Talk:Almogavars

[Untitled]
i'm not sure that they were spanish since spain did not exist by that time; thay were from catalonia, aragon and navarre They were aragonian as they belonged to the crown of Aragon. They didn't "belong" to anyone; they were mercenaries, mostly proceeding from Catalonia, the Balearics and Aragon (in this order). Furthermore, their language was catalan ("Desperta ferro! Per Sant Jordi i Aragó!")

Yeah, that's true. They didn't belong to anyone, but their loyalty was to the Crown of Aragon, and they did obbey the orders from the Kings of Aragon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmgl2005 (talk • contribs) 08:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Arabic origin
The name is obviously derived from Arabic, but the transliteration is incorrect. There is no V sound in Arabic. This normally referred to the B sound, but Al-Mogabar is still ambiguous, and does not relate to a clear Arabic term. Sometimes the V and W are similar, so it can be Al-Mogawer المجاور which means "beside" or "neighbor", which is unlikely.

However, taking it to Al-Maghaweer المغاوير would make more sense, since it means "braves" or "daring" (sing. Meghwaar). I am not sure if the term was in use in Andalusia or not, but this is the most likely term I can think of.

I don't know anything about this, but I reworded the sentence in the article as it looked like two sentences badly joined together. It still looks kind of lousy, but better than it was. 76.208.120.38 (talk) 02:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The word seems to be muqafir, from the QFR root, which does carry in aqfar yuqfir form the meaning to raid, devestate. (collounsbury (talk) 16:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC))

Merger
A stub article with hidden Catalan text about the Almogavar war-cry exists which could be merged here. Catalan speakers may wish to view Awake iron! and see what could be usefully added hereMonstrelet (talk) 19:28, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

almogavars (and other variations, thereof)
I would suggest that these warriors were some kind of "religious sect" or "monks, of war", etc. Possibly connected to the so called Knights Templar. It is reported that these "Kinghts Templar" were not persecuted in Spain regardless of the commands of the Pope in Rome, etc.

What is sad is that a lot of their greatest deeds are unknown, or happend in the area of the East that we today call "The Balkans!" It is only that a few of this groups successes have been documented in the area of Greece and Anatolia, that we know anything about them.

I would also suggest that their very name, E.g. "Almogavars", is but a version of "Alms Givers!"

Regards, Ronald L. Hughes96.19.156.227 (talk) 20:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As this contradicts all current views of the origins and attributes of the Almogavars (there is no evidence that they were a religious sect and, as they seem to have families and womenfolk, monks seems a bit wide of the mark) do you have a source for your theory? Was that source written by a reputable historian or someone in the "Templar" industry? And we know about them because Aragonese historians at the time wrote about them, not simply because of some chance survival of records in Greece and Anatolia. Monstrelet (talk) 06:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

My dear Monstrelet, certainly you do not deny that the lack of wives for religious "Catholics" did not deny wives to even popes until a few hundred years ago! So just what was the "Catholic" answer for the "taking of the wives of the Franks", after their defeat before the Spaniards?

You do not deny the "auster" lifestyle accorded to the Catalans, do you? Please see: hispanismo.org  for more information! Or this; http://hispanismo.org/english/11502-almogavars-james-i-peter-iii-catalonia-aragon.html or this: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=29580

Also I see that you my dear Monstrelet, cannot see some relationship of the battle of the Catalans V. the Parisians/Persians in Greece compared to the events at Agincourt? 96.19.147.40 (talk) 02:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)Ron


