The History of the Siege of Lisbon

IF WE ACCEPT and rely on the facts as written by the aforementioned Fray Rogeiro in his letter to Osbern, then Raimundo Silva will have to be told not to deceive himself about the presumed easiness of camping, without further ado, in front of the Porta de Ferro or any other gate, for this perverse race of Moors is not so timorous as to have locked themselves in with seven turns of the key without putting up a struggle, relying on a miracle from Allah who is capable of dissuading the Galicians from their evil intentions.

Lisbon, as we said before, has houses outside its walls, many houses and villas and not simply for summer retreats, but more like one city surrounding another, and if it is known that, within days, when the encirclement finally becomes a geometrical reality, the military headquarters will be comfortably installed here and all the dignitaries, both military and religious, thus spared the relative discomfort of the tents, now they will have to fight hard in order to expel the Moorish hordes from these delightful suburbs, from street to street, from patio to patio, from terrace to terrace, a battle that will last at least a week, and which the Portuguese only managed to win because they were more numerous on that occasion and because the Moors had not sent out all their battalions and the troops inside could not intervene in the confrontations 'with catapults and beasts for fear of wounding their brothers who, willingly or otherwise,