Reconquista
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".
[36] The Reconquista has become a rallying call for right and far-right parties in Spain to expel from office incumbent progressive or peripheral nationalist options, as well as their values, in different political contexts as of 2018.
Odo of Aquitaine had married his daughter to Uthman ibn Naissa, a rebel Berber and lord of Cerdanya, in an attempt to secure his southern borders in order to fend off Charles Martel's attacks on the north.
Charlemagne followed his father by subduing Aquitaine by creating counties, taking the Church as his ally and appointing counts of Frankish or Burgundian stock, like his loyal William of Gellone, making Toulouse his base for expeditions against al-Andalus.
[61] Charlemagne decided to organize a regional subkingdom, the Spanish March, which included part of contemporary Catalonia, in order to keep the Aquitanians in check and to secure the southern border of the Carolingian Empire against Muslim incursions.
These states were small and, with the exception of Navarre, did not have the capacity for attacking the Muslims in the way that Asturias did, but their mountainous geography rendered them relatively safe from being conquered, and their borders remained stable for two centuries.
The kingdom was established by a Visigothic nobleman, named Pelagius (Pelayo), who had possibly returned after the Battle of Guadalete in 711 and was elected leader of the Asturians,[68] and the remnants of the gens Gothorum (the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy and the Hispano-Visigothic population who took refuge in the North).
The population of the mountain region consisted of native Astures, Galicians, Cantabri, Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society,[69] laying the foundations for the Kingdom of Asturias and starting the Astur-Leonese dynasty that spanned from 718 to 1037 and led the initial efforts in the Iberian peninsula to take back the territories then ruled by the Moors.
The cult of the saint was transferred later to Compostela (from Latin campus stellae, literally "the star field"), possibly in the early 10th century when the focus of Asturian power moved from the mountains over to Leon, to become the Kingdom of León or Galicia-Leon.
For the next 80 years, the Kingdom of León suffered civil wars, Moorish attack, internal intrigues and assassinations, and the partial independence of Galicia and Castile, thus delaying the reconquest and weakening the Christian forces.
His son Sancho II of Castile wanted to reunite the kingdom of his father and attacked his brothers, with a young noble at his side: Rodrigo Díaz, later known as El Cid Campeador.
Alfonso VI was first and foremost a tactful monarch who chose to understand the kings of taifa and employed unprecedented diplomatic measures to attain political feats before considering the use of force.
[91] In 1137, the heiress of the kingdom married the count of Barcelona, and their son Alfonso II ruled from 1162 the combined possessions of his parents, resulting in the composite monarchy that modern historians call the Crown of Aragon.
[citation needed] After regaining control over the dissident governors, Abd-ar-Rahman III tried to conquer the remaining Christian kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula, attacking them several times and forcing them back beyond the Cantabrian Mountains.
[citation needed] The split into the taifa states weakened the Islamic presence, and the Christian kingdoms further advanced as Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile conquered Toledo in 1085.
Their armies entered the Iberian peninsula on several occasions (1086, 1088, 1093) and defeated King Alfonso at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086, but initially their purpose was to unite all the taifas into a single Almoravid Caliphate.
Sancho Ramírez gained international recognition for Aragon, uniting it with Navarre and expanding the borders south, conquering Wasqat Huesca deep in the valleys in 1096 and building a fort, El Castellar, 25 km from Saraqustat Zaragoza.
[citation needed] Catalonia came under intense pressure from the taifas of Zaragoza and Lérida, as well as from internal disputes, as Barcelona suffered a dynastic crisis that led to open war among the smaller counties.
Many of the Muslim elite, including Granada's former Emir Muhammad XII, who had been given the area of the Alpujarras mountains as a principality, found life under Christian rule intolerable and emigrated to Fez in North Africa.
[112] After the Christian king of Castile and León conquered Toledo in 1085, the emirs requested Yusuf ibn Tashfin, leader of the strict Islamic Almoravid sect, to come to their defence, which he did at the Battle of Sagrajas (1086).
[citation needed] Medieval Christian armies mainly comprised two types of forces: the cavalry (mostly nobles, but including commoner knights from the 10th century on) and the infantry, or peones (peasants).
[citation needed] Royal knights in the early stages of the Reconquista were equipped with mail hauberk, kite shield, a long sword (designed to fight from the horse), javelins, spears and an axe.
[citation needed] This style of warfare remained dominant in the Iberian Peninsula until the late 11th century, when lance tactics entered from France, although the traditional horse javelin-shot techniques continued to be used.
[134] The concept of the reconquista continues to have significance and has even experienced a resurgence in modern politics—especially for the extreme right Spanish party Vox, but also more broadly among xenophobic and especially Islamophobic conservatives in the West, with the influence of the doctrine of a "Clash of Civilizations".
[citation needed] The Reconquista was a war with long periods of respite between the adversaries, partly for pragmatic reasons and also due to infighting among the Christian kingdoms of the North spanning over seven centuries.
[citation needed] It is noteworthy that the popular hero El Cid, whose name is very much associated with the Reconquista, had at one part of his career actually fought for the Muslim rulers of Zaragoza, whom he defended from its traditional enemy, the Christian Aragon.
[142] The African enterprise which was undertaken during the rule of the Catholic Monarchs was nominally endorsed by papal bulls and it was also financed with donations which were used to pay the crusade tax, even if it was viewed with some suspicion by the Papacy.
[144] The model of conquest and repopulation by Christian powers in the Peninsula was however never reproduced in Northern Africa, and with the conquered territory—a fortified mark with very few fortresses scattered along an extensive coastline—merely adopting a defensive role, it allowed for Ottoman expansion in the region.
[154] The annual commemoration of the surrender of Sultan Boabdil in Granada on 2 January acquired a markedly nationalistic undertone during the early years of the Francoist regime and, since the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, it has served as glue for extreme right groups by facilitating their open-air physical gatherings and providing them with an occasion which they can use to explicitly state their political demands.
[156] The far right has also waged a culture war by claiming dates in the history of the Reconquista, such as the aforementioned 2 January or 2 February, regional festivities for the related autonomous communities (Andalusia and Murcia).
