Talk:Granada War

Inaccurate paragraph removed

The following was removed. I have broken it down and interspersed my own comments. This is why reliance should not be placed on books for a general audience. They are usually simplistic and out of date.

The Granada War took place on the cusp of the introduction of gunpowder, an invention which would greatly change the style in which wars were fought.

Gunpowder was introduced to Europe over two hundred years earlier. Cannonry was first recorded in European warfare in the Four Lords' War in 1324. 1482–92 is hardly the "cusp". That said, it is true that gunpowder greatly changed the face of warfare.

It still maintained many features of medieval warfare, such as mounted knights with codes of chivalry, but the open-field battles upon which knights shined were rarer. Instead, the war saw a greater focus on sieges backed by cannons.

While "mounted knights with codes of chivalry" were an important feature of medieval warfare, the implicatioin that open-field battles were also is false. Sieges were far more important in the Middle Ages than open-field encounters. Further, knights were often slaughtered in the open field, though sometimes they "shone". The only real difference was the replacement of traditional siege weapons by cannons.

The armies fielded included more professional soldiers rather than the peasant levies of earlier warfare; various international troops fought in it as well, including a group of English archers who aided the Spanish.

Professional soldiers were commonplace throughout much of Europe for centuries before the 1480s. Even the concepts of money fiefs and retinues blur the distinction: they were as paid as modern armies. Further, international warfare was also commonplace in medieval Europe and a good fighting man could find employ just about anywhere. Srnec (talk) 04:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This is my fault... sort of. I was translating the article from Spanish, and it's an FA over on their wiki; perhaps I trusted it more than I should have (although as is obvious I didn't get anywhere near close to finished; only the first part), or maybe just missed some of the more subtle implications (I'm not a native Spanish speaker). As an amateur history buff, yes, I knew that gunpowder was in Europe earlier, but I have no personal clue as to when exactly it was popularized in Spain. It specifically notes in the Spanish article that this was a first "modern army" type deal with mercenaries from all across Europe, and it also strongly emphasizes the role of artillery. It also plays down the role of knights. I'll agree that the phrasing was bad - while knights were better on open-field battles, they still lost a lot as you point out. As for mercenaries... hmm, maybe I'll need to look at the Spanish article again. Yes, mercenaries were in Europe for a long time (especially during the Crusades), but the Spanish article seems to strongly imply that there was something new about the ones in this war. For example:

Fue experimentada en estas Guerras de Granada una nueva formación militar mixta de artillería e infantería dotada de armamento combinado (picas, espingardas, más tarde arcabuces...), con utilización menor de la caballería que en las guerras medievales, y con soldados mercenarios sometidos a una disciplina diferente a la del código de honor del vasallaje feudal

(roughly) "In the wars of Granada a new military formation was experimented with that mixed artillery and infantry with combined arms (pikes, falconet cannons {I think? Got that from es:Espingarda}, later arquebuses), with less utilization of knights than in medieval wars, and with foreign mercenary soldiers with discipline different than the the code of honor of the feudal vassals."

There's another passage (right towards the top of the article) which talks about the war being a notable intermediate step forward from medieval warfare to modern wars, and flags sieges with cannons, the smaller importantance of knighthood, and the hetrogenous army which included mercenaries as examples of modernity. Maybe it should just be rephrased more as a reminder that foreign mercenaries were important? If there's some subtlety about what exactly was different about these mercenaries, I'm missing it, and I certainly don't mean to imply that these mercenaries were a totally new idea.

