title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The origin and foundation of the Kingdom of Pamplona is intrinsically related to the southern expansion of the Frankish kingdom under the Merovingians and their successors, the Carolingians. About 601, the Duchy of Vasconia () was established by the Merovingians, based around Roman Novempopulania and extending from the southern branch of the river Garonne to the northern side of the Pyrenees. The first documented Duke of Vasconia was Genial, who would hold that position until 627.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The Duchy of Vasconia then became a frontier territory with varying levels of autonomy granted by the Merovingian monarchs. The suppression of the Duchy of Vasconia as well as the Duchy of Aquitaine by the Carolingians would lead to a rebellion, led by Lupo II of Gascony. Pepin the Short launched a punitive War in Aquitaine (760–768) that put down the uprising and resulted in the division of the Duchy into several counties, ruled from Toulouse. Similarly, across the eastern Pyrenees the Marca Hispánica was established next to the Marca Gothica, a Frankish attempt at creating buffer states between the Carolingian empire and the Emirate of Córdoba.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The Franks under Charlemagne extended their influence and control southward, occupying several regions of the north and east of the Iberian Peninsula. It is unclear how solidly the Franks exercised control over Pamplona. In 778, Charlemagne was invited by rebellious Muslim lords on the Upper March of Al-Andalus to lead an expedition south with the intention of taking the city of Zaragoza from the Emirate of Córdoba. However, the expedition was a failure, and the Frankish army was forced to withdraw. During their retreat, they destroyed the city walls of Pamplona to weaken the city and avoid a possible rebellion, reminiscent of the approach the Carolingians had used elsewhere against Christian cities that seemed content to live under Córdoban control.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: However, while moving through the Pyrenees on 15 August 778, the rearguard of the Frankish army, led by Roland was attacked by the Basque tribes in a confrontation that came to be known as the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. Roland was killed and the rearguard scattered. As a response to the attempted Frankish seizure of Zaragoza, the Córdoban emir retook the city of Pamplona and its surrounding lands. In 781 two local Basque lords, "Ibn Balask" ("son of Velasco"), and "Mothmin al-Akra" ("Jimeno "the Strong"") were defeated and forced to submit. The next mention of Pamplona is in 799, when Mutarrif ibn Musa, thought to have been a governor of the city and a member of the muwallad Banu Qasi family, was killed there by a pro-Frankish faction.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: During this period, Basque territory extended on the west to somewhere around the headwaters of the Ebro river. Equally Einhart's "Vita Karoli Magni" pinpoints the source of the Ebro in the land of the Navarrese. However, this western region fell under the influence of the Kingdom of Asturias.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The Franks renewed their attempts to control the region and in 806 took Navarre under their protection. Following a truce between the Frankish kingdom and Córdoba, in 812 Louis the Pious went to Pamplona, likely to establish there a county that would prove short-lived. However, continued rebellion in Gascony rendered Frankish control south of the Pyrenees tenuous, and the Emirate was able to reclaim the region following victory in the 816 Battle of Pancorbo, in which they defeated and killed the "enemy of Allah", "Balask al-Yalaski" (Velasco the Gascon), along with the uncle of Alfonso II of Asturias, Garcia ibn Lubb ('son of Lupus'), Sancho, the 'premier knight of Pamplona', and the pagan warrior "Ṣaltān". North of the Pyrenees in the same year, Louis the Pious removed Seguin as Duke of Vasconia, which initiated a rebellion,


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: led by Garcia Jiménez, who was killed in 818. Louis's son Pepin, then King of Aquitaine, stamped out the Vasconic revolt in Gascony then hunted the chieftains who had taken refuge in southern Vasconia, i.e., Pamplona and Navarre, no longer controlled by the Franks. He sent an army led by the counts Aeblus and Aznar Sanchez (the latter being appointed lord, but not duke, of Vasconia by Pepin after suppressing the uprising in the Duchy), accomplishing their goals with no resistance in Pamplona (which still lacked walls after the 778 destruction). On the way back, however, they were ambushed and defeated in Roncevaux by a force probably composed both of Basques and the Córdoba-allied muwallad Banu Qasi.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Out of the pattern of competing Frankish and Córdoban interests, the Basque chieftain Íñigo Arista took power. Tradition tells he was elected as king of Pamplona in 824, giving rise to a dynasty of kings in Pamplona that would last for eighty years. However, the region around Pamplona continued to fall within the sphere of influence of Córdoba, presumably as part of its broader frontier region, the Upper March, ruled by Íñigo's half-brother, Musa ibn Musa al-Qasawi. The city was allowed to remain Christian and have its own administration but had to pay the traditional taxes to the Emirate, including the "jizya" assessed on non-Muslims living under their control. Íñigo Arista is mentioned in Arab records as "sâhib" (lord) or "amîr" of the Vascones ("bashkunish") and not as "malik" (king) or "tâgiya" (tyrant) used for the kings of Asturias and France, indicating the lower status of these "ulûj" (barbarians, not accepting Islam) within the Córdoba sphere. In 841, in concert with Musa ibn Musa, Íñigo rebelled. Although Musa was eventually forced to submit, Íñigo was still in rebellion at the time of his death in 851/2.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Pamplona and Navarre are distinguished in Carolingian chronicles. Pamplona is cited in 778 as a Navarrese stronghold, which may be due to their lack of information about the Basque territory. The chronicles did distinguish between Navarre and its main town in 806 (""In Hispania, vero Navarrensis et Pampelonensis""), while the "Chronicle of Fontenelle" refers to ""Induonis et Mitionis, ducum Navarrorum"" (Induo [Íñigo Arista] and Mitio [perhaps Jimeno], dukes of the Navarrese). However, Arab chroniclers make no such distinctions, and just refer to the "Baskunisi", a transliteration of "Vascones", since a big majority of the population was Basque. The primitive Navarre may have comprised the valleys of Goñi, Gesalaz, Lana, Allin, Deierri, Berrueza and Mañeru, which later formed the "merindad" of Estella.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The role of Pamplona as a focus coordinating both rebellion against and accommodation with Córdoba seen under Íñigo would continue under his son, García Íñiguez (851/2–882), who formed alliances with Asturias, Gascons, Aragonese and with families in Zaragoza opposed to Musa ibn Musa. This established a pattern of raids and counter-raids, capturing slaves and treasure, as well as full military campaigns that would restore full Córdoban control with renewed oaths of fidelity. His son Fortún Garcés (882-905) spent two decades in Córdoban captivity before succeeding in Pamplona as vassal of the Emirate. Neither of these kings would make significant territorial expansion. This period of a fractious, but in the end subservient, Navarre came to an end amidst a period when generalized rebellion within the Emirate prevented them from being able to suppress the inertial forces in the western Pyrenees. The ineffectual Fortún was forced to abdicate in favor of a new dynasty from the vehemently anti-Muslim east of Navarre, the founders of which took a less accommodationist view. With this change, al-Andalus sources shift to calling the Pamplona rulers 'tyrants', as with the independent kings of Asturias: Pamplona had passed out of the Córdoban sphere.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: After taking the political power from Fortún Garcés, Sancho Garcés (905–925), son of Dadilde, sister of Raymond I, Count of Pallars and Ribagorza, proclaimed himself king, terminating the alliance with the Emirate of Córdoba and expanding its domains through the course of the River Ega all the way south to the Ebro and taking the regions of Nájera and Calahorra, which caused the decline of the Banu Qasi family, who ruled these lands. As a response, Abd-ar-Rahman III undertook two expeditions to these lands, earning a victory at the Battle of Valdejunquera, after which the Emirate retook the lands south of the river Ebro, and by 924 attacked Pamplona. The daughter of Sancho Garcés, Sancha, was married to the King of Leon Ordoño II, establishing an alliance with the Leonese kingdom and ensuring the Calahorra region. The valleys of the river Aragón and river Gállego all the way down to Sobrarbe also ended up under control of Pamplona, and to the west the lands of the kingdom reached the counties of Álava and Castile, which were under control of the Kingdom of Asturias. The kingdom had at this time an extent of about 15,000 km. The Chronicle of Albelda (last updated in 976) outlines the extent in 905 of the Kingdom of Pamplona for the first time. It extended to Nájera and "Arba" (arguably Araba). Some historians believe that this suggests that it included the Western Basque Country as well:


