Alphonso VII., the son of Urraca, was, during the 20 years be tween his mother's death and his own in 1157, the dominating sovereign of Spain. In 1135 he was crowned at Leon, in the presence of the new king of Navarre, of the counts of Barcelona and Toulouse, and of other princes, Christian and Mohammedan, "emperor in Spain, and king of the men of the two religions." He took Cordova and conquered as far as Almeria, but left vassal Muslim princes in possession. At his death Sancho, his eldest son, succeeded him in Castile and Fernando in Leon. Portugal had already become a semi-independent State.
Alphonso VIII. married Leonora, daughter of Henry II. of England, who, as duke of Aquitaine, by right of his marriage with the duchess Eleanor, had a strong direct interest in Spanish politics. In Andalusia the downfall of the Almor5,vides had opened the way to the Almohades, or followers of the Mandi, an even more bigoted religious sect. Alphonso had conquered Cuenca, in the hill country between Castile and Valencia, in 1177, with the help of the king of Aragon, also an Alphonso, the son of Petronilla and of Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona, and rewarded his ally by resigning all claim to feudal superiority over Aragon. At a later period the two kingdoms defined their respective spheres of influence by a treaty. Aragon was left free to conquer the Bal earic islands and Valencia, while Murcia and Andalusia were to fall to Castile. The Almohades took the field against Alphonso in force, and as his fellow Christian sovereigns failed him in the hour of need, he was defeated at Alarcos (1195). To this age belongs the formation of the great monastic military orders of Calatrava, Santiago and Alcantara. They supplied the Crown with a strong force of well-disciplined and well-appointed cavalry. To tighten the bond with Leon, Alphonso of Castile married his daughter Berengaria to its king Alphonso (1188-1230), the son of his uncle Fernando. The marriage was dissolved by the pope as being within the prohibited degrees, but the son born of it was recognized as legitimate. Berengaria, a woman of very noble character and eminent ability, deserved a better husband than her cousin of Leon, who was nicknamed El Baboso—the Slob berer—and who appears to have been epileptic. In 1212 the king of Castile reaped the reward of long years of patience. The Al mohades threatened an invasion in force, and he organized a cru sade against them. Aragon was represented by its king Peter II., Navarre by its king Sancho, and Portugal by a strong contingent of Templars and other knights. At Las Navas de Tolosa, just south of the Sierra Morena, the Almohades received (1212) the final overthrow which laid Mohammedan Spain at the feet of the Christians. Alphonso died in 1214. His son Enrique (Henry) was killed by the fall of a tile three years later; and Berengaria, to whom the Crown came, sent to Leon for her son Fernando, and abdicated in his favour.
Fernando (Ferdi nand III.) continued the advance into Andalusia. The Almohades were in swifter decline than the Almoravides. One of them, al Mamun, even sought Fernando's help to regain his throne in Morocco, and ceded a suburb of the city to his Christian allies. In 1230 the death of Alphonso of Leon opened the way to a final union of the Crowns of Castile and Leon. The work of the recon quest was now completed with swift steps. In 1236 Cordova was conquered, and Seville fell in 1248 with the help of a fleet from the Basque coast and of the Moorish king of Granada, who was Fernando's vassal, paying tribute and attending cortes when sum moned. Fernando died in May 1252. The Aragonese share of the reconquest was completed by James the Conqueror (1213-76). He conquered the Balearic islands in 1229 and Valencia in 1238. Mohammedan Spain was reduced to Granada and a line of ports round to Cadiz.
The close of the period of the great reconquest, five centuries of struggle, left Spain divided between two States of different character. On the west of the Iberian range and south of the Guadarrama was the kingdom called, for short, Castile and Leon. In fact its sovereign was also king of Galicia, Asturias, Extrema dura, Jaen, Cordova and Seville.
On the eastern slope of the Iberian hills and the great central table-land was the kingdom called, again for short, Aragon. Its king was also a ruler of many titles—king in Aragon, in Valencia and the Balearic Isles (with one interval of separation), count of Barcelona, and in Provence. Marriage and inheritance had given him territorial rights in the south-east of France. Thus he came in contact with the crusaders of Simon de Montfort and the ex pansion of the French monarchy. Another marriage, that of Peter, the son and successor of James the Conqueror, with Cos tanza, the daughter of Manfred of Beneventum, gave him claims on the Neapolitan and Sicilian inheritance of the Hohenstaufen. From the date of the Sicilian Vespers (1283) Aragon is found mixed in the politics of Italy. The commercial activity of Bar celona brought it into collision with Genoa and alliance with Venice. The curious double position of the king of Aragon is fully illustrated by the career of that king Peter who was the father of James the Conqueror. He f ought as a crusader at Las Navas de Tolosa, he went to Rome to be crowned, and did voluntary horn age to the pope. Yet his interests as a prince of southern France compelled him to draw the sword in defence of the Albigenses, and, orthodox as he was in creed, he fell fighting for them at Muret in 1213.