I haven't read any books on the war itself (though I have read a fair amount on medieval Spain in general), so I'm very much flying blind here. You have any better ideas for how to phrase this? SnowFire (talk) 19:39, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I will look into this if I have the time. Srnec (talk) 06:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Translation

Adding the translation tag to incorporate and translate all the info from the Spanish Wikipedia, which is much more extensive. Your help is welcome. --Polylerus (talk) 23:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, when I saw that this was a Spanish FA and non-existent here, I started translating it. Managed to get through a bit of it, but got distracted and ended up with just a stubby overview (which I feel is still better than nothing). I might give it another go, but I suspect I'd want to read some more literature on it first since I apparently stepped on some land mines with one section (see discussion above with Srnec). Though... I'm not sure I see the point of the template you added to the top of the page, though? Isn't that kind of thing normally reserved for talk pages? Good to see that others are interested in the article anyway. SnowFire (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You should definitely continue translating. There are empty sections in this article, which would benefit from some translation. Someone the Person (talk) 18:54, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Lede section

User:Iñaki LL, re this edit: I'm not particularly disputing you on the facts here. There's lots of very interesting things to be said about the position of Muslims & conversos in Spain after the Granada War, and Wikipedia coverage of it should definitely be increased, but I don't think your phrasing works for this Granada War article itself. The phrasing is very awkward - autochthonous is not a word frequently used in English, and "increased aggression" is vague and potentially misleading. (Since this is an article on a war, it makes it sound like the war continued, rather than stifiling decrees / laws / tensions.) I'm not sure why you're removing the link to the converso article either. Finally, while the "authorities" were indeed a problem, the Christian "settlers" were an equal problem to Granada, and lots of tensions I refer to are due to things like local Andalusian Christian nobility who had moved in getting in a dispute with a morisco rival, and sometimes playing the "they're not a loyal Castilian" card. The book "Muslims in Spain, 1500-1614" goes into this in more detail, and I've been meaning to add some info from it into articles like morisco... but all this would happen later, and space is limited in the lede, so I certainly think my phrasing gets the point across and doesn't undersell the problems Spain's Muslims would face. If anything, I think your phrasing is the one that underplays their problems, as it makes it sound like the only problem was the government which wasn't entirely true. (Indeed, the royal government pursued a contradictory policy in Granada, and sometimes stepped in *in favor* of the Moriscos in disputes. Not that this would last...)

Any thoughts on a compromise lede? SnowFire (talk) 00:06, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi there, sorry let me say I'm lost. I don´t know what link I have removed, what I did was add one that was more relevant to the topic, a very relevant one, since they faced expulsion. Admittedly, autochthonous may refer to other fields, we may use 'native' if you prefer. If you think your reference gives accurate relevant info or shed light, add it. There is little doubt for whomever has studied a bit the period (XV-XVIth century) that it is a consistent policy of cultural and ideological assimilation and ultimately population replacement. Of course the newcomers were colonists, and they brought their demands along. That Ferdinand played ambiguous..., it is well known the devious and dishonest approach of him, namely sign compromises that were broken as soon as he had achieved his purposes. As far as I see it my wording is more accurate, sorry but a clash between "old christians" and "new christians"..., the point is being omitted, the implementation of a well designed, consistent policy. You make a proposal, I may agree (or not). Iñaki LL (talk) 20:36, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I would have preferred that you added it here since the discussion in not over. It's quite long for a lead paragraph, it sounds ethereal though. (Who implemented this policy?) Tensions were brought about basically by decisions of the authorities, be it Inquisition, governor, Ferdinand of Aragon, that affected Granadans (especially of Jewish and Muslim religion) on specific matters of their lives. This sounds like a civil war, which is a major handicap in the approach: it is basically about an occupied territory and the decisions implemented there by the new authorities, including confiscations and bringing new colonists along. In fact, "the new" were the newcomers from Castile, Aragon and other places, not the ones who had inhabited in the place for generations, centuries, or ever. I think this point is central to the understanding of the topic, but it's being omitted. Can you integrate it? Thanks Iñaki LL (talk) 08:48, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I somewhat reduced length, and added accuracy. I won't dwell on more details here, I don´t think there was any "convivencia" at this point in Iberia, only outbursts of persecution and contained discrimination against different rites and religions, especially after accession to the throne of Ferdinand. Reciprocal? Not at all. I will add my summary here:

