Why did Reconquista happen?
Finally, the Reconquista was driven by a desire for land and profit. Because kings in the Middle Ages were not as strong or as wealthy as they would later become, most military actions against the Moors were privately financed.
What is the Reconquista and approximately how long did it last?
The Reconquista (“reconquest”) is a period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, spanning approximately 770 years, between the initial Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 710s and the fall of the Emirate of Granada, the last Islamic state on the peninsula, to expanding Christian kingdoms in 1492.
What is the Reconquista and why is it important?
The Reconquista (Reconquest) or Iberian Crusades were military campaigns largely conducted between the 11th and 13th century CE to liberate southern Portuguese and Spanish territories, then known as al-Andalus, from the Muslim Moors who had conquered and held them since the 8th century CE.
What was the outcome of the Reconquista?
Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Reconquista with a war against the Emirate of Granada that started in 1482 and ended with Granada's surrender on January 2, 1492. The Moors in Castile previously numbered "half a million within the realm".
Where was the last site of the Reconquista?
The kingdom of Granada falls to the Christian forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I, and the Moors lose their last foothold in Spain.
What's the difference between the Reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition?
The Inquisition was when the Catholic Church officials tortured Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity. The Reconquista was when the people from Spain and Portugal united to take back their land from the Muslims. The Reconquista started in the early 700s and ended in 1492.
What was the Reconquista in simple terms?
In simpler terms, the Reconquista was the attempt by Christian Spain to expel all Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. In the 8th century, Spain was not one united nation but instead a group of kingdoms. In the early 8th century, these kingdoms of Spain were invaded by Muslim forces from North Africa.
How did the Reconquista affect Spanish national identity between the 1060s and 1492?
They copied Latin manuscripts to preserve and study ancient works. How did the Reconquista affect Spanish national identity between the 1060s and 1492? It transformed Spain from a nation of three major religions into a nation of one religion.
What was the Reconquista?
The Reconquista was a centuries-long series of battles by Christian states to expel the Muslims (Moors), who from the 8th century ruled most of the...
Who was involved in the Reconquista?
Because it lasted so long, many combatants were involved in the Reconquista. An Umayyad emirate was established in Spain in the 8th century. The ru...
When was the Reconquista?
Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, the Muslim ruler of Tangier, routed the Visigothic ruler in 711 and within a few years controlled all of Spain. The Reconquista be...
Was the Reconquista a crusade?
The Reconquista began not as a religious crusade but rather as a matter of political expansion. By the 11th century the pope supported some of the...
Overview
The Reconquista (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction of the approximately 781 year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, in which the Christian kingdoms expanded through war and putatively "reconquered" al-Andalus, or th…
Concept and duration
Since the 19th century, traditional Western and especially Iberian historiography has stressed the existence of the Reconquista, a continual phenomenon by which the Christian Iberian kingdoms opposed and conquered the Muslim kingdoms, understood as a common enemy who had militarily seized territory from native Iberian Christians. However, modern scholarship has challenged t…
Background
In 711, North African Berber soldiers with some Arabs commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, engaging a Visigothic force led by King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete in a moment of serious in-fighting and division across the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania.
After Roderic's defeat, the Umayyad governor of Ifrikiya Musa ibn-Nusayr joined …
Early Reconquista
A drastic increase of taxes by the emir Anbasa ibn Suhaym Al-Kalbi provoked several rebellions in Al-Andalus, which a series of succeeding weak emirs were unable to suppress. Around 722, a Muslim military expedition was sent into the north in late summer to suppress a rebellion led by Pelagius of Asturias (Pelayo in Spanish, Pelayu in Asturian). Traditional historiography has hailed Pelagius' v…
Northern Christian realms
The northern principalities and kingdoms survived in their mountainous strongholds (see above). However, they started a definite territorial expansion south at the turn of the 10th century (Leon, Najera). The fall of the Caliphate of Cordova (1031) heralded a period of military expansion for the northern kingdoms, now divided into several mighty regional powers after the division o…
Southern Islamic realms
During the 9th century the Berbers returned to North Africa in the aftermath of revolts. Many governors of large cities distant from the capital, Córdoba, had planned to establish their independence. Then, in 929, the Emir of Córdoba (Abd-ar-Rahman III), the leader of the Umayyad dynasty, declared himself Caliph, independent from the Abbasids in Baghdad. He took all the military, religious, a…
Infighting
Clashes and raids on bordering Andalusian lands did not keep the Christian kingdoms from battling among themselves or allying with Muslim kings. 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. Indeed, El Cid's first battle experience was gained fighting for a Muslim state a…
Christian repopulation
The Reconquista was a process not only of war and conquest, but also of repopulation. Christian kings moved their own people to locations abandoned by Muslims in order to have a population capable of defending the borders. The main repopulation areas were the Douro Basin (the northern plateau), the high Ebro valley (La Rioja) and central Catalonia. The repopulation of the Douro Basin took place in two distinct phases. North of the river, between the 9th and 10th centuries, the "pre…
Conquerors from The Maghreb
Humble Beginnings
- The period in Iberian history known as the Reconquista, or re-conquest, began in 722 at Covadonga, where a rebel Christian army defeated the Muslim armies in northern Spain, before forming the kingdom of Asturias in the northern mountains. This small impudent kingdom in the north would prove to be the launchpad for centuries of bitter fighting against Muslim Spain. Ove…
Inexorable Progress
- Despite all this however, the kingdom clung on to life and by the dawn of the new millennium the Reconquista was ready to be resumed. In 1085, the old Visigoth capital of Toledo fell to Christian forces. This symbolic morale boost ensured that the Reconquista earned recognition across Christendom, and the Kings of León and Castille, another emergen...
Final Victory
- Throughout the middle ages, a succession of bloody battles and sieges were fought, until, in 1492, only the Almoravid fortress of Granada remained. By this time, political pressure and dynastic marriages had unified Spain and turned it into a formidable European power. On the 2 January Emir Mohamed XII of Granada, faced with overwhelming enemy strength, surrendered his kingd…