Reconquista
The Reconquista (Spanish and Portuguese for "reconquest"[a]) or the reconquest of al-Andalus[b] was the successful series of military campaigns that European Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms following the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate.[4] The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga (circa 718 or 722), in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion.[5] Its culmination came in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs.[4]
For other uses, see Reconquista (disambiguation).
In the late 10th century, the Umayyad vizier Almanzor waged a series of military campaigns for 30 years in order to subjugate the northern Christian kingdoms. When the Caliphate of Córdoba disintegrated in the early 11th century, a series of petty successor states known as taifas emerged. The northern kingdoms took advantage of this situation and struck deep into al-Andalus; they fostered civil war, intimidated the weakened taifas, and made them pay large tributes (parias) for "protection".[6][7][8][9]
In the 12th century, the Reconquista was above all a political action to develop the kingdoms of Portugal, León-Castile and Aragon. The king's action took precedence over that of the local lords, with the help of the military orders and also supported by repopulation.[10] Following a Muslim resurgence under the Almohads in the 12th century, the great Moorish strongholds fell to Christian forces in the 13th century, after the decisive Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), the Siege of Córdoba (1236) and the Siege of Seville (1248)—leaving only the Muslim enclave of Granada as a tributary state in the south. After the surrender of Granada in January 1492, the entire Iberian peninsula was controlled by Christian rulers. On 30 July 1492, as a result of the Alhambra Decree, the Jewish communities in Castile and Aragon—some 200,000 people—were forcibly expelled. The conquest was followed by a series of edicts (1499–1526) which forced the conversions of Muslims in Castile, Navarre, and Aragon, who were later expelled from the Iberian realms of the Spanish Crown by a series of decrees starting in 1609.[11][12][13] Approximately three million Muslims emigrated or were driven out of Spain between 1492 and 1610.[14]
Beginning in the 19th century,[15] traditional historiography has used the term Reconquista for what was earlier thought of as a restoration of the Visigothic Kingdom over conquered territories.[16][17] The concept of Reconquista, consolidated in Spanish historiography in the second half of the 19th century, was associated with the development of a Spanish national identity, emphasizing Spanish nationalist and romantic aspects.[18] It is rememorated in the Moros y Cristianos festival, very popular in parts of Southeastern Spain, and which can also be found in a few places in former Spanish colonies. Pursuant to an Islamophobic worldview, the concept is a symbol of significance for the 21st century European far-right. [19][20]
Infighting[edit]
Christian infighting[edit]
Clashes and raids on bordering Andalusian lands did not keep the Christian kingdoms from battling among themselves or allying with Muslim kings.[24] Some Muslim kings had Christian-born wives or mothers. Some Christian mercenaries, like El Cid, were contracted by taifa kings to fight against their neighbours.[24] Indeed, El Cid's first battle experience was gained fighting for a Muslim state against a Christian state. At the Battle of Graus in 1063, he and other Castilians fought on the side of al-Muqtadir, Muslim sultan of Zaragoza, against the forces of Ramiro I of Aragon. There is even an instance of a crusade being declared against another Christian king in Hispania.[107] Although Christian rulers Fernán González of Castile and Ramiro II of León had cooperated to defeat the Muslims at the Battle of Simancas (939), Fernán attacked Ramiro soon after and the Leonese–Castilian war that followed lasted until Ramiro's victory in 944.[108] Ramiro II's death caused the war of the Leonese succession (951–956) between his sons, and the winner Ordoño III of León concluded peace with caliph Abd al-Rahman III of Córdoba.[108]
The many advances and retreats created several social types: