Asensio Nebot "The Friar"

Who is Asensio Nebot "The Friar"?

Asensio Nebot "The Friar", born in Nules, Spain in 1779, was the most important guerrillero in the Kingdom of Valencia during the Peninsular War but he has not received the recognition that he deserves. Unfortunately no one wrote his biography in the 19th century when it would perhaps have been possible to record more information about his life. His exploits during the Peninsular War are well documented but, as he worked as a secret agent after the end of the war, there are gaps in what is known about his life from 1815 onwards.

The most reliable account of Nebot's life during the Peninsular War is Manuel Ardit Lucas' Revolución liberal y revuelta campesina ¹ where the information is based on contemporary documents. The archivist of Nules, Vicent Felip Sempere, in the first volume of his history of Nules ² gives Nebot's full name as Ascensio Miguel Joseph Nebot Clofente and his date of birth as 30 September 1779 with other details taken from the Parish Register plus a very brief summary, two pages, of his life that does not add anything to what Ardit had written 23 years earlier. In Como lobos hambrientos. Los guerrilleros en la Guerra de la Independencia ³ Fernando Martínez Laínez devotes six pages to Nebot and gives one or two incidents not mentioned by Ardit. An advantage of Martínez Laínez's book is that all the information about the Friar is one place; he quotes his source as the Aula Militar Bermúdez de Castro. Liberty or Death! The Life and Times of Asensio Nebot by Charles M. Wilson 4 is described as a “fictionalized biography “. His account of the war and of the reign of Ferdinand VII is historically correct. The first half of the book deals with the Peninsular War, especially what took place in Valencia, and much of it is based on Ardit’s research though it probably includes incidents that owe more to Wilson’s imagination than to any known facts. The second half of the book is about the opposition to Ferdinand VII’s rule by the Liberals and Wilson has used a large number of different sources, some more reliable than others.