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: After the death of Sancho Garcés, the crown passed to his brother, Jimeno Garcés (925–931), joined by Sancho's underage son, García Sánchez (931–970), in his last year. García continued to rule under the tutelage of his mother, Sancho's widow Toda Aznarez, who also engineered several political marriages with the other Christian kingdoms and counties of northern Iberia. Oneca was married to Alfonso IV of León and her sister Urraca to Ramiro II of León, while other daughters of Sancho were married to counts of Castile, Álava and Bigorre. The marriage of the Pamplonese king García Sánchez with Andregoto Galíndez, daughter of Galindo Aznárez II, Count of Aragon linked the eastern county to the Kingdom. In 934, he invited Abd-ar-Rahman III to intervene in the kingdom in order to emancipate himself from his mother, and this began a period of tributary status by Pamplona and frequent punitive campaigns from Córdoba.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: García Sánchez's heir, Sancho II (970–994), set up his half brother, Ramiro Garcés of Viguera, to rule in the short-lived Kingdom of Viguera. The "Historia General de Navarra" by Jaime del Burgo says that on the occasion of the donation of the villa of Alastue by the king of Pamplona to the monastery of San Juan de la Peña in 987, he styled himself "King of Navarre", the first time that title had been used. In many places he appears as the first King of Navarre and in others the third; however, he was at least the seventh king of Pamplona.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: During the late 10th century, Almanzor, the ruler of Al Andalus, frequently led raids against the Christian kingdoms, and attacked the Pamplonese lands on at least nine occasions. In 966, clashes between the Islamic factions and the Kingdom resulted in the loss of Calahorra and the valley of the river Cidacos. Sancho II, while allied with Castilian militias, suffered a grave defeat in the Battle of Torrevicente. Sancho II was forced to hand over one of his daughters and one of his sons as tokens of peace. After the death of Sancho II and during the reign of García Sánchez II, Pamplona was attacked by the Caliphate on several occasions, being completely destroyed in 999, the King himself killed during a raid in the year 1000.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: After the death of García Sánchez II, the crown passed to Sancho III, just eight years old at the time, and probably completely controlled by the Caliphate. During the first years of his reign the Kingdom was ruled by his cousins Sancho and García of Viguera until the year 1004, when Sancho III would become ruling king, mentored by his mother Jimena Fernández. The links with Castile became stronger through marriages. The death of Almanzor in 1002 and his successor Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 1008 caused the decline of the Caliphate of Córdoba and the progress of the County of Castile south, while Pamplona, led by Sancho Garcés III, strengthen the position of his kingdom on the borderlands of the Taifa of Zaragoza, controlling the territories of Loarre, Funes, Sos, Uncastillo, Arlas, Caparroso and Boltaña.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: In the year 1011 Sancho III married Muniadona of Castile, daughter of the Count of Castile Sancho García. In 1016 the County of Castile and the Kingdom of Navarre made a pact on their future expansion: Pamplona would expand towards the south and east, the eastern region of Soria and the Ebro valley, including territories that were at the time part of Zaragoza. Thus, the Kingdom of Pamplona comprised a territory of 15,000 km between Pamplona, Nájera and Aragón with vassals of Pamplonese and Aragonese origin.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The assassination of Count García Sánchez of Castile in 1028 allowed Sancho to appoint his younger son Ferdinand as count. He also exerted a protectorate over the Duchy of Gascony. He seized the country of the Pisuerga and the Cea, which belonged to the Kingdom of León, and marched armies to the heart of that kingdom, forcing king Bermudo III of León to flee to a Galician refuge. Sancho thereby effectively ruled the north of Iberia from the boundaries of Galicia to those of the count of Barcelona.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: By the time of the death of Sancho III in 1035, the Kingdom had reached its greatest historical extent. Sancho III wrote a problematic will, in which he divided his territory into three kingdoms.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: In this period of independence, the ecclesiastical affairs of the country reached a high state of development. Sancho the Great was brought up at Leyre, which was also for a short time the capital of the Diocese of Pamplona. Beside this see, there existed the Bishopric of Oca, which was united in 1079 to the Diocese of Burgos. In 1035 Sancho III re-established the See of Palencia, which had been laid waste at the time of the Moorish invasion. When, in 1045, the city of Calahorra was wrested from the Moors, under whose dominion it had been for more than three hundred years, a see was also founded there, which in the same year absorbed the Diocese of Najera and, in 1088, the Diocese of Alava, the jurisdiction of which covered about the same ground as that of the present Diocese of Vitoria. The See of Pamplona owed its re-establishment to Sancho III, who for this purpose convened a synod at Leyre in 1022 and one at Pamplona in 1023. These synods likewise instituted a reform of ecclesiastical life, with the above-named convent as a centre.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: At its greatest extent the Kingdom of Navarre included all the modern Spanish province; the northern slope of the western Pyrenees the Spaniards called the "ultra puertos" ("country beyond the mountain passes") or French Navarre; the Basque provinces of Spain and France; the Bureba, the valley between the Basque mountains and the Montes de Oca to the north of Burgos; and the Rioja and Tarazona in the upper valley of the Ebro. On his death, Sancho divided his possessions among his four sons. Sancho the Great's realm was never again united (until Ferdinand the Catholic): Castile was permanently joined to Leon, whereas Aragon enlarged its territory, joining Catalonia through a marriage.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Following the traditional succession customs, the first-born son of Sancho III, García Sánchez III, received the title and lands of the Kingdom of Pamplona, which included the territory of Pamplona, Nájera and parts of Aragon. The rest of the territory was given to his widow Muniadona to split among all the legitimate sons: thus García Sánchez III also received the territory to the northeast from the County of Castile (La Bureba, Montes de Oca) and the County of Álava. Ferdinand received the rest of the County of Castile and the lands between the Pisuerga and the Cea. Another son of Sancho, Gonzalo, received the counties of Sobrarbe and Ribargoza as vassal of his eldest brother, García. Lands in Aragon were allotted to Sancho's bastard son Ramiro.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: García Sánchez III (1035–1054) soon found himself struggling for supremacy against his ambitious brothers, especially Ferdinand. García had supported the armed conflict between Ferdinand and his brother-in-law Bermudo III of León, who was ultimately killed in the Battle of Tamarón (1037). This allowed Ferdinand to unite his Castilian county with the new-won crown of León as king Ferdinand I. For several years a mutual collaboration between the two kingdoms took place. The relationship between García and his step-brother Ramiro was better. The latter had acquired all of Aragon, Ribagorza and Sobrarbe on the sudden death of his brother Gonzalo, forming what would become the Kingdom of Aragon. García and Ramiro's alliance with Ramon Berenguer, the Count of Barcelona, was effective to keep the Muslim Taifa of Zaragoza at bay. After the capture of Calahorra in 1044, a period peace followed on the southern border and trade was established with Zaragoza.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The relationship between García and Ferdinand deteriorated with time, the two disputing the lands on the Pamplonese-Castilian border, and ended violently in September 1054 at the Battle of Atapuerca, in which García was killed, and Ferdinand took from Pamplona the lands in La Bureba and the Tirón River.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: García was succeeded by Sancho IV (1054–1076) "of Peñalén", whom Ferdinand had recognised as king of Pamplona immediately after the death of his father. He was fourteen years old at the time, and under the regency of his mother Estefanía and his uncles Ferdinand and Ramiro. After the death of his mother in 1058, Sancho IV lost the support of the local nobility, and the relations between them worsened after he became allied with Ahmad al-Muqtadir, ruler of Zaragoza. On 4 June 1076, a conspiracy involving Sancho IV's brother Ramón and sister Ermesinda ended with the murder of the king. The neighboring kingdoms and the nobility probably had a part in the plot.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The dynastic crisis resulting from Sancho's assassination worked to the benefit of the Castilian and Aragonese monarchs. Alfonso VI of León and Castile took control of La Rioja, the Lordship of Biscay, the County of Álava, the County of Durango and part of Gipuzkoa. Sancho Ramírez, successor to his father, Ramiro of Aragon, took control of the rest of the territory and was recognised as king by the Pamplonese nobility. The land around the city of Pamplona, the core of the original kingdom, became known as the County of Navarre, and was recognised by Alfonso VI as a vassal state of the kingdom of León and Castile. Sancho Ramírez began in 1084 a renewed military expansion of the southern lands controlled by Muslim forces. That year, the city of Arguedas, from which the Bardenas region could be controlled, was taken. After the death of Sancho Ramírez in 1094, he was succeeded by Peter I, who resumed the expansion of the territory, taking the cities of Sádaba in 1096 and Milagro in 1098, while threatening Tudela.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Alfonso the Battler (1104–1134), brother of Peter I, secured for the country its greatest territorial expansion. He wrested Tudela from the Moors (1114), re-conquered the entire country of Bureba, which Navarre had lost in 1042, and advanced into the current Province of Burgos. He also annexed Labourd, with its strategic port of Bayonne, but lost its coastal half to the English soon after. The remainder has been part of Navarre since then and eventually came to be known as Lower Navarre. Toward the south, he moved the Islamic border to the Ebro river, with Rioja, Nájera, Logroño, Calahorra, and Alfaro added to his domain.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: In 1118, the city of Zaragoza was taken by the Aragonese forces, and on 25 February 1119 the city of Tudela was taken and incorporated into Pamplona.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The 1127 Peace of Támara delimited the territorial domains of the Castilian and Aragonese realms, the latter including Pamplona. The lands of Biscay, Álava, Gipuzkoa, Belorado, Soria and San Esteban de Gormaz went back to the Pamplonese kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The status quo between Aragon and Castile stood until the 1134 death of Alfonso. Being childless, he willed his realm to the military orders, particularly the Templars. This decision was rejected by the courts (parliaments) of both Aragon and Navarre, which then chose separate kings.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: García Ramírez, known as "the Restorer", is the first King of Navarre to use such a title. He was Lord of Monzón, a grandson of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid, and a descendant by illegitimate line of king García Sánchez III. Sancho Garcia, known as Sancho VI "the Wise" (1150–1194), a patron of learning, as well as an accomplished statesman, fortified Navarre within and without, granted charters (fueros) to a number of towns, and was never defeated in battle. He was the first king to issue royal documents entitling him "rex Navarrae" or "rex Navarrorum", appealing to a wider power base, defined as politico-juridical by Urzainqui (a "populus"), beyond Pamplona and the customary "rex Pampilonensium". As attested in the charters of San Sebastián and Vitoria-Gasteiz (1181), the natives are called "Navarri", as well as in another contemporary document at least, where those living to the north of Peralta are defined as Navarrese.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: "The Restorer" and Sancho the Wise were faced with an ever-increasing intervention of Castile in Navarre. In 1170, Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor, daughter of Henry II Plantagenet, married, with the Castilian king claiming Gascony as part of the dowry. It turned out a much needed pretext for the invasion of Navarre during the following years (1173–1176), with a special focus on Navarre's coastal districts, coveted by Castile in order to become a maritime power. In 1177, the dispute was submitted to arbitration by Henry II of England. The Navarrese made their point on a number of claims, namely "the proven will of the locals" ("fide naturalium hominum suorum exhibita"), the assassination of the King Sancho Garces IV of Navarre by the Castilians ("per violentiam fuit expulsus", 1076), as well as law and custom, while the Castilians made their case by citing the Castilian takeover following the death of Sancho Garces IV, the dynastic links of Alfonso with Navarre, and the conquest of Toledo. Henry did not dare issue a verdict based entirely on the legal grounds as presented by both sides, instead deciding to refer them back to the boundaries held by both kingdoms at the start of their reigns in 1158, besides agreeing to a truce of seven years. It thus confirmed the permanent loss of the Bureba and Rioja areas for the Navarrese. However, soon, Castile breached the compromise, starting a renewed effort to harass Navarre both in the diplomatic and military arenas.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The rich dowry of Berengaria, daughter of Sancho VI the Wise and Blanche of Castile, made her a desirable catch for Richard I of England. His mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, crossed the Pyrenean passes to escort Berengaria to Sicily, eventually to wed Richard in Cyprus, on 12 May 1191. She remains the only Queen of England who never set foot in England during her reign. The reign of Sancho the Wise's successor, the last king of the male line of Sancho the Great and the kings of Pamplona, Sancho VII the Strong ("Sancho el Fuerte") (1194–1234), was more troubled. He appropriated the revenues of churches and convents, granting them instead important privileges; in 1198 he presented to the See of Pamplona his palaces and possessions there; this gift was confirmed by Pope Innocent III on 29 January 1199.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: In 1199 Alfonso VIII of Castile, son of Sancho III of Castile and Blanche of Navarre, was determined to take over coastal Navarre, a strategic region that would allow Castile much easier access to European wool markets and would isolate Navarre as well. He launched a massive expedition against Navarre. Sancho the Strong was abroad in Tlemcen (modern Algeria) seeking support to counter the Castilian push, by opening a second front. Pope Celestine III intervened to frustrate the alliance.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The towns of Vitoria and Treviño resisted the Castilian assault but the Bishop of Pamplona was sent to inform them that no reinforcements would arrive. After nine months of siege, Vitoria surrendered, but Treviño did not, having to be conquered by force of arms. By 1200 the conquest of western Navarre was complete. Castile allowed these territories (with the exceptions of Treviño and Oñati, which were directly ruled from Castile) the right to keep their traditional customs and laws ("viz.", Navarrese law), which came to be known as fueros. Alava was made a county, Biscay a lordship and Gipuzkoa just a province. In 1207, an arrangement in Guadalajara between both kings sealed a 5-year truce over the occupied territories; still Castile kept a "fait accompli" policy.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Sancho the Strong would join in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), where he added his small force to the Christian alliance that was victorious over the Caliph Muhammand An-Nasir. He suffered from a varicose ulcer in his leg that led him to retire to Tudela, where he died in 1234. His elder sister Berengaria, Queen of England, had died childless some years earlier. His deceased younger sister Blanca, countess of Champagne, had left a son, Theobald IV of Champagne. Thus the Kingdom of Navarre, though the crown was still claimed by the kings of Aragon, passed by marriage to the House of Champagne, firstly to the heirs of Blanca, who were simultaneously counts of Champagne and Brie, with the support of the Navarrese Parliament ("Cortes").


