The Siege of Silves in 1190 was an military confrontation of the Reconquista, occurring during the sixth Almohad invasion of Portugal. The city of Silves, conquered by King Sancho I of Portugal the previous year, was besieged by a Muslim army, but the Portuguese resisted the attack.
In 1188, the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur completed the conquest of the entire Maghreb, declared holy war and warned the inhabitants of al-Andalus that he was preparing to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and set out to conquer the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula.
Silves, built on a hill on the banks of the Arade River, was the most important city in the Algarve and a renowned cultural center. Sancho I conquered Silves with the help of a fleet of crusaders in 1189. The Almohad Caliph then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar on April 23, 1190 with an army and settled in Tarifa.[1]
The caliph sent the governor of Seville Abu Hafs Yaqub b. Abi Hafs, his cousinto the Algarve, with an army made up of Andalusian troops from Seville and Granada, Berbers from the Azenegues and Haskura tribes and jihadist volunteers.[1] In Córdoba, al-Mansur received ambassadors from the king of Castile and signed a truce with him, thus leaving him free to focus on the conquest of Portugal.[1] In this city he distributed banners to his army in preparation for the campaign.[1]
The news of the arrival of the Almohads was already known in Portugal when, by chance, an English ship with 100 men at arms arrived in Silves.[2][3] The English reinforcements were part of Richard the Lionheart's armada, which had dispersed off the Iberian Peninsula on its way to the Holy Land due to bad weather.[2][3] Other ships from the armada docked in Lisbon.[2][3] The Bishop of Silves Nicolau convinced the English to help defend the city and the Crusaders even offered their ship, which was promptly dismantled to help.[3][2]
The Almohads built camps around Silves on the 6th of June, just eight months after the city was conquered by the Portuguese.[1] On the 5th of the following month, a Muslim fleet arrived from Seville with siege equipment.[1]
Meanwhile, the caliph invaded Portugal through Alentejo, destroyed cultures in his path, razed Torres Novas and besieged Tomar, defended by the Templars, while another detachment was sent to besiege Santarém as well.[1][3]
In Silves, the Muslims proved incapable of overcoming the resistance put up by the Portuguese and English warriors.[1] Faced with a lack of supplies, tenacious resistance in Tomar and Santarém, and an outbreak of dysentery among his army, the caliph ordered all his troops to withdraw from Portugal.[1]
On July 26th the Caliph was back in Seville.[1]
Although Silves resisted the siege of 1190, the Almohads would invade Portugal again the following year for the seventh and final time. Silves was recaptured by the Muslims, who also reconquered from the Portuguese all the towns and castles in Alentejo and Algarve except Évora.[4][5]
Silves would be definitively reconquered in 1242, by Paio Peres Correia.