So this was rather eventful.
Boring stuff first, I converted some spare castles to cities, keeping Toledo as a recruitment factory. I've also sent 4 more merchants south to Timbuktu, there are some gold/ivory/slaves to the right of our current merchant and I think some more gold/ivory to the left in a different province.
Now for some fun, the pope sent some troops to our shores. They left right away though, but turned down a request to be reconciled even when given free reign to set the requirements. So I recruited an assassin to train up for pope killing as I've seen some last until their early 90s and this one was only 60. Fortunately for us, he died in a few turns and one of our cardinals was elected pretty much unaminously. So that reversed the popes opinion on us and France. I had decided to try to hit France hard while the pope couldn't do anything about it, but carried on because he's on the verge of excommunicating them. I got bordeoux, but didn't reach touluse in my time. Our pope didn't last and is now a polish pope, but the changes in relationships should help a lot!
Who's next?