Project

Scheduling: June 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023

Description

"MOVING CITY - Cities for War: a European army in Morocco in the 16th century"                                                        (EXPL/HAR-HIS/1521/2021).

Starting from the concept of defended by Lauro Martines, in the book Furies. War in Europe 1450-1700 (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013, pp. 142-150), the modern age armies are compared, in relation to their staff, as a city in motion. A mobile community with daily needs for bread, water, and other food, and which included reels, blacksmiths, carpenters, bakers, and other craftsmen as well as women and children. All these people, military and civilian, along with hundreds of cars carrying ammunition and living, characterized the armies of the modern era.

In the military history of Portugal, the study of the human composition, in its various dimensions, of the army that King Sebastian took to Ksar El-Kebir – number of combatants and non-combatants, nationality, professional, social and age composition – remains almost unknown by the lack of detailed sources.

Soon after the battle, the Order of the Holy Trinity was commissioned by Cardinal King Henry to organize the rescue of prisoners. The complex negotiation process, in several cities and over more than a dozen years, is recorded in the chronicles and relations written by the religious of this Order, who in Morocco carried out the organization of the rescues.

From these chronicles and documents, we can characterize the daily lives of the prisoners during the years following the battle, and how they survived while awaiting rescue. The freed were identified and recorded in relations elaborated by the redemptive priests, which included data such as name, affiliation, naturality, jobs, the duration of captivity and the price paid for the ransom.

The MOVING CITY project has as its main historiographical source these relations that will be analysed, not so much in the sense of understanding the rescue process, but focusing on the characteristics of the rescued, in order to generate a clearer knowledge of the personnel that made up the army, both civil and men of the "profession of weapons".

The identification of all these individuals will be fundamental to know the personnel, both civilian and military, who made up the army – a true "city on the move".

SCOPE

The MOVING CITY project aims to bridge the gap that persists as to the knowledge of the troops that constituted the army that King Sebastian led in Morocco, from an innovative approach based on the analysis of the documentary sources of the Order of the Holy Trinity.

At the same time, it is intended to deepen studies related to the presence of this European population in Moroccan lands and to open perspectives for the development of a future international research project in this thematic area.

The project has as specific objectives in relation to the study of the Portuguese army who went to Ksar El-Kebir:

To Know the human component

- Identification and registration of all captives rescued from the battle of Ksar El-Kebir mentioned in the relations elaborated by the Trinitarian religious and in the documents of the archival collection of the Convent of the Holy Trinity of Lisbon.

- Palaeographic transcription of the main sources for the knowledge of the Portuguese army.

- Organization and processing of the data obtained, namely prosopography studies of some rescued and georeferencing of data relating to the naturalness of the rescued to make it possible to know the main recruitment places.

To know the internal structure

- Identification of the military and non-military, gathering information about the places of recruitment and knowledge about the "profession of weapons" compared to other specialized crafts such as gunners, military engineers, musicians among others.

- Recognize the importance of non-military personnel, including those who held offices related to the military camp or followers of the army such as family members, servants, etc.

- Relate the places of geographical incidence of the recruitment effort with the traditional narrative that associates that each of the Portuguese military unit (terços) a regional base, namely the North, Centre, and South of Portugal.

METHODOLOGY

- Review the historiography produced on this military campaign as a carefully organized multinational army, which put face to face the most up-to-date combat methods for both Ottoman and European times.

- Combine specific documentary sources from studies of religious history and military history to research an important historical event with global impact.

- Dissemination of research results: preparation of articles, presentation of communications; organizing an international colloquium; editing the relations of the rescued captives with analytical indexes and contextualization in the chronicles of the Order of the Holy Trinity.

MAIN TASKS

1. Research and palaeographic transcription

a) Bibliographic and documentary survey in Portuguese and Spanish archives and libraries: Portugal National Archive, National Library of Portugal, National Library of Spain, General Archive of Simancas:

- Identification of all the relations of prisoners rescued from the army involved in the battle of Ksar El-Kebir from archival collection of Portuguese Holy Trinity Order

-Palaeographic transcription of the relations of rescued and other important documents for the study in question.

b) Organization of information to allow consultation by the name of the rescued person, place of origin, occupation, affiliation, etc.

c) Production of maps identifying the places of origin of the rescued individuals.

2. Data analysis and information organization

The ongoing work on the project coordinated by co-PI "DE RE MILITARI: From war writing to battlefield image in Portuguese space, 1521-1621" (PTDC/ART-HIS/32459/2017) identification and organization prosopography of military positions can be articulated with the results of this task. We will also take advantage of the knowledge and experience of the Digital Humanities in the processing and dissemination of collected data.

This task consists of analysing the information collected in task 1, organizing and preparing the data for task 3. This includes internal evaluation meetings, definition of strategies for data organization, review of palaeographic transcriptions for editing, contextualization texts for publication, selection of themes/biographies to study, and articulation with other research projects.

- Organization and editing of collected data: Interpretation studies as biographies of officers with senior military positions, and of the men and women who accompanied the army, among other issues that may arise because of the study of captive lists.

- These topics will be evaluated and analysed in monthly meetings with the project team and every three months with the team and external consultants.

3. Information dissemination

This task consists in the production and organization of activities to disseminate the results of the project aimed at various audiences, both academic and the public. Throughout the project, we intend to prepare a set of products, including publication of scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, submission of communications to international congresses, as well as preparation of dissemination materials, namely for elementary education (students and teachers).

One of the main products will be a publication that will bring together palaeographic transcriptions (lists of captives and parts of descriptions written by Trinitarian religious), including in-depth studies on their historiographic content, their historical contextualization and, above all, the extent to which they contribute to the knowledge of the army that King Sebastian led to Ksar El-Kebir.