Gran conquista de Ultramar

The Gran conquista de Ultramar ('Great Conquest Beyond the Sea') is a late 13th-century Castilian chronicle of the Crusades for the period 1095–1271.

It is a work of compilation, translation and prosification of Old French and Old Occitan sources, mixing historical material with legends drawn from the epic chansons de geste.

[3] A translated epitome of the Gran conquista was incorporated into the Galician-Portuguese Crónica general de 1404, in the section on the reign of Alfonso VI (1065–1109).

[8] This is found in a single manuscript:[3] The Gran conquista was also translated into Catalan at the instigation of King James II of Aragon (1264–1327).

The oldest manuscript (Madrid 1187) contains a colophon naming King Sancho IV of Castile (1284–1295) as the author.

[3] Modern scholars tend to accept the former attribution, arguing that Sancho supervised the selection, translation and editing of materials.

[3][8] Alfonso evinced a strong interest in the Crusades to the Holy Land after the loss of Jerusalem (1244) and the council of Lyon (1245).

[1] The Gran conquista covers the Crusades and the history of Outremer in the period 1095–1271 after a prologue on the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and the rise of Muḥammad.

The version used for the Gran conquista includes the Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le trésorier, a continuation down to 1229.

[2] The Estoire's narrative is embellished by texts from various French epics, the Occitan Canso d'Antioca and unidentified sources.