Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
The
July 16 1212
battle of
Las Navas de Tolosa is considered a major turning
point in the history of
Medieval
Iberia.
The forces of King
Alfonso
VIII of Castile were joined by the armies of his peninsular rivals,
Sancho
VII of Navarre,
Peter
II of Aragon and
Alfonso
II of Portugal in battle against the
Muslim
Almohad rulers of the
southern half of the
Iberian
Peninsula. Caliph al-Nasir led the
Almohad
army.
The defeat of the Almohads signaled the beginning of a long decline in the power of the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, and gave further inertia to the Christian Reconquest begun by the kingdoms of northern Iberia in the century before.