1309 – Gibraltar’s Dar-al-sinaha
The First Gibraltar Dockyard
É mandó labrar los muros de la villa que derrivarón los engeños.É otrosi mandó labrar una torre encima del recuesto de la villa.É otrosi mandó labrar una atarazana desde la villa fasta la mar, porque esloviesen las galeas en salvo.
My guess is that Ferdinand would have found the town not all that different from the one supposedly built during the mid 12th century by the Almohad Caliph, Abd al Mu’min, founder of Madinat al-Fath, the original town of Gibraltar. The captions on the plan above refer to the following.
“A” is the Tower of Homage. It would have been much smaller than the one that has survived. In fact there probably wasn’t much left of Abd al Mu’min’s original version by the time Ferdinand got there. Recent archaeological research has suggested that Ferdinand’s orders were In fact carried out and a larger building was constructed.
The Christian and Islamic Towers of Homage compared - an interpretation of the results of an archaeological dig published by 2016 - Gibraltar en Época Meriní y Nazarí . . . Francisco J. Giles et al
Similarly, the Moorish Castle precinct or Qasabah - “B” - would possibly have enclosed a smaller area with less imposing walls.
“C” would have had fewer building than the district that later became known as “Villa Vieja” whereas - “D” - today’s Casemates, would simply have been an open space, possibly defended by moveable wooden palisades where galleys would have been dragged on for repairs on to what was in effect a tidal beach. It would have been here that Ferdinand ordered his “atarazana” to be built.
Perhaps the main difference between the 12th and early 14th century would have been the development of a new district to the south of the original complex. It was supposedly inhabited by the hoi polloi or camp followers and the like, and was know as “al-turba al-ḥamra” . . . Arabic for “the red sands”. It later became known to Gibraltar’s Christians as “la Turba.”
A plan of the town in the mid to late 14th C
The Tower of Homage (brown) would have been then as it is today, as would the Qasabah (yellow) but perhaps occupying a smaller area and with less imposing walls. The area later known as Villa Vieja (blue) would by now have been inhabited by the more well off members of the population with a corresponding growth of that of the poorer quarters in la Turba (red) in which curiously the most imposing mosque in town and large Moorish baths would have already been constructed.
defended by a proper walls and a defendable sea gate.
Una vez que (Abu l-hasan) se hubo apoderado (de Gibraltar) y la tuvo bajo su mandato, concedió primordial interés, sobre otros asuntos, a reconstruir y edificar (dicha plaza), llevando cargas de oro y profesionales (de la construcción) que empezaron por reparar la fortaleza (hisn), reforzando muros, edificios, fosos y otras construcciones, como así mismo los lugares más expuestos, levantando su aljama, y sus almacenes; mientras tanto llegaban barcos transportando grano.
Although the construction of neither a dockyard building or a galley house is specifically mentioned in the passage above, it certainly formed part of the general improvements carried out by the new Marinid owners of the Rock – as identified by relatively recent archaeological evidence.
2007 Archaeological excavations in Casemates Square
According to an article published by the Gibraltar Museum:
The main feature of the excavation was the south wall of the Atarazana, not that ordered to be constructed by Ferdinand IV but that built under the rule of Abu l-hasan . . . in all the building was 40.8 metres in length almost the entire width of the present day square . . .
Plan of Casemates Square – or la Barcina as it was then known to the Spanish population - showing the long arched Islamic dockyard on the middle extreme right (1627 – Luis Bravo de Acuña)
Whether Ferdinand ever built the atarazana that he ordered is certainly put in doubt by Ibn Juzayy, the man who wrote the Rihla – an account of the travels of Ibn Battuta.
Gibraltar was taken after a six months siege in the year 733 (1333). Our late master Abu l-hasan built in it the huge keep . . . he built the arsenal there too (for there was no arsenal in the place before).
The problem is that there are numerous 13th century accounts of fleets of galleys putting into Gibraltar and remaining at anchor overnight. It therefore seems more than likely that Ferdinand IV did build his atarazana and that it may have had an even earlier Islamic predecessor, the Marinid version imply being the very latest, new and improved version.
All of which suggests that this area – once a beach but eventually a walled and heavily defended square - would always be associated with dockyard buildings and galley houses for literally hundreds of years.
