King Alfonso VIII of Castile: Government, Family, and WarKing Alfonso VIII of Castile: Government, Family and War brings together a diverse group of scholars whose work concerns the reign of Alfonso VIII (1158 1215). This was a critical period in the history of the Iberian peninsula, when the conflict between the Christian north and the Moroccan empire of the Almohads was at its most intense, while the political divisions between the five Christian kingdoms reached their high water mark. From his troubled