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Theobald I made of his court a centre where the poetry of the troubadours that had developed at the court of the counts of Champagne was welcomed and fostered; his reign was peaceful. His son, King Theobald II (1253–70), married Isabella, daughter of King Louis IX of France, and accompanied his saintly father-in-law upon his crusade to Tunis. On the homeward journey, he died at Trapani in Sicily, and was succeeded by his brother, King Henry I, who had already assumed the reins of government during his absence, but ruled for only three years (1271–74). His daughter, Queen Joan I, ascended as a minor and the country was once again invaded from all sides. The queen and her mother, Blanche of Artois, sought refuge at the court of King Philip III of France. His son, the future King Philip IV of France, had become engaged to the young sovereign and married her in 1284. From 1276, the time of the negotiations for this marriage, Navarre effectively passed into French control, though not without the French suppression of native resistance in the 1276-1277 War of the Navarreria.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The Kingdom of Navarre remained in personal union with the Kingdom of France until the death of King Charles I (Charles IV of France) in 1328. He was succeeded by his niece, Queen Joanna II, daughter of King Louis I (Louis X of France), and nephew-in-law, King Philip III. Joanna waived all claim to the throne of France and accepted as compensation for the counties of Champagne and Brie those of Angoulême, Longueville, and Mortain.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: King Philip III devoted himself to the improvement of the laws of the country, and joined King Alfonso XI of Castile in battle against the Moors of 1343. After the death of his mother (1349), King Charles II assumed the reins of government (1349–87). He played an important part in the Hundred Years' War and in the French civil unrest of the time, and on account of his deceit and cruelty he received the epithet of 'the Bad'. He gained and lost possessions in Normandy and, later in his reign, the Navarrese Company acquired island possessions in Greece.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: His eldest son, on the other hand, King Charles III, 'the Noble', once more returned the land to peaceful and happy government (1387–1425). He reformed the government, built canals, and made the tributaries of the Ebro flowing through Navarre navigable. As he outlived his legitimate sons, he was succeeded by his daughter, Queen Blanche I (1425–1441), and son-in-law, King John II (1398–1479).


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: After Queen Blanche I of Navarre's death in 1441, Navarre was mired in continued disputes over royal succession. King John II was ruling in Aragon in the name of his brother, Alfonso V of Aragon. He left his son, Charles, Prince of Viana, with merely the rank of governor, whereas Queen Blanche I had intended him to succeed her, as was the custom. In 1450, John II himself came back to Navarre, and, urged on by his ambitious second wife Juana Enriquez, endeavoured to obtain the succession for their son Ferdinand.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Mirroring inter-clan disputes during the bloody War of the Bands in the rest of the Basque territories, in 1451 Navarre split in two confederacies, the Agramonts and the Beaumonts, over royal succession, with ramifications both within and outside Navarre. In the violent civil war that broke out, the Agramonts sided with John II, and the Beaumonts — named after their leader, the chancellor, John of Beaumont — espoused the cause of Charles, Prince of Viana. The fights involved the high aristocracy and their junior branches, who carried on the feuds of their senior lines and thrived on weak, often absent, royal authority.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The unhappy prince Charles was defeated by his father at Aibar in 1451, and held prisoner for two years, during which he wrote his famous "Chronicle of Navarre", a major source for the period. After his release, Charles sought the assistance of King Charles VII of France and his uncle Alfonso V (who resided in Naples), but in vain. In 1460 he was again imprisoned at the instigation of his stepmother, but the Catalans rose in revolt at this injustice, and he was again liberated and named governor of Catalonia. He died in 1461, poisoned by his stepmother Juana Enríquez without being able to retake the reins of Navarre. He had named as heir his next sister, Queen Blanche II, but she was immediately imprisoned by John II and died in 1464. While this episode of the civil war came to an end, it inaugurated a period of instability including on-off periods of struggle and uprisings all the way to the Spanish conquest (1512).


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: On Charles' demise in 1461, Eleanor of Navarre, Countess of Foix and Béarn, was proclaimed Princess of Viana, but the instability took a toll. The south-western tip of Navarre—the Sonsierra (Oyon, Laguardia, in present-day Álava), and Los Arcos—was occupied by Henry IV of Castile. Castile's eventual annexation of this territory in 1463 was upheld by the French king Louis XI in Bayonne on 23 April 1463. John II continued to rule as king up to 1479, when Queen Eleanor succeeded him for only 15 days and then died; she left the crown to her grandson, Francis Phoebus, but this inaugurated another period of instability. Eleanor's 13-year-old granddaughter Catherine I of Navarre succeeded her brother Francis Phoebus in accordance with his will (1483). As a minor she remained under the guardianship of her mother, Magdalena of Valois, and was sought by Ferdinand the Catholic as a bride. However, another claimant to the throne was stubbornly trying to stop her, John of Foix, Viscount of Narbonne, brother-in-law of the future King Louis XII of France. Invoking the French Salic Law, he called himself King of Navarre and sent diplomats to Ferdinand II.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Pressure built on Catherine's regent Magdalena of Valois who, intent on saving their French possessions, eventually decided to marry the young Queen to the 7-year-old John of Albret, despite the Parliament of Navarre's preference for John of Aragon, son of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Beaumont party rose up, while the Agramonts split over the marriage. Ferdinand II of Aragon in turn reconsidered his diplomatic policy on Navarre. The crown of Navarre fell back on their default policy of diplomacy, and signed the Treaty of Valencia on 21 March 1488, whereby trade was restored between Navarre and the Aragon-Castile tandem. Still, Ferdinand did not recognize Catherine and installed Castilian troops in Navarre, banning French troops in both the kingdom and the principality of Béarn.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Ferdinand also pushed for the introduction of the coercive cross-border tribunal, the Inquisition, which the Navarrese hated, but, under pressure from the Aragonese monarch, the doors of Navarre (Tudela) finally opened to the Church institution between 1486 and 1488, pushed by the Aragonese monarch's threats. Still, in 1510 the authorities of Tudela decreed the expulsion of the monk "calling himself inquisitor." Catherine and John III also lacked French royal support: both Charles VIII and Louis XII of France pushed hard to have John of Foix declared king. Finally, following a short period of peace with Ferdinand after a treaty was signed, in January 1494 the coronation of the royal family took place in Pamplona. The monarchs Catherine I and John III swore an oath to respect the liberties of Navarre, and the proclamation was celebrated with a week-long festival, while the ceremony was not attended by the Aragonese bishops with jurisdiction in Navarre. During this period, the realm of Navarre-Beárn was defined by Emperor Maximilian I's diplomat Müntzer as a nation like Switzerland. In the same treaty, Ferdinand renounced war on Navarre or Béarn from Castile, but the attempt to restore royal authority and patrimony met with the resistance of the defiant count of Lerin, Louis of Beaumont, whose estates were confiscated.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Catherine and John III's guardian Magdalena of Valois died in 1495 and John's father Alain I of Albret signed another treaty with Ferdinand, whereby the count of Lerín should abandon Navarre, receiving in compensation real estate and various enclaves in the recently conquered Granada. In exchange, Alain made an array of painful concessions: Ferdinand received the count of Lerín's patrimony and gained control of important fortresses across Navarre, including the right to keep a garrison in Olite at the heart of the kingdom. Also, Queen Catherine's 1-year-old daughter Magdalena was to be sent to Castile to be raised, with a plan on a future marriage — she would die young in Castile (1504). Following developments in France, the whole treaty was reverted in 1500 and another compromise was reached with Ferdinand, ensuring peace for another 4 years.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: In spite of the treaties, Ferdinand the Catholic did not relinquish his long-cherished designs on Navarre. In 1506, the 53-year-old widower remarried, to Germaine of Foix (aged 16), daughter of Catherine's uncle John of Foix, who had attempted to claim Navarre over his under-age nephew and niece. However, their infant son died shortly after birth, ending hopes of a possible inheritance of Navarre. Ferdinand kept intervening directly or indirectly in the internal affairs of Navarre by means of the Beaumont party. In 1508, the Navarrese royal troops finally suppressed a rebellion of the count of Lerin after a long standoff. In a letter to the rebellious count, the king of Aragon insisted that while he may take over one stronghold or another, he should use ""theft, deceit and bargain"" instead of violence (23 July 1509).


