Battle of Toro

The death of Henry IV of Castile, in 1474, led to a succession crisis and the formation of two rival parties: Isabella, the King's half sister, received the support of the majority of the noblemen, clerks and people, whereas Juana de Trastámara, the King's daughter, was supported by some powerful nobles.[24]

This rivalry degenerated in civil war and the Portuguese King Afonso V intervened in the defence of his niece Juana's rights, to whom he married. He tried to unify the crowns of Castile and Portugal as an alternative to the union of Castile with Aragon, personified in the marriage of Isabella to Ferdinand, the heir of Aragon's throne.[24]

Ferdinand II of Aragon, married with Isabella. He conquered two peninsular kingdoms (Navarra and Granada), launching the foundations of Modern Spain. He also defeated the French in Italy.

After some skirmishes, Afonso V's army marched for the rescue of the besieged castle inside Burgos. On the way, at Baltanás, it defeated and imprisoned a force of 400 spearmen of the Count of Benavente (18 – XI – 1475)[25] and also took Cantalapiedra, reaching the distance of only 60 km from Burgos.[26]

The Castilian allies pressed Afonso V to advance south towards Madrid, where they assured him many supporters. The King, who did not want to stretch his communication lines with Portugal, didn't listen to them and withdrew leaving Burgos to its fate. The city surrendered on 28 January 1476, and Afonso's prestige sank. It is the turning point of the war: Ocaña and other places changed side, the Estuñiga family defected, the mighty Marquis of Villena, Diego López Pacheco, denied his military support and the Juanista band began its dissolution.[24]

Afonso V preferred to secure its line of cities and strongholds along the Duero River, but on 4 December 1475, a part of the Zamora's garrison – a key Juanista city – rebelled and besieged the inner fortress, where the Portuguese took refuge. Ferdinand II of Aragon entered the city next day.

At the end of January 1476, Afonso V received the reinforcement troops led by his own son, the Perfect Prince,[27] and in the middle of February 1476, the combined Portuguese forces besieged Ferdinand's Army (locked inside the city of Zamora), putting him in the curious situation of besieger being besieged.

After two cold and rainy weeks, the besiegers decided to leave and rest in the city of Toro. Ferdinand pursued and reached them near Toro, where both armies decided to engage in battle.

• Centre: Commanded by Ferdinand, it included the royal guard and forces of several hidalgos, like Count of Lemos and the mayordomo mayor Enrique Enriquez. It was formed mainly by popular militias of several cities like Zamora, Ciudad Rodrigo or Valladolid.[28]
• Right wing: it had 6 divisions ("batallas" or "battles") of light cavalry or jennets,[28][29] commanded by their captains: Álvaro de Mendoza (the main captain), the Bishop of Ávila and Alfonso de Fonseca (these two men shared the command of one battle), Pedro de Guzmán, Bernal Francés, Vasco de Vivero and Pedro de Velasco. This wing is sometimes called vanguard as some of his men closely followed the Portuguese from Zamora to Toro. It was divided in two lines: five battles at the forefront and one in the rear.[29]
• Left wing: here were many knights with heavy armour, divided in 3 corps: the left one, near the Portuguese, commanded by Admiral Enríquéz; the centre one, led by Cardinal Mendoza, and on the right, the force headed by the Duke of Alba. It was the most powerful.
• Reserve forces: the men of Enrique Enríquez, Count of Alba de Aliste (King Ferdinand's uncle and Galicia's governor, who would be taken prisoner by the Portuguese); and the horsemen from the marquis of Astorga.

The foot soldiers were in the middle of all those battles. In practical terms, the Isabelist army fought on two separate fronts: right wing and left-centre or Royal Battle (due to the presence of Ferdinand).

• Centre: commanded by Afonso V, it was formed by the knights of several noblemen from his House and the Castilian knights loyal to D. Juana led by Rui Pereira. It also had 4 bodies of footmen with their backs turned to the Duero River.
• Right wing: troops of some Portuguese nobles and the Castilians of the Toledo's Archbishop, Alfonso Carrillo.
• Left wing: here were the elite troops of the kingdom (chevaliers) together with the army's artillery (arquebusiers) and the javelin throwers. It was commanded by the Perfect Prince, who had as his main captain the Bishop of Évora. It included a rear guard battle under Pedro de Meneses.[30]

Because of the split of leadership between the King and Prince, the Portuguese army also fought divided into two parts which didn't help each other:[31] left wing or Prince's battle and right-centre or Royal Battle.

