De Re Militari | Book Reviews

Martin Alvira Cabrer

12 de Septiembre de 1213. El Jueves de Muret

Universitat de Barcelona, 2002

600 pp. (study) +19 pp.(chronology) + 13 pp. (graphics) + 78 pp. (sources and bibliography)

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Starting points

1. Although this book deals with a battle - Muret - that was the climax of the first Albigensian crusade, this is not a book on that crusade.
2. The author states that his aim was to write a book according to the model and method established by Georges Duby�s 27 Julliet 1214. Le dimanche de Bouvines (Paris, Gallimard, 1973;  220 pp). That is to say the study of �decisive battles�[1] not only from a tactic-strategic point of view, but also, above all, from the fields of the sociology, ideology and mentalities.  The battles as something which go beyond its material impact and that have a sacred, liturgical and symbolical meaning. Duby used his book to represent a whole view of the medieval world within the battle took place as well as to show how that battle was perceived by their contemporaries.
3. In fact, this book is the second part of the author�s PhD thesis (2000), titled: "Guerra e ideolog�a en la Espa�a Medieval: cultura y actitudes hist�ricas ante el giro de principios del s. XIII. Batallas de las Navas de Tolosa (1212) y Muret (1213) [War and ideology in Medieval Spain: culture and historical behaviour in the early 13^th century turning point. Battles of ...]. The first part of that PhD thesis �battle of Las Navas- is to be published.
4. The book is focused both on the battle itself and on its two main characters: the Aragonese King Pedro III and the crusader leader Simon of Monfort.

Contents and structure

The author has decided to maintain the structure of his PhD thesis in this book. So, the book is divided in three big parts.

• �Proleg�menos� (pp. 49-142) is an introduction to the geographical, political, historical and historiographical context of Occitan and the involvement of the Aragonese crown in the area (1140-1212). The author talks about the concept of a real �Aragones-Occitan world�, where the Crown of Arag�n and the people of Languedoc shared common interest and cultural environment. An �Aragonese-Occitan world� opposed to a Frankish-papal alliance.
• �EL camino de la batalla� (pp. 143-225) deals with the year 1212-1213 just before the battle. Here we have a study of the two main characters and why the battle was regarded as something useful, sacred and needed by both sides: the aragonese-occitan people and the crusaders army. The conception of battle as ordeal and God�s judgment.
• The titles of the different chapters within the third part (battle and aftermath, 227-592) tell us its content. In a first group we find: �Set�, �propitiatory ritual�, �harangue�, �army and combat orders�, �battle and death�, �victory and defeat in battle�. In a second group �battle and historical memory�, we find a study on the sociological impact of the battle on its contemporaries and specially how the outcome of the battle marked the way of its two main characters, the defeated Pedro and successful Simon, were regarded in that time and in the future. In a third group we can find a sum up of the political aftermath of the battle for that Occitan-Aragonese world: its destruction.

Good and bad things

1. No doubt, this is the best book written in Spanish about the battle of Muret and the Albigensian context, both from a military, ideological, sociological and political point of view. The last part of the book (pp. 200-520) is the one that all people interested in the battle, its two main characters, and the aragonese involvement and should not miss.
2. The bibliography used is really impressive. The author is likely to have read almost all the bibliography written in any romance languages on this subject as well as a great amount of the most important books in English. On the other hand there are books on the cited bibliography that seem to have nothing to do with the subject of the book. Probably this is has something to do with the fact that the author has maintained his Ph.D. list.
3. One of the points of Duby�s book is that he had managed to condensed in a short book on the battle of Bouvines a whole vision of the medieval world. Obviously, the 700 Alvira pages are not like the same. However, we should focus on his last part (p. 200-520) to find a really good study on the battle.
4. Although the book deals with the Albigensian crusade, of course, this is not a study on the crusade. So, we can not expect a study on the crusading machinery and diplomacy, but some points are missed (i.e. nothing is said about the 1214 bull �Quia major�)
5. The author defends the idea that Muret represented the end of a traditional conception of royalty (p. 368). I think this is not the case. We have examples of warrior-Kings till the beginning of the 16^th century, and some of them continued performing an active military role in battles also regarded as decisive and which also had a symbolical and sacred meaning.
6. The book has 15 maps and plans. However most of them are useless. The author originals were in colour while the printed examples are in grey, and therefore are almost impossible to read.

