The Revenge: Root Cause of the Conflict of Galician Late Medieval Mobility

Clashes between the Moscoso and Archbishop Fonseca (1464-1473)

Abstract

Historiography has traditionally treated the conflict in the late medieval Galicia from the point of view of peasant and villains revolutions or of the lords’ abuses over servants or church, and although there are studies of other conflicts, historiography has not focused in military issues, their real motivations or the reasons to keep such long fights. Our main target is to analyse, as an example of Galician nobility conflict in late Middle Ages, the clashes between the noble family Moscoso and the Archbishop of the City of Santiago Alonso de Fonseca y Acevedo. Reviewing chronologically the facts, analysing the motivations, and reflecting on the military aspects of the clashes, we try to show not only that the revenge was the main reason for conflicts of the Galician nobility at that time –instead of rampant ambition of secular lords- but also that it was mostly the ecclesiastic lords who looked for and indeed instigated these long fights.