The forces of Prince John and of the Bishop of Évora, formed by arquebusiers, javelin throwers, and by the Portuguese elite knights, screaming "St. George! St. George!", invested the six bodies or battles in the right wing of the Castilian army. The Prince attacked the five advanced battles while the battle of Pedro de Meneses attacked the other one.[32] The Castilian forces (which were very select)[5] withdrew in disorder, after suffering heavy losses.

Chronicler Hernando del Pulgar (Castilian): "promptly, those 6 Castilian captains, which we already told were at the right side of the royal battle, and were invested by the prince of Portugal and the bishop of Évora, turned their backs and put themselves on the run".[28]

Chronicler Garcia de Resende (Portuguese): "and being the battles of both sides ordered that way and prepared to attack by nearly sunshine, the King ordered the prince to attack the enemy with his and God's blessing, which he obeyed (...). (...) and after the sound of the trumpets and screaming all for S. George invested so bravely the enemy battles, and in spite of their enormous size, they could not stand the hard fight and were rapidly beaten and put on the run with great losses." [33]

Chronicler Pedro de Medina (Castilian): "In the Portuguese left wing, where the people of the Prince of Portugal and from the Bishop of Évora were, a very cruel battle began in which the Castilians were defeated: due to the large artillery and shotgun's bullets from the enemy, a huge number of Castilians promptly fell dead and was necessary to remove another crowd of wounded men. As for the remaining, they found a great resistance in the Portuguese since this was their strongest army's side, as already told, and were forced to withdraw (...). Having been so easily defeated the right battle of the Castilian army; the other two attacked their respective counterparts in order to avenge the affront and losses." [34]

Chronicler Juan de Mariana (Castilian): " ... the [Castilian] horsemen ... moved forward(...).They were received by prince D. John... whose charge... they couldn't stand but were instead defeated and ran away."[35]

Chronicler Damião de Góis (Portuguese): "... these Castilians who were on the right of the Castilian Royal battle, received [the charge of] the Prince's men as brave knights invoking Santiago but they couldn't resist them and began to flee, and [so] our men killed and arrested many of them, and among those who escaped some took refuge ... in their Royal battle which was on the left of these six [Castilian] divisions.".[32]

Chronicler Garibay (Spanish): " ... D. Alfonso de Fonseca first and then Álvaro de Mendoza ... and other [captains] begged the King [Ferdinand] permission to be the first to attack the Prince's squad ... which was the strength of the Portuguese army, and the King authorized them, provided that the six battles named above remained together (...). And facing the Prince's squads ... they were defeated, many of them dying due to artillery and javelin throwers ... and this way, the victory in the beginning was for the Portuguese ..."[36]

Chevaliers and footmen in combat (battle of Grandson, 2 March 1476).

The Prince's men pursued the fugitives along the land. The Prince, in order to avoid the dispersion of his troops, decided to make a halt: "and the prince, as a wise captain, seeing the great victory God had given to him and the good fate of that hour, chose to secure the honour of victory than follow the chase."( Garcia de Resende)[33] But some of his men went too far (Rui de Pina says during a league, 5 km)[37] and paid the price: "and some of the important people and others ... in the heat of victory chased [the fugitives] so deeply that they were killed or captured."[37] According to Rui de Pina, this happened because some of these fugitives, after a hard chase, gathered with one of Ferdinand's battles on the rear and faced the most temerarious pursuers. Pulgar confirms this post chase episode: "Many of those who were on those 6 Castilian battles defeated by the Prince of Portugal at the beginning, seeing the victory of the other king's battles on their respective side [left wing and centre], assembled with the people of the King and fought again" (3 hours after the beginning of the battle, according to him).[28]

