Castile Before the 15th Century

In the 11th and 12th centuries, Castilian armies went on the offensive, raiding and burning the lands of small Muslim states, the taifa of al-Andalus. During the 11th century Fernando I (1035-1065) used the threat of raids to exact tribute (”parias”) from Granada and the taifa states. A turning point came in 1092 when ”El Cid” (Ruy Dı´az de Vivar) captured Valencia for Castile.

The Christians of Castile benefitted greatly from the division of Muslim power among the petty taifa states. However, a more powerful Muslim foe, the Almoravids, intervened in Iberia’s wars. These puritanical Berbers from North Africa crushed Castile’s army at Badajoz, forcing Castile back on the defensive before a new, united, and militant Muslim power. A set of still more fervent jihadis, the Almohads, overthrew the Almoravids and invaded Iberia in 1146. By 1172 they were in full control of all Muslim lands in Morocco and Spain and began to move against Christian territory. In 1195 the full forces of the African-Spanish empire of the Almohads met and destroyed Castile’s army at Alarcos (July 18, 1195). A Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa (July 16, 1212) stanched the Almohad advance. That was followed in 1230 by unification of Castile and Leo´n. The central plain of Iberia then came under Castilian control over the second half of the 13th century, elevating Castile to the front rank of Iberian powers and the sword’s edge of the so-called Reconquista.

Because Castile’s method of conquest was to strip Muslims of land and forcibly remove them from surrendered cities, its southward expansion drove tens of thousands of refugees before it. That impoverished the agricultural lands it overran, much of which reverted from rich farming to poorer ranching, mainly of sheep for their wool. The loss of population also despoiled urban economies. By the end of the 13th century Castile crossed the ”olive line.” It conquered Toledo, and forced Seville into tributary status. The only substantial Muslim power left in the peninsula was mountainous Granada, toward which the frontiers of Castile stretched out converted ranch lands (”latifundia”) and an engorged medieval barony. After the death of Alfonso XI in 1349 a 20-year civil war broke out between his son, Pedro the Cruel (r.1350-1369), and the eventual successor, Enrique of Trastamara (r.1369-1379). Until the early 15th century (1412), Castile’s southward crusade paused and it fought mostly with neighboring Christian kingdoms, especially Portugal and Aragon.

The Trastamaran capture of the crown of Aragon subdued the conflict with Castile and smoothed the way for a union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella in the second half of the century. After recovering from another civil war provoked by a succession crisis, which once more witnessed intervention by Portugal, Castile retook the lead in renewal of the campaign to expel Moorish power fromIberia. This final campaign culminated in the fall of Granada in 1492. From that point, Castile was the core territory of the new state and empire of ”Spain,” shaping its imperial and crusading spirit more than any other component part-Castile became to Spain what England later was to Great Britain. Living out Castile’s crusading spirit, but also to escape from its stifling orthodoxy, nearly one million Castilians left their homeland for the New World in the 200 years after Columbus claimed it for Spain.