Tactics of Attraction: Saints, Pilgrims and Warriors in the Portuguese Reconquista

Abstract

Instances of the participation of northern European crusader fleets in the Portuguese Reconquista in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries have, in general, been considered chance events. With the notable exception of the runup to the conquest of Lisbon in 1147,1 virtually all commentators have largely dismissed these episodes as the result of opportunistic Portuguese efforts to persuade passing maritime crusaders, mostly greedy for plunder, to join in Portuguese attacks on Iberian-Muslim strongholds.2 This paper argues that, following the outstanding success of the 1147 conquest of Lisbon, which was achieved principally thanks to the participation of foreign crusaders, the Portuguese operated an identifiable and sustained policy in order to attract more of these warriors to the fight on their frontier with Islam. This previously overlooked stratagem involved the construction and promotion of certain saintly cults as one of its principal tactics and, in particular, the cult of St Vincent of Saragossa which began to develop in Lisbon in the second half of the twelfth century, being promulgated in tandem with the unfolding Portuguese Reconquista. Since at least the early twelfth century, Iberians witnessed the regular passage of fleets carrying northern European crusaders along their coasts. From places including England, Denmark, Frisia, Flanders, Lower Saxony and North Rhineland, these maritime pilgrim-warriors, when making necessary supply-stops in Hispanic ports, could sometimes be persuaded, usually in exchange for plunder, to take temporary service under Iberian Christian monarchs for the