Pulgar justifies the defeat of the Isabelistas with the fact that the Prince's battle attacked as a block, while the Castilians were divided into six battles. So, each of them was successively beaten off without benefiting from the help of the others. Another factor cited by the same chronicler was "the great loss" suffered by the Castilians as a result of the fire from the many arquebusiers in the Prince's battle.[28] Zurita adds that the Prince successfully attacked with such "impetus" that the remaining men of the Castilian army became "disturbed".[5]

These events had important consequences. The Portuguese chroniclers unanimously[32][33][37] stated what Rui de Pina synthesized this way: " ... king D. Ferdinand ... as soon as he saw defeated his first and big battles [on the right], and believing the same fate would happen to his own battles at the hands of King Afonso's battles, was counselled to withdraw as he did to Zamora".[37]

Among the Castilians, Pulgar – the official chronicler of the Catholic Monarchs – says that Ferdinand withdrew from the battlefield for other reasons. Its justification: "the King promptly returned to the city of Zamora ["volvió luego"] because he was told that people from the King of Portugal, located in the city of Toro on the other side of the river, could attack the "estanzas" he left besieging the Zamora's fortress. And the cardinal and the duke of Alba stayed on the battlefield (...)."[28]

Not only Pulgar reveals that Ferdinand left the battlefield before Cardinal Mendoza and the duke of Alba, but the expression "promptly returned" seems to indicate that the King stayed a small time on the battlefield, delegating the leadership on these two main commanders.[38] On the other hand, it was highly improbable that Ferdinand risked helping Zamora in a Royal battle which was deciding the destiny of the entire kingdom of Castile. This city wasn't at risk since it was inconceivable that the small Portuguese garrison of Toro dared to attack in a very dark and rainy night the powerful and distant city of Zamora (29,2 km in straight way, but farther through the mountains), instead of helping the forces of his King and Prince which were fighting with difficulties practically at its gates.

The victorious Prince's forces (which included the best Portuguese troops) were still on the field and were continuously raising their numbers with dispersed men converging to them from every corner of the field.[28][33][37][39][40] According to the chivalry codes of that time, to withdraw from the battlefield under these circumstances instead of confronting this new threat and not remaining 3 days on the battlefield -as a sign of victory- [41] would be the proof that he had not won.

Indeed, it is much more probable that Ferdinand had retreated to Zamora in the beginning of the battle as a consequence of the defeat of the right side of his army (things could get worse).[42] However, there's a sharp contrast between the prudent but orderly retreat of Ferdinand to Zamora and the precipitated escape of Afonso V to avoid imprisonment.

In the meantime, the other Castilian troops were fighting a fierce combat with their direct opponents. The Castilian centre charged the Portuguese centre while the Castilian left wing, superiorly commanded by Cardinal Mendoza and Duke of Alba, attacked the Portuguese right wing: "...those from the battle of the King [Castilian centre] as well as those...from the left wing, charged [respectively] against the battle of the King of Portugal...and against the other Portuguese of their right wing."[28]

Cardinal Mendoza among other cardinals. Both a brilliant military leader and a very respected voice by the Catholic Monarchs.

Sensing the hesitation of his forces because of the Portuguese attack on the other end of the battlefield, the cardinal rode forward and shouted, "here is the cardinal, traitors!".[5] He would be wounded but kept fighting with bravery.

The Portuguese started to break. The struggle around the Portuguese royal standard was ferocious: having the flag carrier's (the ensign Duarte de Almeida) hand cut off, he transferred the standard to the remaining hand which was also cut off.[32][33][37] So he sustained the standard on the air with his teeth until he fainted under the wounds inflicted by the enemies which surrounded and captured him.

Afonso V, seeing his standard lost and supposing he had equally beaten his son's forces (which were smaller than his) sought death in combat,[32] but was prevented from doing so by those around him. They took him to Castronuño where he was welcomed by the alcalde.

