1212, Castile’s Alfonso VIII, supported by forces from Aragon, Navarre and Portugal, surprises a Moorish army encamped in the Sierra Morena, July 16. The Moors lose thousands in hand-to-hand fighting; the Almohad caliph, Muhammad al-Nasir, barely escapes.
This Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa reverses a long string of Moorish successes and leads to the rapid Christian capture of Baeza and Úbeda. Alfonso claims 60,000 Muslims have been killed and many more enslaved. In 1236, Alfonso’s grandson, Fernando III, takes Córdoba, capital of the original Umayyad Caliphate, June 29 (his siege is actually assisted by Muhammed Ibn Yusuf who will become the first emir of Granada). Seville falls in 1248.
Islam’s Long Rule: Most of central and southern Iberia (present-day Spain and Portugal) had been under Muslim rule for the previous five centuries, since the invasion of 711-716 and defeat of a Christian Visigoth king by a Berber army sent by the Arab Umayyad Caliphate.
1238, A Christian army under Jaime I, who has already taken the Balearic Islands, captures Valencia from Moorish rulers, completing the kingdom of Aragon’s portion of the Reconquista of Iberia (al-Andalus to the Arabs).
Maure, Berbers and Moors: Peoples who today call themselves the Amazigh still live in western North Africa (largely present-day Morocco and northwest Algeria). One of their ancient tribes were the Maure and “Mauretania” was applied to a kingdom between the Atlas mountains and the Mediterranean, a name Romans kept when making it a province. The Amazigh were overwhelmed by the Umayyad conquest of the late 7th century, converted to Islam and were dubbed “Berbers” by the Arabs. Eventually Amazigh tribes won dominance over the Arabs and ruled Morocco and most of Iberia for centuries. Iberian Christians continued to identify the Amazigh as “Maure,” which evolved into “Moors.” Christians extended that to Arabs as well and, through centuries of conflict, to other Muslims.
The term “Saracen” was also applied by Christians to Arab Muslims, particularly toward the Holy Land, and less often to Turkish Muslims; the latter were rarely referred to as “Moors.”
Present-day Mauritania, mostly Saharan desert south and west of ancient Mauretania, was occupied by the Amazigh in the 3rd century, followed by Umayyad Arabs in the 7th. Amazigh and Arabs clashed and exchanged dominance into the 1500s.
1244, Jerusalem, briefly won by the Sixth Crusade (the First Crusade was launched 150 years earlier), falls to mercenary Central Asian horsemen who sack the city and massacre much of the population, August. Crusaders, mainly Franks, lose again at Battle of La Forbie, October, to Egyptian Mamluks, despite having an ally in the Muslim Ayyubid sultan. More than 5,000 Crusaders die, including virtually all of the knightly orders.
Several more Crusades will follow, and Christian-Muslim wars will continue from one end of the Mediterranean to the other for centuries, but Christian power is never restored to the Holy Land.
1249, Portuguese, under King Afonso III, capture Faro, the last Muslim stronghold in the Algarve, completing the Christian reconquest of Portugal.
This leaves only the Emirate of Granada as a Muslim bastion in Iberia. For the next 240 years, that emirate will alternate between waging bloody war with Castile and paying vassal tribute with African gold, while maintaining its Muslim identity and self-rule.
It won’t be until 1492, under Isabella and Fernando, that Castile completes the Reconquista of the entire peninsula with the surrender of Granada’s last emir.
1260, An army of Egyptian Mamluks stops Mongol forces in Syria after the latter have conquered Persia, destroyed Baghdad and ended the Abbasid Caliphate in Damascus.
It’s the high-water mark of Mongol expansion across Asia that began with Genghis Khan early in the century.
1291, Brothers Ugolino and Vandino Vivaldi set out from Genoa in May with two galleys to attempt a voyage into the Atlantic and around Africa to India. They are believed to have reached Cape Nun (in present-day Morocco), according to an annal of the day. But they and their crews are never heard from again.
It is believed to be the first European attempt since Roman times to explore far beyond the Strait of Gibraltar.
1298, Livres des Merveilles du Monde, better known as The Travels of Marco Polo, appears in Italy describing Polo’s Silk Road journey to Cathay (China); long service to Kublai Kahn, the Mongol emperor; and return with his father and uncle by sea around India and across Persia to Venice after 24 years in Asia (1271-1295).
The book introduces an amazed Europe to Asia in detail, and inspires generations to venture to central and eastern Asia, not least Christopher Columbus who filled his copy with handwritten notes.
