Off the Beach / Castles ..Tarifa, Spain
..wander off the beach with me and find out what has happened nearby..read my stories of events and places which have earned their place in the History books.
The stories may seem to meander through many aspects of the main theme, but this is so that the sometimes little known details and insights can be enjoyed, as well as the main story, by the reader with a few moments of extra time available !
The story that follows is that of the creation by the Moors of al-Andalus, a brief overview from the beginning in the 8thC to the end of the 700 years of the Muslim Moors conquest and control of part of what is now southern Spain, including the mystical cities of Cordoba and Granada.
The story of the Conquest begins in Tarifa.
Tarifa, Andalusia
The coastal town of Tarifa, in the province of Cadiz, south-west Spain, is the area where al-Andalus was first established..and the castle of Tarifa has survived almost intact since 790, now more than 1,230 years ago.
Well-known for its many kilometres of sandy beaches, favourite spots for kite-surfing and for beach-lovers, as well as its hospitality, the Tarifa area has many historic monuments, including the many castles and forts in locations dating back more than the 1,600 years to the Visigoths and before them to the Romans and even earlier, to Neolithic Man.
Tarifa Castle
The Castle is one of the oldest in Europe. Entering through the main gate of the Castle gives an understanding of how for more than 1,000 of those 1,230 years the castle has withstood violent attacks and long sieges, from the 10th C to the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century.
The most southern of Spain’s castles, Tarifa Castle faces Africa - from its ramparts and towers the Rif mountains of Morocco and the Northern Maghreb can been seen the short distance across the Strait of Gibraltar.
From the early 8th C the attacks on the Tarifa area came from the south, from the Moors in the Maghreb area of Northern Africa, to establish al-Andalus..700 years later the attacks came from the Christian Kingdoms in the north to Reconquer the territory established under Moors’ rule.
At its greatest geographical extent, that territory ruled by the Moors occupied most of the Iberian peninsula (today’s Spain and Portugal), a part of present-day southern France, Septimania (8th century), and for nearly a century (9th–10th centuries) Eastern France from Fraxinet over the Alpine passes which connect Italy to Western Europe.
The Maghreb
In the western part of North Africa the Maghreb region still stretches from central present-day Algeria and Libya westwards to Northern Morocco on the Atlantic and southward to the Atlas Mountains and Mauretania.
The region’s inhabitants, the Maghrebis, were known by the Romans as the Mauri and the Masaesyli and in medieval times as Roman Africans or Moors.
The Maghreb region later came to be known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a name originating from the oldest known inhabitants of the region, seminomadic cattle and sheep farmers, the Berbers.
The term Moor can be found throughout literature, art, and history books,although it does not actually describe a specific ethnicity or race. Instead, the concept of Moors has been used to describe alternatively the reign of Muslims in Spain, Europeans of African descent, and others for centuries.
Derived from the Latin word “Maurus,” the term was originally used to describe Berbers and other people from the ancient Roman province of Mauretania in what is now North Africa.
The word Morocco is derived from the name of the city of Marrakesh, which was the capital under the Almoravid dynasty and the Almohad Caliphate. The origin of the name Marrakesh most likely comes from the Berber words amur akush meaning ‘Land of God’.
Christianity had spread to the Maghreb from the 3rd C AD onwards and Morocco (Mauretania) had remained under Roman rule until the 5th century. From the birth of Muhammad in 570 and the movement of Islam westward, the first Caliphates were established in the area and in 681 the Arabs began raiding Morocco.
By 705 the Muslim Moors were in control. The Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate had conquered swathes of formerly Roman territory and Islam became the dominant religion in Northern Africa.
The Caliphates
Descriptions vary of the great cultural contributions by the Caliphates, the Islamic states of al-Andalus. The detailed description in Wikipedia explains that:
“Under the Caliphate of Cordoba, al-Andalus was a beacon of learning, and the city of Cordoba, the largest in Europe at the time, became one of the leading cultural and economic centres throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Islamic world.
Achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus, including major advances in trigonometry (Geber), astronomy (Arzachel), surgery (Abulcasis Al Zahrawi), pharmacology (Avenzoar), and agronomy (Ibn Bassal and Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī).
Al-Andalus became a major educational centre for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for cultural and scientific exchange between the Islamic and Christian worlds.”
Three major caliphates succeeded each other: the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1517). The fourth major caliphate was the Ottoman Caliphate from 1517.
A few other states that existed through history have called themselves caliphates, including the Ayyubid Caliphate during the reign of Saladin (1174–1193), Isma’ili Fatimid Caliphate in Northeast Africa (909–1171), the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in Iberia (929–1031), the Berber Almohad Caliphate in Morocco (1121–1269).
These breakaway caliphates prospered and developed to become some of the most active participants in the history of Tarifa and its castle.