The Crónicas de D. Alfonso Onceno which includes a description of the events that occurred during the 4th Siege of Gibraltar in 1333 in which Alonso XI of Castilla and Leon unsuccessfully attempted to regain Gibraltar immediately after having lost it to the Marinids in 1333, suggests that there was certainly some sort of galley house on that tidal beach before the Marinids had any time to either build a new one or improve on what was already there.
Et entretanto quell Rey . . . traxieronle seis engaños (catapults) e mandó poner tres dellos encima la peña, et los dos destos tiraban a la torre mayor de omenaje, et el uno tiraba a las galeas de los moros que estaban puestas en el atarazana de Gibraltar e daban muchas piedras en ella; mas los moros teníanlas cubiertas de madera et vigas muy gruesas et non las podían bien quebrar. . .
Literary references mentioning an area in Gibraltar called “La Barcina”
The oldest literary reference that I have found so far is in Pedro Barrantes Maldonado’s “Dialago” which was published in 1566. It refers to a notorious “Turkish raid on Gibraltar that occurred in 1540.
. . . en una poca de llanura que hay entre el pié de la sierra y el mar está edificada la ciudad, que entre los vecinos se llama la Barcina , que no tiene más de una puerta á tierra, que sale á la estrechura de la entrada, y otra á la mar y otra á los arrabales.
Esta Barcina es cercada á la redonda de una fuerte muralla bien espesa de torres; bate la mar en ella por la una parte, y dentro está la población que antiguamente solía haber cuando era de moros . . .
Barrantes makes no mention any “atarazana”, perhaps because by the mid 16th century the “beach” had become landlocked. Its dockyard buildings main galley house may have out-lived their original purpose and were probably being used instead as stores.
During the early 17th century, Gibraltar’s first general historian, Alonso Hernandez de Portillo also refers to it several times in his “Historia de Gibraltar” which he wrote during the early 17th Century. He was actually a Jurado de Consejo, a sort of juror or councillor for several districts which included most of the oldest parts of the town including one which he called la Barcina – the Casemates Square
A el Jurado Alonso Hernández del Portillo con la gente de su Collación que era los de vecinos de la Barcina, Albacar y Villa Vieja, el Baluarte del Canuto, dicho ahora de San Sebastián . . . .”
18th century manuscript of Portillo’s “Historia”
References to “la Barcina” in Maps and Plans
As regards captions, the oldest mention is probably on a well-annotated map by an unknown 16th century map-maker which in essence describes the same Turkish raid commented upon by Maldonado in his “Dialogo”.
. . . esto es lo cercado de la çibdad, que llaman la barzina”
The plan is possibly older than that by Anton van Wyngaerde’s which dates from 1567 but which unfortunately makes no mention of the square.
(1567 – Anton van Wyngaerde)
As for post-1704 maps, I have found it impossible to find one with English captions that makes use of the word “Barcina”. Possibly the first official British map published after the Anglo-Dutch took over was one by Col. D’Harcourt which he dedicated to George Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt. In it, he refers to the square as “The Parade to be made and Surrounded with Barracks for Soldiers.”.
(1704/1705 - Col. D’Harcourt)
Nevertheless, some Spanish plans such as the one below that do continue to use the word “Barcina”
Plan which includes a mention of “La Puerta de la Barcina”, a gate that led out of the southern district of “la Turba” with that of “la Barcina” (1743 – Part of a proposal on how to retake Gibraltar from the British)
The Drowning of Enrique Pérez de Guzmán, 2nd Count of Niebla
I think one can take it as gospel truth that poor Enrique did indeed drown during his failed attempt to retake Gibraltar from the Muslims in 1436 during the 7th Siege of the Rock . The story appears in just about every English general history of Gibraltar written in the 20th century – including George Hills’s, William Jackson’s and Maurice Harvey’s - as well as those by well-known Spanish historians such as Jose Antonio Conde, Angel María Monti and Francisco Maria Montero.
I have not bothered to check their references but this event is described in considerable detail in the Crónica del Señor Rey Don Juan II en Castilla y León which was published in Logroño in 1517.
