Part 961

The last century of the Gothic kingdom in Spain was, on the whole, a period of decline. It gained some extension of boundaries, it is true, by the expulsion of Byzantine authority from one small southern corner of the Spanish peninsula, in which it had lingered long; but repeated usurpations had shaken the throne; the ascendancy of church and clergy had weakened the Gothic nobility without strengthening the people; frequent recurrences of political disorder had interfered with a general prosperity and demoralized society in many ways. The condition of Spain, in fact, was such as might plainly invite the flushed armies of Islam, which now stood on the African side of the narrow strait of Gibraltar. That another invitation was needed to bring them in is not probable. The story of the great treason of Count Illan, or Ilyan, or Julian, and of the betrayed daughter, Florinda, to whose wrongs he made a sacrifice of his country, has been woven into the history of the Moorish conquest of Spain by too many looms of romance and poetry to be easily torn away,—and it may have some bottom of fact in its composition; but sober reason requires us to believe that no possible treason in the case could be more than a chance incident of the inevitable catastrophe. The final conquest of North Africa had been completed by the Arab general Musa Ibn Nosseyr,—except that Ceuta, the one stronghold which the Goths held on the African side of the straits, withstood them. They had not only conquered the Berbers or Moors, but had practically absorbed and affiliated them. Spain, as they learned, was distracted by a fresh revolution, which had brought to the throne Roderick —the last Gothic king. The numerous Jews in the country were embittered by persecution and looked to the more tolerant Moslems for their deliverance. Probably their invitation proved more potent than any which Count Ilyan could address to Musa, or to his master at Damascus. But Ilyan commanded at Ceuta, and, after defending the outpost for a time, he gave it up. It seems, too, that when the movement of Invasion occurred, in the spring of 711, Count Ilyan was with the invaders. The first expedition to cross the narrow strait from Ceuta to Gibraltar came under the command of the valiant one-eyed chieftain, Tarik Ibn Zeyud Ibn Abdillah. "The landing of Tarik's forces was completed on the 30th of April, 711 (8th Regeb. A. H. 92), and his enthusiastic followers at once named the promontory upon which he landed, Dschebel-Tarik [or Gebel-Tarik], the rock of Tarik. The name has been retained in the modernized form, Gibraltar. It is also spoken of in the Arabian chronicles as Dschebalu-l-Fata, the portal or mountain of victory." Tarik entered Spain with but 7,000 men. He afterwards received reinforcements to the extent of 5,000 from Musa. It was with this small army of 12,000 men that, after a little more than two months, he encountered the far greater host which King Roderick had levied hastily to oppose him. The Gothic king despised the small numbers of his foe and rashly staked everything upon the single field. Somewhere not far from Medina Sidonia, —or nearer to the town of Xeres de la Frontera. —on the banks of the Guadalete, the decisive battle began on the 19th day of July, A. D. 711. It lasted obstinately for several days, and success appeared first on the Gothic side; but treason among the Christians and discipline among the Moslems turned the scale. When the battle ended the conquest of Spain was practically achieved. Its Gothic king had disappeared, whether slain or fled was never known, and the organization of resistance disappeared with him. Tarik pursued his success with audacious vigor, even disobeying the commands of his superior, Musa. Dividing his small army into detachments, he pushed them out in all directions to seize the important cities. Xeres, Moron, Carmona, Cordova, Malaga, and Gharnatta—Granada—(the latter so extensively peopled with Jews that it was called "Gharnatta-al-Yahood," or Granada of the Jews) were speedily taken. Toledo, the Gothic capital, surrendered and was occupied on Palm Sunday, 712. The same spring, Musa, burning with envy of his subordinate's unexpected success, crossed to Spain with an army of 18,00() and took up the nearly finished task. He took Seville and laid siege to Merida—the Emerita Augusta of the Romans—a great and splendid city of unusual strength. Merida resisted with more valor than other cities had shown, but surrendered in July. Seville revolted and was punished terribly by the merciless Moslem sword. Before the end of the second year after Tarik's first landing at Gibraltar, the Arab, or Arab-Moorish, invaders had swept the whole southern, central and eastern parts of the peninsula, clear to the Pyrenees, reducing Saragossa after a siege and receiving the surrender of Barcelona, Valencia, and all the important cities. Then, in the summer of 713, Musa and Tarik went away, under orders from the Caliph, to settle their jealous dissensions at Damascus, and to report the facts of the great conquest they made.

