The Conquest of Muslim Tavira by the Portuguese

a critical reconstruction

Abstract

This article provides a critical reconstruction of the events surrounding the Christian conquest of Tavira. According to the earliest narrative source (the Crónica de Portugal de 1419), the capture of Tavira was the unintended result of the massacre of six friar-knights and a devout merchant (the “Seven Martyrs of Tavira”) at the hands of the Moorish populace on 9^th of July 1242. Drawing off both new and well-known materials, the author concludes that the source conflated two distinct events: the capture of Tavira by a Portuguese a military campaign on the 11^th of June 1239 after and an engagement between the Castilian friar-knights and the Christian population of Tavira, some ten years later. These conclusions and critical dates have major implications in three different areas: source criticism, the sequencing of the military events and the identity and memory of the society born out of the Reconquista.