia," 5:3-29. González, "Repoblación de la Extremadura española," 3:245-47.

41.  "Fuero latino de Cáceres," iv. Floriano, "Cáceres ante la historia," 6-8.

42.  FCA, 89. FCB, 81. FU, 91. The quadrillero also played a role in dividing up the lands of El Espinar in 1297. "Cartas de población de El Espinar," 11:249, 287-90. Both Puyol and Blázquez grappled with the military versus civilian origins of the quadrillero at the turn of the century, without a great deal of success. Puyol, "Cartas de población de El Espinar," 11:287-90. Blázquez y Delagado, Historia de la administración militar, 63-65.

43.  Floriano, "Cáceres ante la historia," 10. Hernández-Pacheco, El solar, 238-39.

44.  Sánchez-Albornoz, España, un enigma histórico, 2:42.

45.  "Llibre dels feits," Ch. 288.

46.  Llibre del Repartiment de Valencia, 17-72, 323-435. Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt, "El 'Repartiment'," 2:11-21. The towns given areas of settlement were Barcelona, Calatayud, Daroca, La Rápida, Lérida, Montpellier, Tarassona, Tarragona, Tarazona, Teruel, Tortosa, Villafranca and Zaragoza. For an examination of the problems of resolving land claims in and around Valencia after conquest, see Burns, Society and Documentation, 211-14.

47.  Torres Fontes, "Jaime I y Alfonso X, dos criterios," 2:329-40.

48.  González, Repartimiento de Sevilla, 1:21-31, 241, 286, 2:120-22.

49.  Ibid., 2:122-26, 274-80, 285-87.

50.  Ibid., 1:237, 285.

51.  Torres Fontes, Repartimiento de la huerta y campo de Murcia, 194-99.

52.  Sopranis, Historia de Jérez, 43-54. Torres Fontes, Repartimiento de Lorca, 1-53.

53. Layna Serrano, Historia de Atienza, 81-83. Puig, Historia breve y documentada de Catí, 32. Martín Martín, Documentos, 175-77, 680. FP, 703.

54.  FCórdoba Lat, 3:221. FCarmona, 5. FAlicante, 43. FLorca, 79.

55.  FCfs, 43:2. FCmsp, 43:18. FAln, 819. FBa, 914. FI, 884. FUb, 95. MS8331, 772.

56.  Guichard, Al-Andalus, 60-65, 134-38, 231-57, 338-556. For a useful summation of the theories contrasted and compared for both Christian and Muslim social and ethnic development, see: Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, 135-64.