"The aftermath of the war saw an end to tolerance to religions other than Catholic on the Iberian peninsula. The Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or be exiled in 1492. In 1501, all of Granada's Muslims were obliged to either convert to Christianity, become slaves, or be exiled; by 1526 this prohibition spread to the rest of Spain. "New Christians" (conversos) came to be accused of crypto-Islam and crypto-Judaism, often accurately. Spain would go on to model its national aspirations as the 'guardian of Christianity and Catholicism'." Iñaki LL (talk) 09:54, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Your version sounds good to me. The only change I made is that I think the fact that Catholicism was the preferred religion is obvious from the next sentences ("obliged to convert to Christianity" and all), so I left in the bit about convivencia instead of "end to tolerance to religions other than Catholic." Yes, the idea of Spain as a golden land of religious tolerance from 1100-1480 is totally wrong, *but* the situation then was clearly more measured and less extreme, and the end of it is a very notable result of the Granada War, and it gets across the same point that Christianity was now the official religion. Harvey seems to back this up, I can drop some quotes here if you're interested. Regardless, it's interesting, and I agree that, say, the Morisco article should be expanded even further with details on the treatment of Granada's Muslim population. SnowFire (talk) 21:50, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I may do it another time, I can´t get stuck here for ever. There is still a diffusion of responsibility, an aggression of Ferdinand and Castile's militaristic drive and their economic urges (and personal glory?). Macchiavelo was adamant. Anyway. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:12, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Battle of the Axarquia

The battle of the Axarquia -so-called- was not a victory but was in fact the disastrous military incursion in which a large Christian raiding force suffered catastrophic defeat 'near Malaga,' as mentioned in the previous sentence in this article. In the same year, Boabdil was captured near Lucena, fifty miles to the north, in the modern province of Cordoba. Changing test accordingly. JF42 (talk) 12:04, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

"so-called Reconquista"

"so-called Reconquista" usually implies the name is inaccurate? Seems not needed here."

It is fair to say that the term 'reconquista' is disputed, being regarded by some as a term that derived from a distorted interpretion of Peninsula history which saw La Reconquista as "a continuous phenomenon, dating from the legendary battle of Covadonga (Asturia) in 722, by which "the Christian Iberian kingdoms opposed and conquered the Muslim kingdoms understood as a common enemy." (Wikipedia 'Reconquista' )

As the Wikipedia Reconquista article goes on to point out: 'Many recent historians dispute the whole concept of Reconquista (as well as that of a prior conquista by the Moors) as a concept created a posteriori in the service of later political goals. It has been called a "myth".[6][7][8][9][10][11] The idea of a "reconquest" that lasts for eight centuries was called into question by José Ortega y Gasset, one of the early Spanish intellectuals to do so.[12]

So, although the reference in the excised phrase is perhaps a little too condensed, the point is worth including. Are we allowed to cite Wikipedia articles in footnotes?

JF42 (talk) 10:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

In general, no, you can't cite other Wikipedia articles - but you CAN cite the same source as the other Wikipedia article.

Anyway, I disagree. Even if the term is disputed, it's still the term; and if it's *not* still the term, let's use the new terminology instead. Let me paste what I said on my talk page to User:Deisenbe on this topic:

Hello. First off, you don't have to ask me permission for anything! ... that said, I think I still disagree. Okay, I only briefly skimmed some of your links, but this still seems to be early days. Wikipedia cares about the scholarly consensus for facts, but often times uses the popular terminology, i.e. whatever's filtered down to casual history books & magazine usage and the like. As far as I know, it's still called the Reconquista in English. And some of the points in that Reconquista section aren't actually relevant to whether the term is useful - for example]

"Some modern historians dispute the whole concept of Reconquista (as well as that of a prior conquista by the Moors) as a concept created a posteriori in the service of later political goals."

