Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
	Part of the Reconquista
	; Portrayal of the battle by; Francisco de Paula Van Halen (1864)
Date	16 July 1212
Location	Near Santa Elena, Jaén, Andalusia, 38°17′04″N 3°34′58″W / 38.28443°N 3.58286°W
Result	Spanish-Christian Coalition victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Castile; Crown of Aragon; Kingdom of Navarre; Order of Santiago; Order of Calatrava; Knights Templar; Knights Hospitaller; Knights of St. George; Narbonne; Portuguese crusaders; French crusaders; Leonese crusaders; Occitanian crusaders; German and Italian crusaders;	Almohad Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Centre: Alfonso VIII of Castile; Vanguard: Diego López II de Haro; Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada (Archbishop of Toledo); Right wing: Sancho VII of Navarre; Left wing: Peter II of Aragon;	Muhammad al-Nasir
Strength
12,000–14,000	22,000–30,000
Casualties and losses
~2,000	Very high ~20,000

The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Islamic history as the Battle of Al-Uqab (Arabic: معركة العقاب), took place on 16 July 1212 and was an important turning point in the Reconquista and the medieval history of Spain.^[9] The Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, were joined by the armies of his rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre and Peter II of Aragon, in battle^[10] against the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. The caliph al-Nasir (Miramamolín in the Spanish chronicles) led the Almohad army, made up of people from all over the Almohad Caliphate.

^ Smith, Colin (1989). Christians and Moors in Spain. Vol 2 Latin documents and vernacular documents AD 1195–1614. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-1800857742 – via Google Books.
^ Gitlitz, David Martin and Linda Kay Davidson, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, (St.Martin's Press, 2000), 60.
^ Setton, Kenneth Meyer, A History of the Crusades, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), 423.
^ ^a ^b ^c Martín Alvira Cabrer: Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212: idea, liturgia y memoria de la batalla. Madrid 2012, p. 332
^ Martín Alvira Cabrer: Guerra e ideología en la España medieval: cultura y actitudes históricas ante el giro de principios del siglo XIII: batallas de las Navas de Tolosa (1212) y Muret (1213). Universidad Complutense, Madrid 2000/2003. p. 196
^ Cite error: The named reference Gomez was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Nafziger, 87.
^ Prof. Nick, National Museum of Las Navas de Tolosa, Spain. (2015). Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa Museum, Andalusia. https://www.visit-andalucia.com/battle-of-navas-tolosa-museum-jaen
^ Lynn Hunt describes the battle as a "major turning point in the reconquista..." See Lynn Hunt, R. Po-chia Hsia, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Bonnie Smith, The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures: A Concise History: Volume I: To 1740, Second Edition (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's 2007), 391.
^ Guggenberger, Anthony, A General History of the Christian Era: The Papacy and the Empire, Vol.1, (B. Herder, 1913), 372.