| YR. |
1157-1214 Sancho III; Alfonso VIII |
| 1157 Aug. 21 |
Sancho III (Castile, 1157-1158), el nuevo rey de Castilla, llamado el Deseado, tenía 24 años y era viudo de la hija del rey de Navarra -doña Blanca Garcés- y ya tenía un hijo, de nombre Alfonso. Pronto obtuvo el vasallaje de Navarra y, enseguida, de Ramón Berenguer IV de Barcelona. Se convertía en líder de la cristiandad española. Su legado mayor sería la fundación de la Orden Militar de Calatrava. |
| 1158 |
Afonso Henriques of Portugal captures Alcacer do Sal, in the Alentejo, of great military importance. |
| 1158 Aug. 21 |
Sancho III dies leaving the throne of Castile to an infant of two years, Alfonso VIII (1158-1214). The noble families of Lara and Castro struggle for power. Gutierre Fernández de Castro será el tutor del niño y Manrique de Lara el regente del reino. |
| 1160 |
The caliph of Almohads, Abd-al Mumim, comes to Spain and orders the construction of a town and fortification at Gibraltar. |
| 1160 March |
Manrique de Lara consigue la tutoría del rey, e inmediatamente aparta a los Castro de todas sus tenencias -y con ello creó un conflicto que iba a prolongarse durante años. Los Castro acudieron a Fernando II de león incitándole a penetrar con sus huestes en Castilla. |
| 1162 |
Alfonso II (1162-1196) new king of Aragon and Catalonia after the death of Ramon Berenguer IV. His mother Petronila yields all the rights of Aragon to him in 1164. |
| 1162 Summer |
Entrada de Fernando II en tierras castellanas es un paseo triunfal. Los Lara, atemorizaodos, cogieron al niño rey y marcharon a Burgos para hacerse fuertes allí. Fernando reúne a los nobles de Aragón y Barcelona y obtiene su vasallaje, toma bajo su tutela al heredero de la corona aragonesa. Sancho VI de Navarra, para no quedarse solo también le rinde vasallaje. Manrique de Lara acaba reconociendo a Fernando II como regente de Castilla y se reconcilia con los Castro. |
| 1164 |
Los magnates de Aragón empiezan este año a reunir las Cortes del Reino, donde comparecen los nobles, los eclesiásticos y, al parecer, por primera vez, los patricios y señores que dominaban las ciudades. Es el nacimiento de las Cortes de Aragón. |
| 1166 |
Fernando II takes Alcantara from the Muslims. |
| 1169 |
Alfonso VIII of Castile attains majority and marries Leonor, the daughter of king Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine. |
| 1169 May |
The Portuguese knight Giraldo Sempavor carries out his most audacious attack against Badajoz, a city that had been reserved for Leonese conquest. Pero Fernando II había pactado en secreto con los almohades para asistirles en caso de que esto sucediera. El rey de León envía a Fernando Rodríguez de Castro y sus huestes sobre Badajoz. El rey Alfonso Enríquez ve peligrar su vida y escapa; cae al suelo fracturando una pierna. Él y Gerardo Sempavor son presos por Fernando de León. La ciudad de Cáceres quedaba bajo el control de Fernando II. El resto de las plazas: Trujillo, Montánchez, etc. eran dadas en señorío a Fernando Rodríguez de Castro. Los almohades conservan Badajoz. |
| 1170 |
The Order of Santiago, destined to become the richest and most powerful, is founded by Pedro Fernandez in the city of Caceres, para defender a los peregrinos que visitaban el sepulcro de Santiago. |
| 1170 Sep. |
Boda de Alfonso VIII con Leonor Plantagenet. Presencia de trovadores provenzales y los españoles Gonzalo Ruiz y Pedro de Monzón. |
| 1172 |
Alfonso VIII of Castile issues coins like the dinars of the Almoravids. They came to be known as maravedís. |
| The Almohads capture the kingdom of Murcia; and besiege Huete, near Toledo. |
| 1173 |
The Almohads ravage the vicinity of Talavera. |
| 1174 |
The Almohads seize Alcantara, but they are unable to capture Ciudad Rodrigo. |
| Giraldo Sempavor is beheaded by the Almohads after having defected to them and being suspected of conspiring with Afonso Henriques. |
| 1176 |
Aragon. Is written the municipal charter (fuero) of Teruel. “The Jews are the slaves of the crown and belong exclusively to the royal treasury.” This charter served as model for other cities in Aragon and Castile. |
| 1177 |
Leon. Fernando II leads a plundering expedition deep into Muslim territory, going as far as Jerez. |
| 1177 July 27 |