Well... so what? Good information to bring up, but there are *lots* of post-facto terms out there, from the Dark Ages to World War I. Now, "Dark Ages" has actually fallen out of favor with historians as well as in general use, so that term isn't usually used elsewhere, but not because it was a term created "a posteriori", but merely because, well, it's fallen out of favor. "Middle Ages" is equally anachronistic and potentially misleading, and it still gets used all the time. Same with terms slanted by politics / political goals - if they're in common usage anyway, they still can be used. Names are just names, there's no guarantee they're accurate/correct/incorrect/etc. (The Hundred Years War did not last 100 years, the Reconquista was not really one unified campaign, etc.)

Anyway, it's possible you can convince me that "Reconquista" is no longer used seriously in English, or is a term under a cloud, but in that case, I'd much rather replace it with whatever successor term is used. Adding in "so-called" just serves to make the reader wonder 'what?' and distract them with a side issue. SnowFire (talk) 17:53, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

The idea of Reconquista, a central point, is explained on the article, so definitely it is not so much about the phrase "so-called" before Reconquista but the use of the latter within the paragraph as a means for the explanation of events. Especially on the WP where so many opposing views meet, it is to be avoided (like a table with no legs, stick to detail as much as possible!). Sentences such as the end of the Granada war "completed the Reconquista" point to a defined relentless movement, a predestined messianic fulfillment as something real (slanted term, no doubt!). You would not say the end of the Granada war "completed the Middle Ages.", although the latter stands for a term widely used with historic classification purposes (pretty neutral, can hardly be objected).

In fact, the Castilian-Aragonese monarchs continued their expansion campaign over to northern African territories after the fall of Granada, so nothing was completed in Granada but the conquest of Granada itself, the last Muslim ruled kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, and the total suppression of the Andalusi civilization in the peninsula. Reconquista goes hand by hand with Crusades really, it is a three leg concept: the Reconquista as a claim contemporary to the events followed by political decisions (made by the Pope first, and confirmed by European Christian kings and lords alike) aiming at military campaigns starting at the Siege of Barbastro; the Reconquista as a conspicuous idea (based on exclusion and the alienation of the Other) behind the construction of Spanish identity as of the 16th century; and its use in the nationalist Spanish education system and academia (19-20th century, at least until the 80s), sadly accepted during that period by other European scholars. No wonder, in fact they were steeped in similar nationalist and imperialist ideologies. Iñaki LL (talk) 11:43, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

So... what would you recommend instead? I'm not averse to changing the phrasing, but "so-called" with no explanation is hugely distracting. And the fact that the Reconquista had unpleasant political overtones in Spain for a long time makes it more important to mention, I'd think, so as not to cover up that in the classical school of historiography, this was seen as a central act to Spanish identity, even if it was back-formulated. Again, it's not about whether it was good or bad, or whether the term was accurate, it's about what people actually use to describe the history. "The Granada War concluded the period referred to as the Reconquista" or the like? A bit stilted but perhaps less triumphalist than "completed"... SnowFire (talk) 16:53, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, fair enough, I do agree on the uncertainty of "so-called", especially on an encyclopedic context. I won't reproduce historiography cliches, and the word Reconquista represents much more than a periodization for classification purposes. It does have strong ideological (exclusion) implications, fortunately is being phased out gradually, and what remains of it should be redefined. The Battle of Clavijo, a central Spanish national myth, may have been said a thousands of times during history (there are even local traditional festivals reenacting it in Spain), but that does not detract from the most important point, the fact that it was an invented story for specific political purposes at a later time, no matter how many times the academia has reproduced the old story, the academia is not a totem, it needs updating, clearly, and there is literature and research enough carried out to support that. The same goes for Reconquista, it belongs to the account of the narration of the facts, and not to the facts in themselves. It needs defining what the actual facts were, trace the story back to its foundational context and its purposes, how and why it has been reproduced during history, and the imprint left by it in traditions and social psyche, materials used for education, use of the concept for particular politics purposes, etc.

