7 - Gregory IX and Spain

Summary

Abstract

While papal participation in Peninsula affairs was de-emphasized by the influential Iberian chroniclers of the mid-thirteenth century, in reality there was close co-operation between the papacy and the Iberian ecclesiastical and secular rulers to an unprecedented degree in the crusades, with the development of inquisitions, and in resolving the disputes of local churches. Nevertheless, the papacy found it difficult to implement the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council, despite the support of the friars, and found that Iberian prelates and kings often pursued their own interests, which would place them at odds with the pope on a number of issues.

Keywords: Iberia, Friars, Crusades, Inquisition, Jews

Although the famous battle of Las Navas de Tolosa of 16 July 1212 had thoroughly exposed the military limitations of the Almohads, the Christians were unable to gain much immediate advantage because the two major Christian powers in the Iberian Peninsula, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, soon encountered major political troubles. After the death of Alfonso VIII (1158–1214), Castile faced the minority of Alfonso's son, Henry (1214–17), who was killed when struck on the head during a children's game, followed by the turbulent early years of Ferdinand III (1217–1252), who was opposed by some of the nobles and by his father, Alfonso IX of Leon (1188–1230). After the death of Peter II, killed in September 1213 when fighting against the army of the Albigensian Crusade, the Crown of Aragon suffered the precarious minority of Peter's five-year-old son James I (1213–1276), who survived an attempt on his life while still in the cradle. Only in the final years of the pontificate of Honorius III (1216–1227) would the two young kings, Ferdinand and James, begin to contemplate major action against the disintegrating Almohad power. Portugal too, after the death of the sickly Afonso II (1211–1224), had been challenged by the minority of Afonso's son, Sancho II (1223–1248). The kingdom of Navarre endured the maladies not of youth but of old age since Sancho VII of Navarre (1194–1234), though he remained an enthusiastic crusader in the years following Las Navas, was becoming too fat in his declining years even to descend the steps from his castle at Tudela.