Afonso V, known by the sobriquet the African, was king of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Africa.
Joanna of Castile, known as la Beltraneja, was a claimant to the throne of Castile, and Queen of Portugal as the wife of King Afonso V, her uncle.
Plasencia is a walled market city in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Western Spain. As of 2013, it has a population of 41,047.
Henry IV of Castile, nicknamed the Impotent, was King of Castile and León and the last of the weak late-medieval kings of Castile and León. During Henry's reign, the nobles became more powerful and the nation became less centralised.
The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III, to the vacant Leonese throne. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1715.
Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, called Alfonso the Innocent, was the figurehead of rebelling Castilian magnates against his half-brother Henry IV, who had recognized him as heir presumptive.
The War of the Castilian Succession was the military conflict contested from 1475 to 1479 for the succession of the Crown of Castile fought between the supporters of Joanna 'la Beltraneja', reputed daughter of the late monarch Henry IV of Castile, and those of Henry's half-sister, Isabella, who was ultimately successful.
Beltrán de la Cueva y Alfonso de Mercado, 1st Duke of Alburquerque was a Spanish nobleman who is said to have fathered Joanna, the daughter of Henry IV of Castile's wife Joan of Portugal. His alleged daughter, called "la Beltraneja", was deprived of the crown of Castile because of the uncertainty regarding her parentage.
Ferdinand II was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband of Queen Isabella I of Castile, he was also King of Castile from 1475 to 1504. He reigned jointly with Isabella over a dynastically unified Spain; together they are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand is considered the de facto first king of Spain, and was described as such during his reign, even though, legally, Castile and Aragon remained two separate kingdoms until they were formally united by the Nueva Planta decrees issued between 1707 and 1716.
Isabella of Portugal (1364–1395) was the natural daughter of King Ferdinand I of Portugal, from an unknown mother.
Isabella I, also called Isabella the Catholic, was Queen of Castile and León from 1474 until her death in 1504. She was also Queen of Aragon from 1479 until her death as the wife of King Ferdinand II. Reigning together over a dynastically unified Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand are known as the Catholic Monarchs.
The Estoria de España, also known in the 1906 edition of Ramón Menéndez Pidal as the Primera Crónica General, is a history book written on the initiative of Alfonso X of Castile "El Sabio", reigned 1252-1284, and who was actively involved in the chronicle's editing. It is believed to be the first extended history of Spain in Old Spanish, a West Iberian Romance language that forms part of the lineage from Vulgar Latin to modern Spanish. Many prior works were consulted in constructing this history.
Blanche of Castile was by birth a member of the Castilian House of Burgundy. She was the only child of Infante Peter of Castile and Infanta Maria of Aragon.
The House of Zúñiga is a Spanish noble lineage who took their name from their domain. Various members of the family were distinguished in the service of the Spanish crown in Europe and the Americas as viceroys, governors, military, diplomats, writers and members of religious orders. Charles I of Spain in 1530 named two members of the family, the Duke of Béjar and Plasencia and the Count of Miranda del Castañar, among his Immemorial Grandees, while eight members of the family were inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece.
The Battle of Villanueva de Barcarrota was fought in 1336 near the town of Villanueva de Barcarrota in Extremadura between troops of the Kingdom of Portugal led by Pedro Afonso de Sousa, and troops of the Kingdom of Castile led by Enrique Enriquez the Younger, who led the forces of the Bishop of Jaén, assisted by Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y Coronel and Pedro Ponce de León the Elder, who led forces sent by the city of Seville. The Portuguese were defeated. As a result, Afonso IV of Portugal, who was besieging the city of Badajoz, ordered the siege to be lifted and returned with his troops to Portugal.
The coat of arms of Castile was the heraldic emblem of its monarchs. Historian Michel Pastoureau says that the original purpose of heraldic emblems and seals was to facilitate the exercise of power and the identification of the ruler, due to what they offered for achieving these aims. These symbols were associated with the kingdom, and eventually also represented the intangible nature of the national sentiment or sense of belonging to a territory.
The Treaty of Elvas was a peace treaty between the Kingdom of Portugal and Crown of Castile, which ended the Portuguese-Castilian War of 1381-1382. It was signed by King Fernando I of Portugal and King John I of Castile on 10 August 1382 in the Portuguese city of Elvas after the Portuguese defeat. The terms of the treaty were as follows:
Álvaro de Zúñiga y Guzmán was a Castilian nobleman, member of the influential House of Zúñiga, of Navarrese origin. He was one of the most powerful men in Castile, as evidenced by his numerous titles and the offices he held, and was involved in much of the kingdom's most important political and military events, notably in the various conflicts between the nobility and the candidates for succession to the throne that would culminate in the War of the Castilian Succession and that would only calm down with the final recognition of the Catholic Monarchs, whom he initially opposed but eventually supported.
Álvaro de Zúñiga y Pérez de Guzmán was a Spanish nobleman, member of the first-born branch of the House of Zúñiga, Grandee of Spain, 2nd Duke of Béjar, 2nd Duke of Plasencia, 3rd Count of Bañares, 1st Marquis of Gibraleón, first knight of the realm, knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, justicia mayor and alguacil mayor of Castile. In 1488 he succeeded his grandfather Álvaro de Zúñiga y Guzmán, 1st Duke of Béjar and Plasencia in the mayorazgo (majorat).
Pedro de Zúñiga. He was a wealthy (ricohombre) Castilian man of the House of Zúñiga, and was the son of Diego López de Zúñiga, Lord of Frías and Béjar and Alguacil and Chief Justice of the King, and Juana García de Leyva.
