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| Picture used with permission. Please click for larger picture.Maria la Bailadora |
Swordswomen in History #1--Maria la Bailadora
By David Black Mastro (aka TrueFightScholar)
Maria la Bailadora (Maria "the Dancer"), was one of thousands of
soldiers who fought in the Holy League Fleet, at the great naval Battle
of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. Maria was the lover of a Spanish soldier,
and when he shipped out to fight the Ottoman Turks, she disguised
herself as a man, and went with him. At Lepanto, she served on the Real ("Royal"), which was the Capitana
(flagship galley) of the Holy League Fleet, commanded by the young,
talented Don John of Austria, the b@stard son of Charles V of Spain (and
thus King Philip II's half-brother). Maria fought as an arquebusier at
Lepanto, and during the climax of the battle, when Don John's Real locked horns with the Sultana
of Ottoman Admiral Ali Pasha, she was supposedly the first Christian
soldier to board the Turkish flagship. She actually killed a Turk in
hand-to-hand combat, with one well-placed sword-thrust. After the
battle, she was rewarded for her valor by being allowed to remain in her
regiment, even after her true gender was revealed. Author Jack Beeching
suggested that, given the Ottoman penchant for taking female slaves
during their raids on Christian coasts, Maria might have joined the
fleet and fought not only out of love for her Spanish soldier boyfriend,
but also out of a desire to get some "payback" against the "Terrible
Turk".
The arquebus (arcabuz) used at the time was a smoothbore
matchlock weapon, about 4.75 feet long, that weighed about 10-12 lbs.
It fired a lead ball weighing two-thirds of an ounce. Maria's sword was
likely a double-edged espada with a straight blade suitable for
both cutting and thrusting, with a complex hilt to protect the hand.
Being a soldier's woman during a time when the Spanish Empire was at its
height, she evidently lived her daily life immersed in the martial
culture of the time, which stressed skill with both firearms and edged
weapons.
For further reading, I suggest The Galleys at Lepanto by Jack Beeching, and the Time-Life title, The Seafarers--The Venetians.
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