1312, Lancelotto Malocello, also a Genoese, ventures into the Atlantic, possibly in search of the Vivaldi brothers. If so, he does not find them, but does encounter the northernmost Canary island, which will be named Lanzarote for him.
This is a rediscovery, for the Canaries were known to the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans (Pliney the Elder wrote that they were named for packs of large dogs on Gran Canaria).
The islands, which begin 62 miles off Cape Juby (well south of Cape Nun), are inhabited by the Guanche people who probably arrived in the first millennium BC. Genetically, they share ancestry with the Berbers of North Africa; they also use a script similar to the Berbers’ Numidian script.
Malocello builds a stone fort and lives in relative peace with the Guanche until they expel him around 1332.
1315-1317 Incessant rainy weather in the spring of 1315 leads to crop failures, followed by cattle diseases that kill as much as 80% of cattle and sheep. A severe winter and another cold spring follow. Peasants eat their seed grain, slaughter work animals, even abandon children. Pneumonia and tuberculosis overwhelm the starving. Millions die, more than 10% of the population of northern France, southern England and the Low Countries.
Crime and violence surge, war is waged far more brutally. Confidence in the church and in monarchs plummets. Three centuries of population growth end, with no recovery before 1322. And worse is to come with the Black Death.
1340-1344, The last Muslim force to invade Iberia from Morocco is led by the Marinid sultan to support the Emirate of Granada. But it is turned back in bloody fighting at Rio Salado, near Tarifa at Iberia’s southern tip, Oct. 30. Castile’s Alfonso XI and Portugal’s Afonso IV are the united victors.
Fighting drags on. In 1344, Alfonso XI enters the Marinid port of Algeciras after a two-year siege during which the Castilians fire primitive bombards with gunpowder.
But in 1350, plague kills Alfonso and much of his Castilian army, forcing commanders to lift their siege of Gibraltar. This defeat is a key factor in delaying the final Reconquista for more than 140 years.
Gibraltar: Name is derived from Jabal Ṭāriq (“Mountain of Ṭāriq”). Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād was the Arab name for the Berber commander who launched the initial Muslim conquest of Iberia when his army landed nearby in 711.
1341, Nicoloso da Recco, yet another Genoese, leads an expedition to Gran Canaria on behalf of Portugal’s Afonso IV. Da Recco studies the Guanche and their language and maps more of the island chain.
In 1350, priests from Majorca establish a mission, probably on Gran Canaria, that co-exists with Guanche until 1400 at least.
1347, Now believed to have originated in present-day Kyrgyzstan in late 1330s, the Black Death sweeps across Asia, north Africa and Europe, killing many millions by 1351. It is history’s most deadly pandemic.
First noted in Crimea, it is brought to Messina, Sicily, by Genoese galleys manned by dying sailors in October. In Europe, as many as 20 million people die, perhaps a third of the continent’s population, previously reduced by famine. London, Paris, Florence suffer death rates of 50% to 60%, with mass burials.
Jews are frequently, hysterically accused of poisoning wells; thousands are massacred in Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Mainz and Cologne, and many thousands more flee to the welcoming arms of Poland’s Casimir III.
Cause: The Yersinia pestis bacterium is harbored in rats. Fleas feeding on rats spread the bacterium to humans by their bite. Large, dark “bubos” bulge from the lymph system, followed by fever, vomiting, diarrhea and significant pain. The human immune system is overwhelmed; death comes within hours in the medieval outbreak. People also spread the bacterium by coughing and wheezing (pneumonic plague). None of the science is understood at the time.
Giovanni Boccaccio sets his Decameron (finished around 1353) in a villa outside of plague-ravaged Florence, where seven young women and three young men tell 100 stories of love, trickery, virtue and greed; bishops and priests are frequent targets. It is written in the Florentine vernacular.
1385, Juan I of Castile is defeated by João of Avis who claims throne of Portugal, ending a long conflict over succession in both Portugal and Castile that includes the murder of Castile’s King Pedro I by his half-brother, Henrique, and draws in both England and France (ongoing opponents in the Hundred Years’ War).
João I marries Philippa of Lancaster (daughter of John of Gaunt and granddaughter of Edward III), 1387, consolidating an Anglo-Portuguese alliance that continues into the present.
1391, Whipped up by years of violent preaching on the part of Archdeacon Ferrand Martinez, mobs attack the Jewish community of Seville, June 6, destroying synagogues and homes, killing hundreds and forcing thousands more to convert.
The 1390 deaths of King Juan I and Archbishop Barroso paved the way. They had been protectors of the Jews who played a large role in economic affairs.