By then, the Portuguese disbanded in all directions and many of them drowned in the Duero River because of the darkness and confusion. The Castilians captured 8 flags and sacked the Portuguese camp.[28] Bernaldez painted a grandiose picture of the loot mentioning many horses, prisoners, gold, silver and clothes, which was doubtful given the dark and rainy night described by the chroniclers. In fact, Pulgar recognizes that the product of the loot was modest: "and the people who participated on the battle during the previous day divided the captured spoils: which were in small quantity because it was a very dark night".[43]

Pulgar: "At last the portuguese couldn't stand the mighty force of the castilians and were defeated, and they ran seeking refuge in the city of Toro.(...) [the] Portugal's King seeing the defeat of his men, gave up of going to Toro to avoid being molested by the men of the King [Ferdinand], and with three or four men of all those who were responsible for his security went to Castronuño that night. (...) consequently many Portuguese were killed or taken prisoners..."[28]

Pulgar wrote that a large number of both Castilians and Portuguese died in the battle, but while the Castilians died fighting, the Portuguese drowned while trying to escape by swimming across the river Duero.

Rui de Pina justifies the Portuguese Royal Battle's defeat with the fact that the best Portuguese troops were with the Prince and were missed by the King, and also because there were many arquebusiers in the Castilian Royal Battle whose fire scared the Portuguese horses.[37]

Afonso V, the "African".

With the darkness of the night and the intense rain, chaos reigned. There were dispersed men from all sides: fugitives from the Castilian right wing, Portuguese pursuers, fugitive soldiers from the Portuguese King, the Cardinal Mendoza's men and the Duke of Alba's men were divided between pursuing the Portuguese and sacking their spoils and still; the Prince's men returned in the meantime.The battlefield became a very dangerous place where the minimal error could lead to death or imprisonment. As an example and according to Pulgar, some Portuguese shouted "Ferdinand, Ferdinand!"[28] to lure their pursuers making them think they were Castilians.

As a consequence of this triumph, Ferdinand promptly sent a letter to the cities of Castile claiming victory,[44] but without mentioning neither the defeat of part of his forces nor the retreat of his remaining troops when faced with the forces of Prince John, who possessed the camp and also claimed victory.

Later, the Perfect Prince also sent a letter to the main cities of Portugal,[44] Lisbon and Porto, ordering the commemoration of his triumph on the battle of Toro (but not mentioning his father's defeat) with a solemn procession on each anniversary of the battle.[45]

Isabella immediately ordered a thanks giving procession at Tordesillas, and in many other cities feasts and religious ceremonies were organized to celebrate the great "victory God has given to the King and to her people."[46] She would also build a magnificent commemorative Gothic temple at Toledo, the Monastery of S. Juan de los Reyes, to dissipate any doubts and perpetuate her victory.

As the Historian Justo Gonzalez summarizes: "Both armies faced each other at the camps of Toro resulting in an undecided battle. But while the Portuguese King reorganized his troops, Ferdinand sent news to all the cities of Castile and to several foreign kingdoms informing them about a huge victory where the Portuguese were crushed. Faced with these news, the party of "la Beltraneja" [Juana] was dissolved and the Portuguese were forced to return to their kingdom."[47] The key of the war was the Castilian public opinion, not the Portuguese.

Meanwhile Prince John returned after a brief chase, defeating one of the Castilian battles where the men were dispersed looting the spoils of the defeated Portuguese. However, faced with other enemy battles, he abstained from attacking and put his men in a defensive position on a hill. He lighted big fires and played the trumpets to guide all the Portuguese spread throughout the camp towards him and to defy the enemy. He acted this way because, according to the chronicler Álvaro Chaves, the Prince's forces were under-numbered as most of his men had gone in pursuit of the adversaries: "(...) [the Prince] turned against the battles of king D. Ferdinand, but because the people from his battles spread in the pursue of the defeated, the enemy's battle outnumbered the few men that remained with him, but in spite of that he attacked and defeated it and he went on until he faced other enemy battles, and then he stopped his battle to recover some of his dispersed men (...) because the enemy had the triple of his people."[48]

Pulgar: "And because the people of his father and King were defeated and dispersed, the Prince of Portugal went up to a hill and played the trumpets and lighted fires in order to recover some of the fugitives and stood on with his battle..."[28]