Now going back straight to the point. Accuracy is the overriding parameter to bear in mind, but that belongs to the article Reconquista. As for the sentence, I would just avoid Reconquista with a link to it under a phrase, such as "The end of the Granada War completed the expansion of the northern Christian kingdoms over al-Andalus (/ Muslim ruled territory in the Iberian Peninsula). Iñaki LL (talk) 22:41, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I took a shot at editing the lede; take a look. I'm somewhat skeptical myself of the Battle of Clavijo comparison; that's a case where there's clearly "the facts" and "the legend". "Reconquista" is just a name, and names can't really be wrong, even if they might be politicized. (e.g. "Julian the Apostate" is a hugely prejudicial name, but hey, that's what he was called, so it deserves to be mentioned.) Anyway, does adding "in traditional Spanish historiography" work as a "disclaimer" that the Reconquista term is only that, and not a claim that Spain was stolen by Muslims and there was divine approval to take it back etc.? SnowFire (talk) 23:49, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

The Battle of Clavijo has not a leg to stand on, it belongs to historic narrative, its leg is the political circumstances of the early 12th century that pushed a Gallician official to put together the story and make it "history". The Reconquista does have a leg to stand on, a series of political and military campaigns started in Barbastro (mid 11th century) backed up by the papacy, but its narrative is much stronger in historiography that the actual events (as well as being inaccurate...). Iñaki LL (talk) 07:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, I thought the point worth airing, in light of the commentary in the 'Reconquista page, and I have found this discussion very interesting. Thank you.JF42 (talk) 21:58, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Clodfelter source

Why should Clodfelter, who has no academic specialization in this field or time period(s) be used as a source?? --Kansas Bear (talk) 15:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Highly confusing wording

"Granada in its current form had not been Christian before the Reconquista;[3] however the corresponding region was held by the Christian Visigothic Kingdom prior to the 8th century Umayyad conquest of Hispania."

So you're saying there were Christians there but just not in a state called Granada? That seems like really splitting hairs, especially as the Emirate of Granada was not one continuous state throughout all the Muslim rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:BF9A:BD00:3CDB:AE1F:FE41:EF71 (talk) 05:11, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I read the source and it was hard what to look for as the quote supporting it wasn't specified. However, nothing in the text supported the assumptions made. A part said that Muslim sources of the time considered it a conquest. Nothing about the general view is of conquest, or of there being no Christian rule in the region before - which is patently false — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:BF9A:BD00:3CDB:AE1F:FE41:EF71 (talk) 05:23, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Convivencia

@Crucs and Iñaki LL: There's a lot of ways to phrase this, but I think that the shift to proto-Spain being a full-on Christian nation as a core part of its identity where Muslims & Jews were by definition traitors is important. Crucs, I don't think the point you're trying to make is contested or relevant? Exactly whether the Emirate of Granada was tolerant of Christians isn't important here. That sentence in the lede is talking about through all of Castile itself. Now, to be clear, the whole idea of "convivencia" is a bit of a lie to begin with - in the 1100s and 1200s, people fought each other all the time over petty, stupid, religious shit. But what is true is that Muslim and Christian polities existed side by side and made makeshift alliances and trade and the like. As the article discusses, Boabdil works in alliance with proto-Spain for a long time during this war and is promised being allowed to be a Duke of his territory. Something like this is totally inconceivable in the Spain of the 1500s - a Muslim Duke in official alliance with the royalty?

If you have better ideas on how to phrase this Crucs, we're open to opinions, but that sentence was never attempting to say anything about the fallen Emirate of Granada. (And to be clear, regardless of the number of Christians within old Granada, the old Emirate absolutely DID work and ally with Christians politically when convenient during the 1300s and the like.) SnowFire (talk) 02:13, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

There is an attitude problem first of all, for which I left a notice in the edit warring editor's page. On content, there seems to be a terminology issue, a matter of nuance. I would not use the Spanish term, because it does not bring a clear image of the circumstances on-site. Rather coexistence would be a right term. As far as my English goes, "pacific coexistence" was talked during the Cold War; that would not mean they were 'friends', so to say. Talk on the Christians (Mozarabs) of Granada seems to be out of place since all that we can say is they were not apparently existing in Granada, or there is little info on them.

