Treaty of Tudmir
Treaty of Tudmīr; the Segoyuela battle tradition is disputed
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The surrender document promised that families would not be separated and churches would not be burned — protections bought with annual cash and food payments.
April 713: a treaty, not a last battle
In April 713 ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Mūsā issued a peace-and-surrender agreement to Theodemir, a ruler in southeastern Iberia whom Arabic sources call Tudmīr.
The listing joins that treaty to a supposed final Visigothic defeat at Segoyuela in Salamanca, on the other side of the peninsula. Segoyuela was asserted as a September 713 battle in an early-twentieth-century Cambridge history, while the municipality of San Miguel de Valero presents the story as tradition standing between reality and imagination.
A final defeat is hard to locate in 713 in any case: a Visigothic kingship under Ardo survived in Septimania until about 720.
What Theodemir kept, and what it cost
The agreement confirmed Theodemir's local authority and protected his people from killing, captivity and the separation of families, along with their churches and religious practice.
Seven towns submitted nominally to Muslim authority. Their inhabitants accepted an annual tax and obligations not to assist Muslim enemies or conceal information from them.
In al-ʿUḏrī's recension the annual charge is one dinar per free man and half that for a slave, plus four measures each of wheat, barley and vinegar, two of honey and one of oil.
How the text reaches us
The treaty survives only through much later Arabic works. Most researchers accept it as authentic conquest-period evidence, though Luis Molina has questioned aspects of its textual authenticity and historical setting.
The recensions disagree with each other. The earliest dates the document only to Rajab 94 AH; the precise 5 April comes from another recension, and among the town names only Orihuela, Mula, Lorca and Alicante are secure.
A later chronicle adds that women stood on Orihuela's walls with their hair arranged like beards — a motif also known from Lombard tradition.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited Date disputed
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →
Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at 0713-04.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The surviving treaty is transmitted only through much later Arabic works. Most researchers accept it as authentic conquest-period evidence, but Luis Molina questioned aspects of its textual authenticity and historical setting.
- The earliest recension dates the document only to Rajab 94 AH, corresponding to April 713. A precise date of 5 April comes from another recension and should not be treated as universal across the textual tradition.
- The surviving recensions disagree over several place-names. Orihuela, Mula, Lorca and Alicante are secure; proposed identifications of Baltana, Ello, Elche and Villena vary.
- The detailed story that women stood on Orihuela's walls with their hair arranged like beards is from a later chronicle and employs a literary motif also known from Lombard tradition.