Crónica de Flores y Blancaflor is a medieval romance interpolated into a thirteenthcentury
account of the struggles of the Kings of Asturias (eighth-ninth centuries)
with the Umayyad Caliphate in Cordova. In this essay I demonstrate how the
chronicler mapped political concerns onto courtly adventure narrative in order to
promote ideologies of conquest and conversion. Flores’ conversion to Christianity in
the context of his lifelong love relationship with Blancaflor is a metaphor for the
Christian dream of the conquest of al-Andalus and the conversion of Iberian
Muslims and Jews.