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: When Navarre refused to join one of many Holy Leagues against France and declared itself neutral, Ferdinand asked the Pope to excommunicate Albret, which would have legitimised an attack. The Pope was reluctant to label the Crown of Navarre as schismatic explicitly in a first bull against the French and the Navarrese (21 July 1512), but Ferdinand's pressure bore fruit when a (second) bull named Catherine and John III "heretic" (18 February 1513). On 18 July 1512, Don Fadrique de Toledo was sent to invade Navarre in the context of the second phase of the War of the League of Cambrai.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Unable to face the powerful Castilian-Aragonese army, Jean d'Albret fled to Béarn (Orthez, Pau, Tarbes). Pamplona, Estella, Olite, Sanguesa, and Tudela were captured by September. The Agramont party sided with Queen Catherine while most, but not all, of the Beaumont party lords supported the occupiers. In October 1512, the legitimate King John III returned with an army recruited north of the Pyrenees and attacked Pamplona without success. By the end of December the Castilians were in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: After this failure, the Navarrese "Cortes" (Parliament) had no option but pledge loyalty to King Ferdinand of Aragon. In 1513, the first Castilian viceroy took a formal oath to respect Navarrese institutions and law ("fueros"). The Spanish Inquisition was extended into Navarre. The Jews had already been forced into conversion or exile by the Alhambra Decree in Castile and Aragon, and now the Jewish community of Navarre and the Muslims of Tudela suffered its persecution.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: There were two more attempts at liberation in 1516 and 1521, both supported by popular rebellion, especially the second one. It was in 1521 that the Navarrese came closest to regaining their independence. As a liberation army commanded by General Asparros approached Pamplona, the citizens rose in revolt and besieged the military governor, Iñigo de Loyola, in his newly built castle. Tudela and other cities also declared their loyalty to the House of Albret. While at first distracted due to only recently overcoming the Revolt of the Comuneros, the Navarrese-Béarnese army managed to liberate all the Kingdom, but shortly thereafter Asparros faced a large Castilian army at the Battle of Noáin on 30 June 1521. Asparros was captured, and the army completely defeated.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: A small portion of Navarre north of the Pyrenees, Lower Navarre, along with the neighbouring Principality of Béarn survived as an independent kingdom which passed by inheritance. Navarre received from King Henry II, the son of Queen Catherine and King John III, a representative assembly, the clergy being represented by the bishops of Bayonne and Dax, their vicars-general, the parish priest of St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and the priors of Saint-Palais, Utziat and Harambels (Haranbeltz).


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Jeanne III converted to Calvinism in 1560, and thereupon commissioned a translation of the New Testament into Basque; one of the first books published in this language. Jeanne also declared Calvinism to be the official religion of Navarre. She and her son, Henry III, led the Huguenot party in the French Wars of Religion. In 1589, Henry became the sole rightful claimant to the crown of France, though he was not recognized as such by many of his subjects until his conversion to Catholicism four years later.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: When Labourd and Upper Navarre were shaken by the Basque witch trials between 1609 and 1613, many sought refuge in Lower Navarre. The last independent king of Navarre, Henry III (reigned 1572–1610), succeeded to the throne of France as Henry IV in 1589, founding the Bourbon dynasty. Between 1620 and 1624, Lower Navarre and Béarn were incorporated into France proper by Henry's son, Louis XIII of France (Louis II of Navarre). The Parliament of Navarre, seated at Pau, was also created by merging the Royal Council of Navarre and the sovereign Council of Béarn.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees put an end to the litigation over the definite French-Spanish borders and to any French-Navarrese dynastic claim over Spanish Navarre. The title of King of Navarre continued to be used by the Kings of France until the French Revolution in 1792, and was revived again during the Restoration, 1814–30. Since the rest of Navarre was in Spanish hands, the kings of Spain would also use the title of King of Navarre, and continue to do so. During the 1789 Estates-General, the Estates of Navarre sent Étienne Polverel to Paris to defend the idiosyncrasy and independence of Navarre in the face of the planned homogenizing administrative layout of France.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: As the Kingdom of Navarre was originally organized, it was divided into "merindades", districts governed by a "merino" ("mayorino", a sheriff), the representative of the king. They were the "Ultrapuertos" (French Navarre), Pamplona, Estella, Tudela and Sangüesa. In 1407 the "merindad" of Olite was added. The Cortes of Navarre began as the king's council of churchmen and nobles, but in the course of the 14th century the burgesses were added. Their presence was due to the fact that the king had need of their co-operation to raise money by grants and aids, a development that was being paralleled in England.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The Cortes henceforth consisted of the churchmen, the nobles and the representatives of twenty-seven (later thirty-eight) "good towns"—towns which were free of a feudal lord, and, therefore, held directly by the king. The independence of the burgesses was better secured in Navarre than in other parliaments of Spain by the constitutional rule which required the consent of a majority of "each order" to every act of the Cortes. Thus the burgesses could not be outvoted by the nobles and the Church, as they could be elsewhere. Even in the 18th century the Navarrese successfully resisted Bourbon attempts to establish custom houses on the French frontier, dividing French from Spanish Navarre.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The institutions of Navarre which maintained their autonomy until the 19th century included the Cortes ("The Three States", precursor to the Parliament of Navarre), Royal Council, Supreme Court and "Diputacion del Reino". Similar institutions existed in the Crown of Aragon (in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) until the 18th century. The Spanish monarch was represented by a viceroy, who could object to the decisions made in the Navarrese context.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: During that period Navarre enjoyed a special status within the Spanish monarchy; it had its own cortes, taxation system, and separate customs laws.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: By the War of the Pyrenees and the Peninsular War, Navarre was in a deep crisis over the Spanish royal authority, involving the Spanish prime minister Manuel Godoy, who bitterly opposed the Basque charters and their autonomy, and maintained high duty exactions on the Ebro customs against the Navarrese, and the Basques as a whole. The only way out the Navarrese found was an increased trade with France, which in turn spurred the importation of bourgeois, modern ideas. However, the progressive, enlightened bourgeois circles strong in Pamplona—and other Basque towns and cities like Donostia—were eventually quelled during the above wars.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: After the French defeat, the only source of support for Navarrese self-government was Ferdinand VII. The king wielded the flag of the ancient régime, as opposed to the liberal Constitution of Cádiz (1812), which ignored the Navarrese and Basque "fueros" and any different identities in Spain, or the "Spains", as it was considered before the 19th century.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: During the Napoleonic wars, many in Navarre took to the bush to avoid tax exactions and the military abuses over property and people during their expeditions, be they French, English, or Spanish. These parties sowed the seeds of the later militias of the Carlist Wars acting under different banners, Carlists most often, but also pro-"fueros" liberals. However, once the local, urban based enlightened bourgeois were suppressed by the Spanish authorities and bristled at despotic French rule during the occupation, the most staunchly Catholic rose to prominence in Navarre, coming under strong clerical influence.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: This, and the resentment felt at the loss of their autonomy when they were incorporated into Spain in 1833, account for the strong support given by many Navarrese to the Carlist cause. In 1833, Navarre and the whole Basque region in Spain became the chief stronghold of the Carlists, but in 1837 a Spanish Liberal, centralist constitution was proclaimed in Madrid, and Isabella II recognized as queen. Following the August 31, 1839, armistice putting an end to the First Carlist War, Navarre remained in a shaky state.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Its separate status was acknowledged on the Act promulgated in October that year, but after arrival of Baldomero Espartero and the anti-"fueros" Progressives to office in Madrid, talks with Navarrese Liberal negotiators led to a near-assimilation of Navarre with the Spanish province. Navarre was not a kingdom any more, but another Spanish province. In exchange for giving up self-government, the Navarrese were compensated with the "Compromise Act" () in 1841, a set of tax, administrative and other prerogatives, conjuring an idea of 'compromise between two equal sides', and not a granted charter.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: Following the 1839–1841 treaties, conflict with Madrid's central government over Navarre's agreed administrative and fiscal idiosyncrasies contributed to the Third Carlist War (1872–76), largely centred in the Basque districts. Myriad parties and factions emerged in Navarre demanding different degrees of restoration of native institutions and laws. Catholicism and traditionalism became major driving forces behind Navarrese politics.


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The Church in Navarre became a mainstay of the reactionary Spanish Nationalist uprising against the 2nd Spanish Republic (1936). The figure of progressives and inconvenient dissidents exterminated across Navarre is estimated at around 3,000 in the period immediately after the successful military uprising (July 1936). As a reward for its support in the Spanish Civil War, Franco allowed Navarre, as it happened with Álava, to maintain some prerogatives reminiscent of the ancient Navarrese liberties. Navarre's specific status during Franco's regime led to the present-day Chartered Community of Navarre during the Spanish transition to democracy (the so-called "Amejoramiento", 1982).


