Toledo and its tierra

Who holds it

Name

Alfonso VIII of Castile

Title

King (realengo): a royal town; the king's lord (señor) or tenant of the villa on 1 January 1200 not pinned

Since

1158 (king)

Born

11 November 1155

Family

House of Ivrea (Burgundy) of Castile; son of Sancho III; married to Eleanor (Leonor) of England, daughter of Henry II

Confidence

high

See Toledo tenancy; archbishop from the campaign notes.

Lord in 1200

The king (realengo), often present; his tenant of the city and alcázar is not pinned (see the Toledo tenancy record). The archbishop, Martín López de Pisuerga, is the second power in the city.

Overlord

Alfonso VIII of Castile

How things stand that morning

Firmly royal; the king's southern capital and the base of the frontier.

Wealth

Trade between the Christian north and al-Andalus when the truce allows, crafts (cloth, leather, metalwork), gardens and mills on the Tajo, the royal mint striking Alfonso VIII's gold maravedí (since 1172), and the gate tolls.

Military

The alcázar, the walls and the Tajo gorge; the Bisagra gate. Held out against al-Mansur in 1196 and 1197.

Threats

• A break of the truce would bring the Almohads back to the walls

Fuero

Alfonso VI's grant to the Mozarabs (1101) and Alfonso VII's general Fuero of Toledo (1118), which give each community its own law and judge; confirmed by later kings.

Council

Royal officers and the city's alcaldes, one for the Castilians and one for the Mozarabs, with an alguacil. The Mozarab Esteban Illán (he lives until 1208), who raised Alfonso VIII's banner in the city in 1166, is the best-known alcalde of these years.

Communities

Mozarabs, Castilians, Franks, one of the greatest Jewish communities in Iberia, and Muslims (mudéjares).

Fairs and markets

Daily markets of the Alcaná and the Zocodover; the royal mint.

Militia

City militias of Castilians and Mozarabs, with Franks; they carry the weight of the frontier war. Their part at Alarcos is not detailed in the sources used here.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. through 1200The truce of June 1197 between Alfonso VIII and the Almohads holds; no royal campaign south of the TajoDepends on: both sides keeping the ten-year truce (the new caliph Muhammad al-Nasir, caliph since January 1199, is taken up with securing his rule and with the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya and the Balearics) Stopped by: a Castilian or Almohad breach, or a large raid by the military orders that the other side treats as war

Places of note

• Bisagra gate: its toll funds the walls (1196 grant)

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The city is richly documented; the 1200 tenant is the gap.

On the map: Tierra drawn as seeds from the villages of the comunidad as recorded in the 13th to 15th centuries (Martínez Díez); the 1200 edges were not surveyed lines, and some villages were still being founded or quarrelled over. Treat the outline as approximate. The Montes de Toledo to the south are not the city's yet (bought from Ferdinand III in 1246) and lie in the frontier belt.

Primary sources for Castile

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Chronicle of the World (Lucas of Tuy), Lucas de Tuy (1236, for Queen Berenguela). The Leonese counterpart to Rodrigo, written at San Isidoro for Berenguela. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• Chronicle of Roger of Howden, Roger of Howden (about 1192 to 1201). The fullest single narrative for the year. Read online
• The Complete History: the passages on the Maghreb and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athir (about 1220 to 1231, at Mosul). The year entries for 595 to 597 of the Hijra (late 1198 to 1201) record the death of Yaqub al-Mansur, the accession of al-Nasir and the opening of Yahya ibn Ghaniya's war in Ifriqiya; the following years follow Yahya and the Ghuzz captain Qaraqush through Tripoli, Gabès and Mahdia to al-Nasir's reconquest in 1206, with the best eastern account of Qaraqush's career. Read online
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• Deeds of Philip Augustus, Rigord (about 1186 to 1206, in stages). The French court's own chronicle for the year, from the monk of Saint-Denis who called himself the king's chronographer. Read online

13 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.