After the fall of the Umayyad caliphate in 1031, al-Andalus broke up into small states and principalities which in turn led to an increase in attacks from the Christians, the Castilians under Alfonso VI.
The new caliphate of the Almoravid empire was strong enough to repel the Christian attacks on the region, at the same time as deposing the weaker of the Andalusi Muslim princes.
The Almoravid dynasty, originated among the nomadic Berber tribes of the Western Sahara, founded Marrakesh as its capital circa 1070.
The Almoravids were crucial in preventing the fall of Al-Andalus to the Iberian Christian kingdoms when they decisively defeated a coalition of the Castilian and Aragonese armies at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086.
Al-Andalus was brought under direct Berber rule and in the next century and a half al-Andalus became a province of the Berber Muslim empires of the Almoravids and Almohads, both based in Marrakesh.
The first battles for Al-Andalus
In July 710, Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Berber, Muslim and Umayyad general who went on to lead the conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711, sent his commander Tarif ibn Malik on a raid across the strait between the continents of Africa and Europe, now known as the Strait of Gibraltar. This first expedition sent by Tariq consisted mainly of Berbers, who had themselves only recently come under Muslim influence.
Since the 5th C the Visigoths had formed in Iberia the Kingdom of the Goths. Tariq’s raid, a large raiding party of 12,000 troops, intended to test the southern coastline of their Kingdom for armed resistance, was met with only token resistance from the few Visigoth forces in the area.
To conquer the area may not have been the original plan as the raid was a continuation of a historic pattern of large-scale raids into Iberia dating to the pre-Islamic period. However, the following year, 711, Tariq ibn Ziyad again sent, led by him, a large army across the Strait of Gibraltar from the North African coast.
This time the army, of only 7,000 soldiers, landed further along the coast from Tarifa, in “the foothills of a mountain”.
That mountain would become known as the Rock of Gibraltar, the name “Gibraltar” being the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq meaning “mountain of Ṭāriq”.
al-Andalus
The Visigothic Kingdom had ruled for the almost 300 years since the Fall of the Romans’ Western Empire. Within seven years from those first raids by Tariq’s armies across the Strait of Gibraltar the Moors went on to conquer the Visigoths’ Kingdom and replace it with the Umayyad Caliphate, Al-Andalus.
By 720 the Moors had taken over all the Iberian Peninsula including establishment of a major garrison in the far north at Zaragoza on the Ebro River.
During the time from the Moors’ first conquests until 1492, the Christian Kingdoms in Europe and the Muslim Moors had fought a series of wars for the control of the Iberian Peninsula. Within 300 years after the first conquests, under the rule of the Umayyad caliphate of Cordovain in the 10th century, Muslim rule had begun to decline.
Finally, Muslim al-Andalus ended in 1492 when Granada was conquered in the final years of the 800 years of the Christian Kings’ Reconquista campaign. The beginnings of modern-day Spain were established.
The Fortification of Tarifa
It was not until some 250 years after the beginning of al-Andalus in early-700 that the town of Tarifa, later a city, the original landing-place of the Moors named after Tarif ibn Malik leader of the raid in 710, was fortified.
Having become a prosperous town over the centuries it needed the construction of a castle to proclaim its status as well as to protect its wealth from the many types of marauders in the region.
In earlier times Tarifa and its surrounding area had been settled by the Romans, including the hamlet of Casas de Porros, Valdevaqueros, some ten kilometres from Tarifa, considered to be the location of the settlement then known as Mellaria. The settlement also included the Roman forts and fortifications that were standard as part of the defences throughout the Roman Empire
The village of Bolonia, some 20 kms from Tarifa, was also populated in Roman times with the establishment nearby of the then-prosperous community of Baelo Claudia, the ruins of which are now in continuing process of being uncovered and researched.
Baelo Claudia, founded at the end of the 2nd C BC, had become a prosperous Roman city in its day before being destroyed by two devastating earthquakes around 40–60AD and again 260–290AD, including being overwhelmed by a tsunami.
The ruins of the settlement of Baelo Claudia are today one of Andalusia´s most significant and well-preserved Roman archaeological sites.
The remains of the temple and the Forum, together with the basilica, baths, aqueduct, and large fish-salting factory at Baelo Claudia indicate the importance of the position of the Tarifa area as a strategic point for trade routes between Europe and North Africa.
Archaeological excavations, and the artefacts on display in the collections now housed at Tarifa Castle, together with remains of parts of the original Roman fort on which the Castle is built, show that the Romans selected Tarifa as the location to construct fortifications to protect the area.
The Castle’s construction
Abd al-Rahman III, Caliph of Córdoba, who ordered the building of Tarifa castle, was considered to have been the greatest of the Umayyad rulers of Spain, and under his rule from 912 to 961 Tarifa had become an important and prosperous city.
