Geraldo Geraldes, o Sem Pavor

Geraldo Geraldes (died ), known as Geraldo the Fearless (, ), was a Portuguese warrior and folk hero of the Reconquista whose theatre of operations was in the barren Alentejo and Extremadura regions of the lower Guadiana river. The city of Évora was the most lasting of his conquests and was never retaken. His success and independence have suggested parallels with the Castilian hero El Cid and Gerald has been called "the Cid of Portugal".

Reconquista in Alentejo and Extremadura

Around 1162 Gerald assembled a private army (a mesnada) and rapidly developed tactics that proved remarkably successful in seizing Muslim strongholds, though it was not adapted for siege warfare. He "perfected techniques of nocturnal surprise in wintry or stormy weather, stealthy escalading of walls by picked commando-like troops, cutting down of sentries and opening of town gates to the larger force stationed without." Among the primary sources for Gerald's methods the most important is the contemporary Arabic chronicler Ibn Ṣāḥib al-Ṣalā, whose Al-Mann bil-Imāma was incorporated into the history of al-Maqqarī in the seventeenth century.

Of the places Gerald conquered the primary sources are in general agreement, also as to the order of their seizure, but as to the dating of events there is ambiguity. Ibn Ṣāḥib's version goes: In the second Jumada I [15 April–13 May] of the anno Hegirae 560 the city of Trujillo was surprised, and in Dhu'l-Qa'da the notable village of Évora. Also was the population of Cáceres in Safar 561 , and the castle of Montánchez in Jumada II and the strongholds of Serpa and Juromenha.

The city of Évora honours Gerald with a place on its coat-of-arms. The central plaza, the Praça do Giraldo, is also named after him. The years 560 and 561 correspond roughly to the annos Domini 1165 and 1166, but here Ibn Ṣāḥib is almost certainly off in his dating by a year. The events rather took place in 1164 and 1165. A later Portuguese chronicle, the Crónica dos Godos ("Chronicle of the Goths"), dates the conquest of Évora to the year 1204 of the Spanish era, that is, 1166. Trujillo was taken on 14 May 1164, or in June; Évora in September 1164; which was certainly one of his conquests, cannot be established.

Siege of Badajoz

So successful was Gerald by 1168 that his eastward expansion threatened the southward expansion of the Kingdom of León. These actions were in violation of the succession arrangements laid down by Alfonso VII at Sahagún, since they comprised lands whose conquest had been assigned to León. A few of Gerald's conquests in the far east had even been assigned to Castile. Subsequently he allied with the Almohad caliph Yusuf I, who had warned him of Gerald and the Portuguese's encroachments on his interests. Several of Gerald's conquests were ceded to purchase his freedom.

Campaigns 1169-1173 The debacle at Badajoz did not break the determination of Geraldes and he resumed the raids on the region from Juromenha that same year in the Summer. Months of raids followed but the new Almohad governor of Badajoz proved up to the task. With the aid of the knights-villein of Santarém, the Fearless lured the garrison of Badajoz into a gorge where he had left some companions in wait. The Almohads were ambushed and annihilated, with many having been taken prisoner. Among them was Abd ben Muhammad ben Sahib al-Salah, a member of one of the most important families of Beja, who was ransomed for 300 dinars and would later write a chronicle in which the actions of Geraldo would be recorded. Gerald took advantage of Yusuf's absence to conquer Beja in the Alentejo (1172). When he and Afonso disagree over whether to hold the site or raze it, Gerald—"impoverished and bereft of all aid" —went to Seville to put himself in the service of the caliph. To keep him away from Portugal he was sent to Morocco with 350 troops. There he received the governorship of al-Sūs (the plains and mountains of southern Morocco), but soon entered into negotiations with his former monarch concerning the use of al-Sūs as a base for a Portuguese invasion. When his correspondence was intercepted, he was arrested and put to death.

The chief source for Gerald's negotiations with the caliph and his death in Morocco is Ibn 'Idhārī al-Marrākushī's Al-Bayān al-Mugrib. Many of the cities and castles that Gerald captured with ease were later re-conquered by the Almohads, who improved their fortifications so much that they were not taken by the Christians again until the next century. Cáceres was besieged four times without success (1184, 1213, 1218, and 1222) and is usually referred to as a castrum famossum ("famous castle") or muy fuerte castillo ("very strong castle") in Christian sources, although it had fallen relatively easily to Gerald. Trujillo was not taken by the Christians again until 1234. The defences of Badajoz were completely reworked after 1169 and those that survive today are almost entirely of the Almohad period; the city only fell to the Christians permanently in 1226.

The dauntless Gerald: in his left he bears Two watchmen's heads, his right the falchion rears: The gate he opens, swift from ambush rise His ready bands, the city falls his prize: Évora still the grateful honour pays, Her banner'd flag the mighty deed displays: There frowns the hero; in his left he bears The two cold heads, his right the falchion rears. —Camões, The Lusiads (Canto VIII, 21)

Legacy and legend Gerald left his mark on the toponymy of the Extremadura. A document of the Order of Calatrava of 1218 refers to the cabeza de giraldo ("head of Gerald") as a place, without indicating where it lay. Two streams, the Geradillo and the Geraldo, the first flowing from the second and into the Tagus, are also named after Gerald. The region where the stream originates is in the highlands around Casas de Miravete, which is quite possibly the site of the cabeza.

The legends which later arose surrounding Gerald are given concise retelling by Louis-Adrien Duperron de Castera, a French translator: He was a man of rank, who, in order to avoid the legal punishment to which several crimes rendered him obnoxious, put himself at the head of a party of freebooters. Tiring, however, of that life, he resolved to reconcile himself to his sovereign by some noble action. Full of this idea, one evening he entered Évora, which then belonged to the Moors. In the night he killed the sentinels of one of the gates, which he opened to his companions, who soon became masters of the place. This exploit had its desired effect. The king pardoned Gerald, and made him governor of Évora. A knight with a sword in one hand, and two heads in the other, from that time became the armorial bearing of the city.