Morella, Battle of

The Battle of Morella (14 August 1084×88), southwest of Tortosa, is fought between Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragon and Navarre, and Yusuf al-Mu'tamin, King of Zaragoza, while the former isengaged in a campaign of conquest against the latter.

All surviving sources for the battle are either later by a generation or literary in character, and they are confused on the chronology and dating of the event.

The encounter is a defeat for Sancho and sparks a brief reversal of fortunes in the Navarro-Aragonese Reconquista.

The Castilian hero, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, is a general for al-Mu'tamin at the time.

According to the Aragonese Crónica de San Juan de la Peña (c.1370), Sancho later sought out the Cid, who had also defeated his father in the Battle of Graus (1063), and defeated him in the year 1088.

However, the Crónica is the only source mentioning such an encounter and, as it was written three hundred years later, most leading scholars give no credence to this claim, which was probably intended to justify the prerogatives of Peter IV of the Crown of Aragon.The Crónica dates it to the Saturday after the capture of Secastilla, that is, 25 May in its calculation.

The year 1084 is accepted by Ramón Menéndez Pidal, but Antonio Ubieto Arteta suggests 1088, the year under which the Crónica refers to Sancho seeking out the Cid and defeating him.

Bernard Reilly argues for a date of 1084 on the grounds that it would best explain the events of 1085.

Ubieto Arteta elsewhere places the Battle of Piedra Pisada in 1084, the unsuccessful culmination of Sancho's campaign into Zaragozan territory.

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