Prince John, the "Perfect Prince". His military behavior at the Battle of Toro was praised by his adversary Ferdinand. This happened when some nobles pressed King Ferdinand to force his royal chronicler Pulgar to change what he wrote about Prince John during that battle.[49] Indeed, the Castilian chronicles reveal that the Perfect Prince was the only leader who fulfilled all the premises of a winner: he defeated a part of the enemy,[28] he stood "without suffering defeat" (Juan de Mariana),[35] and finally he mastered the battlefield (Bernaldez,[4] and Juan de Mariana[35]). Ferdinand summed up the battle of Toro in a private letter to Isabella: "if it had not been for the chicken [Prince John], the old cock [Afonso V] would have been taken."[50]

The Prince's men took some prisoners, among them King Ferdinand's uncle, D. Enrique, Count of Alba de Liste, and for his great joy, they retook his father's royal standard as well as the Castilian noble who carried it, Souto Mayor (according to the chroniclers Rui de Pina,[37] Garcia de Resende[33] Damião de Góis[32]).

With the Prince's forces increasing continuously,[28][33][37][39][40] no military leader could be considered winner without defeating this new threat, which included the Portuguese elite troops who had defeated the Castilian right wing. Zurita: "This could have been a very costly victory if the Prince of Portugal, who always had his forces in good order, and was very near the river banks, had attacked our men who were dispersed and without order".[5]

The Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba began to join their dispersed men to remove the new threat: "against who [Prince John] the Spain's cardinal as well as the Duke of Alba intended to go with some men that they were able to collect from those returned from the chase and from those who were spread around the camp capturing horses and prisoners..." ( Pulgar).[28]

Two great heterogeneous battles (a Portuguese and a Castilian one) formed this way, standing face to face and playing musical instruments to intimidate each other:[37] "(...) so close were the men from one part and the other, that some knights went out of the battles to invest with the spears [individual combats]" (Álvaro Lopes).[48]

But the Cardinal and the Duke of Alba couldn't convince their men to move and attack the Prince's forces: "(...) and they couldn't join and move the men".[28] That's corroborated by the Portuguese chronicler Garcia de Resende: "being very close to him [the Prince] so many men of King D. Ferdinand, they didn't dare to attack him because they had seen his men fighting so bravely and observed the security and order of his forces (...)"[33]

Pulgar felt the necessity to justify the fact that the Castilians, which assumed the victory, didn't attack the victorious Prince and have instead retreated to Zamora: "(...) because the night was so dark they [the Castilians] couldn't neither see nor recognize each other and because the men were so tired and haven't eaten all day as they left Zamora by morning (...) and turned back to the city of Zamora."[28]

These circumstances, which applied to the enemy as well, don't explain the Castilian behaviour: the chronicles of both sides show that the Prince's battle kept increasing (making a "gross battle"),[28][33][37][39][40] because towards it moved many defeated and fugitives from the Royal Battle and also the Prince's men coming back from the enemy's chase, and even contingents of soldiers from Toro,[37] which crossed the battlefield to reinforce the Prince. Thus, if all these men could reach the Prince, the Castilians could do it too, especially because the two battles (the Portuguese and the Castilian) were so proximal that the men could listen to each other: "(...) being so close to each other [the Portuguese and the Castilians] that they could hear what they talked about (...)"[33] (Garcia de Resende).

At last the Castilians withdrew in disorder to Zamora.

Rui de Pina: "And being the two enemy battles face to face, the Castilian battle was deeply agitated and showing clear signs of defeat if attacked as it was without King and dubious of the outcome.(...) And without discipline and with great disorder they went to Zamora. So being the Prince alone on the field without suffering defeat but inflicting it on the adversary he became heir and master of his own victory".[37]

Damião de Góis: "being the night so advanced (...) the Castilians left the camp in small groups (...) and neither the Cardinal of Castile nor the duke of Alba could impose them order; they also went to Zamora with the men who remained with them in the most silent way possible as all the people had fled (...) and the Prince realizing their retreat didn't pursue them (...) because he feared [that the Castilian retreat was] a war trap, but that wasn't the intention of the Castilians because by morning not a soul was seen on the field(...), resulting in a victorious Prince with all his people in order(...)"[39]

Álvaro de Chaves: "They abruptly left the camp towards Zamora as defeated men"[48]

