In any case, ethnic borders in the Cantabrian Mountains were not so important after that time, as the clan divisions that permeated the pre-Roman societies of all the peoples of Northern Iberia faded under similar political administrative culture imposed on them by the Romans.

Carbon-14 tests have found that the wall dates from the period 675–725 AD, when two armed expeditions against the Asturians took place: one of them headed by Visigothic king Wamba (reigned 672–680); the other by Muslim governor Musa bin Nusayr during the Umayyad conquest, who settled garrisons over its territory.

Control of the central and southern regions, such as the Guadalquivir and Ebro valleys, presented few problems for the newcomers, who used the existing Visigothic administrative structures, ultimately of Roman origin.

However, as is told in the Rotensian Chronicle [16] as well as in that of Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari,[17] Pelayo escaped from Cordoba during the governorship of al-Hurr (717–718) and his return to Asturias triggered a revolt against the Muslim authorities of Gijón.

After an attempted siege was abandoned due to the weather and the exposed position of the deep valley gorge, the troops are said to have exited through the high ports to the south, in order to continue their search-and-destroy mission against other rebels.

The victory, relatively small, as only a few Berber soldiers were involved, resulted in great prestige for Pelayo and provoked a massive insurrection by other nobles in Galicia and Asturias who immediately rallied around him, electing him King or military Dux.

[citation needed] Pelayo continued attacking those Berbers who remained north of the Asturian Mountains until they withdrew, but the latter mostly deserted their garrisons in response to the wider rebellion against Arab control from Cordoba.

Recent archaeological excavations have found fortifications in Mount Homon and La Carisa (near the Huerna and Pajares valleys) dated between the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth centuries.

In fact, the Kingdom of Asturias originated as a focus of leadership over other peoples of the Cantabrian Coast that had resisted the Romans as well as the Visigoths and that were not willing to subject themselves to the dictates of the Umayyad Caliphate.

During the first decades, the Asturian dominion over the different areas of the kingdom was still lax and so it had to be continually strengthened through matrimonial alliances with other powerful families from the north of the Iberian Peninsula.

Alfonso began the territorial expansion of the small Christian kingdom from its first seat in the Picos de Europa, advancing toward the west to Galicia and toward the south with continuous incursions in the Douro valley, taking cities and towns and moving their inhabitants to the safer northern zones.

This initiated a series of further rebellions whose principal leaders were members of ascending aristocratic palace groups and landowners who, based on the growing economic development of the area, tried to unseat the reigning family of Don Pelayo.

The important rebellions of Nepociano, Aldroito and Piniolo, during the reign of Ramiro I (842–50), are part of this process of economic, social, political and cultural transformation of the Asturian kingdom that occurred during the eighth and ninth centuries.

Musa attempted to lift the siege in alliance with his brother-in-law García Iñiguez, the king of Pamplona, whose small realm was threatened by the eastwards expansion of the Asturian monarchy.

The Parrochiale Suevorum, an administrative document from the Kingdom of the Suebi, states that the lands of Asturias belonged to the Britonian See, and some features of Celtic Christianity spread to Northern Spain.

Beatus was directly involved in the debate surrounding adoptionism, which argued that Jesus was born a man, and was adopted by God and acquired a divine dimension only after his passion and resurrection.

Likewise, as Elipandus's bishopric of Toledo was at the time within the Muslim Caliphate of Cordoba, Islamic beliefs which acknowledged Jesus as a Prophet, but not as the Son of God, influenced the formation of adoptionism.

The most transcendental works of Beatus were his Commentaries to Apocalypse, which were copied in later centuries in manuscripts called beati, about which the Italian writer Umberto Eco said: "Their splendid images gave birth to the most relevant iconographic happening in the History of Mankind".

In these Commentaries a new interpretation of the apocalyptic accounts is given: Babylon no longer represents the city of Rome, but Córdoba, seat of the Umayyad emirs of al-Andalus; the Beast, once a symbol of the Roman Empire, now stands for the Islamic invaders who during this time threatened to destroy Western Christianity, and who raided territories of the Asturian Kingdom.

In this time the Apocalypse of Daniel appeared, a Syriac text redacted during the rule of the empress Irene of Athens, wherein wars between the Arabs, the Byzantines and the Northern peoples were prophesied.

As Elipandus describes in his Letter from the bishops of Spania to their brothers in Gaul, the abbot of Santo Toribio went so far as to announce to his countrymen the coming of the End of Time on Easter of the year 800.

The prophetic and millennialist visions of Beatus produced an enduring mark in the development of the Kingdom of Asturias: the Chronica Prophetica, which was written around 880 CE, predicted the final fall of the Emirate of Córdoba, and the conquest and redemption of the entire Iberian Peninsula by king Alfonso III.

He sees Jesus Christ seated in his majesty, surrounded by clouds and affirming: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty".

The first text which mentions St. James' preaching in Spain is the Breviarius de Hyerosolima, a 6th-century document which stated that the Apostle was buried in an enigmatic place called Aca Marmarica [gl].

One hundred and fifty years later, in the times of Mauregato, the hymn O Dei Verbum rendered St. James as "the golden head of Spain, our protector and national patron" and a mention is made of his preaching in the Iberian Peninsula during the first decades of Christianity.

Other scholars, like Constantino Cabal, highlighted the fact that several Galician places, such as Pico Sacro, Pedra da Barca (Muxía) or San Andrés de Teixido, were already draws for pagan pilgrimage in pre-Roman times.

[citation needed] There are also myths about the Asturian monarchy that are rooted in Jewish and Christian traditions rather than pagan ones: the Chronica ad Sebastianum tells of an extraordinary event that happened when Alfonso I died.

They recited the following text of the Book of Isaiah (which happens to be the same that was read by the Mozarabic priests during the Vigil of the Holy Saturday): I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years.I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD, in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.This canticle was recited by Hezekiah, king of Judah, after his recovery from a serious illness.

According to the tradition, it is still today possible to see king Fruela walking around the Jardín de los Reyes Caudillos[43] (a part of the Oviedo Cathedral), and it is said that his grandson, the famous cavalier Bernardo del Carpio, sleeps in a cave in the Asturian mountains.

The story tells that one day a peasant went into a certain cave to retrieve his lost cow and heard a strong voice who declared to be Bernardo del Carpio, victor over the Franks in Roncevaux.