Don Enrique de Guzmán, Conde de Niebla . . . se había anegado, . . . teniendo cercada la cibdad de Gibraltar. . . otros muchos Christianos que estaban en el agua por temor de los Moros, llegaron todos al borde de la barca por se meter en ella. e traváron del borde tan fuertemente que la trastornaron en el agua, é así se ahogaron el Conde Don Enrique de Niebla é hasta quarenta Caballeros é Gentil-Hombres. . .
The event is also confirmed pictorially in one of Anton Wyngaerde’s 1567 plans as shown below.
The Body of Enrique de Guzmán
I have found it hard to get a meaning for the word “Barcina” from modern Spanish dictionaries - my own doesn’t even include the word. I suspect the best guess is that it refers to some sort of cloth or hessian sack that can be used to hold or carry a quantity of vegetables – or indeed a human corpse.
The need to understand the meaning of this somewhat esoteric word is driven by the fact that there is a persistent theme which is repeated in many a history book, that the decapitated body of Enrique de Guzman was stuffed into one of these “barcinas” and displayed in such a manner that it was visible both to passing ships and from nearby places.
The Moors recovered Henry’s body from the sea, beheaded it and hoisted it in a wicker basket high above a turret of the water gate where it could ne seen clearly by the men on the isthmus and those in the galleys . . .
The Moors recovered his body, beheaded it, and hoisted it in a basket over the walls for all to see.
The defenders . . .hoisted Henry’s dismembered body high on the wall, a pointed reminder to the departing Christians of their loss of honour.
Three Spanish historians beg to differ – if slightly.
Los moros desecharon las ofertas, . . . y se negaron a entregar el funebre trofeo que encerraron en una caja, y colgáronla de las almenas del castillo.
. . . su cadáver arrojado en la playa por las olas cayo en poder do los moros, que hicieron bárbaro y sangriento ensayo colgándolo de las almenas de la torre del Homenaje.
Los moros alegres del suceso tomando el cuerpo del Conde le metieron en una ataúd y por terror de los Christianos, le pusieron en las almenas de una torre donde estuvo algunos años . . .
Conde is somewhat at odds with everybody else is this version of the event described in Volume 2 of Conde’s history of the Arabs in Spain presumably taken from unknown Arab sources:
Asimismo fueron los cristianos contra Gibraltar y la cercó el señor Niebla, y salieron los de la ciudad contra él y le dieron un rebato que pusieron en desorden su campo, y a la retirada como huyese en desorden muchos se ahogaron en el rio Palmones que estaba crecida con marea, y allí pereció el señor de Niebla y muchos de los suyos que habían escapados de los valientes muslimes que defendían la fortaleza . . .
None of these historians seem to have bothered to give any references but some of them may have had Pedro de Medina’s “Cronicas de . . . los Duques de Medina Sidonia” published in 1561 at least partly in mind:
Don Juan de Guzmán trataba con los moros que le diesen el cuerpo de su padre, y por ningún precio ni ruego no se lo quisieron dar; antes los moros hicieron meter el cuerpo del conde en un ataúd, y lo pusieron colgado de las almenas de una torre que está encima de una puerta que se llama de la Barcina . . .
Alonso Hernandez del Portillo’s version exchanges “ataud” – Coffin, for “barcina”
. . . que cuando el Conde de la Niebla Don Enrique de Guzmán vino sobre Gibraltar y murió ahogado aquí, los moros salieron a buscarlo después de habiéndose traído a esta ciudad . . . lo metieron en una barcina, y lo colgaron de una torre que cae sobre la puerta de este barrio.
Not so, Ignacio López de Ayala who took most of what he wrote from either Portillo or from Gibraltar’s admirable early 18th century parish priest – Juan Romero de Figueroa. This is how he puts it in his late 18th century “Historia”.
Don Juan . . . procuró desde allí rescatar el cadáver de su padre. Ofreció los moros grandes sumas . . . mas nada bastó para persuadirlos . . . porque siempre constantes en reusar la entrega del cadáver, lo metieron en un ataúd y lo colgaron para aviso i escarmiento de los cristianos de las almenas de la torre que estaba sobre la Puerta de la Barcina.