Garcia de Resende: "And after the Prince had been most of the night on the battlefield, and seeing that the enemy had fled leaving no soul behind, and having nothing more to do, he decided to stand on the camp for three days (...)".[33] He would be convinced[33][37] by the Toledo's Archbishop to stay there only 3 hours as a symbol of the 3 days.[41]

After defeating their direct opponents and because of the dark and rainy night, Prince John's tactical choice had been to prevent the dissemination of his forces during the subsequent chase, slowly gathering the scattered men from all proveniences, in order to recover his lost operational power and attack the Castilians early the next day.[39]

The Prince made a triumphal march towards Toro, carrying his Castilian prisoners,[39] and "with his flags draping and at the sound of trumpets."[33] But very soon the sadness dominated him because nobody knew where his father, the King, was. Besides that, the city of Toro was chaotic, with its gates closed because the Portuguese mistrusted their Castilian allies who they accused of treason and blamed for the defeat of their King.[46]

The Prince ordered the gates to be opened, restored the order and on the next day he sent a force to Castronuño, which brought back the King. He also "sent some of his captains to the battlefield to bury the dead and to redact a victory act, which was entirely made without contradiction".[48]

The fact that the Portuguese remained masters of the battlefield is documented in contemporary sources from both sides:[51] Pulgar first states that King Ferdinand withdrew from the battlefield to Zamora before Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba,[28] and then he declares that his army (now under command of the Cardinal and Duke) also withdrew from the battlefield to Zamora – after an attempt to attack Prince John, who was thus left in possession of the battlefield.[28]

And Bernaldez explicitly wrote that the Prince only returned to Toro after the withdrawal of Ferdinand's army: "The people of King D. Ferdinand, both horsemen and peons, plundered the camp and all the spoils they found in front of the Prince of Portugal, who during that night never moved from top of a hill, until (...) King D. Ferdinand left to Zamora with his people plus the spoils. Then, the Prince of Portugal left to Toro."[4]

Juan de Mariana corroborates him: "(...) the enemy led by prince D. John of Portugal, who without suffering defeat, stood on a hill with his forces in good order until very late (...). Thus, both forces [Castilians and Portuguese] remained face to face for some hours; and the Portuguese kept their position during more time (...)"[35]

All the chroniclers on both sides agree that the battle began just before sunset, which on March 1 occurs around 7:10 p.m. The fight would have taken between more than an hour (according to Damião de Góis),[32] and far more than 3 hours.[28] This chronicler -referring only to the struggle between both Royal battles-, wrote that "The indecisiveness of the outcome lasted for three hours, without victory leaning to either side ." [28] But to this, we must add the time required for the prior defeat and chase of the Castilian right wing, the withdrawal of Alfonso V´men and their pursuit during the dark night into Toro −5 km away.

Both armies had a similar number of men: around 8,000 soldiers.

According to Bernaldez, the only chronicler who gives total numbers, the Portuguese army had 8,500 men (3,500 horsemen plus 5,000 peons)[4] while Ferdinand's army had 7,500 men (2,500 horsemen and 5,000 peons) when they left Zamora.[4] So, the Portuguese army had a light advantage of 1,000 horsemen.

Bernaldez wrote that the Portuguese army who besieged Zamora had 8,500 men. The siege of this city started in the middle of February 1476 – fifteen days[66] after the union of the reinforcements brought by the Perfect Prince with the royal army of Afonso V (end of January 1476)[67] – and continued until the day of the battle (1 March 1476).Thus, 8,500 men is the total number for the combined Portuguese forces at the Battle of Toro since the Portuguese army who fought it was precisely the army who abandoned the Zamora's siege and withdrew to Toro, where it was reached by the former besieged Isabelist army. From this initial number of 8,500 men, it is necessary to discount the losses by desertion, disease,[68][69] and fight during the Zamora's siege, after 15 days of hard winter,[4] putting the final figure in more than 8,000 Luso-Castilians.

