Battle of Lobregal

The Battle of Lobregal ("Batalla del Lobregal") took place in March 1160 between the Lara family and its allies and the forces of the Castro family under Fernando Rodríguez de Castro. Fernando's father-in-law, Osorio Martínez, died fighting alongisde the Laras. [Simon Barton (1997), "The Aristocracy in Twelfth-Century León and Castile" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 271 n1.] The battle was the high point of a series of struggles for power between the Lara and Castro families following the death of Sancho III of Castile in August 1158 and the accession of his young son, Alfonso VIII.Barton, 154.]

Early in 1160 Fernando had been forced into exile at the court of Ferdinand II of León. He returned shortly with an army and inflicted a major defeat on his enemies, led by the Lara brothers, Álvaro, Manrique, and Nuño Pérez, at "Lobregal" in the Tierra de Campos, near Villabrágima. Besides the death of his father-in-law, his personal rival, Nuño Pérez, was captured.

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