title: Kingdom of Navarre

text: The territory formerly known as Navarre now belongs to two nations, Spain and France, depending on whether it lies south or north of the Western Pyrenees. The Basque language is still spoken in most of the provinces. Today, Navarre is an autonomous community of Spain and Basse-Navarre is part of France's Pyrénées-Atlantiques département. Other former Navarrese territories belong now to several autonomous communities of Spain: the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, La Rioja, Aragon, and Castile and León.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The Battle of Gaugamela (; ), also called the Battle of Arbela (), took place in 331 BC between the forces of the Army of Macedon under Alexander the Great and the Persian Army under King Darius III. It was the second and final battle between the two kings, and is considered to be the final blow to the Achaemenid Empire, resulting in its complete conquest by Alexander.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The fighting took place in Gaugamela, which literally meant "The Camel's House", a village on the banks of the river Bumodus. The area today would be considered modern-day Erbil, Iraq, according to Urbano Monti's world map. Alexander's army was heavily outnumbered and modern historians say that "the odds were enough to give the most experienced veteran pause". Despite the overwhelming odds, Alexander's army emerged victorious due to the employment of superior tactics and the clever usage of light infantry forces. It was a decisive victory for the League of Corinth, and it led to the fall of Achaemenid Empire and of Darius III.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: In November 333 BC, King Darius III had lost the Battle of Issus to Alexander the Great, which resulted in the subsequent capture of his wife, his mother and his two daughters; Stateira II and Drypetis. Alexander's victory at Issus had also given him complete control of southern Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). After the battle, King Darius retreated to Babylon where he regrouped with his remaining army that was there, on-site from a previous battle.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Alexander fought at the Siege of Tyre (332 BC), which lasted from January to July, and the victory resulted in his control of the Levant. Alexander then again fought at the Siege of Gaza, which resulted in Persian troop counts becoming very low. Due to this, the Persian satrap of Egypt, Mazaeus, peacefully surrendered to Alexander.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Darius tried to dissuade Alexander from further attacks on his empire by diplomacy. Ancient historians provide different accounts of his negotiations with Alexander, which can be separated into three negotiation attempts.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Historians Justin, Arrian and Curtius Rufus, writing in the 1st and 2nd centuries, say that Darius had sent a letter to Alexander after the Battle of Issus. The letter demanded that Alexander withdraw from Asia as well as release all of his prisoners. According to Curtius and Justin, Darius offered a ransom for his prisoners, although Arrian does not mention a ransom. Curtius describes the tone of the letter as offensive, and Alexander refused his demands.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: A second negotiation attempt took place after the capture of Tyre. Darius offered Alexander marriage with his daughter Stateira II, as well as all the territory west of the Halys River. Justin is less specific, and does not mention a specific daughter, and only speaks of a portion of Darius' kingdom. Diodorus Siculus (1st century Greek historian) likewise mentions the offer of all territory west of the Halys River, a treaty of friendship and a large ransom for Darius' captives. Diodorus is the only ancient historian who mentions the fact that Alexander concealed this letter and presented his friends with a forged one that was favorable to his own interests. Again, Alexander refused Darius' offers.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: King Darius started to prepare for another battle with Alexander after the failure of the second negotiation attempt. Nevertheless, Darius made a third and final effort to negotiate with Alexander the Great after Alexander had departed from Egypt. Darius' third offer was much more generous. He praised Alexander for the treatment of his mother Sisygambis, offered him all territory west of the Euphrates, co-rulership of the Achaemenid Empire, the hand of one of his daughters and 30,000 talents of silver. In the account of Diodorus, Alexander explicitly deliberated this offer with his friends. Parmenion was the only one who spoke up, saying, "If I were Alexander, I should accept what was offered and make a treaty." Alexander reportedly replied, "So should I, if I were Parmenion." Alexander, in the end, refused the offer of Darius, and insisted that there could be only one king of Asia. He called on Darius to surrender to him or to meet him in battle in order to decide who would be the sole king of Asia.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The descriptions given by other historians of the third negotiation attempt are similar to the account of Diodorus, but differ in details. Diodorus, Curtius and Arrian write that an embassy was sent instead of a letter, which is also claimed by Justin and Plutarch (1st century). Plutarch and Arrian mention the ransom offered for the prisoners was 10,000 talents, but Diodorus, Curtius and Justin had given the figure of 30,000. Arrian writes that Darius' third attempt took place during the Siege of Tyre, but the other historians place the second negotiation attempt at that time. In spite of everything, with the failure of his negotiation attempts, Darius had now decided to prepare for another battle with Alexander.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: After settling affairs in Egypt, Alexander returned to Tyre during the spring of 331 BC. He reached Thapsacus in July or August. Arrian relates that Darius had ordered Mazaeus to guard the crossing of the Euphrates near Thapsacus with a force of 3,000 cavalry. He fled when Alexander's army approached to cross the river.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: After crossing the Euphrates, Alexander followed a northern route instead of a direct southeastern route to Babylon. While doing so he had the Euphrates and the mountains of Armenia on his left. The northern route made it easier to forage for supplies and his troops would not suffer the extreme heat of the direct route. Captured Persian scouts reported to the Macedonians that Darius had encamped past the Tigris River and wanted to prevent Alexander from crossing. Alexander found the Tigris undefended and succeeded in crossing it with great difficulty.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: In contrast, Diodorus mentions that Mazaeus was only supposed to prevent Alexander from crossing the Tigris. He would not have bothered to defend it because he considered it impassable due to the strong current and depth of the river. Furthermore, Diodorus and Curtius Rufus mention that Mazaeus employed scorched-earth tactics in the countryside through which Alexander's army had to pass.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: After the Macedonian army had crossed the Tigris a lunar eclipse occurred. Following the calculations, the date must have been October 1 in 331 BC. Alexander then marched southward along the eastern bank of the Tigris. On the fourth day after the crossing of the Tigris his scouts reported that Persian cavalry had been spotted, numbering no more than 1000 men. When Alexander attacked them with his cavalry force ahead of the rest of his army, the Persian cavalry fled. Most of them escaped, but some were killed or taken prisoner. The prisoners told the Macedonians that Darius was not far away, with his encampment near Gaugamela.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Several researchers have criticized the Persians for their failure to harass Alexander's army and disrupt its long supply lines when it advanced through Mesopotamia. Classical scholar Peter Green thinks that Alexander's choice for the northern route caught the Persians off guard. Darius would have expected him to take the faster southern route directly to Babylon, just as Cyrus the Younger had done in 401 BC before his defeat in the Battle of Cunaxa. The use of the scorched-earth tactic and scythed chariots by Darius suggests that he wanted to repeat that battle. Alexander would have been unable to adequately supply his army if he had taken the southern route, even if the scorched-earth tactic had failed. The Macedonian army, underfed and exhausted from the heat, would then be defeated at the plain of Cunaxa by Darius. When Alexander took the northern route, Mazaeus must have returned to Babylon to bring the news. Darius most likely decided to prevent Alexander from crossing the Tigris. This plan failed because Alexander probably took a river crossing that was closer to Thapsacus than Babylon. He would have improvised and chosen Gaugamela as his most favourable site for a battle. Historian Jona Lendering argues the opposite and commends Mazaeus and Darius for their strategy. Darius would have deliberately allowed Alexander to cross the rivers unopposed in order to guide him to the battlefield of his own choice.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Darius chose a flat, open plain where he could deploy his larger forces, not wanting to be caught in a narrow battlefield as he had been at Issus two years earlier, where he could not deploy his huge army properly. Darius had his soldiers flatten the terrain before the battle, to give his 200 war chariots the best conditions. However, this did not matter. On the ground were a few hills and no bodies of water that Alexander could use for protection, and in the autumn the weather was dry and mild. The most commonly accepted opinion about the location is (), east of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq – suggested by archeologist Sir Aurel Stein in 1938.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: It is possible that the Persian army could have numbered over 100,000 men. One estimate is that there were 25,000 peltasts, 10,000 Immortals, 2,000 Greek hoplites, 1,000 Bactrians, and 40,000 cavalry, 200 scythed chariots, and 15 war elephants. Hans Delbrück estimates Persian cavalry at 12,000 because of management issues, Persian infantry less than that of the Greek heavy infantry, and Greek mercenaries at 8,000. Warry estimates a total size of 91,000; Welman 90,000; Engels (1920); Green (1990) no larger than 100,000 and Thomas Harbottle 120,000.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: According to Arrian, Darius' force numbered 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry, Diodorus Siculus put it at 200,000 cavalry and 800,000 infantry, Plutarch put it at 1,000,000 troops (without a breakdown in composition), while according to Curtius Rufus it consisted of 45,000 cavalry and 200,000 infantry. Furthermore, according to Arrian, Diodorus and Curtius, Darius had 200 chariots while Arrian mentions 15 war elephants. Included in Darius's infantry were about 2,000 Greek mercenary hoplites.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: According to Arrian, Indian troops were also deployed. He explains that Darius III "obtained the help of those Indians who bordered on the Bactrians, together with the Bactrians and Sogdianians themselves, all under the command of Bessus, the Satrap of Bactria". The Indians in question were probably from the area of Gandāra. Indian "hill-men" are also said by Arrian to have joined the Arachotians under Satrap Barsentes, and are thought to have been either the Sattagydians or the Hindush.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: While Darius had a significant advantage in numbers, most of his troops were of a lower quality than Alexander's. Alexander's pezhetairoi were armed with a six-metre pike, the sarissa. The main Persian infantry was poorly trained and equipped in comparison to Alexander's pezhetairoi and hoplites. The only respectable infantry Darius had were his 2,000 Greek hoplites and his personal bodyguard, the 10,000 Immortals. The Greek mercenaries fought in a phalanx, armed not with a heavy shield but with spears no longer than three metres, while the spears of the Immortals were two metres long. Among the other Persian troops, the most heavily armed were the Armenians, who were armed the Greek way and probably fought as a phalanx.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Alexander commanded Greek forces from his kingdom of Macedon and the Hellenic League, along with Greek mercenaries and levies from the Paeonian and Thracian tributary peoples. According to Arrian, his forces numbered 7,000 cavalry and 40,000 infantry. Most historians agree that the Macedonian army consisted of 31,000 heavy infantry, including mercenaries and hoplites from other allied Greek states in reserve, with an additional 9,000 light infantry consisting mainly of peltasts with some archers. The size of the Greek mounted army was about 7,000.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The battle began with the Persians already present at the battlefield. Darius had recruited the finest cavalry from his Eastern satrapies and from allied Scythian tribes and deployed scythed chariots, for which he had ordered bushes and vegetation removed from the battlefield to maximize their effectiveness. He also had 15 Indian elephants supported by Indian chariots. However, the absence of any mention of those elephants during the battle and their later capture in the Persian camp indicate they were withdrawn. The reason might have been fatigue.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Darius placed himself in the center with his best infantry, as was the tradition among Persian kings. He was surrounded by, on his right, the Carian cavalry, Greek mercenaries and Persian horse guards. In the right-center he placed Persian foot guards (Apple Bearers/Immortals to the Greeks), the Indian cavalry and his Mardian archers.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: On both flanks were the cavalry. Bessus commanded the left flank with the Bactrians, Dahae cavalry, Arachosian cavalry, Persian cavalry, Susian cavalry, Cadusian cavalry and Scythians. Chariots were placed in front with a small group of Bactrians. Mazaeus commanded the right flank with the Syrian, Median, Mesopotamian, Parthian, Sacian, Tapurian, Hyrcanian, Caucasian Albanian, Sacesinian, Cappadocian and Armenian cavalry. The Cappadocians and Armenians were stationed in front of the other cavalry units and led the attack. The Albanian and Palestinian cavalry were sent around to flank the Greek left.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The Macedonians were divided into two, with the right side under the direct command of Alexander and the left of Parmenion. Alexander fought with his Companion cavalry. With it was the Paionian and Greek light cavalry. The mercenary cavalry was divided into two groups, veterans on the flank of the right and the rest in front of the Agrians and Greek archers, who were stationed next to the phalanx. Parmenion was stationed on the left with the Thessalians, Greek mercenaries and Thracian cavalry. There they were to conduct a holding action while Alexander launched the decisive blow from the right.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: On the right-center were Cretan mercenaries. Behind them were Thessalian cavalry under Phillip, and Achaean mercenaries. To their right was another part of the allied Greek cavalry. From there came the phalanx, in a double line. Outnumbered over 5:1 in cavalry, with their line surpassed by over a mile, it seemed inevitable that the Greeks would be flanked by the Persians. The second line was given orders to deal with any flanking units should the situation arise. This second line consisted mostly of mercenaries.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Alexander began by ordering his infantry to march in phalanx formation towards the center of the enemy line. The Macedonians advanced with the wings echeloned back at 45 degrees to lure the Persian cavalry to attack. While the phalanxes battled the Persian infantry, Darius sent a large part of his cavalry and some of his regular infantry to attack Parmenion's forces on the left.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: During the battle Alexander employed an unusual strategy which has been duplicated only a few times. While the infantry battled the Persian troops in the centre, Alexander began to ride all the way to the edge of the right flank, accompanied by his Companion Cavalry. His plan was to draw as much of the Persian cavalry as possible to the flanks, to create a gap within the enemy line where a decisive blow could then be struck at Darius in the centre. This required almost perfect timing and maneuvering and Alexander himself to act first. He would force Darius to attack (as they would soon move off the prepared ground), though Darius did not want to be the first to attack after seeing what happened at Issus against a similar formation. In the end, Darius' hand was forced, and he attacked.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The Scythian cavalry from the Persian left wing opened the battle by attempting to flank Alexander's extreme right. What followed was a long and fierce cavalry battle between the Persian left and the Macedonian right, in which the latter, being greatly outnumbered, was often hard-pressed. However, by careful use of reserves and disciplined charges, the Greek troops were able to contain their Persian counterparts, which would be vital for the success of Alexander's decisive attack.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Then the Scythian cavalry rode along the line, and came into conflict with the front men of Alexander's array, but he nevertheless still continued to march towards the right, and almost entirely got beyond the ground which had been cleared and levelled by the Persians. Then Darius, fearing that his chariots would become useless, if the Macedonians advanced into the uneven ground, ordered the front ranks of his left wing to ride round the right wing of the Macedonians, where Alexander was commanding, to prevent him from marching his wing any further. This being done, Alexander ordered the cavalry of the Grecian mercenaries under the command of Menidas to attack them. But the Scythian cavalry and the Bactrians, who had been drawn up with them, sallied forth against them and being much more numerous they put the small body of Greeks to rout. Alexander then ordered Aristo at the head of the Paeonians and Grecian auxiliaries to attack the Scythians, and the barbarians gave way. But the rest of the Bactrians, drawing near to the Paeonians and Grecian auxiliaries, caused their own comrades who were already in flight to turn and renew the battle; and thus they brought about a general cavalry engagement, in which more of Alexander's men fell, not only being overwhelmed by the multitude of the barbarians, but also because the Scythians themselves and their horses were much more completely protected with armour for guarding their bodies. Notwithstanding this, the Macedonians sustained their assaults, and assailing them violently squadron by squadron, they succeeded in pushing them out of rank.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The tide finally turned in the Greek favor after the attack of Aretes' Prodromoi, likely their last reserve in this sector of the battlefield. By then, however, the battle had been decided in the center by Alexander himself.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The Persians also who were riding round the wing were seized with alarm when Aretes made a vigorous attack upon them. In this quarter indeed the Persians took to speedy flight; and the Macedonians followed up the fugitives and slaughtered them.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Darius now launched his chariots at those troops under Alexander's personal command; many of the chariots were intercepted by the Agrianians and other javelin-throwers posted in front of the Companion cavalry. Those chariots who made it through the barrage of javelins charged the Macedonian lines, which responded by opening up their ranks, creating alleys through which the chariots passed harmlessly. The Hypaspists and the armed grooms of the cavalry then attacked and eliminated these survivors.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: As the Persians advanced farther and farther to the Greek flanks in their attack, Alexander slowly filtered in his rear guard. He disengaged his Companions and prepared for the decisive attack. Behind them were the guard's brigade along with any phalanx battalions he could withdraw from the battle. He formed his units into a giant wedge, with him leading the charge. The Persian infantry at the center was still fighting the phalanxes, hindering any attempts to counter Alexander's charge. This large wedge then smashed into the weakened Persian center, taking out Darius' royal guard and the Greek mercenaries. Darius was in danger of being cut off, and the widely held modern view is that he now broke and ran, with the rest of his army following him. This is based on Arrian's account:


