29/11/2018
Spanish Ciphers: 1470-1479
In mid November, I uploaded “Spanish Ciphers before Accession of King Ferdinand: 1470-1479” at Academia.edu.
While the nineteenth-century historian Bergenroth once said Spanish ciphers were “simple and primitive” for about fifteen years after 1480, Spanish ciphers before 1480 are found in archives. I reconstructed Spanish ciphers used by Ferdinand the Catholic in letters to his father, King John II of Aragon in the 1470s. Two of them turned out to be rather complex.
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ReplyDeleteAccording to Walsh, p.165 (Internet Archive), Isabella's secret letter "in code" to Ferdinand led to the "victory" of the Battle of Toro (Wikipedia) on 1 March 1476.
ReplyDeleteIsabella's succession had been threatened by the invasion of the King of Portugal Alfonso, who took Toro and Zamora and was even recognized as King of Castile by the French King (p.157). Ferdinand failed in a brief attempt to siege Toro (p.158-159) in the summer of 1475. When Alfonso left Toro and entered Zamora, Isabella, who had been following his move, received a secret offer to deliver the fort commanding the bridge leading to Zamora. The chance should not be missed but Ferdinand was then laying a siege to Burgos and his absence might be detrimental to the morale in the camp. So Isabella told him "in code" to slip away by pretending illness (p.163).
Ferdinand and his small party took the bridge and, with the reinforcements sent by Isabella, took the town (p.164).
On 1 March 1476, the Portuguese army moved towards Toro (p.168) and the Battle of Toro ensued.
I wonder whether Isabella's encrypted letter survives and whether it was anything more than a simple field cipher.
TV series Isabel (Wikipedia) is now being aired in Japan.
ReplyDeleteEpisode 16 covers the period around the Battle of Toro. In the drama's depiction, Ferdinand made a decision by himself to take back Zamora and no code or cipher was mentioned.