Evidently, the sectarian views implemented by Ferdinand II of Aragon brings exclusion to a whole new level, as commented by his contemporary Niccolo Macchiaveli, we can call it today a genocide. While these measures started earlier, with the establishment of the special tribunal of Inquisition, directly linked to the Crown of Castile, the conquest of Granada set a milestone in that irrespective of the initial agreement with the Granadan authorities, it was de facto followed by a whole range of measures against the different, especially the Muslims and the Jews, in all the territories under the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. Iñaki LL (talk) 11:40, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

When the Catholic Monarchs (ie: Ferdinand and Isabel) finally after years of war against the Moors finally seized and entered Granada, there were no native Christians living in the region or the city. Yet, here we have this erroneous notion of "convivencia." This idea that under a benevolent Islamic rule, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in harmony side by side. There were no Christains living in Granada under Islamic rule. How then did the Catholic Monarchs end this so called "convivencia" if no Christians were living in Granada at the time? This claim being made by @Iñaki does not hold up to the historical facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crucs (talk • contribs) 23:02, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

I can provide multiples sources of reputable and scholarly information to highlight how there were no natives Christians living in Granada. One of these sources I provided was evidently erased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crucs (talk • contribs) 23:07, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

@Crucs: Did you read what I wrote above, at all? Apparently not. What you are talking about was not what the article was saying. Nor what Iñaki was saying, nor what I am saying. SnowFire (talk) 02:41, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Co-existence? The entire peninsula was thrust into perpetual warfare for centuries. Co-existence is not the proper term. They did not live in harmony side by side. This is factually untrue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crucs (talk • contribs) 23:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so do you think anything changed in Spain after the end of the Granada War? The Muslims and Jews were about to be ordered to either convert or be exiled, while they suffered "only" scattered persecution before. Later on, Spain would fancy itself a defender of Christianity and Catholicism against Muslim and Protestant alike, and even exile the converts. (Again, nothing to do with the status of Christians in Granada.) How would you express this? Because there are sources that tie this in to Granada's defeat. What text would work for you to express this particular thought to potentially include in the lede of the article? SnowFire (talk) 23:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The summary in the lead is too simplistic. Obviously, the war marked the end of 700 years of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula and should be highlighted. However, the persecution and expulsion of the Jews was a long time in coming and only tangentially related to Granada; it is very misleading to tie it directly to the defeat of Granada. Calling it the end of religious coexistence (or whatever) is also a misstatement; the expulsion of the Muslims was not a necessary outcome of the the war. As noted in almost every text, the peace treaty was very generous and tolerant of the Islamic population; it was only with the arrival of Cisneros in 1500 and his subsequent mistreatment of the Muslims that the situation deteriorated and Muslims were gradually forced out of Spain over the course of the next 25 years. Glendoremus (talk) 04:42, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Please use WP:INDENT on the conversation threads. That the occupation of Granada puts an end to Muslim rulers in the Peninsula and Al-Andalus is something relevant, so I am fine with that. It holds true that the end of Granada did not start the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews, since the new wave of sectarianism with the establishment of the Inquisition directly answerable to the monarchs of Castile started somewhat earlier, 147?-148? First of all, with the expulsion of the Jews from Aragon, many of whom fled to Navarre, e.g. the parents of Miguel Servet/De Villanueva. However, widespread exclusion measures took effect just a few years after the conquest of Granada.

The treaties by Ferdinand II, called also the Liar ("el Falsario"), were worth next to nothing, as they only lasted until they achieved the effect intended, e.g. the English on the invasion of Navarre (1512) had to abandon their positions in Gipuzkoa to invade Guyenne for the totally unpredictable behaviour of the Aragonese monarch. I think it is more reliable and accurate to stick to circumstances/facts on the ground. Iñaki LL (talk) 18:43, 20 February 2020 (UTC)