Battle of Mollerussa

The Battle of Mollerussa (or Mollerusa) took place in the south of the county of Urgell on 11 or 14 September 1102. In the battle, Count Ermengol V was defeated and killed by an Almoravid army. Mollerussa lies halfway between Bellpuig and Lleida and is the largest town in the Pla d'Urgell.

The Almoravids, a Moroccan Islamic sect, had first invaded the Iberian peninsula in 1086, where they scored a victory over Castile at the Battle of Sagrajas. They only began the systematic conquest of Iberian taifas, small independent Muslim states, in 1090. The Hudid taifa of Lleida, the nearest to Urgell, paid tribute (parias) to Ermengol V. Nonetheless, the Muslim city of Balaguer, nearest to Urgell, was captured and briefly held by Viscount Guerau Ponç II de Cabrera in 1100 or 1101, before falling to the Almoravids.

The most detailed account of the battle is found in the Deeds of the Counts of Barcelona, the original version of which was written in the mid-12th century by an anonymous monk of Santa Maria de Ripoll, with later redactions and a Catalan translation appearing in the 14th century:

Ermengol of Mollerussa [was] so called because it was in a place called Mollerussa with the three hundred knights, it is said, and a number of other Christians that he was killed by the Almoravids, under Count Ramon Berenguer the third, in the year of Christ 1102.

Some scholars have taken this to imply that Count Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona (ruled 1086–1131) was involved in the defeat. Two other Catalan annals from the 12th century attest to Ermengol's death at Mollerussa, without providing any other information. The Chronicon Rivipullense II, from Santa Maria de Ripoll, notes that "many died with him". The Chronicon Rotense II, written at the cathedral of Roda de Isábena, is in fact the earliest source, but provides no more than that in 1102 Ermengol died at Mollerussa. The Tunisian historian Ibn al-Kardabūs, in a passage immediately following on the Almoravid conquest of Valencia (May 1102), states that Mazdalī, acting walī of Valencia, launched an incursion into "Barcelona". This might be the invasion that ended in the battle of Mollerussa, since the next known incursion into Catalonia took place in 1108.

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