Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada was born in in
Puente la Reina,
Kingdom of Navarre. He was born from a Navarrese noble family and was educated by his uncle, Martín de la Finojosa,
abbot of
Saint Mary of Huerta and
bishop of Sigüenza. He studied
Law and
Theology in the Universities of
Bologna and
Paris. When he returned to Navarre he mediated between that kingdom and Castile and he became friend of King
Alfonso VIII of Castile, who nominated him as
bishop of Osma and later put pressure on the
chapter of Toledo to elect him as
archbishop of Toledo. His election as archbishop of Toledo was confirmed by
Pope Innocent III on 12 February 1209. In addition, Alfonso VIII appointed him as major
chancellor of Castile. He played a key role in the war against the
Almohads and at the
battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). He was the moral leader of that war, which was considered in Europe as a
crusade in which many European knights took part. He sent afterwards missionaries to
Morocco. His archbishopric gained a lot of possessions throughout the
Guadalquivir valley, especially around
Quesada and received further generous donations from kings and lords. As archbishop of Toledo, he promoted the building of the
cathedral and placed the first stone in 1226 (it was not completed until 1493), restored the dioceses of
Baeza and
Córdoba after the Christian conquest of those cities and defended the
primacy of his see in Spain against the pretensions of
Braga and
Santiago. He promoted the cultural life of
Toledo, a city that was the cultural entrepôt of Christian and Muslim civilizations during the Middle Ages. He ordered the translation of the
Koran to
Latin and composed a wide historiographic work. His
De rebus Hispaniae, a general history of Spain, was very soon translated into
Spanish and was very influential on the
General History of
Alfonso X. He died near
Lyon while returning from a visit to the
pope, and is interred in the
monastery of Saint Mary of Huerta. ==Writings==