When did Alfonso VI take Toledo in Spain?

Alfonso VI takes Toledo

Alfonso VI conquista Toledo

25 May 1085. After the caliphate broke up in 1031, Toledo was the capital of one of the largest taifa kingdoms.

Where: Spain, Toledo

What happened

After the caliphate broke up in 1031, Toledo was the capital of one of the largest taifa kingdoms. Its last king, al-Qadir, depended on Alfonso VI of León and Castile for protection, and when his own subjects rebelled he agreed to hand the city over. Alfonso besieged it from late 1084 and entered in May 1085: Arabic sources say 6 May, Christian ones 25 May. The terms let Muslims leave freely or stay with their homes, taxes and the great mosque, though the chronicles say the mosque was taken by force the next year and reconsecrated as the cathedral in December 1086. The capture of the old Visigothic capital shocked al-Andalus and began the slow Castilianisation of a city whose Mozarabic Christians still spoke Arabic. Toledo's Arabic libraries later drew scholars from across Europe to translate them.

Say it

En 1085 Alfonso VI entró en Toledo.

In 1085 Alfonso VI entered Toledo.

Why it matters

Toledo became the meeting point of Arabic, Latin, Hebrew and Castilian learning; the translations made here in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries carried Greek and Arab science into Europe and helped turn Castilian into a written language.

There today

See

You can visit the cathedral of Toledo, consecrated in 1086 on the site of the great mosque, in the old Visigothic capital.

Read about it

• Toledo, ciudad de tres culturas — Toledo, City of Three Cultures
• La Reconquista — The "Reconquest"

Connected

• Arabic words in Spanish (711–1500)
• Convivencia: living together, and apart (711–1492)
• The 'Reconquista': a contested idea (c. 718–1492)
• The Caliphate of Córdoba (16 January 929)
• The Caliphate of Córdoba (16 January 929)
• El Cid takes Valencia (17 June 1094)
• The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (16 July 1212)
• Alfonso the Wise and the Castilian language (1252–1284)

• Before: The Glosas Emilianenses: the first written Romance?
• After: El Cid takes Valencia

Sources

1. Alfonso VI y la toma de Toledo – Ricardo Izquierdo Benito (1986) — Real Academia de Bellas Artes y Ciencias Históricas de Toledo
2. Reconquista — World History Encyclopedia
3. 1212, la batalla de las Navas de Tolosa – Julia Pavón and María Calonge — Universidad de Navarra, Biblioteca – Fondo Antiguo