_H. Coppée, History of the Conquest of Spain, books 2-3 (volume 1)._

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ALSO IN: _J. A. Condé, History of the Arabs in Spain, chapters 8-17 (volume 1)._

For preceding events;

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS); and MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.

SPAIN: A. D. 713-910. The rally of the fugitive Christians.

"The first blow [of the Moslem conquest] had stunned Gothic Spain; and, before she could recover her consciousness, the skilful hands of the Moslemah had bound her, hand and foot. From the first stupor they were not allowed to recover. The very clemency of the Moslems robbed the Christians of argument. If their swords were sharp, their conduct after battle was far better than the inhabitants had any right to expect, far better than that of the Roman or Gothic conquerors had been, when they invaded Spain. Their religion, the defence of which might have been the last rallying-point, was respected under easy conditions; their lives rendered secure and comfortable; they were under tribute, but a tribute no more exacting than Roman taxes or Gothic subsidies. … It was the Gothic element, and not the Hispano-Romans, that felt the humiliation most. … The Spanish Goths, at first impelled by the simple instinct of self-preservation, had fled in all directions before the fiery march of the Moslemah, after the first fatal battle in the plains of Sidonia. They had taken with them in their flight all the movable property they could carry and the treasures of the churches. Some had passed the Pyrenees to join their kinsmen in Septimania; and others had hidden in the mountain valleys of the great chain-barrier; while a considerable number, variously stated, had collected in the intricate territory of the Asturias and in Galicia, where strength of position made amends for the lack of numbers and organization, and where they could find shelter and time for consultation as to the best manner of making head against the enemy. The country is cut up in all directions by inaccessible, scarped rocks, deep ravines, tangled thickets, and narrow gorges and defiles." This band of refugees in the Asturias—the forlorn hope of Christian Spain—are said to have found a gallant leader in one Pelayo, whose origin and history are so covered with myth that some historians even question his reality. But whether by Pelayo or another prince, the Asturian Spaniards were held together in their mountains and began a struggle of resistance which ended only, eight centuries later, in the recovery of the entire peninsula from the Moors. Their place of retreat was an almost inaccessible cavern—the Cave of Covadonga—in attacking which the Moslems suffered a terrible and memorable repulse (A. D. 717). "In Christian Spain the fame of this single battle will endure as long as time shall last; and La Cueva de Covadonga, the cradle of the monarchy, will be one of the proudest spots on the soil of the Peninsula. … This little rising in the Asturias was the indication of a new life, new interests, and a healthier combination. … Pelayo was the usher and the representative of this new order, and the Christian kingdom of Oviedo was its first theatre. … The battle of Covadonga, in which it had its origin, cleared the whole territory of the Asturias of every Moslem soldier. The fame of its leader, and the glad tidings that a safe retreat had been secured, attracted the numerous Christians who were still hiding in the mountain fastnesses, and infused a new spirit of patriotism throughout the land. … Pelayo was now king in reality, as well as in name. … With commendable prudence, he contented himself with securing and slowly extending his mountain kingdom by descending cautiously into the plains and valleys. … Adjacent territory, abandoned by the Moslems, was occupied and annexed; and thus the new nation was made ready to set forth on its reconquering march."

_H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 5, chapters 1-2 (volume 1)._

"The small province thus preserved by Pelayo [whose death is supposed to have occurred A. D. 737] grew into the germs of a kingdom called at different times that of Gallicia, Oviedo, and Leon. A constant border warfare fluctuated both ways, but on the whole to the advantage of the Christians. Meanwhile to the east other small states were growing up which developed into the kingdom of Navarre and the more important realm of Aragon. Castile and Portugal, the most famous among the Spanish kingdoms, are the most recent in date. Portugal as yet was unheard of, and Castile was known only as a line of castles on the march between the Saracens and the kingdom of Leon."

