Talk:Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

message: "Alfonso managed to cross the mountain range that defended the Almohad camp, sneaking through the Despeñaperros Pass, so that the Christian coalition caught by surprise and smashed the Moorish army that left some 100,000 casualties at the battleground. The battle was a bloody and decisive encounter."
This paragraph, which appears in the article, has nothing to do with witnesses accounts. The Christians sneak passed to the top of the mountain, dribbling almohads defenses, with the help of a local shepherd, and placed their camp on top of it for three days. The narrator tells us that the Christians were exhausted after the climb and that the next day was Sunday so they would not battle until Monday. There was not such surprise and even the Arabs made some kind of military display in front of their enemies trying to provoke them to fight. No surprise factor at all then for none of the combatants.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.172.67.38 (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: No surpise factor in the resolution of the battle

message: Please note that the writer of the entry about the battle probably meant IMPETUS rather than INERTIA.
clemgriffith@btinternet.com
The numbers for combatants and casualties seems to be wildly over the top - rasmusdf
: i agree the two numbers look too high. and too in favor of the spanish. the spanish article has even more unbalanced numbers, but i would have thought the spanish entry would be more accurate than the english, only cuz its part of spanish history. anyhow, from the start the whole article is unbalanced towards spain and portugal. remember: leave ur signature with name and date (dont erase them), so people will know when/who posted the comment. this way you all can also join the spain/morocco projects and discuss more accurate numbers 4.230.153.238 21:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have corrected the numbers in the table now, according to scholarly criteria.--Jordi (talk) 15:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: note

message: The crushing defeat of the Almohads significantly hastened their decline both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Maghreb a decade later, this would give further momentum to the Christian Reconquest begun by the kingdoms of northern Iberia centuries before, resulting in a sharp reduction in the already declining power of the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula. Shortly after the battle, the Castilians retook Baeza, a fortified major city nearby the battlefield, and the key to invade Andalucia. Thereafter, Ferdinand III of Castile retook Cordoba in 1236, Jaen in 1246, and Seville in 1248; and only the death prevented him from crossing the strait of Gibraltar to take the war to heartland of the Almohad empire.
"...the death..." , well it wasn't Ferdinand's since he lived until 1252, so it must have been Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir's death, but how could the death of an enemy commander prevent Ferdinand from carrying the war across the Gibraltar Strait? The paragraph definitely needs some rework.
Leonard G. 02:33, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed 

message: I edited the article to remove the incorrect sections that suggested that Afonse II of Portugal was present... he was not, and their are only passing references to Portuguese volunteers in the sources.  The Portugal references need to be deleted from the frame on the right, but I can't figure out how to do that.
I also added a "stories say" line to the details about Sancho breaking the Caliph's guard.  This reference is from a 16th century story about the battle, and has no verifiable basis in fact.  Eye-witness accounts do not relate these details.
Finally, the numbers are really high.  A new book by Spanish Historian Francisco Garcia-Fitz (Las Navas de Tolosa. Ariel, 2005) puts the numbers for the Christian forces at around 12000 (p.259), and he cites other recent studies which agree.  This would still be one of the largest Christian armies ever fielded in the 12th-13th c.  My own studies of the financing make larger numbers seem impossible. The Muslim forces were likely of similar size, perhaps slightly larger given their greater resources and mobilization.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.48.200 (talk) 05:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portugal references, etc. 

message: What does the text in Arabic script (معركة العقاب) read? What does it mean? thanks Arkwatem 14:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arabic text 

message: I have removed the unsourced sentence, "the tapestry covering the entrance to Al Nasir's tent was sent to the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas near Burgos where it remains on display to date", since according to Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, edited by Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Bernard F Reilly, John W Williams, page 112, the tapestry in question was acquired by Ferdinand III and later donated by him. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:09, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tapestry sent to Abbey  

message: “Alhaja was granted the hereditary title Cabeza de Vaca for his assistance to Alfonso VIII.”
We need an explanation of how the epithet “Cow’s Head” became an honor bestowed by a king. 
The wlink links to an article about a 17th-century Spaniard, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. A descendant of Alhaja? Who knows? — ℜob C. alias ALAROB 12:14, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cabeza de Vaca