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THE ARABIC FORT OF BADAJOZ The Fort of Badajoz is the result of the successive actions, which throughout the times were realized in defensive matter, from the primitive enclosure strengthened of the city. The original fort raised by Ibn Marwan in the year 875 was of minor dimensions, that the construction that came to the present day. Possibly it was extended in the period Aftasí and later reinforced during the dominaciones Almoravid and almohade. Archaeological trabajos that are realized nowadays on the occasion of the rehabilitation of the monument, this way testify it. As consequence of it, doors, towers have appeared and enclosedly other buried enclosures or absorvidos after the successive extensions and reforms. Already in period almohade, the citadel expanded out of the fort, first towards the Rivillas (Oriental Suburb) and later eastward and the south. When the king Alfonso IX of León, consquistó Badajoz, was counting this one already with a few defenses which limits managed to coincide with those of the historical current Hull. It was the known one as " Old Fence ", flanked for numerous towers albarranas, on that in the XVIIth and XVIIIth century the fortification got up bastions. |
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Ibn Marwan wanted to raise his city on the nearby Hill of the Orinaza to another side of the Guadiana, where later the Fort of St Kitts was constructed. But the authorities cordobesas did not allow it to him, since that position was better defendia from the south. The new strength had a strategic privileged situation granting to Badajoz a cardinal importance in the control of borders between Al-Alandalus and the Christian kingdoms. East was kept throughout several centuries, from the epoch Aftasí up to the invasions of almohades and Almoravids, being always a protagonist in the permanent fights with León, Castile and Portugal. After the reconquest, it fulfilled his paper as key of the territory in the tireless fights that supported both peninsular kingdoms and very especially in the course of the multiple warlike events of the War of the Independence. |
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In the top images, the contrast can be observed between the primitive appearance of the monument in his epoch of maximum esplendar and the aspect of the same place before inciarse the works of recovery. Precisely for this reason and as the works develop, there will be included photographies of the diverse recovered zones, though there will be kept some of them that reflect the condition of the strength before the same ones.
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The most ancient graphical document that one knows of the city of Badajoz dates back of 1641, historical moment in which the border puts in I peeped of war, by virtue of the clashes in the crowns Castilian and Lusa. In the above-mentioned plane, it is possible to observe no doubt, that in that epoch the fortification of medieval origin was coinciding to a great extent with the limits of the modern walls of Badajoz, that is to say with those of the bastion fortification. But in the above mentioned monument can be observed of very clear form, the existence of great number of towers albarranas that between other points were getting up in the environment of the bastions of San Juan, Santiago and San Jose. In consequence it can only demonstrated that the last Moslem fortifications previous to the Reconquest, they were defending a population whose extension was similar to that of the city of 1641 and even to that of beginnings of the 20th century. |
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The oldest known graphic document of the city of Badajoz dates back to 1641, a historical moment when the border stands by war, under the clashes between the Castellana and Lusa crowns. In that plane, it can be observed without a doubt that at that time the fortification of medieval origin largely coincided with the limits of the modern walls of Badajoz; that is, with those of bulwark fortification. But in this monument can be observed very clearly, the existence of large number of Albanian towers that among other points rose in the surroundings of the bastions of San Juan, Santiago and San José. Consequently, it is demonstrated that the last pre-Reconquest Muslim fortifications defended a population whose extension was similar to that of 1641 and that of the early twentieth century.. |
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