Almugavar

A mercenary soldier.

"The King had with him some five thousand Almugavars, whereof he bade one thousand tarry behind at Perelada. These men, therefore, were sore grieved to be thus left, and they were cut to the heart to consider how they must now lose that spoil which the rest could win in skirmishes against the French; wherefore they purposed to get themselves some other satisfaction: hear ye therefore the iniquity which they devised in their hearts! About midnight, when the King and Infante were gone forth from Perelada, and already perchance at Vilabertran or Figueres, they went and set fire to a full hundred places of the town, and cried: "Forth, forth!" What more? When the good folk heard this tumult from their beds, and saw the whole town in flames, then each hastened to save his son or daughter, and the men thought only of their wives and children; and the Almugavars for their part set their minds to steal and pillage."

Don Ramon Muntaner (1325)