Jos� Manuel Rodr�guez Garc�a

1. I consider Mr. Rodríguez García's insistence that my book is not a book about the Albigensian crusade quite unnecessary. It was never supposed to be so. The title is quite explicit and from the beginning it is clearly stated that the book deals with the battle of Muret. There is no detailed analysis of the Albigensian crusade because the work is not a study of the Crusade. The book does provide a general vision of the Occitan politics of the Crown of Aragon and, of course, this includes aspects relating to the Crusade.
2. The king in question is not Peter III but rather Peter the Catholic, the second king of Aragon and first count of Barcelona of that name.
3. Mr Rodríguez García speaks of an Aragon-Occitan world. This expression never appears in the book. I speak of an Hispano-Occitan world, insisting on this expression since the idea is that the historical and cultural ties that united the two sides of the Pyrenees during the early and central Middle Ages affected not only Catalonia and Aragon but also other Peninsular kingdoms. Anglo-Saxon and French scholarship traditionally speaks of Aragon and the Aragonese (Aragonese king, Aragonese kingdom) to identify the Crown of Aragon as a whole. One might infer that just as there is a king of France who has French vassals, so the vassals of the king of Aragon are necessarily Aragonese. Conversely, there is also another tendency in Anglo-Saxon and French historiography to use terminology taken from Catalan historiography, often of Catalanist sympathies, in which Aragon and the Aragonese are rarely present, but rather Catalonia and the Catalans (count-king, Catalan king, king of Catalonia) are used to represent the whole crown. The problem is that there has never been a time when an Aragonese has been the same thing as a Catalan or a Catalan an Aragonese! With the intention of breaking this terminological impasse that leaves all dissatisfied and irritated (especially the Catalans and Aragonese) and that enormously confuses all outside Spain, I have wished to be scrupulous, using as a norm the formula “Catalano-Aragonese” that, without being perfect, I believe is that which comes nearest to representing accurately the Arago-Catalan / Catalano-Aragonese reality of the crown of Aragon. I believe, with all that, that Mr Rodríguez García has rather distorted the idea which I wished to demonstrate.
4. On the bull Quia Maior, it is the case that it is not cited expressly in the text, though there is clear reference to it and to the crusade to Outremer promoted by Innocent III in Spring 1213 on p. 199.
5. Mr Rodríguez García says: “The author defends the idea that Muret represented the end of a traditional conception of royalty (p. 368). I think this is not the case. We have examples of warrior-Kings till the beginning of the 16th century, and some of them continued performing an active military role in battles also regarded as decisive and which also had a symbolical and sacred meaning.” It is certainly the case that I follow the fine study of Ruiz Doménec upon the death of Peter the Catholic, as well as adding reflections of my own. Yet only with the intention of illustrating that episode and without proposing a theory upon the conception of medieval royalty. Having said that, who could speak of the end of the warrior-king at the beginning of the century of Ferdinand III of Castile and James I of Aragon? Ruiz Doménec attempts to explain how a king could be killed at the beginning of the thirteenth century without scruples and with justifications. That is not talking about a change in the functions of kingship (in no case, does the king cease to be expected to be a warrior) but rather trying to understand how it was that vassals were able to support the murder of a member of a superior hierarchy who, according to his own and the ancient conception of monarchic power, was considered inviolable (“The destruction of the magic halo of the king at the hands of the vassals of God”). For Ruiz Doménec, this is because the ideology of the crusade placed God far above all concerning the sacral and magic in the king and all men were equally valid victims when it came to death performed in the name of God. All, including kings, remained within the range of the violence derived from the total war of the crusade (“the king remains reduced to his simple human condition, submitted like any other mortal to the empire of death”). Royalty abandons its ancient sacral condition and is submitted to the power of the God of the crusades: “The feudal vassals now praise the king of heaven”. But Ruiz Doménec does not speak at all of a change in the warrior condition of the king. Nothing in his article nor in his work generally, nor, come to that, in my interpretation, alludes to the warrior or military function of medieval royalty.