Castile and al-Andalus after 1212: assimilation and integration of Andalusi architecture

Abstract

The victory at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 had significant ramifications in the field of art history, enabling the assimilation of the art of al-Andalus into the kingdom of Castile – a phenomenon which would only become intensified with the passage of time – and allowing the Archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada (r. 1209–47) and King Alfonso X (r. 1252–84) to initiate a cultural project which would culminate in the Spain we broadly know today. This process required the integration of Andalusi territories, and more broadly implied an increasingly Arabized material culture divorced from its Islamic religious values, which is to say, its Islamic nature.