The Templars were highly prolific in the fight to drive the caliphate southwards. But the tide of war ebbed and flowed in favour of the Christians and then the Muslims and then back again.īut from the late eleventh century, the Moors – as the Muslim rulers of Spain were called – lost many of their most treasured cities including Toledo and Al Usbunna (Lisbon). Since the year 711, when the Iberian peninsula was overrun by the armies of the caliphate, there had been three hundred years of solid Muslim rule but then a rolling back of Islamic Al-Andalus as the new Christian kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Leon and Portugal began to emerge.ĭivisions in Al-Andalus between rival rulers caused weakness and division which the crusaders, including Templar knights, exploited. Still today, you can see their mighty castle dotted around the Iberian landscape. They were the shock troops of the Christian crusader kingdoms, always in the front line. The Knights Templar were at the forefront of the long wars in what’s now Spain and Portugal against the Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian peninsula. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa was a turning point where Christian forces began to overwhelm the Muslim caliphate in Spain. ![]() ![]() There it was a case of victory after victory. ![]() ![]() While the Knights Templar saw a rising tide of defeat in the Holy Land – the story was the opposite in Moorish Spain.
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