The deadly pogrom sweeps through Córdoba, Toledo, Burgos and many smaller Castilian communities and then into Aragon (including Valencia, July 9) and even to Barcelona, Aug. 5, and Majorca. Unknown thousands die, thousands more flee to Portugal and Morocco, and perhaps 200,000 choose to convert rather than face death.
Descendants of these conversos become the main target of the Inquisition 100 years later after the fall of Granada. Also at that time, the surviving, decimated communities retaining their Jewish faith are expelled from Castile and Aragon.
1394, Prince Henrique is born in Porto, March 4, third son of King João I and Philippa of Lancaster. Henrique, to become known in English as Henry the Navigator, will direct Portugal’s Atlantic explorations for decades.
1390's, Improved sugar press, developed on Sicily (and perhaps powered by water), doubles volume of juice squeezed from cane, bringing down sugar’s very high price, previously equal to expensive spices from the East.
Refining of sugar cane into syrup and granules was developed in India 2,000 years ago. Sugar was introduced to the Mediterranean by Arab agriculturists, who also brought lemons, oranges and artichokes, and by Venetian traders and early Crusaders. It was first cultivated by Muslims on Cyprus in the 10th century, and then on Sicily and in Andalusia.
Before sugar, honey was the only sweetener available to most peoples.
1402, Lanzarote is the first Canary island to be taken by a European expedition, in this case led by Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle, Frenchmen, nominally on behalf of Henry III of Castile. Followed by conquest of the islands of Fuerteventura and El Hierro, 1405, with Guanche natives sold as slaves.
1415, Portugal’s João I and his young son Henrique lead siege and Aug. 21 seizure of Ceuta (Moroccan coast, opposite Gibraltar) to extend the Reconquista and to stop Muslim raids on Portuguese coast villages; pirates would hold Christian captives for ransom or sell them into slavery.
Henrique’s later explorations from his base at Lagos are spurred in part by religious fervor to connect with Christian kingdom led by the mythical Prester John in the East and to ally with him to defeat Muslims.
But equally important is Henrique’s curiosity about trans-Saharan camel caravans that bring gold, ivory and black slaves to Morocco. (The most important return commodity is rock salt from Saharan mines, essential for preserving food.)
It is the gold, recovered from the streams and estuaries of what becomes known as the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana) at a rate later estimated to be as much as two tons annually, that most excites the Portuguese.
1417, Henrique is named grandmaster of Order of Christ (the Templars before 1312) by pope at request of João I. The Order is then granted sovereign rights and a percent of revenue (including slave revenue) from new discoveries and thus develops into financial engine for Henrique’s explorations.
He expands the systematic study and record-keeping of Atlantic winds and currents that will guarantee Portugal’s lead in ocean exploration for at least 200 years.
1419, Madeira’s smaller neighbor island of Porto Santo visited by João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, two of Henry’s captains, when they are blown off course. Settlement of uninhabited Madeira (660 miles southwest of Lisbon) begins in 1420.
Much of the laurasilva (laurel forest) is burned off to make way for agriculture. Later, Henry experiments with vineyards and sugar cane from Sicily. Early slaves are probably North African Muslims seized in war.
1430s, Caravels are developed by Henrique, based on Portuguese fishing barcas, which in turn are based on medieval Arab qarib. Lateen sails allow ships to sail into the wind. Some also carry square sails for faster travel before the wind. They are light, displacing only 50-160 tons, and of shallow draft with two or three masts.
Carracks (nauses), developed soon after, are able to carry much more cargo, and often exceed 1,000 tons, with two square-rigged masts and a lateen mizzenmast.
1432, Led by Gonçalo Velho Cabral, Portuguese land on Santa Maria in the uninhabited, mid-Atlantic Azores, 850 miles west of Lisbon. An earlier “rediscovery” of Azores was reported by Diogo de Silves around 1427. Some 14th-century maps appear to include islands but without explanation of their discovery.
São Miguel, Terceira, Faial and Pico are settled by 1440. Last of the nine main islands (which stretch west more than 370 miles) to be discovered are Corvo and Flores in 1452.
Most Azores settlers are peasants from the Algarve and Alentejo, including a number of Jews. Another contingent comes from Flanders. All work on land granted by Henry to donatarios (usually his captains, Cabral is the first) who have full governor powers. Early use of slaves ends due to settlers’ fear of insurrections. A tenant-farming system develops instead.
1433, A treasure fleet launched by the Ming emperor departs Hormuz in Persia, March 3, on its return voyage to Nanjing by way of Calicut, Malacca, Surabaya (East Java), Quy Nhon (present-day Vietnam) and Quanzhou among other ports.
