Eleanor of Castile and the Crusading Movement

Eleanor of Castile was centrally involved in the crusading movement both by birth and by marriage. She was the daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile, better known as San Fernando, who brought the whole of Andalusia under Christian sovereignty, ¹ and also the niece of John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem. ² From the start the wars against the Muslims in Spain and in the Holy Land had been seen as part of a single enterprise, and archbishop Diego Gelmirez of Compostella addressed a Church council in 1125 about his hope of reaching Jerusalem by way of North Africa. ³ San Fernando was planning to implement this policy by carrying the war into Morocco when he died on 30 May 1252.