En el asedio cristiano a Cuenca una cabalgada sorpresa mora intenta matar al rey Alfonso VIII de Castilla. Refriega. Los moros se retiran pero ha muerto el conde Nuño Pérez de Lara, el viejo regente de la corona defendiendo al rey. Dejaba 3 hijos y una viuda notabilísima: Teresa Fernández de Traba. Fernando II de León se casará con ella. |
| 1177 Sep. 14 |
Alfonso VIII of Castile, with the help of Alfonso II of Aragon force Cuenca to surrender. |
| 1179 March 20 |
Treaty of Cazorla is signed between Alfonso VIII of Castile and Alfonso II of Aragon pledging mutual aid against any other ruler and planning to partition the terra Hyspaniae. The Muslim lands of Valencia, Jativa, Biar, Denia, and Calpe are reserved for Alfonso II and his heirs. |
| 1179 Spring |
El príncipe Sancho de Portugal ataca Ciudad Rodrigo. El rey de León responde y marcha contra los portugueses derrotándolos en Argañal. |
| 1179 May 23 |
Pope Alexander III formally acknowledges Portuguese independence. |
| 1180 |
Alfonso II of Aragon eliminates the last symbolic vestige of Aragonese dependence upon France, surviving from the Carolingian era, by ordering that royal documents should no longer record the regnal years of the French kings. |
| Muere de parto la esposa del rey Fernando II de León, Teresa. El hijo morirá poco después. |
| 1184 May |
El califa almohade cruza el estrecho con un inmenso ejército. El punto de reunión es Sevilla. Su primer objetivo: Lisboa. Fernando II de León ayudará a los portugueses a levantar el asedio. Los moros luego irán contra Santarem. |
| 1184 July |
Santarem ha resistido. El califa ha muerto en el campo. Habían llegado 20,000 hombres movilizados por el arzobispo de Santiago de compostela, Pedro Suárez de Deza, y el propio rey Fernando II de León. El maestre de la Orden de Santiago, don Pedro Fernández murió en una de las refriegas. |
| 1185 |
Count Raymond V of Toulouse's partisans had assassinated Alfonso II's younger brother, Ramon Berenguer; then had sought aid from Genoa, which aspired to control the Provençal coast; Alfonso had countered this with an alliance with Pisa, Genoa's rival. Now a peace treaty is signed giving Alfonso II a reasonably secure position in Provence. |
| 1188 Jan. 22 |
Fernando II of Leon dies. His son Alfonso IX (1188-1230) succeeds him. Alentará febrilmente la creación de ciudades, otorgando fueros y llamando a campesinos para habitarlas. Entre ellas se encuentra La Coruña. |
| 1188 April 1 |
El Maestro Mateo coloca los dinteles de la puerta mayor de la iglesia de Santiago. |
| 1188 April |
Alfonso IX holds a meeting of his curia at Leon. For the first time in western Christendom representatives of the towns are assembled together with bishops and magnates. These are the first cortes. |
| 1189 July 6 |
Portugal. A fleet of crusaders arrives at Lisbon and accepts Sancho I's proposal for a joint attack on Silves in the Algarve, the southernmost sector of the Portuguese territory. |
| 1189 Sept. 1 |
Portugal. Surrender of Silves to the Portuguese and the crusaders. These resume their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. |
| 1191 |
The caliph returns and succeeds in capturing Silves, Alcacer do Sal, Palmela, and Almada, all but Evora. |
| The kings of Aragon, Leon, and Portugal promise to join together against Alfonso VIII of Castile. The ensuing warfare was a cause of scandal, especially to Pope Celestine III who sent his legates to restore concord. |
| 1192 |
Along the coast of the Bay of Biscay, Santander, Laredo, Castro Urdiales, and other towns were beginning to develop trade relations with the French towns of Bayonne and Bordeaux. Alfonso VIII assigned this year to the bishop of Burgos a tenth of the tolls on cloth, arms, and other merchandise imported to Santander or Castro Urdiales or any other port in the diocese. |
| 1194 |
Sancho VII of Navarre (1194-1234), new king. Resumes his father's efforts to annex La Rioja. |
| 1195 June 30 |
El califa Yusuf llega a Córdoba y quien sale a recibirle es Pedro Fernández de Castro. Enfrentado a los Lara durante la minoría de edad de Alfonso VIII, los Castro habían terminado pasando al bando de León. Siendo mayordomo de León Pedro Fernández había construido un amplio señorío personal entre el Tajo y el Guadiana. Pero más tarde las posesiones de los Castro pasaron a Castilla y quedaron bajo el control de las órdenes militares. Así se puso al servicio de los almohades. |
| 1195 July 19 |