This is the last of seven voyages undertaken since 1405, each involving hundreds of ships, and as many as 28,000 men. They are loaded with treasure to impress and trade with all the countries visited. Each voyage is led by Zheng He, most prominent of the emperor’s eunuch advisors. (Born to a prominent Muslim family in Yunnan, he was captured by invading Ming forces and castrated as a boy.)
The fleets bring envoys to Nanjing from Mecca, Calicut, Ceylon and many other lands. Voyages end when a new emperor decides they are neither profitable nor in keeping with Confucian values.
Although dwarfing the Portuguese fleets to come, these are not voyages of exploration, as the trade routes they follow have been plied for centuries.
Behemoths: The largest ships displace as much as 3,000 tons by some unconfirmed accounts and run more than 250 feet long with 6 junk-rigged masts. They carry 24 guns and crews of 500-plus. However, when Portuguese and Ming fleets do confront each other in 1517, their ships are more evenly sized.
1434, Pope Eugene IV orders excommunication of any person who enslaves any Guanche newly converted to Christianity on the Canary Islands, where Portuguese, particularly, conduct slave raids. In 1435, pope orders wrongly enslaved Christians to be freed within 15 days.
But enslavement of non-baptized Guanche is protected under a third bull issued the following year.
1434, Portugal’s Gil Eanes is first to round Africa’s Cape Bojador, due south of Canaries’ Fuerteventura, after many failures and wrecks. Bojador is long feared for tricky northeast winds, extended reefs and insistent southerly coastal current. Also feared for sea monsters beyond.
Henrique continues to instruct captains to seek information about the legendary Prester John, whose Christian kingdom has long been imagined as a possible ally against Muslims.
Prester John: Legend dates back to at least the mid-12th century of this king of a wealthy Christian nation at first vaguely located in India (where the Apostle Thomas was said to have traveled) and then in central Asia (where the real Nestorian Christian Church was protected by the Mongol empire). By 1250, Europeans began identifying the little-known Christian kingdom of Ethiopia with Prester John.
The legend encouraged more than four centuries of European missionaries, Crusaders, scholars and, even before Henrique, the explorations of Africa, finally receding only as those explorations advanced.
1437, Portuguese, led by Henrique, besiege Tangier. But his army is in turn encircled by Moroccans and forced to surrender. Henry promises to return Ceuta to Moroccans if he can keep his army, minus hostages who include his younger brother Fernão.
When Henrique’s offer to take Fernão’s place is denied by King Duarte (older brother of Henrique and Fernão), Henrique and ministers renege on return of Ceuta; Duarte dies of plague soon after; Fernão dies in captivity, 1443.
1441, Portuguese captains Antão Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão, sailing in early caravels, capture 12 persons identified as “Moors” at Cape Blanc (present-day Mauritania) and take them to Lagos as slaves. They are Muslims, probably of Berber origin. Cited as the beginning of West Africa-Europe slave trade.
1444, First large group of non-Mediterranean African slaves brought to Europe.
Lançarote de Freitas, Lagos port collector, wins Henrique’s permission to follow up on Gonçalves-Tristão expedition. With six ships and relatively few men, he rounds Cape Blanc and raids two islands in Bay of Arguin. Some 235 Berbers (who are Muslim) are taken as slaves to Lagos; Henrique’s share is 46 slaves, which he distributes among captains.
Dinis Dias is the first Portuguese captain to round Cape Verde (at present-day Dakar), 500 miles south of Cape Blanc. Takes four captives, possibly non-Muslim black people.
It will turn out that Cape Verde is the westernmost point of the entire African continent. Also, Dias is too close to mainland to spot the Cape Verde Islands, another 350 miles to the west.
1445, De Freitas returns to Bay of Arguin with 14 ships, and manages to capture 125 Berbers and to set up the first permanent European post on Arguin island. Within 10 years, this feitoria (factory or, more accurately, trading post) is sending 800 Berber slaves annually to Lagos.
But when De Freitas ventures south to Senegal river, he is rebuffed by fierce black Wolof villagers.
1446, Nuno Tristão ventures on his fourth voyage, but is ambushed and killed somewhere between Cape Verde and the Gambia river. When a succeeding expedition led by Álvaro Fernandes provokes more hostilities, Henry suspends explorations along West African coast for eight years.
1447, In the Canaries, Hernán Peraza the Elder, a Seville noble, arrives on Fuerteventura (his by marriage) to assert his control of Lanzarote, El Hierro and La Gomera, and to plan conquest of those islands still fiercely defended by Guanches: La Palma, Tenerife and Gran Canaria. When he dies in 1452, his daughter Inez declares herself “Queen of the Canary Islands.”