Lope Fernández, Bishop of Morocco: His Diplomatic Role in the Planning of an Anglo-Castilian Crusade into Northern Africa

Summary

On Sunday Laetere Jerusalem (6 March) 1250, Henry III of England took the Cross. Seven months later, probably in an attempt to encourage Henry, Pope Innocent IV ordered the Aragonese bishops of Zaragoza and Huesca to send the English king the money that they had collected for the crusade. The English king was part of a select group of monarchs, amongst them Fernando III of León-Castile (1225), and Louis IX of France (1244), who pledged to wage a Holy War against the infidel. A revived enthusiasm had gripped Western Christendom and the Castilian court with the help of the newly confirmed bishop of Morocco, Lope Fernandez, sought to utilise this fervour to promote not just a bid to recover Jerusalem but an African crusade. Soon after his appointment in 1246, the bishop was sent to England, in an attempt to convince King Henry III to join this expedition. It was not until Alfonso X's accession to the throne that these efforts proved successful, and in 1254, the English monarch signed a treaty with the king of Castile to participate in a joint crusade into northern Africa. In reality the enterprise never took place; however the role of Fernández helps to shed light upon the diplomatic workings of the Castilian court in the last years of Fernando III's reign and the early years of Alfonso X.