 * I'm sorry but I'm still not seeing your evidence. One of the places is just a repeat of the "We have met Devils " paper already quoted in the further reading, which follows a conventional interpretation.  The other is a talk page thread mainly written by yourself.  One point I would note is you seem to think Catalan and Almogavar are synonyms, which they are not.  Almogavars are a particular cultural group within Aragon at the time of the Grand Company.  Another issue is that Byzantine historians had a passion for disguising contemporary peoples with classical names.  So references to Alans, or Scyths or Parisians need to be interpreted to see which actual group are meant.  That said, I am not aware of the battle between Catalans and Persians of which you speak, so can't comment on its similarity to Agincourt.  Certainly no such parallel has been drawn in literature on the latter battle that I know of. Monstrelet (talk) 08:19, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Newly added material
My copyedit tag is probably not describing the problem in its entirety. It's hard for me guess what the actual intent was behind sentences like "The Greeks were referring to the Almogavares as dirt people." because "dirt people" is not really idiomatic in English, as far as I know. It is a reference to their appearance or desert warfare maybe? I don't know how to fix something like that, especially w/o a source citation. Another problem is the sentence "The presence of the company left its mark ..." Is this referring to some particular company or is "the company" a poorly phrased generic reference. Etc. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 12:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that "dirt people" may just refer to dirty people The company reference I would read as belonging to the Catalan Company - see earlier in the text - often just refered to as The Company.  The problems are two fold.  As you have said, it really needs citations for a lot of this stuff - although the persistence of a bogey man image in the Balkans is of interest encyclopedically, it would be preferable to get some evidence.  The origins stuff is also likely to be controversial and needs references.  The other is it clearly has come from a non-native English speaker and may be a machine translation.  If it has not come from a wiki project in another language, we may have a copyvio issue.Monstrelet (talk) 13:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, that explains the Company stuff. It should be capitalized though. There are some sources in Spanish that were cited for the material further up. I'll try to get a copy of them, after the New Year though. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 15:30, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The new material is now becoming extensive and in need of some copyedit and structure work, plus attention to referencing. If anyone is able to tackle this, it will improve the article greatly Monstrelet (talk) 09:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I tried to copy edit this page, but many statements are unsupported by references. When I tried to fact check them, I found that they seem to contradict some of the reported citations.  Further, some of the statements might be in violation of copyright guidelines.  Further, there seem to be some POV issues -- the origins section claims that most Almogavars are of Muslim descent and custom, but other references I have found are in direct contradiction of this.  So someone needs to determine where this article should start -- the 7th century or the 10th century?  Or maybe these origin issues belong elsewhere? Sorry, and I hope I did not muddle things more.Gofigure41 18:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gofigure41 (talk • contribs)

Look guys, "dirt people" obviously refers to those who made their way via farming!!!

You must be almost blind to miss this? LOL

Regards, Ron96.19.147.40 (talk) 03:12, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

A note from your copyeditor
Hello anyone who has edited this article in the past -- I have just finished a major copy-edit of the article. My intent was to take chronologize the article, which had gotten disorganized in terms of the development of this class of soliders. There are a lot of areas that could be polished by someone with access to the various historical references listed in the article, and I look forward to the substantive comments and improvements of historians, linguists and fans of medieval military history. Gofigure41 00:52, 12 March 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gofigure41 (talk • contribs)


 * Thanks for your work on this - it was a major task and you have pulled it together well. Monstrelet (talk) 07:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment about Duchy of Athens
This comment was erroneously placed in the text rather than the talk page

"I would like to interject here another mention of the Catalans/Almogavars in conflict with the family 'de Brienne!' Thus you might well consider the mention this action that is hard to find mention on the Net. http://www.tutorgigpedia.com/ed/hugh_of_Brienne Regards, 96.19.147.40 (talk) 16:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)Ronald L. Hughes"

Monstrelet (talk) 17:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Serrano instead Saracen
I have changed Saracen for Serran in the Desclot description of Almogavars, quoting the book "La compañía de almogávares en Grecia (1987)" pag. 21, where is said that the word Saracen (Serrayn) is a mistake of a copy of the original Desclot chronicle, which in its first version says Serrans. Serran means inhabitant from the Valencian county "Los Serranos".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Serranos — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alvarfanez91 (talk • contribs) 10:12, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Article improvement
Recent development of the article has left it more extensive but littered with improvement tags. Could I suggest the following areas of improvement? Monstrelet (talk) 07:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Attempt to provide citations for the sections lacking. Some of this material is potentially controversial and should be properly cited to aid readers.
 * Tackle the problem of contradictions in the text. There is nothing wrong with giving alternatives in a wikipedia article but it should be done explicitly not accidentally because two editors have different views.
 * Balance the level of detail through the historical elements. Do we need the detail levels of the early centuries?  Should we have more on the later era, when the reputation of Almogavars spread beyond the Iberian peninsular?
 * Finally, a good copy edit for grammar and style are needed.