and juridical consolidation of the see of Toledo, whose
aggrandizement was one of the great passions of his
life. The other peninsular archiepiscopates—Braga,
Santiago de Compostela, and Tarragona—were forced
to recognize the primacy of Toledo. Bishoprics for
the newly conquered cities of Baeza and Córdoba in
Andalusia were made suffragans of Toledo. However,
claims to Zamora and Plasencia, where sees had been
created during the earlier re-conquest period, were
lost to Santiago de Compostela. Also, despite much
acrimony, newly conquered Valencia was assigned by
Rome to Tarragona rather than Toledo, and the ancient
see of Oviedo in the north continued to be exempt from
all metropolitan jurisdiction.
Given the conditions of the age, none of this could be
carried through without the cooperation of the papacy,
and Jiménez was well known at Rome. He had gone
there fi rst in 1211 to secure backing for the campaign of
Alfonso VIII against the Almohads in 1212. He returned
there to attend the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. And
in 1236 and 1241 he visited the pope. In 1218 he was
named papal legate in the peninsula, and from 1224 was
entrusted by the papacy with a contemplated creation
of a diocese for North Africa in Morocco. Nevertheless,
Jiménez had his problems with Rome. Often they fl owed
from the collection and utilization of ecclesiastical
revenues for the reconquest of the south. Jiménez had
helped to persuade Rome of their necessity, and was
involved in their application to the benefi t of the crown.
Inevitably he was caught between the necessities of the
crown, the reluctance of the Spanish clergy, and the
suspicions of Rome.
Some of the moneys from this source certainly con-
tributed, directly or indirectly, to the glorifi cation of the
church at Toledo and of its archbishop. Jiménez had
hardly been consecrated when he began the construction
of a new archiepiscopal palace in Alcalá de Henares
(ca. 1209). The present Gothic cathedral at Toledo was
begun under his aegis (ca. 1221) to replace the mosque
that had served as a cathedral since 1085.
Without question Jiménez was the dominant fi gure in
the Iberian Church during the fi rst half of the thirteenth
century, and a major political and court fi gure as well.
Even so, he found time to produce six historical works,
and so became the major historian of that period. The
most important of these is his De rebus Hispaniae, in
which he carried on the tradition of the Latin chronicle
from Genesis down to the recent conquest of Córdoba.
In large measure he continued the work of his older
contemporary, Lucas of Túy, and supplied the materials
that would underpin the new vernacular history of the
Primera crónica general, begun in the second half of the
century. His Historia Arabum, on the other hand, had no
known precursor in Christian Iberia, and few in western
Europe. Beginning with the biography of Muh.ammad,
the work deals primarily with the Muslim conquest of
Iberia down through the arrival in the peninsula of the
North African Mur a ̄ bit (Almoravids). It demonstrates
his acquaintance with both the Arabic language and
some of the Muslim historians, as well as the breadth
of his interests. A Historia Romanorum displays his
classical interests, and a Historia Ostrogothorum and
a Historia Hunnorum, Vandalorum, Suevorum, Alano-
rum, et Silingorum demonstrate his debt to the school
of Iberian historians of Visigothic times, especially
Isidore of Seville.
During the spring of 1247 Jiménez traveled to France
to visit Pope Innocent IV at Lyons. On his return journey
to Iberia he drowned in the Rhone on 10 June. His body
was embalmed and returned to the monastery of Santa
María de la Huerta, where it was entombed. His tomb
was opened for examination as recently as 1907.
See also Fernando III, King of CastileFurther Reading
Ballesteros Gaibros, M. Don Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada. Madrid,- (A highly laudatory and semipopular introduction.)
Gorosterratzu, J. Don Rodrigo Jimémez de Rada: Gran estadista,
escritor y prelado. Pamplona, 1925. (The only modern biog-
raphy; old-fashioned, but thorough.)
Jimémez de Rada, Rodrigo. Rodericus Ximenius de Rada. Opera.
Ed. María Desamparades Cabanes Pecourt. Valencia, 1968.
(Reprint of the 1793 complete edition of his work.)
——. Historia Arabum. Ed. J. Lozano Sánchez. Anales de la
Universidad Hispalense, serie Filosofía y Letras. Vol. 21.
Seville, 1974.
——. Historia de rebus Hispaniae sive Historia gothica. Ed.
J. Hernández Valverde. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio
Medievalia, Vol. 72. Tumhout, 1987.
Bernard F. Reilly
JOACHIM OF FIORE
(c. 1135–30 March 1202)
Joachim of Fiore (Flora, Floris) was a biblical exegete
and the founder of the order of San Giovanni in Fiore,
commonly known as the Florensians. Joachim’s at-
tempts to explain the patterns of Christian history gained
him a reputation as a prophet in the thirteenth century,
as well as a following among the Spiritual faction of the
Franciscan order. His reputation as a prophet made his
thought very infl uential in the later Middle Ages, but
some people considered him a heretic because of his
Trinitarian doctrine and his adoption by the Spirituals.
Joachim was born in Celico, near Cosenza in Cal-
abria. As a young man, he trained to be a notary like
his father, and for some years he served in this capacity
at the Corte del Giustiziere in Calabria and later at the
court of King William II of Sicily in Salerno. Around
1167, a serious illness led Joachim to make a pilgrim-
age to the Holy Land, where he decided to become aJIMÉNEZ DE RADA, RODRIGO