From the Portuguese side, this number reflects the high desertion suffered by its initial army (14,000 footmen and 5,600 chevaliers – but many of them were used as garrison of strongholds and thus did not fight in the Battle of Toro),[70][71] due to the unpopularity of the war among them. Especially after the failure of Burgos as it is told by Rui de Pina: "(...) many Portuguese without the will of serving the King came back to the kingdom [Portugal]".[72] The Portuguese captains complained that while they were in Castile, their undefended lands in Portugal were set on fire and looting by the enemy.[73] Other reasons were the high losses by disease,[74] especially fevers from the hot and also because the Luso-Castilian army included many Castilian contingents who easily and massively changed sides after the aborted expedition to Burgos and its consequent fall on 28 January 1476. From all the great Castilian nobles who initially supported Juana, only[67] the Archbishop of Toledo, Alfonso Carillo de Acuña was at the side of Afonso V on the day of the battle. After all, despite the reinforcement troops[75] brought by Prince John, when the Battle of Toro was fought, the invader army had suffered the erosion of 10 months of permanency in enemy territory.

Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, the most nationalist of the Portuguese chroniclers, wrote that the Castilian army had a small advantage of 700 to 800 chevaliers over the Portuguese army.[48] Pulgar Corroborates the similar size of both armies: "... there was little difference in the number of horsemen between both armies." [28][76]

The high numbers involving dozens of thousands of men on each army as it is mentioned in some modern records of the Battle of Toro not only do not have documentary support but are also in direct contradiction with the Historical record: the contemporaneous chronicler Andreas Bernaldez, being a Castilian and a partisan of the Catholic Monarchs, cannot therefore be accused of pulling down the numbers of the armies present at the battlefield to reduce the triumph of his King Ferdinand at Toro.

Bernaldez is also corroborated by the partial numbers of the late chronicler Zurita for the horsemen of both armies: 3,000 chevaliers to Ferdinand and 3,500 chevaliers to Afonso V.[5]

The total number of losses (dead and prisoners) was probably similar in both armies (but larger among the Juanistas) and wouldn't have been higher than one thousand men[6] among the Portuguese-Castilians and many hundreds[7] for the Isabelistas.

While Diego de Valera estimates 800 dead, Bernaldez mentions about 1,200 Portuguese dead[4] (that's the version high Portuguese losses and low Castilian losses). But the version of great Portuguese losses / great Castilian losses is much more credible, not only because it is the only one supported by the sources of both sides (Pulgar[28] and Á. Lopes de Chaves[48]), but also because Bernaldez is contradicted by no less than six chroniclers (three Castilian and three Portuguese) who explicitly stated that the Castilian losses were high: Pulgar, Esteban de Garibay y Zamalloa,[77] Pedro de Medina,[78] Garcia de Resende,[79] A. Lopes Chaves and Damião de Góis.[80]

Pulgar states: "(...) and many were killed in one side and on the other side (...)."[28]

Álvaro Lopes de Chaves, also an eyewitness[48] of the campaign, adds:"(...) and on the battle there were many dead, prisoners and wounded in one side and on the other side."[48]

As for prisoners, the available numbers are even scarcer. Chronicler Palencia wrote that when Afonso V returned to the city of Toro in the days immediately after the battle, he had wasted "an opportunity of stabbing or drowning in the river 500 enemies both infantry and chivalry [Castilian prisoners inside Toro]".,[81] which would certainly be a revenge over men who had contributed to his defeat in the battle. Like all numbers related to the battle of Toro, there are no certainties, and this number of 500 Castilian prisoners should be considered as a maximum and possibly inflated.

The losses were relatively large comparing to the size of the armies in presence, but according to chronicler Juan de Mariana they were low in terms of absolute value for a battle with this political importance: "The killing was small compared with the victory, and even the number of captives was not large".[35]

Besides the chronicles, there is additional evidence pointing to low losses in the Battle of Toro: during the Lisbon courts of 1476, the procurators of Évora called the attention of Prince John to the strong contingent given by the city to his father's army. This was natural because Évora was the second most populous Portuguese city of the 15th century.[82] What is not expectable is that only 17 men from that contingent had died in the Battle of Toro,[83] as the same procurators proudly declared. This number only makes sense if we accept that the Portuguese fatalities in battle were low.

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