Calle de Alfonso VIII

Alfonso VIII of Castile reigned from before he turned three and grew old on the throne, with one of the longest reigns of the peninsular Middle Ages. His name was bound to a date: on 16 July 1212, in a pass of the Sierra Morena, the troops he gathered defeated the Almohad caliph at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. The victory pushed the frontier southward and earned him the nickname “the one of Las Navas.” Less famous was another of his endeavours: he founded in Palencia the first general study of the Crown of Castile, seed of the Spanish university. The street runs through Nueva España, in Chamartín, an area whose street names pay tribute to medieval kings.