Alfonso X's second war against the Moorish kingdom of Granada, beginning in 1275, was compounded almost immediately by the invasion of the Marinid Berbers from North Africa — a two-front crisis that devastated Castilian finances. To fund the campaigns, Alfonso debased the billon coinage repeatedly, stripping silver content to levels that provoked widespread merchant refusal and triggered serious monetary unrest in the Castilian towns. The dineros of this period circulated in an economy where royal price edicts were failing and the king's authority was visibly fraying.
Alfonso died in 1284 still unrecognized as Holy Roman Emperor, a title he had pursued for nearly two decades at ruinous diplomatic expense — a distraction his own nobles never forgave.
Alfonso X's second war against the Moorish kingdom of Granada, beginning in 1275, was compounded almost immediately by the invasion of the Marinid Berbers from North Africa — a two-front crisis that devastated Castilian finances. To fund the campaigns, Alfonso debased the billon coinage repeatedly, stripping silver content to levels that provoked widespread merchant refusal and triggered serious monetary unrest in the Castilian towns. The dineros of this period circulated in an economy where royal price edicts were failing and the king's authority was visibly fraying.
Alfonso died in 1284 still unrecognized as Holy Roman Emperor, a title he had pursued for nearly two decades at ruinous diplomatic expense — a distraction his own nobles never forgave.