_E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 5. _

"The States of Pelagio [Pelayo] continued, during his reign and that of his son Favila, to be circumscribed to the Asturian mountains; but … Alfonso I., the son-in-law of Pelagio, ascended the throne after Favila, and he soon penetrated into Galicia up to the Douro, and to Leon and Old Castile. … Canicas, or Cangas, was the capital of the Asturias since the time of Pelagio. Fruela (brother of Alfonso I.] founded Oviedo, to the west, and this State became later on the head of the monarchy." About a century later, in the reign of the vigorous king Alfonso III. [A. D. 866-9101, the city of Leon, the ancient Legio of the Romans, was raised from its ruins, and Garcia, the eldest son of Alfonso, established his court there. One of Garcia's brothers held the government of the Asturias, and another one that of Galicia, "if not as separate kingdoms, at least with a certain degree of independence. This equivocal situation of the two princes was, perchance, the reason why the King of Oviedo changed his title to that of Leon, and which appears in the reign of Garcia as the first attempt towards dismembering the Spanish Monarchy. Previous to this, in the reign of King Alfonso III., Navarre, always rebellious, had shaken off the Asturian yoke."

_E. McMurdo, History of Portugal, introduction, part 3._

SPAIN: A. D. 756-1031. The Caliphate of Cordova.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 756-1031.

SPAIN: A. D. 778. Charlemagne's conquests.

The invasion of Spain by Charlemagne, in 778, was invited by a party among the Saracens, disaffected towards the reigning Caliph, at Cordova, who proposed to place the northern Spanish frontier under the protection of the Christian monarch and acknowledge his suzerainty. He passed the Pyrenees with a great army and advanced with little serious opposition to Saragossa, apparently occupying the country to the Ebro with garrisons and adding it to his dominions as the Spanish March. At Saragossa he encountered resistance and undertook a siege, the results of which are left uncertain. {2976} It would seem that he was called away, by threatening news from the northern part of his dominions, and left the conquest incomplete. The return march of the army, through a pass of the Pyrenees, was made memorable by the perfidious ambuscade and hopeless battle of Roncesvalles, which became immortalized in romance and song. It was in the country of the Gascons or Wascones (Basques) that this tragic event occurred, and the assailants were not Saracens, as the story of the middle ages would have it, but the Gascons themselves, who, in league with their neighbors of Aquitaine, had fought for their independence so obstinately before, against both Charlemagne and his father. They suffered the Franks to pass into Spain without a show of enmity, but laid a trap for the return, in the narrow gorge called the Roscida Vallis—now Roncesvalles. The van of the army, led by the king, went through in safety. The rear-guard, "oppressed with baggage, loitered along the rocky and narrow pathway, and as it entered the solitary gap of Ibayeta, from the lofty precipices on either side an unknown foe rolled suddenly down enormous rocks and trunks of uprooted trees. Instantly many of the troops were crushed to death, and the entire passage was blockaded. … The Franks who escaped the horrible slaughter were at once assailed with forks and pikes; their heavy armor, which had served them so well in other fights, only encumbered them amid the bushes and brambles of the ravine; and yet they fought with obstinate and ferocious energy. Cheered on by the prowess of Eghihard, the royal sencschal, of Anselm, Count of the Palace, of Roland, the warden of the Marches of Brittany, and of many other renowned chiefs, they did not desist till the last man had fallen, covered with wounds and blood. … How many perished in this fatal surprise was never told; but the event smote with profound effect upon the imagination of Europe; it was kept alive in a thousand shapes by tales and superstitions; heroic songs and stories carried the remembrance of it from generation to generation; Roland and his companions, the Paladins of Karl, untimely slain, became, in the Middle Ages, the types of chivalric valor and Christian heroism; and, seven centuries after their only appearance in history, the genius of Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto still preserved in immortal verse the traditions of their glory. … Roland is but once mentioned in authentic history, but the romance and songs, which make him a nephew of Karl, compensate his memory for this neglect."

