Siege of Coria
1142 CE.
Shown on the map at 39.982°, -6.537°.
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".
Text from the Wikipedia article Siege of Coria (1142), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.