The Mercenary Mediterranean_ Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon - Hussein Fancy

90 chapter four

use these soldiers against other Christians.^103 In practice, this trust was well

placed. Christian militias played a prominent role in the defense of the Al-

mohads against the advancing Marīnid armies.^104 In one striking example of

loyalty, after the conquest of Fez in 1248 , two Christian captains, who were

called Zunnār and Shadīd, conspired with the inhabitants of Fez to expel

the Marīnids.^105

Despite the fact that the Almohads had depended upon Christian

soldiers in their wars against them, the new North African kingdoms —

the Ḥafṣids at Tunis, the ‘Abd al- Wādids at Tlemcen, and the Marīnids

at Fez — systematically recruited these very same men to serve in their

armies and in their courts.^106 In a telling instance, after their victory

over the Almohads, the ‘Abd al- Wādids incorporated their rival’s Chris-

tian guard, mainly men of Castilian origin, into their armies and royal

entourage:

After the death of al- Sa‘īd [Abū’l- Ḥasan ‘Alī al- Sa‘īd (r. 1242 – 48 )] and the de-

feat of the Almohad army, Yaghmurāsan employed some of the corps of Chris-

tian troops that were in al- Sa‘īd’s army (qad istakhdama ṭā’ifa min jund al- naṣārā

alladhīna fī jumlatihi), grateful to add to their number to his army and as well as

display them in his military processions (al- mawāqif wa’l- mashāhid).^107

But these troops remained loyal to the Almohads and eventually re-

belled, leading the ‘Abd al- Wādids to expel them. In the wake of this re-

bellion, however, rather than ending the practice of using foreign militias,

the sultan in Tlemcen simply sought replacements from the lands of the

Crown of Aragon.^108 The value of these Christian soldiers thus outweighed

the threat of subversion.

In general, the use of Christian soldiers by these three kingdoms fol-

lowed the pattern established in earlier periods. Independent warlords

and political exiles — for example, the sons of the Castilian king Fer-

dinand III (r. 1217 – 1252 ) and the nobleman Alonso Perez de Guzmán

( 1256 – 1309 ), also known as Guzmán el Bueno — traveled to North Af-

rica.^109 Like their predecessors, these kingdoms also recruited soldiers di-

rectly from the kings of the Crown of Aragon and Castile. Moreover, these

sultans continued to employ royal guards, composed of slaves or former

slaves.^110 And most significantly, they never employed Christian militias

against Christians on the Iberian Peninsula. As Ibn Khaldūn underscored

in his discussion of these militias in the fourteenth century, “The rulers in

the Maghrib do this [use Christians] only in wars against Arab and Berber