La imagen del Miramamolín al Nasir (1199-1213) en las fuentes cristianas del siglo XIII

Abstract

In contemporary Christian sources, the images of the Almohade calif Muhammad al-Nasir, the defeated Miramamolin in great battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), make possible to notice mental and ideological notions shared by the Medieval West of Xlllth Century. For the Europeans, the fear to the powerful Almohade Empire reflected by sources was employed by some chroniclers, with a propagandistic intention, to improve Spanish Crusade or disparage the political and religious enemies of Papacy. For the Spaniards, the al-Nasir's image refered to his role in the campaign of 1212. About the Miramamolin, the chroniclers projected the image of "the other one" supported by the ideology of war in Christian West. Thus, the victorious king's virtues, Alphonse VIII of Castille —faith, humility, courage, loyalty and generosity— opposed to the defeated calif's vices —unbelief, pride, cowardice, disloyalty and covetousness—, generating two opposite models wich purpose was, on the one hand, to exalte the victorious Christians and, on the other hand, to create an explicative recourse of religious and providencial character for, in the chroniclers's mentality, to make sense out of the cause of Muslim desaster in the battle of 1212.