Chapter Seven. Alfonso VIII and the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

This chapter focuses on the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa—and the campaign which preceded the Christian victory—is certainly the most famous event of Alfonso VIII's lengthy fifty-six years on the Castilian throne. It was recorded far and wide in chronicles and histories across Europe, and became in time a semi-legendary episode of immense importance in the collective memory of Christian Spain. The battle, and the conditions which made it possible, were the culmination of years of effort and work to position Castile as the most powerful kingdom in Spain. It was also the result of steady effort by the Church, and especially the papacy, to encourage the Castilian monarch and his fellow rulers to set aside their preferred political rivalries in the name of the much more difficult work of defending and expanding the borders of Christendom. By 1212, Alfonso VIII was the most successful crusading monarch of his generation.