Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/352

 304 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE The Almohades replaced the Almoravides in Mohamme- dan Spain about the middle of the twelfth century, and Navas de toward its close came into hostile contact with Tolosa t h e Christian states. The Portuguese defeated them in 1184, but they won a victory over the King of Castile in 1195. The King of Leon fought against his Christian neighbors, especially Castile, and was a secret ally of the Moslems. The King of Navarre, too, was inclined to side with the Moslems against his Christian neighbors. But Pope Innocent III did all he could to arouse the Chris- tians both of the Spanish peninsula and other lands against the Moslems, and in 12 12 the Kings of Castile and Aragon, with the lukewarm aid of the King of Navarre, gained a great victory over a vast host of Moslems at Navas de Tolosa in southern Spain. This event was soon followed by extensive conquests by the Kings of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal. James I of Aragon conquered the Balearic Isles one after another in the years from 1229 to 1235, and in 1238 added Valencia to his kingdom. Meanwhile Castile and Leon had been again united under one sovereign, who proceeded to capture Cordova in 1236 and Seville in 1248. Within a few years the Mohammedans retained only the Kingdom of Granada, a small fraction of the peninsula, Political extending along the southern coast from Gibral- of ^hefspan- tar to somewhat east of Almeria. Portugal had in h t^ n iate U r Ia attained its present boundaries. Little Navarre, Middle Ages cut off on the south by Castile and Aragon, had failed to expand at all. In fact, in 1200, the King of Castile had taken from her the provinces of Alava and Guipuzcoa. Roughly speaking, Aragon formed a triangle, bounded on the north by the Pyrenees, on the east by the Mediterranean from Montpellier to beyond Valencia, on the west by Cas- tile. The united realm of Castile and Leon was the largest in the peninsula, being a union of earlier states like the Asturias and Galicia, and having profited most by con- quest at the expense of the Moslems. It occupied the cen- tral plateau and extended from the Atlantic on the north- west and the Bay of Biscay on the north to the valley of