Some 900 years after the Roman settlement selected the location for a fort, Abd al-Rahman III selected the same spot for the construction of Tarifa’s castle. He would have seen the castle’s construction completed in 960, just a year before his death.
Fortification was needed to protect Tarifa against raids from both the North of Africa and from the North of Europe (the Vikings) and to stop a possible invasion by enemies of the Umayyads, especially by the rival caliphate established by the Fatimids in North Africa.
By the time the castle was built, warfare had become frequent with the Christian Kingdoms that regularly sought to win their battles with the help of the rival Muslim rulers hostile to the Umayyads, .
The Christian realms of Leon, Navarre and Catalonia lacked a common identity and based their loyalty on tribe or ethnicity, uniting and dividing during the 11th and 12th centuries, frequently changing sides.
At the same time internal conflicts also developed between the Muslim rulers in al-Andalus, which culminated in the 11thC with its disintegration into several taifas (small kingdoms established by city governors).
The taifas, like the Christian kingdoms, were often at odds with each other and relied on the help of the Christian armies.
As a result of the shifting allegiances , castles on all sides were regularly besieged as they changed hands and were then often modified to meet the needs of the conquerors or to face the challenge of new siege techniques.
In addition to Tarifa Castle, Abd al-Rahman III also constructed a number of defences along the southern Iberian coast, typically square castles in the style of the official Umayyad state architecture, although Tarifa castle is mainly trapezoidal due to the contours of the hill on which it’s built.
The Castle Structure
Tarifa Castle is one of the best-preserved medieval buildings in Spain. The fortress itself is a typical Caliphate nucleus with the walls built with rope and brand ashlars.
Widely used in Hispano-Muslim architecture a “rope” is the arrangement of ashlars, finely-cut stone blocks placed horizontally on their longest side to form a structure (walls ) with a “brand”, (a tizón), a stone placed on the shorter side, thus being interlocked by the alternating of the courses of the stonework.
An ashlar arrangement is capable of very thin joints between blocks, and the visible face of the stone may be quarry-faced or feature a variety of treatments: tooled, smoothly polished or rendered with another material for decorative effect.
Although the Moors used both rough stone and ashlar the most usual building method was tapial, or “rammed earth/clay” walls.
The Tarifa city walls show the result of these different techniques used during the building and restoration phases during its development in the early centuries.
The quarry from which many of the ashlars may have been taken was closeby to the construction site, on the Isla de Palomas, a small island just a few hundred metres offshore.
The Castle towers
At the westernmost end of the castle is the octagonal Guzmán el Bueno tower, an albarrana. The tower is detached from the defensive wall (curtain wall) between two towers (bastions) of the castle but connected to it by an arched walkway.
A characteristic of Moorish castles, the earliest albarrana towers were often pentagonal or octagonal in plan (e.g. Badajoz, Tarifa, Seville) but a more rectangular tower design was embraced by Christian castle designers.
In contrast, a tall keep, the inner stronghold of a castle, and a feature of Christian castles, was gradually adopted by the Moors. The Moors are also considered to have introduced the concept of an elbow entrance.
The simple introduction of placing an elbow bend at entranceways became an effective means of obstructing direct and speedy entry and made it much easier for defenders to cut down attackers.
Siege warfare
Tarifa Castle was designed to stand firm against arrows and catapults. From the First Crusade, 1095, techniques and weaponry evolved from the many attacks on the castles in the Holy Land during the Crusades, including development in catapult technique so that larger stone balls could be hurled at castle walls.
During the 12thC and 13thC the mangonel, operated by manpower pulling on cords attached to a lever and sling to launch the projectiles, was replaced as the primary siege weapon by the counterweight trebuchet. Several models and replicas, and a bombard, an early mortar-style cannon, are on display at the Castle.
After gunpowder was developed, large guns (ie cannons) that could pierce castle walls made medieval siege warfare using catapults and undermining walls largely impractical.
When taken over by the Christians in 1492 Tarifa Castle was extended vertically with a second floor to provide the space to develop as a palace.
In addition, the crenellation on the tops of the walls was removed so that newly-installed cannons had a wider field of fire. However, the vibrations from the cannon-fire then made buttressing of the walls necessary to support the castle structure.
Guzman El Bueno 1296
Of Tarifa’s three city gates, only the 13th century Puerta de Jerez remains today. The plaque above the gate commemorates the troops of Tarifa who, on 21st September 1292, helped King Sancho IV of Castile conquer Tarifa, taking it back from the Moors.
Sancho IV, considered an unlawfully crowned king, with many enemies, had entrusted one of his noblemen, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, with the protection of Tarifa.
In 1296 Guzmán held the castle against the siege of the castle by the Moors in alliance with the Infante Don Juan, Sancho’s rebellious brother.