_P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 16, with foot-note. _

ALSO IN: _J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, book 2, chapter 5._

_G. P. R. James, History of Charlemagne, book 5._

_J. O'Hagan, Song of Roland._

_T. Bulfinch, Legends of Charlemagne._

_H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab·Moors, book 7, chapter 3 (volume 2)._

SPAIN: A. D. 778-885 (?). Rise of the kingdom of Navarre.

See NAVARRE: ORIGIN OF THE KINGDOM.

SPAIN: A. D. 1026-1230. The rise of the kingdom of Castile.

"Ancient Cantabria, which the writers of the 8th century usually termed Bardulia, and which, at this period [the 8th century] stretched from the Biscayan sea to the Duero, towards the close of the same century began to be called Castella—doubtless from the numerous forts erected for the defence of the country by Alfonso I. [the third king of Oviedo, or Leon]. As the boundaries were gradually removed towards the south, by the victories of the Christians, the same denomination was applied to the new as well as to the former conquests, and the whole continued subject to the same governor, who had subordinate governors dependent on him. Of the first governors or counts, from the period of its conquest by that prince in 760, to the reign of Ordoño I. (a full century), not even the names are mentioned in the old chroniclers; the first we meet with is that of Count Rodrigo, who is known to have possessed the dignity at least six years,—viz. from 860 to 866." The last count of Castile, Garcia Sanchez, who was the eighth of the line from Rodrigo, perished in his youth by assassination (A. D. 1026), just as he was at the point of receiving the title of king from the sovereign of Leon, together with the hand of the latter's daughter. Castile was then seized by Sancho el Mayor, king of Navarre, in right of his queen, who was the elder sister of Garcia. He assumed it to be a kingdom and associated the crown with his own. On his death, in 1035, he bequeathed this new kingdom of Castile to one of his sons, Fernando, while leaving Navarre to another, and Aragon, then a lordship, to a third. Fernando of Castile, being involved soon afterwards in war with the young king of Leon, won the kingdom of the latter in a single battle, where the last of the older royal dynasty of Spain fell fighting like a valiant knight. The two kingdoms of Castile and Leon were united under this prosperous king (see, also, PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY) until his death, A. D. 1065, when Castile passed to Sancho, the eldest of his sons, and Leon to Alfonso, the second. But Sancho soon ousted Alfonso, and Alfonso, biding his time, acquired both crowns in 1072, when Sancho was assassinated. It was this Alfonso who recovered the ancient capital city, Toledo, from the Moslems, and it was in his reign that the famous Cid Campeador, Rodrigo de Bivar, performed his fabulous exploits. The two kingdoms were kept in union until 1157, when they fell apart again and continued asunder until 1230. At that time a lasting union of Castile and Leon took place, under Fernando III., whom the church of Rome has canonized.

_S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 2, chapter 1._

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[IMAGE: SPAIN AT ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINTH CENTURY EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. KINGDOM OF ASTURIA. EMIRATE OF CORDOVA.

DURING THIS PERIOD THE BASIN OF THE DOURA RIVER WAS UNDER LITTLE ORGANIZED RULE. THE RIVER FORMS MERELY A NOMINAL BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE KINGDOM OF ASTURIA AND THE EMIRATE OF CORDOVA

SPAIN IN 1035, SHOWING THE DIVISIONS OF THE KINGDOM OF NAVARRE AFTER THE DEATH OF SANCHO THE GREAT (1035) AND OF THE MOHAMEDAN TERRITORIES ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE CORDOVAN CALIPHATE (1031).

DIVISIONS OF SANCHO'S KINGDOM NAVARRE CASTILE ARAGON AND RIBAGORCA FRANCE

THE DATES UNDER A NUMBER OF THE MOHAMMEDAN CITIES INDICATE THE ENCROACHMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN STATES UP TO ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

SPAIN AT ABOUT THE YEAR 1150. NAVARRE. LEON. CASTILE. ARAGON. PORTUGAL. EMPIRE OF THE ALMOHADES.