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: For a short time there ensued a hand-to-hand fight; but when the Macedonian cavalry, commanded by Alexander himself, pressed on vigorously, thrusting themselves against the Persians and striking their faces with their spears, and when the Macedonian phalanx in dense array and bristling with long pikes had also made an attack upon them, all things together appeared full of terror to Darius, who had already long been in a state of fear, so that he was the first to turn and flee.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Alexander could have pursued Darius at this point. However, he received desperate messages from Parmenion (an event that would later be used by Callisthenes and others to discredit Parmenion) on the left. Parmenion's wing was apparently encircled by the cavalry of the Persian right wing; being attacked from all sides, it was in a state of confusion. Alexander was faced with the choice of pursuing Darius and having the chance of killing him, ending the war in one stroke but at the risk of losing his army, or going back to the left flank to aid Parmenion and preserve his forces, thus letting Darius escape to the surrounding mountains. He decided to help Parmenion, and followed Darius later.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: While holding on the left, a gap had opened up between the left and center of the Macedonian phalanx, due to Simmias' brigade of pezhetairoi being unable to follow Alexander in his decisive attack, as they were being hard-pressed. The Persian and Indian cavalry in the center with Darius broke through. Instead of taking the phalanx or Parmenion in the rear, however, they continued towards the camp to loot. They also tried to rescue the Queen Mother, Sisygambis, but she refused to go with them. These raiders were in turn attacked and dispersed by the rear reserve phalanx as they were looting.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: What happened next was described by Arrian as the fiercest engagement of the battle, as Alexander and his companions encountered the cavalry of the Persian right, composed of Indians, Parthians and "the bravest and most numerous division of the Persians", desperately trying to get through to escape. Sixty Companions were killed in the engagement, and Hephaestion, Coenus and Menidas were all injured. Alexander prevailed, however, and Mazaeus also began to pull his forces back as Bessus had. However, unlike on the left with Bessus, the Persians soon fell into disorder as the Thessalians and other cavalry units charged forward at their fleeing enemy.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: After the battle, Parmenion rounded up the Persian baggage train while Alexander and his bodyguard pursued Darius. As at Issus, substantial loot was gained, with 4,000 talents captured, the King's personal chariot and bow and the war elephants. It was a disastrous defeat for the Persians and one of Alexander's finest victories.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: Darius managed to escape by horseback with a small corps of his forces remaining intact. The Bactrian cavalry and Bessus caught up with him, as did some of the survivors of the Royal Guard and 2,000 Greek mercenaries. At this point the Persian Empire was divided into two halves—East and West. On his escape, Darius gave a speech to what remained of his army. He planned to head further east and raise another army to face Alexander, assuming that the Greeks would head towards Babylon. At the same time he dispatched letters to his eastern satraps asking them to remain loyal.


title: Battle of Gaugamela

text: The satraps, however, had other intentions. Bessus murdered Darius before fleeing eastwards. When Alexander discovered Darius murdered, he was saddened to see an enemy he respected killed in such a fashion, and gave Darius a full burial ceremony at Persepolis, the former ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire, before angrily pursuing Bessus, capturing and executing him the following year. The majority of the remaining satraps gave their loyalty to Alexander and were allowed to keep their positions. The Achaemenid Persian Empire is traditionally considered to have ended with the death of Darius.


title: Impalement

text: Impalement, as a method of torture and execution, is the penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of the torso. It was particularly used in response to "crimes against the state" and regarded across a number of cultures as a very harsh form of capital punishment and recorded in myth and art. Impalement was also used during times of war to suppress rebellions, punish traitors or collaborators, and punish breaches of military discipline.


title: Impalement

text: Offences where impalement was occasionally employed included contempt for the state's responsibility for safe roads and trade routes by committing highway robbery or grave robbery, violating state policies or monopolies, or subverting standards for trade. Offenders have also been impaled for a variety of cultural, sexual, and religious reasons.


title: Impalement

text: References to impalement in Babylonia and the Neo-Assyrian Empire are found as early as the 18th century BC.


title: Impalement

text: Impaling an individual along the body length has been documented in several cases, and the merchant Jean de Thevenot provides an eyewitness account of this from 17th-century Egypt, in the case of a man condemned to death for the use of false weights:


title: Impalement

text: The length of time which one managed to survive upon the stake is reported as quite varied, from a few seconds or minutes to a few hours or even a few days. The Dutch overlords at Batavia seem to have been particularly proficient in prolonging the lifetime of the impaled, one witnessing a man surviving six days on the stake, another hearing from local surgeons that some could survive eight days or more. A critical determinant for survival length seems to be precisely "how" the stake was inserted: If it went into the "interior" parts, vital organs could easily be damaged, leading to a swift death. However, by letting the stake follow the spine, the impalement procedure would not damage the vital organs, and the person could survive for several days.


