ABSTRACT
The conquest of Tortosa is the least well-known of the three large campaigns of the Second Crusade in Iberia, at least among English-speaking historians, although Giles Constable provided a substantial account of it in his article on the Second Crusade half a century ago and in recent years Nikolas Jaspert has also written on the subject. 1 Apart from the conquest of Lisbon (1147). the conquest of Tortosa is the only other expedition of the Second Crusade in Iberia for which there are references in the narrative sources to the specific involvement of Anglici. 2 Other contemporary narrative sources in England and elsewhere in Europe (except for Iberia and Italy) were relatively silent about it. 3 Although Caffaro's De captione Almerie et Tortuose is the only narrative source containing a reference to the English participation, there are abundant references in archival records. Some of these documents, especially those contained in the Llibre Blanch de Santes Creus, were exploited by Ramon Miravall in his short work on the English migration to Tortosa. 4 Other documents have been more recently uncovered by Antoni Virgili, which show that the number of English settlers was substantial in comparison to other areas of Norman and Anglo-Norman contributions in Iberia. 5