Interestingly, perhaps not more than a few years after the event, the Spanish poet Juan de Mena who died in 1456 and was a favourite of Juan II of Castile, wrote a semi-epic poem about Don Enrique’s unfortunate exploits:
“Jamás la tu fama, jamás la tu gloriaDarán en los siglos eternos memoria,Será la tu muerte por siempre plañida.”
The most remarkable thing about this lengthy piece of work is that there is absolutely no reference of any subsequent Moorish humiliation of the Count's body. Much less any mention of a 'barcina'.
Why Casemates Square was once called la Barcina
The oldest reference – in fact the only one I can find by any reputable historian arguing the toss as to why the Casemates area was known as “la Barcina” - can be found in Alonso Hernandez de Portillo’s early 17th century “Historia.”
. . . he oído algunas opiniones disparatadas que por eso no las diré; solo será bien deshacer una que han creído algunos . . . que cuando el Conde de la Niebla Don Enrique de Guzmán vino sobre Gibraltar y murió ahogado aquí, los moros salieron a buscarlo después de habiéndose traído a esta ciudad . . . lo metieron en una barcina, y lo colgaron de una torre que cae sobre la puerta de este barrio y de aquí se le quedó Barcina.
Portillo may have thought that the theory was “disparatada”, but his own was perhaps even more so. He thought that the Barca family – of which Hannibal is perhaps the best known member arrived in Gibraltar on his way to fight his battles in Europe and gave his family name to the square.
La verdadera opinión de la antigüedad y nombre de la Barcina a mi parecer es que siendo la antigua Carteya . . . poseída por los Cartagineses . . . que tenían en España . . . unos Caballeros llamados los Barcinos, familia ilustre . . . se vinieron adonde es ahora este sitio de la Barcina, viviendo ellos en Carteya, a fabricar navíos y apretar sus armadas.
Hannibal, surely the most well-known of the Barcino family, began his famous Alpine crossing from Cartagena not Carteya and as far as I know, there is absolutely no historical evidence that either he, his elephants or any other member of this family ever visited Gibraltar. So unless I read otherwise at some future date I think I must discard Portillo’s theory.
Conclusion
The container cannot be a coffin – otherwise why call the place “Barcina”.
The body must have been hung very close to the square – otherwise why give it the name of a container that was placed elsewhere.
Whichever way you look at it, the “barcina” proposal suffers from a lack of consensus. Some authorities say Enrique was bundled into a “Barcina”, others that he was placed inside a coffin. Likewise some suggest that whatever the container used, he was hung up somewhere near Casemates – perhaps one of the towers of one of its gates - while others insist the body was hung in the Moorish Castle.
Let me recapitulate.
From 711 to 1309, Gibraltar was an Islamic possession of sorts - a period of close to 600 years. It was only during a very short interval between 1309 to 1333 that Gibraltar became a Christian town during which it would appear that some sort of galley house known as an “atarazana” – a word which is derived from the Arabic “dar-al-sinaha” - was built in the Casemates area.
During this short period of time it would have been impossible for the Casemates to have been known as “la Barcina”.
In 1333 Gibraltar was back in Islamic hands and remained under Muslim control for 129 years. Regardless of the historical origins of the galley house – which as I have already suggested probably dates from well before the 14th century, Gibraltar’s Muslim residents would surely have referred to the building as “dar-al-sinaha” - a term which they could very well have also used to refer to the area in which it was found
There is in fact evidence that the newly installed Spanish population from 1462 onwards were not averse to using original Arabic place names. As mentioned previously the name used for what later became the most populated area of the town –“la Turba” – was almost certainly derived from “al-turba al-ḥamra”.
From 1436 to 1462 Gibraltar remained an Islamic town and whatever the Christians may have called the square, I find it impossible to believe that the Muslim residents would ever have given the square a Spanish name – and certainly not one as obscure as “la Barcina”. As Portillo perceptively mentions if they had decided to give it the name of the container holding Enrique they would have used its Arabic name. Far more likely that they would have given the square the name of its most important building or buildings – the “dar-al-sinaha”
In 1462 Gibraltar was back in Christian hands thanks to the efforts of the nineteen year old Rodrigo Ponce de Leon and Juan de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia and son of the drowned Duke of Niebla. During the byzantine negotiations and downright quarrels which ensued between the Christian leaders over the protocol of the surrender the Rock, the Muslims sent a letter to the Duke of Medina Sidonia in which they insisted that they would only hand the place over to him because of the respect they had for his father.