title: Impalement

text: Alternatively, the impalement could be transversely performed, as in the frontal-to-dorsal direction, that is, from front (through abdomen, chest or directly through the heart) to back or "vice versa".


title: Impalement

text: In the Holy Roman Empire (and elsewhere in Central/Eastern Europe), women who killed their newborn babies were placed in open graves, and stakes were hammered into their hearts, particularly if their cases contained any implications of witchcraft. A detailed description of an execution that was carried out in this manner comes from 17th-century Košice (then in Hungary, now in eastern Slovakia). The case of a woman who was to be executed for infanticide involved an executioner and two assistants. First, a grave some one-and-a-half ell deep was dug. The woman was then placed within it, her hands and feet were secured by driving nails through them. The executioner placed a small thorn bush upon her face. He then placed, and held vertically, a wooden stave on her heart in order to mark its location, while his assistants piled earth on the woman, keeping her head free of earth at the behest of the clerics, because to do otherwise would have quickened the death process. Once the earth had been piled upon her, the executioner used a pair of tongs to grab a rod made of iron, which had been made red hot. He positioned the glowing iron rod beside the wooden stave, and as one of his assistants hammered the rod in, the other assistant emptied a trough of earth upon the woman's head. It is said that a scream was heard, and the earth moved upwards for a moment, before it was all over.


title: Impalement

text: Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, travelling on botanical research in the Levant 1700–1702, observed both ordinary longitudinal impalement, but also a method called "gaunching", in which the condemned is hoisted up by means of a rope over a row of sharp metal hooks. He is then released, and depending on how the hooks enter his body, he may survive in impaled condition for a few days.


title: Impalement

text: Forty years earlier than de Tournefort, de Thévenot described much the same process, adding that it was seldom used because it was regarded as too cruel. Some 80 years prior to de Thevenot, in 1579, Hans Jacob Breuning von Buchenbach witnessed a variant of the gaunching ritual. A large iron hook was fixed on the horizontal cross-bar of the gallows and the individual was forced upon this hook, piercing him from the abdomen through his back, so that he hung from it, hands, feet and head downward. On top of the cross bar, the executioner situated himself and performed various torture on the impaled man below him.


title: Impalement

text: While gaunching as de Tournefort describes involves the erection of a scaffold, it seems that in the city of Algiers, hooks were embedded in the city walls, and on occasion, people were thrown upon them from the battlements.


title: Impalement

text: Thomas Shaw, who was chaplain for the Levant Company stationed at Algiers during the 1720s, describes the various forms of executions practised as follows:


title: Impalement

text: According to one source, these hooks in the wall as an execution method were introduced with the construction of the new city gate in 1573. Before that time, gaunching as described by de Tournefort was in use. As for the actual "frequency" of throwing persons on hooks in Algiers, Capt. Henry Boyde notes that in his own 20 years of captivity there, he knew of only one case where a Christian slave who had murdered his master had met that fate, and "not above" two or three Moors besides. Taken captive in 1596, the barber-surgeon William Davies relates something of the heights involved when thrown upon hooks (although it is somewhat unclear if this relates specifically to the city of Algiers, or elsewhere in the Barbary States): "Their ganshing is after this manner: he sitteth upon a wall, being five fathoms [30 feet, or about 9m] high, within two fathoms [12 feet or about 3.6m] of the top of the wall; right under the place where he sits, is a strong iron hook fastened, being very sharp; then he is thrust off the wall upon this hook, with some part of his body, and there he hangeth, sometimes two or three days, before he dieth." Davies adds that "these deaths are very seldom", but that he had personally witnessed it.


title: Impalement

text: A slightly variant way of executing people by means of impalement was to force an iron meat hook beneath a person's ribs and hang him up to die slowly. This technique was in 18th-century Ottoman-controlled Bosnia called the "cengela", but the practice is also attested in 1770s Dutch Suriname as a punishment meted out to rebellious slaves.


title: Impalement

text: A recurring horror story on many websites and popular media outlets is that Japanese soldiers during World War II inflicted bamboo torture upon prisoners of war. The victim was supposedly tied securely in place above a young bamboo shoot. Over several days, the sharp, fast growing shoot would first puncture, then completely penetrate the victim's body, eventually emerging through the other side. However, no conclusive evidence exists that this form of impalement ever actually happened.


title: Impalement

text: The earliest known use of impalement as a form of execution occurred in civilizations of the ancient Near East. The Code of Hammurabi, promulgated about 1772 BC by the Babylonian king Hammurabi specifies impaling for a woman who killed her husband for the sake of another man. In the late Isin/Larsa period, from about the same time, it seems that, in some city states, mere adultery on the wife's part (without murder of her husband mentioned) could be punished by impalement. From the royal archives of the city of Mari, most of it also roughly contemporary to Hammurabi, it is known that soldiers taken captive in war were on occasion impaled. Roughly contemporary with Babylonia under Hammurabi, king Siwe-Palar-huhpak of Elam made official edicts in which he threatened the allies of his enemies with impalement, among other terrible fates. For acts of perceived great sacrilege, some individuals, in diverse cultures, have been impaled for their effrontery. For example, roughly 1200 BC, merchants of Ugarit express deep concern to each other that a fellow citizen is to be impaled in the Phoenician town Sidon, due to some "great sin" committed against the patron deity of Sidon.


title: Impalement

text: During Dynasty 19, Merneptah had Libu prisoners of war impaled ("caused to be set upon a stake") to the south of Memphis, following an attempted invasion of Egypt during his Regnal Year 5. The relevant determinative for "ḫt" ("stake") depicts an individual transfixed through the abdomen. Other Egyptian kings employing impalements include Sobekhotep II, Akhenaten, Seti, and Ramesses IX.


title: Impalement

text: Evidence by carvings and statues is found as well from the Neo-Assyrian empire (c. 934–609 BC). The image of the impaled Judeans is a detail from the public commemoration of the Assyrian victory in 701 BC after the siege of Lachish, under King Sennacherib (r. 705–681 BC), who proceeded similarly against the inhabitants of Ekron during the same campaign. From Sennacherib's father Sargon II's time (r. 722–705 BC), a relief from his palace at Khorsabad shows the impalement of 14 enemies during an attack on the city of Pazashi. A peculiarity about the "Neo-Assyrian" way of impaling was that the stake was "driven into the body immediately under the ribs", rather than along the full body length. For the Neo-Assyrians, mass executions seem to have been not only designed to instill terror and to enforce obedience, but also, it can seem, as proofs of their "might" that they took pride in. Neo-Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) was evidently proud enough of his bloody work that he committed it to monument and eternal memory as follows:


title: Impalement

text: Paul Kern, in his (1999) "Ancient Siege Warfare", provides some statistics on how different Neo-Assyrian kings from the times of Ashurnasirpal II commemorated their punishments of rebels.


title: Impalement

text: Although impalement of rebels and enemies is particularly well-attested from Neo-Assyrian times, the 14th-century BC Mitanni king Shattiwaza charges his predecessor, the usurper Shuttarna III for having delivered unto the (Middle) Assyrians several nobles, who had them promptly impaled. Some scholars have said, though, that it is only with king Ashur-bel-kala (r. 1074–1056) that we have solid evidence that punishments like flaying and impaling came into use. From the Middle Assyrian period, we have evidence about impalement as a form of punishment relative to other types of perceived crimes as well. The law code discovered and deciphered by Dr. Otto Schroeder contains in its paragraph 51 the following injunction against abortion:


title: Impalement

text: The Greek historian Herodotus recounts that, when Darius I, king of Persia, conquered Babylon, he impaled 3000 Babylonians. In the Behistun Inscription, Darius himself boasts of having impaled his enemies. Darius speaks proudly of the ruthlessness with which these revolts were put down. In Babylon Nidintu-Bel was impaled along with 49 of his companions:


title: Impalement

text: In 522 BC Phraortes proclaimed that he was a descendant of the Median king Cyaxares and took the throne, he seized Ecbatana, the capital of Media and rebelled against the Achamenied yoke, this revolt was suppressed by Darius king of Persia and Phraortes was captured and impaled:


title: Impalement

text: A Bible passage in the Book of Esther concerning the fate of the 5th-century BC Persian minister Haman and his ten sons has been treated differently by different translators, leading to an ambiguity as to whether they were impaled or hanged. The passage explains that Haman conspired to have all the Jews in the empire killed but his plan was thwarted, and he was given the punishment he had thought to mete out to Mordecai. The English Standard Version of Esther 5:14 describes this as "hanging", whereas The New International Reader's version opts for "impalement".


title: Impalement

text: The Assyriologist Paul Haupt opts for impalement in his 1908 essay "Critical notes on Esther", while Benjamin Shaw has an extended discussion of the topic on the website ligonier.org from 2012.


title: Impalement

text: Other passages in the Bible may allude to the practice of impalement, such as II Samuel 21:9 concerning the fate of the sons of Saul, where some English translations use the verb "impale", but others use "hang".


title: Impalement

text: Although we lack conclusive evidence either way for whether Hebrew law allowed for impalement, or for hanging (whether as a mode of execution or for display of the corpse), the Neo-Assyrian method of impalement as seen in carvings could, perhaps, equally easily be seen as a form of "hanging" upon a pole, rather than focusing upon the stake's actual "penetration" of the body.


title: Impalement

text: From John Granger Cook, 2014: ""Stipes" is Seneca's term for the object used for impalement. This narrative and his "Ep". 14.5 are the only two textually explicit references to impalement in Latin texts:"


title: Impalement

text: Within the Holy Roman Empire, in article 131 of the 1532 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, the following punishment was stated for women found guilty of infanticide. Generally, they should be drowned, but the law code allowed for, in particularly severe cases, that the old punishment could be implemented. That is, the woman would be buried alive, and then a stake would be driven through her heart. Similarly, burial alive, combined with transversal impalement is attested as an early execution method for people found guilty of adultery. The 1348 statutes of Zwickau allowed punishment of an adulterous couple in the following way: They were to be placed on top of each other in a grave, with a layer of thorns between them. Then, a single stake was to be hammered through them. A similar punishment by impalement for a proven male adulterer is mentioned in a 13th-century ordinance for Bohemian mining town Jihlava (then and German Iglau), whereas in a 1340 Vienna statute, the husband of a woman caught "in flagrante" in adultery could, if he wished to, demand that his wife and her lover be impaled, or alternatively demand a monetary restitution. Occasionally, women found guilty of witchcraft have been condemned to be impaled. In 1587 Kiel, 101-year-old Sunde Bohlen was, on being condemned as a witch, buried alive, and afterwards had a stake driven through her heart.