Batalla de Alarcos. Victoria almohade. Entre las tropas cristianas de Alfonso VIII de Castilla y las almohades de Abū Ya'qūb Yūsuf al-Mansūr (Yusuf II), saldándose con la derrota para las tropas cristianas, la cual desestabilizó por completo al Reino de Castilla y frenó todo intento de reconquista hasta la batalla de Las Navas de Tolosa. Instead of waiting for expected reinforcements from Alfonso IX of Leon, Alfonso VIII of Castile chose to give battle but was terribly defeated and flew in disorder to Toledo. Ente 20,000 y 30,000 el número de bajas cristianas. Los musulmanes tambiénse dejaron decenas de miles de hombres. Yusuf abandonó la península para reclutar nuevas columnas. La tropas cristianas estban al mando del señor de Vizcaya, Diego López de Haro. Cayeron entre los notables cristianos: el maestre de la Orden de Santiago, Sancho Fernánddez de Lemos; el de la orden portuguesa de Évora, Gonzalo Viegas; Ordoño García de Roda, obispo de Ávila; Pedro Ruiz de Guzmán, obispo de Segovia; Rodrigo Sánchez, obispo de Sigüenza. El califa dejó a Pedro Fernández de Castro negociar con Diego López de Haro, que fue hecho prisionero y liberado, los términos de la rendición, y éste consiguió unas condiciones relativamente benignas para los castellanos. |
| 1196 |
Alfonso II of Aragon dies on 25 April. He bequeaths Aragon to his oldest son Pedro, and leaves Provence and Languedoc to his second son Alfonso II. Pedro II (1196-1213) new king of Aragon. |
| Aragon. A law is published banishing heretics from the domains of Pedro II under threat of confiscation of property and death at the stake. |
| 1197 |
Aragon. Pedro II promulgates a decree strictly commanding all heretics to leave “our kingdom … or be burned by fire”. This was the first enactment of the death penalty by fire for heretics in western Europe, and given its proximity to Languedoc, the center of Albigensianism. |
| Se construye la Giralda de Sevilla bajo la orden del almohade Ben Yusuf , que proyectaba hacer de Sevilla una gran capital. |
| 1197 Oct. |
Under the suggestion of Queen Leonor of Castile, her daughter Berenguela marries Alfonso IX of Leon; ceremony takes place at Valladolid. |
| 1198 |
Pope Innocent III excommunicates Alfonso IX of Leon and Berenguela for being married under prohibited degrees, but they already had four children, including the future Fernando III. They dissolve their marriage and eventually are freed from censure. |
| 1199 |
El califa Yusuf II murió en África. Le sucede su hijo al-Nasir. La España cristiana vuelve a los pactos y alianzas entre y contra los cinco reinos. |
| 1202 |
Pedro II in the curia of Cervera acknowledges the practice in Catalonia of the ius maletractandi, the right to coerce the peasants, to imprison them and confiscate their goods or even to kill them, though restricting the use to the estates of the secular lords. The burdens imposed upon the Catalan peasantry eventually provoked them to the point of rebellion in the later Middle Ages and resulted in substantial change in their condition. |
| 1203 |
The Almohads gain control of the Balearic Islands. |
| 1204 |
Pedro II marries Marie of Montpellier, a marriage which made him the lord of Montpellier. He was however a faithless and dissolute husband and spent little time with his wife; it was almost by chance that the future Jaime I was born to the royal pair in 1208. Pedro II also journeys this year to Rome where he renews the feudal bond between Aragon and the Holy See, as a papal vassal pledging payment of an annual tribute. |
| 1207 |
Castile. Truce between Alfonso VIII and Navarre leaves Castile in possession of the recently conquered provinces of Guipuzcoa and Alava. |
| 1208 |
El papa declara una cruzada contra los cátaros (cruzada albigiense). Inocencio III designa a su paladín: Felipe Augusto de Francia. Éste no asiste pero permite a los nobles de su reino a enrolarse en la cruzada, lo que hacen en masa. Lo que se desata es una guerra civil. La “Compañía Blanca” del obispo Folquet de Tolosa se ve súbitamente engrosada por una auténtica muchedumbre de paisanos que se dedica a perseguir a los ricos de la región, cátaros o no. |
| 1209 |
Leon and Castile renew their treaty of peace. All Christian princes are in concord at last. |
| 1210 |
Castile. Alfonso VIII settles San Vicente de la Barquera, giving the inhabitants the fuero of San Sebastian, with the additional provision that the rules applying to the arrival of ships at Santander would also apply to San Vicente. In the 13th C. these towns organized an association to defend their interests, both against the bishop of Burgos and against their French neighbors. |