Pérez de Guzmán was given the nickname of “Good” (el Bueno) after he refused to hand over the castle to the Moors’ besieging forces in exchange for the life of his son who was being held hostage by them.
According to legend, Guzmán rebuffed the demand with the dramatic words that “Should Don Juan put him to death, he will but confer honour on me, true life on my son, and on himself eternal shame in this world and everlasting wrath after death” and threw down his knife for the besiegers to use to kill his son.
In reward for his heroic defence of Tarifa Guzmán was granted large areas of Crown lands plus tuna fishing rights in the area and became the 1st Duke of Medina Sidonia.
He went on to build the Castle of Zahara de los Atunes and Palace of Jadraza, which incorporated a seasonal residential palace and commercial installations including a tuna processing facility.
Battle of Rio Salado 1340 After the Battle of Rio Salado , a Muslim army would never again invade the Iberian Peninsula
Some 50 years later, the Marinids had overthrown the Almohads and controlled Morocco and briefly most of the Maghreb and in 1340 the Battle of Río Salado took place, its name now given to Tarifa’s main street.
Also known as the Battle of Tarifa it was a battle of the armies of King Afonso IV of Portugal and the Castilian King, King Alfonso XI against those of Sultan Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali of the Marinid dynasty and Yusuf I of Granada.
Having destroyed the Castilian fleet in a naval battle off Gibraltar Sultan Abu Hasan crossed the Strait with his army on 14 August 1340. All through the summer troops and supplies continued to be ferried across and on 22 September the siege of Tarifa was formally established, with the help of the army of Yusuf.
Historian Joseph F. O’Callaghan in The Gibraltar Crusade: Castile and the Battle for the Strait describes how to support the Castilians “the Portugese sent a replacement fleet to the Strait in October, cutting off the Moors’ supply routes between Morocco and the Peninsula. The troops besieging Tarifa, being depended on supplies from Morocco, launched an all-out assault against the castle, which was repulsed with heavy losses on both sides.”
O’Callaghan describes the battle -
“ On the 29th the Christian army reached the Deer Hill (la Roca del Ciervo) eight kilometres from Tarifa and barely 250 metres from the beach.
Between them and their adversaries was a 4,500m long valley crossed by the streams of La Jara and El Salado.
During the night, Alfonso XI had sent 1,000 horse and 4,000 foot troops to reinforce the Tarifa garrison..the battle took just three hours from nine in the morning until noon.
The pursuit of the fleeing enemy was ruthless, ending at the Sultan’s camp at Guadamecí River, six kilometres from the battlefield. Little mercy was shown at the camp, and many of the Sultan’s wives were killed, including his first wife Fatimah and also Aysa , daughter of the noble Abu Yahya ibn Yaqub.”
The aftermath of the battle was that the Marinids moved back to Africa and never again was a Muslim army able to invade the Iberian Peninsula. Control of the Strait of Gibraltar was now held by the Christians, specifically the Castilians and the Genoese.
The town of Algeciras, a valuable bridgehead held by the Marinids, was also finally retaken by the Christians in 1344 after a two-year siege. However Gibraltar was not recaptured from the King of Granada until 1462.
Watchtowers
Over the time during the Moors’ control of al-Andalus and after the Christian Reconquest a network of watchtowers was established in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth centuries to defend the coast against pirates and raiders.
The towers were in sight of one another making it possible to get a signal the 40 kilometres along the coast from Gibraltar to the watchtowers in and around Tarifa.
The network of watchtowers included two that are still visible today — the Torre del Fraile, built in 1588, and the Guadamecí Tower, on a mound near the river of the same name.
The Torre de la Peña, thought to have been built during 13thC , also known as the Torre de la Roca del Ciervo (Deer Rock), is built on the Rock of that name in the foothills of the Sierra de la Plata.
The Castle now
Castles were built not only to house garrisons of many thousands of troops that would be large enough to be a deterrent to rebellion and hostilities but also to serve to protect the king’s local commercial interests. A castle also maintained the moral high ground as the defender of the position of the king as the only Authority.
In time they also became residences of the king’s representatives, the lords and ladies of the nobility. The castles developed to also serve as a luxurious palace although from Tarifa castle the views inland and over the Strait to Africa from window openings and from the ramparts are a reminder of the purpose of the Castle as a fortification.
The gardens in the Palace grounds The garden area is one of many features that can be seen in the design of a palace that was developed during the centuries to provide a continuingly sophisticated life of ease while providing the inhabitants with the protection of the Castle’s continually modernised fortifications.
One fascinating detail can be seen in the gardens area, sunken flower beds in which orange trees were planted — the tree height was lowered by the beds being sunken so that the oranges could be picked with ease by the Palace ladies so that they had no need to stretch up to pick them, a reminder of the life of ease and of the protection which was provided by their Castle.
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Off the Beach, Jon Lewes 2022, @Thinker_Jon
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