title: Impalement

text: Rapists of virgins and children are also attested to have been buried alive, with a stake driven through them. In one such judicial tradition, the rapist was to be placed in an open grave, and the rape victim was ordered to make the three first strokes on the stake herself; the executioners then finishing the impalement procedure. Serving as an example of the fate of a child molester, in August 1465 in Zurich, Switzerland, Ulrich Moser was condemned to be impaled, for having sexually violated six girls between the ages four and nine. His clothes were taken off, and he was placed on his back. His arms and legs were stretched out, each secured to a pole. Then a stake was driven through his navel down into the ground. Thereafter, people left him to die.


title: Impalement

text: Cases of "longitudinal" impalement typically occur in the context of war or as a punishment for robbery, the latter being attested to as the practice in Central and Eastern Europe.


title: Impalement

text: Individuals accused of collaborating with the enemy have, on occasion, been impaled. In 1632 during the Thirty Years' War, the German officer Fuchs was impaled on suspicion of defecting to the Swedes, a Swedish corporal was likewise impaled for trying to defect to the Germans. The Swedes continued this practise during the Scanian War (1675-1679), especially in the case of deserters and those perceived as traitors. In 1654, under the Ottoman siege of the Venetian garrison at Crete, several peasants were impaled for supplying provisions to the besieged. Likewise in 1685, some Christians were impaled by the Hungarians for having provided supplies to the Turks.


title: Impalement

text: In 1677, a particularly brutal German General Kops leading the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I who wanted to keep Hungary dominated by the Germans, rather than allow it to become dominated by the Turks, began impaling and quartering his Hungarian subjects/opponents. An opposing general on the Hungarian side, , responded in kind, by flaying alive Imperial troops, and fixing sharp iron hooks in fortress walls, upon which he threw captured Germans to be impaled. Finally, Emperor Leopold I had enough of the mutual bloodshed, and banished Kops in order to establish a needed cessation of hostilities. After the Treaty of The Hague (1720), Sicily fell under Habsburg rule, but the locals deeply resented the German overlords. One parish priest (who exhorted his parishioners to kill the Germans) is said to have broken into joy when a German soldier arrived at his village, exclaiming that a whole eight days had gone by since he had last killed a German, and shot the soldier off his horse. The priest was later impaled. In the short-lived 1784 Horea Revolt against the Austrians and Hungarians, the rebels gained hold of two officers, whom they promptly impaled. On their side, the imperial troops got hold of Horea's 13-year-old son, and impaled him. That seems to have merely inflamed the rebel leader's determination, although the revolt was quashed shortly afterwards. After the revolt was crushed by early 1785, some 150 rebels are said to have been impaled.


title: Impalement

text: From 1748 onwards, German regiments organized manhunts on "robbers" in Hungary/Croatia, impaling those who were caught.


title: Impalement

text: Occasionally, individual murderers were perceived to have been so heinous that standard punishments like beheading or being broken on the wheel were regarded as incommensurate with their crimes, and extended rituals of execution that might include impalement were devised. An example is that of Pavel Vašanský (Paul Waschansky in German transcript), who was executed on 1 March 1570 in Ivančice in present-day Czech Republic, on account of 124 confessed murders (he was a roaming highwayman). He underwent a particularly gruelling execution procedure: first, his limbs were cut off and his nipples were ripped off with glowing pincers; he was then flayed, impaled and finally roasted alive. A pamphlet that purports to give Wasansky's verbatim confession, does not record how he was apprehended, nor what means of torture was used to extract his confessions.


title: Impalement

text: Other such accounts of "heinous murderers" in which impalement is a prominent element include cases in 1504 and 1519, the murderer nicknamed Puschpeter executed in 1575 for killing thirty people, including six pregnant women whose unborn children he ate in the hope of thereby acquiring invisibility, the head of the Pappenheimer family in 1600, and an unnamed murderer executed in Breslau in 1615, who under torture had confessed to 96 acts of murder by arson.


title: Impalement

text: During the 15th century, Vlad III ("Dracula"), Prince of Wallachia, is credited as the first notable figure to prefer this method of execution during the late medieval period, and became so notorious for its liberal employment that among his several nicknames he was known as Vlad the Impaler. After being orphaned, betrayed, forced into exile and pursued by his enemies, he retook control of Wallachia in 1456. He dealt harshly with his enemies, especially those who had betrayed his family in the past, or had profited from the misfortunes of Wallachia. Though a variety of methods were employed, he has been most associated with his use of impalement. The liberal use of capital punishment was eventually extended to Saxon settlers, members of a rival clan, and criminals in his domain, whether they were members of the boyar nobility or peasants, and eventually to any among his subjects that displeased him. Following the multiple campaigns against the invading Ottoman Turks, Vlad would never show mercy to his prisoners of war. After The Night Attack of Vlad Țepeș in mid-June 1462 failed to assassinate the Ottoman sultan, the road to Târgoviște, the capital of Vlad's principality of Wallachia, eventually became inundated in a "forest" of 20,000 impaled and decaying corpses, and it is reported that Mehmet II's invading army of Turks turned back to Constantinople in 1462 after encountering thousands of impaled corpses along the Danube River. Woodblock prints from the era portray his victims impaled from either the frontal or the dorsal or the rectal impalement method which consisted of a wood or metal pole being inserted through the body either front to back, or vertically, through the rectum or vagina. The exit wound could be near the victim's neck, shoulders or mouth.


title: Impalement

text: Longitudinal impalement is an execution method often attested within the Ottoman Empire, for a variety of offenses, it was done mostly as a warning to others or to terrify.


title: Impalement

text: The Ottoman Empire used impalement during, and before, the last siege of Constantinople in 1453. During the buildup phase to the great siege the year before, in 1452, the sultan declared that all ships sailing up or down through the Bosphorus had to anchor at his fortress there, for inspection. One Venetian captain, Antonio Rizzo, sought to defy the ban, but his ship was hit by a cannonball. He and his crew were picked up from the waters, the crew members to be beheaded (or sawn asunder according to Niccolò Barbaro), whereas Rizzo was impaled. In the early days of the siege in May 1453, contingents of the Ottoman army made mop-up operations at minor fortifications like Therapia and Studium. The surrendered soldiers, some 40 individuals from each place, were impaled.


title: Impalement

text: Within the Ottoman Empire, some civil crimes (rather than rebel activity/treasonous behavior), such as highway robbery, might be punished by impalement. For some periods at least, executions for civil crimes were claimed to have been rather rare in the Ottoman Empire. lived in the realm for 14 years from 1699 to 1713 and claimed that he had not heard of twenty thieves in Constantinople during that time. As for highway robbers, who surely had been impaled, Aubry heard of only 6 such cases during his residence there. Staying at Aleppo from 1740–54, Alexander Russell notes that in the 20 years gone by, there were no more than "half a dozen" public executions there. Jean de Thévenot, traveling in the Ottoman Empire and its territories like Egypt in the late 1650s, emphasizes the "regional" variations in impalement frequency. Of Constantinople and Turkey, de Thévenot writes that impalement was "not much practised" and "very rarely put in practice." An exception he highlighted was the situation of Christians in Constantinople. If a Christian spoke or acted out against the "Law of Mahomet", or consorted with a Turkish woman, or broke into a mosque, then he might face impalement unless he converted to Islam. In contrast, de Thévenot says that in Egypt impalement was a "very ordinary punishment" against the Arabs there, whereas Turks in Egypt were strangled in prison instead of being publicly executed like the natives. Thus, the actual frequency of impalement within the Ottoman Empire varied greatly, not only from time to time, but also from place to place, and between different population groups in the empire.


title: Impalement

text: Highway robbers were still impaled into the 1830s, but one source says the practice was rare by then. Travelling to Smyrna and Constantinople in 1843, Stephen Massett was told by a man who witnessed the event that "just a few years ago", a dozen or so robbers were impaled at Adrianople. All of them, however, had been strangled prior to impalement. Writing around 1850, the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard mentions that the latest case he was acquainted with happened "about ten years ago" in Baghdad, on four rebel Arab sheikhs.


title: Impalement

text: Impalement of "pirates", rather than highway robbers, is also occasionally recorded. In October 1767 Hassan Bey, who had preyed on Turkish ships in the Euxine Sea for a number of years, was captured and impaled, even though he had offered 500,000 ducats for his pardon.


title: Impalement

text: During the Ottoman rule of Greece, impalement became an important tool of psychological warfare, intended to inflict terror into the peasant population. By the 18th century, Greek bandits turned guerrilla insurgents (known as "klephts") became an increasing annoyance to the Ottoman government. Captured klephts were often impaled, as were peasants that harbored or aided them. Victims were publicly impaled and placed at highly visible points, and had the intended effect on many villages who not only refused to help the klephts, but would even turn them in to the authorities. The Ottomans engaged in active campaigns to capture these insurgents in 1805 and 1806, and were able to enlist Greek villagers, eager to avoid the stake, in the hunt for their outlaw countrymen.


title: Impalement

text: Impalement was, on occasion, aggravated with being set over a fire, the impaling stake acting as a spit, so that the impaled victim might be roasted alive. Among other severities, Ali Pasha, an Albanian-born Ottoman noble who ruled Ioannina, had rebels, criminals, and even the descendants of those who had wronged him or his family in the past, impaled and roasted alive. Thomas Smart Hughes, visiting Greece and Albania in 1812–13, says the following about his stay in Ioannina:


title: Impalement

text: During the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832), Greek revolutionaries and civilians were tortured and executed by impalement. A German witness of the Constantinople massacre (April 1821) narrates the impalement of about 65 Greeks by a Turkish mob. In April 1821, thirty Greeks from the Ionian island of Zante (Zakynthos) had been impaled in Patras. This was recorded in the diary of the French consul Hughes Pouqueville and published by his brother François Pouqueville.