| Los almohades han atacado Barcelona. Pedro II ha detenido la ofensiva y respondido con un ataque generalizado en la región valenciana. |
| Las disposiciones tomadas por Inocencio III obligan a las representaciones teatrales (como el Auto de los Reyes Magos) a abandonar el interior de los templos. |
| 1211 March |
Afonso II (1211-1223) new king of Portugal |
| 1211 May |
Alfonso VIII y su hijo don Fernando prodigan las incursiones en su frente este, la zona levantina, llegando hasta Játiva. |
| 1211 July |
Castile. Caliph al-Nasir (1299-1213), known as Miramamolin, besieges the castle of Salvatierra, the chief seat of the knights of Calatrava. The knights are authorized by Alfonso VIII to surrender the castle after two months of defending it. Miramamolin returns to Cordoba, since the summer was at an end, preferring to resume the campaign in the spring. A través de los cistercienses se extiende enseguida la noticia por Europa. |
| 1212 Jan. |
El papa Inocencio III ordena al arzobispo de Sens, en Borgoña, que en todas sus diócesis se predique la noticia de la cruzada española. La misma comunicación envió a todos los obispos de Francia y Provenza. |
| 1212 June 20 |
Castile. A cosmopolitan Christian army sets out at Toledo. Divided in three sections. Diego Lopez de Haro, lord of Vizcaya, led the vanguard composed of troops from beyond the Pyrenees; then followed Pedro II of Aragon and the count of Ampurias; finally the rearguard under the command of Alfonso VIII, accompanied by Archbishop Rodrigo, bishops, and the masters of the military Orders. |
| 1212 June 24 |
Castile. Proceeding southward, the French and other ultramontane crusaders seize the castle of Malagon and slaughter the garrison. |
| 1212 July 16 |
The Christian army reaches Calatrava, whose alcaide surrenders on this date after a brief siege. Alfonso VIII allows the defenders to leave and restores the fortress to the Order of Calatrava, but at this point the ultramontanes, complaining of the heat and lack of booty, abandon the crusade. Only the archbishop of Narbonne and Theobald of Blazon remain. As they resume their march, they are joined by Sancho VII of Navarre. |
| 1212 July 13 |
July 13-16. Castile. They reach Las Navas on 13 July. Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: Diego Lopez de Haro commanded the center of the Christian army, with Sancho VII on his right and Pedro II on his left, while Alfonso VIII and the military Orders held the rear. The kings of Aragon and Navarre carried out a pincers movement, and Alfonso VIII rushed forward, breaking the enemy lines. Sancho VII drove forward through a circle of Negro slaves chained to one another to guard Miramamolin's tent. The caliph took flight and did not rest until he had reached Jaen. The Christian triumph was complete. |
| 1212 |
The aljama of Huesca complained to Pedro II of Aragon that local Jews were being withdrawn from their jurisdiction. The king restored the “free” Jews to the jurisdiction of the aljama, making them liable to all communal obligations. |
| 1212 Nov. 11 |
Alfonso II, Alfonso VIII y Alfonso IX se reúnen en Coimbra y acuerdan hacer la guerra al Islam, paralelamente cada uno desde su frontera y prestándose ayuda recíproca: Tratado de Coimbra. |
| 1213 Sept. 12 |
Pedro II dies at the battle of Muret (cruzada albigiense contra los cátaros), near Toulouse. The prestige of the victor, Simon de Montfort, is enhanced. He continued to conquer the county of Toulouse with renewed zeal. Muret also hastened the end of an independent Languedoc, which, in not too many years, would pass into the hands of the Capetian dynasty. Catalan dreams of political domination north of the Pyrenees are destroyed once and for all. Jaime I is now king of Aragon (1213-1276), at the age of 5, and a virtual prisoner of Simon de Montfort, whose daughter he was intended to marry. |
| 1213 |
1213-1214. St. Francis of Assisi made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and a few years later the first province of his Order was established in Spain. |
| 1214 Oct. 5 |
Alfonso VIII of Castile dies. The throne passes to the youngest child, Enrique I (1214-1217), a boy of only eleven years under the guardianship of his older sister Berenguela. |
