REPRESENTING: Madrid, Spain
NAME: Teódulo Jorge Maria Rodrigo Manuel Alcaçar del Jurado y Serra García de la Madrid
PREVIOUS NAMES:
Khalid Abd Allah el-Mayriti (850 AD-1083 AD)
Teódulo Jorge Maria Manuel Alcaçar del Jurado y Serra García de la Madrid (1083 AD-1561 AD)
BIRTHDAY: May 15th (San Isidro Day)
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Don’t worry about it
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Don’t worry about it
GENDER: Don’t worry about it
PRONOUNS: he/him, she/her ONLY in specific private spaces (don’t worry about it)
856 AD to 865 AD: Mayrit was created as a military town by Islamic forces given the strategic advantages of high ground, water, and agriculture.
932 AD: During the reign of Abd al-Rahman III, an attempt to conquer Mayrit by Ramiro II, king of Asturias and Leon. He had not been able to conquer, which kept the reputation of impregnable walls intact (Stegemann 55).
1083 AD: King of Castile and Leon, Alfonso IV, captured Mayrit with a final, successful Christian siege. This also gave rise to the legend of the Virgin of Almudena (Stegemann 55).
1085 AD: “...was a turning point in the history of both the peninsula and the town of Mayrit. For the first time in over 300 years, the balance of forces showed a marked superiority of the Christians over the splintered Islam.” (Stegemann 56)
1086 AD: “The Almoravids entered Spain in 1086, the year after the fall of Toledo, invited by a collection of Muslim taifas to assist in their battles with Alfonso.” (Stegemann 58)
1109 AD: “...this site [ Campo del Moro or Moor’s Field ] was the base camp for Almoravid king Ali ibn Yusuf, who sought to take advantage of the death of Alfonso in that same year, believing it the perfect time to retake Mayrit. His army attempted the insurmountable alcázar from the lower levels of the river plains. …In a case of history repeating but in reverse, this time it was the Islamic forces who found it impossible to take the fortress their ancestors had built; they were repulsed just as Ramiro had been nearly two centuries before. …Access was cut off completely; perhaps the Christians could eventually be starved out. Yet the plan faced a fatal enemy: Ali’s troops were hit by a plague that decimated their strength, and they found the fortress inaccessible. (Stegemann 58)”
1152 AD: Madrid granted the status of villa by Alfonso VII, removing it from administrative control of Segovia and granting it extensive land rights in a feud that would drag on to the sixteenth century. (Stegemann 61)
1160 AD: The Almohads occupied southern Spain.
1160 AD to 1170 AD: “The mid-twelfth century saw three medieval military and religious orders come into being, all in swift succession in the decade between 1160 and 1170: the Orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara. These orders operated as a kind of state, or independent authority, and their influence was to last until the late fifteenth century, by which time the Catholic monarchs brought them under the direct control of the crown. Most active around Madrid was the Order of Santiago, to which Diego Velázquez aspired with inordinate longing in the last years of his life.” (Stegemann 59)
1176 AD: ‘Madrit’ first appeared. (Last used officially in 1477.)
1194 AD: The first recorded use of ‘Madrid.’
1202 AD: “A major step towards this transformation into a significant urban centre had come just prior to Las Navas de Tolosa, with the concession in 1202, under Alfonso VIII of Castile, of the right granted to the concejo, or administrative body that ruled Madrid, to draw up their own fuero. The fuero was a species of medieval constitution, a local magna carta or set of municipal privileges that gave the town a greater level of control over a wide range of laws. It allowed for the election of city officials, conferred the ability to coin money, set out the rules relating to the taxing of citizens and contained its own penal code. As a legal and administrative framework for the town, the fuero established a tribunal to settle the disputes arising from the frictions of medieval life.” (Stegemann 64)
1212 AD: The Almohads defeated by an army of combined Christian forces at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. The first reported time Christian troops fought under the flag of ‘Madrid.’ (Stegemann 59)
“The Madrid of 1212 that so distinguished itself at Las Navas de Tolosa was a significantly more important entity, within the context of the developing Christian control of the peninsula, than the frontier post of 1085.” (Stegemann 59)
“From that year Mayrit begins its transition to Madrid. It is not only a Christian town; importantly, it is now a Castilian town.” (Stegemann 59)
“After Las Navas de Tolosa, Madrid began to receive an inflow of population from across the peninsula. The town now enjoyed a life mostly free of onerous military obligations, at liberty to develop laws, industries, social and urban structures that were not conditioned by the threat of a nearby enemy.” (Stegemann 64)
“Released from the threats of frontier attacks, Madrid maintained a reduced military presence, albeit military service excluded all those who might not be considered reliable for reasons of physical stamina or dubious faith: the clergy, women, children, the aged, Jews and converted Moors.” (Stegemann 64)
1254 AD: Manuel and Viola begin courting.
1282 AD: Manuel and Viola get married.
1309 AD: Court was first held in Madrid under the reign of Fernando IV ‘the Summoned’.
1339 AD: The original fuero was overhauled becoming a fuero real or Royal Code, which applied not only to Madrid but the lands under its control. (Stegemann 82)
1369 AD: Ascension of the Trastamara family (Enrique II ‘the Fratricide’). “Events continued to tilt in favour of Madrid as a centralised hub of political power.” (Stegemann 82)
1383/1384 AD: King Juan I gives Armenian King Leon lordship over Madrid in perpetuity after paying a ransom for him. (Stegemann 85).
1393 AD: Municipal rights promptly restored after Leon died in France after Enrique III granted them.
Late 1400s: Population was around 10,000.
1477 AD: Isabel and Ferdinand enter Madrid.
1561 AD: Madrid is chosen as capital of the empire.
