Alfonso VIII (11 November 11555 October 1214), called the Noble (El Noble) or the one of Las Navas (el de las Navas), was King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. After having suffered a great defeat with his own army at Alarcos against the Almohads in 1195, he led the coalition of Christian princes and foreign crusaders who broke the power of the Almohads in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, an event which marked the arrival of a tide of Christian supremacy on the Iberian Peninsula.
His reign saw the domination of Castile over León and, by his alliance with Aragon, he drew those two spheres of Christian Iberia into close connection.
Regency and civil war
Alfonso was born to Sancho III of Castile and Blanche, in Soria on 11 November 1155. He was named after his grandfather Alfonso VII of León and Castile, who divided his kingdoms between his sons. This division set the stage for conflict in the family until the kingdoms were re-united by Alfonso VIII's grandson, Ferdinand III of Castile.
His early life resembled that of other medieval kings. His father died in 1158. Though proclaimed king when only two years of age, Alfonso was regarded as merely nominal by the unruly nobles to whom a minority was convenient. Immediately, Castile was plunged into conflicts between the various noble houses vying for ascendancy in the inevitable regency. The devotion of a squire of his household, who carried him on the pommel of his saddle to the stronghold of San Esteban de Gormaz, saved him from falling into the hands of the contending factions. The noble houses of Lara and Castro both claimed the regency, as did the boy's uncle, Ferdinand II of León. In 1159 the young Alfonso was put briefly in the custody of García Garcés de Aza, who was not wealthy enough to support him. In March 1160 the Castro and Lara met at the Battle of Lobregal and the Castro were victorious, but the guardianship of Alfonso and the regency fell to Manrique Pérez de Lara.
Alfonso was put in the custody of the loyal village Ávila. At barely fifteen, he began restoring his kingdom to order. It was only by surprise that he recovered his capital Toledo from the hands of the Laras. and was succeeded by his surviving son, Henry I.
Alfonso was the subject for Lion Feuchtwanger's novel Die Jüdin von Toledo (The Jewess of Toledo), in which is narrated an affair with a Jewish subject in medieval Toledo in a time when Spain was known to be the land of tolerance and learning for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The titular Jewish woman of the novel is based on Alfonso's paramour, Rahel la Fermosa. Scholars continue to debate the historical truth of this relationship. The 1919 film The Jewess of Toledo by Franz Höbling is also based on this relationship.
Children
With Eleanor of England, Alfonso had 11 children:
{| class="wikitable"
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!Name!!Birth!!Death!!Notes
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|Berengaria||Burgos,<br/> 1 January/<br/>June 1180||Las Huelgas near Burgos,<br/> 8 November 1246||Married firstly in Seligenstadt on 23 April 1188 with Duke Conrad II of Swabia, but the union (only by contract and never solemnized) was later annulled. Married in Valladolid between 1/16 December 1197 with King Alfonso IX of León as his second wife. After their marriage was dissolved on grounds of consanguinity in 1204, she returned to her homeland and became regent of her minor brother King Henry I. Queen of Castile in her own right after the death of Henry I in 1217, quickly abdicated in favor of her son Ferdinand III of Castile who would re-unite the kingdoms of Castile and León.
|-
|Sancho||Burgos,<br/> 5 April 1181||26 July 1181||Heir of the throne since his birth, died aged three months.
|-
|Sancha||20/28 March 1182||3 February 1184/<br/>16 October 1185||Died in infancy.
|-
|Henry||1184||1184?||Heir of the throne since his birth, died either shortly after being born or in infancy. His existence is disputed among sources.
|-
|Urraca||1186/<br/>28 May 1187||Coimbra,<br/> 3 November 1220||Queen of Afonso II of Portugal
|-
|Blanche||Palencia,<br/> 4 March 1188||Paris,<br/> 27 November 1252||Married to Louis VIII of France
|-
|Ferdinand||Cuenca,<br/> 29 September 1189||Madrid,<br/> 14 October 1211||Heir of the throne since his birth. On whose behalf Diego of Acebo and the future Saint Dominic travelled to Denmark in 1203 to secure a bride. Ferdinand was returning through the San Vicente mountains from a campaign against the Muslims when he contracted a fever and died.
|-
|Mafalda||Plasencia,<br/> 1191||Salamanca,<br/> 1204||Betrothed in 1204 to Infante Ferdinand of Leon, eldest son of Alfonso IX and stepson of her oldest sister.
|-
|Eleanor||1200||Las Huelgas,<br/> 1244||Married in Ágreda on 6 February 1221 with James I of Aragon.
|-
|Constance||||Las Huelgas,<br/> 1243||A nun at the Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real at Las Huelgas in 1217, she became known as the Lady of Las Huelgas, a title shared with later royal family members who joined the community.
|-
|Henry ||Valladolid,<br/> 14 April 1204||Palencia,<br/> 6 June 1217||Only surviving son, he succeeded his father in 1214 aged ten under the regency firstly of his mother and later his oldest sister. He was killed when he was struck by a tile falling from a roof.
|}
Through his daughters, Berengaria and Blanche, he was the grandfather of two monarchs who became saints of the Roman Church.
Notes
References
- Costa, Ricardo da. "Love and Crime, Chastisement and Redemption in Glory in the Crusade of Reconquest: Alfonso VIII of Castile in the battles of Alarcos (1195) and Las Navas de Tolosa (1212)". In: Oliveria, Marco A. M. de (org.). Guerras e Imigrações. Campo Grande: Editora da UFMS, 2004, pp. 73–94 .