Battle of Calatañazor

The Battle of Calatañazor was a legendary battle of the Reconquista that took place in July 1002 at Calatañazor between an army of invading Saracens under the ferocious Saracin leader, al-Mansur (938-1002), also spelled Almanzor, and a force of Christian allies led by Alfonso V of León, Sancho III of Navarre, and Sancho García of Castile. Almanzor, died the night of 10–11 August of wounds received in the battle. Its ahistoricity was first demonstrated by Reinhart Dozy in 1881, a man noted for his antipathy towards Muslims. The French Arabist Évariste Lévi-Provençal attributed the destruction of San Millán de la Cogolla by the Saracens to the campaign of Calatañazor.

Of the death of Almanzor only two Christian annalists make mention. Both the Annales Compostellani and the Chronicon Burgense place it in the Era MXL, that is, 1002. The first says only that he died (mortuus es Almozor), but the latter adds that he is in hell (et sepultus est in inferno). The notice of his death is amplified in the chronicles. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century the anonymous author of the Historia Silense wrote that he was killed in Medinaceli. Late that century the Chronica Naierensis added that he was at war with Sancho García of Castile at the time of his death, which occurred while he was in retreat at the village of Grajal. He was buried in Medinaceli, but his body was later moved. The final story, of Almanzor's receiving wounds in battle with the Christians, and subsequently dying, is found in its earliest version in the Chronicon mundi of Lucas of Tuy. Lucas erroneously names the Christian leaders as Vermudo II of León (died 999) and García Fernández of Castile (died 995). Both Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada in his De rebus Hispaniae and Alfonso X in his Estoria de España follow Lucas in every detail save that of the fisherman-apparition.

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