Siege of Coria (1142) 1142
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1142 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Spain | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 39.9819, -6.5372 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The second siege of Coria by the Emperor Alfonso VII of León was begun in early May 1142 and ended with the taking of the town in June. Coria had previously been reconquered in 1079 by Alfonso VI. It was lost to the Almoravids sometime not long after Alfonso's death in 1109. Alfonso VII had vainly besieged it in July 1138, in which action his general Rodrigo Martínez was killed. The successful siege of 1142 was "the prelude to a frenetic bout of military activity during the latter part of the reign of Alfonso VII [during which] the emperor is known to have led in person at least eight military expeditions into al-Andalus."
The main source for the siege is the second book of the contemporary Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, which dates the siege to "two years and six months after the capture of Oreja". The initial response to the arrival of Alfonso's army by the inhabitants of Coria, both the Almoravids (from northern Africa) and the local Muslims, was to fortify the gates against entry or exit with a "strong supporting wall". While siege engines had been used four years earlier, in 1142 they were more effectual:
[Alfonso] commanded his engineers to build a wooden tower which projected above the walls of the city, and siege engines, catapults and mantlets with which they began to undermine the walls of the…
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Coria (1142) (revision 1370740425), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus
- Battle of Alcalá (1129) 1129
- Battle of Fraga 1134
- Siege of Coria (1138) 1138
- Battle of Ourique 1139
- Siege of Oreja 1139
- Battle of Montiel (1143) 1143
- Siege of Lisbon 1147
All 23 battles of the Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus →
Browse more: battles in Spain · Europe · Medieval battles