This event is recorded in great detail by Ignacio López de Ayala who took it word for word from Alonso Hernández del Portillo.
Decían los Moros por esta carta que puesto que ellos estaban abastecidos y tenían tan bien proveída su fuerza, que se podían defender algún tiempo; pero que por respeto al Duque y por haber su padre el Conde de Niebla muerto sobre esta Ciudad a todos ellos agradaba entregar la fortaleza a su Duque (de Medinas Sidonia) y no a otra persona.
As an example of diplomacy at its most hypocritical it takes some beating – but only of course, if in fact the “Barcina as a sort of container” theory is correct. A much more likely scenario would be that the Duke's body had never actually been placed in a “barcina” but had been kept inside a coffin somewhere within the Tower of Homage.
Insisting on the theme of honour lost and revenge taken, Maurice Harvey in his Gibraltar a History makes the following point.
The (Islamic) defenders, however, in their moment of triumph made a fatal which ultimately cost them Gibraltar, for they hoisted Henry’s dismembered body, high on the walls, a pointed reminder to the departing Christians of their loss of honour. The gate in this position is still called la Barcina. Talleyrand’s later comment would have been particularly apt . . . “it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder.”
Several questions come to mind. If Harvey is correct, why on earth did it take the Christians more than a quarter of a century before they made a move? And when they finally did so, why was it not the aggrieved party who decided it was time to right a wrong. It was in fact the mayor of Tarifa, Alonso de Arcos who set the ball rolling for reasons that had little to do with avenging Enrique’s humiliation.
Un moro vecino de Gibraltar, llamado Ali el Curro . . . vino a la villa de Tarifa . . . se tornó cristiano, el cual habló con el alcaide Alonso de Arcos . . . i le dio entender como si se disponía para ello ganaría a Gibraltar. I de tal manera, i con tales demostraciones lo supo persuadir, que al alcaide, le pareció ser cosa posible. . .
Sabia bien el buen Alonso de Arcos que el glorioso i honrado fin que se alcanza en los aélros militares está en tomar presto resolución en ellos, i con gran diligencia ejecutarlas, como ya queda dicho arriba , donde puse por ejemplo á Julio Cesar , i se pudieran poner muchos mas como lo de Alexandro el Magno, el gran Tamerlan que pareció rayo del cielo por la celeridad con que sujeto toda el Asia i gran parte de la Europa. . . .
It was Arcos with a few of his local pals – and his delusions of grandeur - who actually took the town, the Duke of Medina Sidonia being one of the very last to arrive at the party.
Incidentally, medieval acts of chivalry among enemies were not entirely unknown. Perhaps the best example of this type of thing between Islamic and Christian forces occurred after the death of Alonso XI which ended the fifth Siege of Gibraltar in 1350.
According to the Crónicas de Pedro López de Ayala (Vol 1)
E el día que los Christianos partieron de su real con el cuerpo del Rey Don Alfonso todos los Moros de la villa de Gibraltar salieron fuera, é estuvieron muy quedos , é non consintieron que ningunos saliesen a pelear; salvo que miraban como partían dende los Christianos.
Nevertheless it seems pretty certain that once Gibraltar was back in Castilian hands Enrique’s bones were recovered from wherever they had been held and given a proper resting place in the chapel of the Moorish Castle as confirmed in the literature by Pedro de Medina in his “Crónicas:
. . . D. Juan de Guzmán . . . puso los huesos de su padre en una rica caja de madera cubierta con un paño ele tela de oro, en una capilla en la Carrahola, (Calahorra?) que es la torre del homenaje y la principal del castillo de Gibraltar, donde están hoy.
. . . and graphically by Anton Wyngaerde in 1567.
And not a mention anywhere of the word “barcina”
In 2006, Darren Fa and Clive Finlayson – both well known local historians - published “The Fortifications of Gibraltar 1068-1945." One of their footnotes reads as follows:
Barcina was the Spanish name for the Islamic port area (the Casemates) and its name may derive from “Dar-al-Sinaha”, an Islamic reference to the Galley House.
No real evidence offered, but on the whole I suspect that they are right.