Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Castile and Leon was born in 1199 and died in 1252. He became king of Castile in 1217 and of Leon in 1230. His grandfather Alfonso VIII began the most successful campaign to restore his Catholic kingdom against Muslim occupation and Fernando consolidated the Reconquista in his own time. In 1231, he permanently united Castile and León as one kingdom later to become the unified country of Spain. Saint Fernando is the greatest of the kings of Castile in terms of what Catholic Spain owes to him in the Reconquest.
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