a mercenary logic 11
The territorial and ideological strength of the Almohads, however, did
not hold. At the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa ( 1212 ), the typically frac-
tious Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula united to deliver the
Almohads a crushing defeat. The caliph narrowly avoided capture. The tap-
estry that covered his royal tent remains on display as a trophy at the Ab-
bey of Las Huelgas, near Burgos. Although the enthusiasm for crusading
quickly dissipated, the Almohad caliphs had already begun to lose author-
ity throughout their empire. In the following decades, after a series of civil
wars, the regions of al- Andalus threw off their allegiance. The Almohad
ruler of Valencia, Abū Zayd, the last Andalusī governor loyal to the caliphs,
turned to King Jaume I for assistance against rebels only to find himself and
his lands subject to the Crown of Aragon. In North Africa, three successor
states rose up: the Ḥafṣids at Tunis, who claimed to be the successors of the
Almohads, the ‘Abd al- Wādids at Tlemcen, and the Marīnids at Fez, the
last of whom dealt the final blow to the Almohads at Marrakesh in 1269
(map 4 ).
The Latin, Arabic, and Romance diplomatic correspondence in the
Archive of the Crown of Aragon not only reveals extensive interactions
Crown of AragonMedit
errane
an
Se
aValenciaBarcelonaGibraltarAlmeríaGranada MurciaJaénCordoba
SevilleToledoMadridTangiersFezMarrakeshBougie TunisPalermoAlgecirasGuadixKerkennaSalé
TlemcenTripoliJerbaCeutaSardiniaSicilyMajorcaCorsicaPortugal0250
milesBalearicIslan
dsNavarreHafsids..- The western Mediterranean (ca. 1300). Courtesy Dick Gilbreath, Gyula Pauer Center for
Cartography and GIS, University of Kentucky.