SPAIN AT THE CLOSE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. CASTILE AND LEON. ARAGON. PORTUGAL. GRANADA.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS AS SHOWN ON THIS MAP REMAINED PRACTICALLY UNCHANGED UP TO THE LATTER PART OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]

SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086. Petty and short-lived Moorish kingdoms.

"The decline and dissolution of the Mohammedan monarchy, or western caliphate, afforded the ambitious local governors throughout the Peninsula the opportunity for which they had long sighed—that of openly asserting their independence of Cordova, and of assuming the title of kings. The wali of Seville, Mohammed ben Ismail ben Abid, … appears to have been the first to assume the powers of royalty; … he declared war against the self-elected king of Carmona, Mohammed ben Abdalla, on whose cities, Carmona and Ecija, he had cast a covetous eye. The brother of Yahia, Edris ben Ali, the son of Hamud, governed Malaga with equal independence. Algeziras had also its sovereigns. Elvira and Granada obeyed Habus ben Maksan: Valencia had for its king Abdelasis Abul Hassan, Almeria had Zohair, and Denia had Mugehid; but these two petty states were soon absorbed in the rising sphere of Valencia. Huesca and Saragossa were also subject to rulers, who though slow to assume the title of kings were not the less independent, since their sway extended over most of Aragon. {2977} The sovereign of Badajos, Abdalla Muslema ben Alaftas, was the acknowledged head of all the confederated governors of Algarve and Lusitania; and Toledo was subject to the powerful Ismail ben Dyluun, who, like the king of Seville, secretly aspired to the government of all Mohammedan Spain."

_S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 1, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

"These petty kings were sometimes fighting against each other, and sometimes joining hands to oppose the down-coming of Christians, until they were startled by a new incursion from Africa … which, in consolidating Islam, threatened destruction to the existing kingdoms by the absorption of everyone of them in this African vortex. I refer to the coming of the Almoravides."

_H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 8, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

SPAIN: A. D. 1035-1258. The Rise of the Kingdom of Aragon.

The province of Aragon, with Navarre to the west of it and Catalonia to the east, was included in the Spanish March of Charlemagne. Navarre took the lead among these provinces in acquiring independence, and Aragon became for a time a lordship dependent on the Navarrese monarchy. "The Navarre of Sancho the Great [the same who gathered Castile among his possessions, making it a kingdom, and who reigned from 970 to 1035] stretched some way beyond the Ebro; to the west it took in the ocean lands of Biscay and Guipuzcoa, with the original Castile; to the east it took in Aragon, Ripacurcia and Sobrarbe. … At the death of Sancho the Great [A. D. 1035] his momentary dominion broke up. … Out of the break-up of the dominion of Sancho came the separate kingdom of Navarre, and the new kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Sobrarbe. Of these the two last were presently united, thus beginning the advance of Aragon. … The power of Aragon grew, partly by conquests from the Mussulmans, partly by union with the French fiefs to the east. The first union between the crown of Aragon and the county of Barcelona [by marriage, 1131] led to the great growth of the power of Aragon on both sides of the Pyrenees and even beyond the Rhone. This power was broken by the overthrow of King Pedro at Muret—[Pedro II. of Aragon, who allied himself with the Albigenses—see ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1210-1213—and was defeated and slain by Simon de Montfort, at Muret, near Toulouse. September 12, 1213]. But by the final arrangement which freed Barcelona, Roussillon, and Cerdagne, from all homage to France [A. D. 1258], all trace of foreign superiority passed away from Christian Spain. The independent kingdom of Aragon stretched on both sides of the Pyrenees, a faint reminder of the days of the West-Gothic kings."

_E. A. Freeman, History Geography of Europe, chapter 12, section 1._

ALSO IN: _S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 2, chapter 4._

See, also, PROVENCE: A. D. 1179-1207.

SPAIN: A. D. 1086-1147. Domination of the Almoravides.

See ALMORAVIDES.