BARTON History of Spain 2 (1)

7/30/2019 BARTON History of Spain 2 (1)

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Spain and Is lam, 7 1 1 - 1 000

THE RU OF SPAIN

Wrtng c625 Bsop Isdore o Selle preaced hs Histo ofthe Kings of the Goths wth ths extraagat paean o prase to hshomeland

O all the lands rom the west to the Indes you Span sacredand always ortunate mother o prnces and peoples are the mostbeautul You are the prde and oament o the world the mostllustrous part o the Earth n whch the Gothc people are glorously prolc rejocng much and ourshng greatly Indulgent

nature has dseredly enrched ou wth an abundance o eerythng rutul Rghtly dd golden Rome the head o the natonsdesre you long ago Now t s the most ourshng people o theGoths who n ther tu ater many ctores all oer the worldhae eagerly sezed you and loed you: they enjoy you up to thepresent tme adst royal emblems and great wealth secure n thegood ortune o empre

Isdore s condece n the securty o the Vsgothc kngdom waso proe msplaced howeer In 7 1 1 a Berber expedtnary orce ledby the Muslm goeor o Tanger rq b Zyd crossed the Stratsto southe Span Chrstan and Muslm accounts o the nason areat arance as to what precsely happened next Accordng to the latterhang dsembarked at the rocky promontory whch stll bears rqsname Jabal Triq or Gbraltar the naders moed nland and

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S PAI N AN D IS LAM 7-00 0

July 7 1 1 inicted a decisie deeat on a Visigothic army led by KingRoderic (710-1112) By contrast a nearcontemporary Christian

source conentionally known as the Chnicle of , relates thata number o clashes between local orces and the Muslims occuedbeore Roderic was nally deeated and killed in the Transductinemountains perhaps in the icinity o Medina Sidonia in 712 . Haingdeeated Roderic the Muslim armies went on to occupy Crdoba andthe capital Toledo The Toledan clergy are reported to hae ed thecapital with the aluables o their churches which probably includedthe jewelencrusted gold liturgical crown granted by King Reccesuinthwhich was unearthed along with other abulous treasures at Guaazarnear Toledo in 1849.

Encouraged by riqs success in 7 1 1 or the ollowing year(depending upon which ersion o eents we ollow the Arab goernor o frqya (North Arica Ms b Nuayr crossed the Straits

_ith substantial reinorcements He captured Seille and Mridathen adanced northeast ia Toledo subdued Zaragoza with great

bloodshed and brought the entire Ebro alley under his authorityWhen Ms was recalled to Damascus by the Umayyad caliph latein 7 1 2 or the ollowing year his son Abd a- Azz was entrusted withthe goeorship o the region and the task o reducing the remaining strongholds o Christian power B 720, almost the whole o thepeninsula - with the exception o the most mountainous districts othe weste and central Pyrenees - had been brought under Islamicauthority This Muslim territory in Iberia would henceorth be known

as alAndalus Crdoba which lay at the hub o a number o importantlines o communication was established as the centre o goement

The Muslim inasion o the Iberian peninsula was the logical extension o a spectacular moement o conquest and expansion In thespace o barely a century ater the death o the prophet Muammadin 632 a ast Islamic empire - stretching rom the tlantic seaboardand the Pyrenees in the west as ar as Central Asia and the Punjab

in the east - had come into being under the supreme authority o theUmayyad caliph in Damascus During the second hal o the seenthcentury the Arab campaigns to subdue the Berber heartlands o theMaghreb and the Byzantine garrisons that still clung on to coastalenclaes like Tripoli and Carthage had proed long and dicult Oncesubdued howeer many o the conquered Berber tribes had conertedto Islam and were recruited into the Arabled armies that oerran theweste Maghreb between 680 and 710 . Once the Muslims had

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A H ISTORY O F SPAI N

reached Tanger n 703 t was not sursng that they should haetued ther attenton to the rch lands o the pennsula to the north

To contemporares and to subsequent generatons the suddenemse o the Vsgothc kngdom n Hspana was a traumatc anddeeply puzzlng eent The Toledan author o the Chronicle of gae ent to hs angush n ths way Who can bear to relate suchperls? Who can count such terrble dsasters? Een eery lmb weretransormed nto a tongue t would be beyond human capablty todescrbe the run o Span and ts many and great els

Chrstan wrters were quck to portray the sudden collapse o the

Vsothc state as an act o dne punshment or the sns o her rulersand people The AngloSaxon mssonary Bonace wrtng n 7 46-7attrbuted the deeat to the gross moral turptude o the Vsgoths Alate nnthcentury Asturan chroncler ponted the nger o blame atthe womanzng Kng Wttza (02-1 0) whom he accused o hangcompelled the local clergy to marry Muslm wrters ound ault wthKng Roderc who ad reputedly seduced the daughter o the goeor

o Ceuta Count Julan The count n an act o calculated reenge sothe story went had conspred to brng about the oerthrow o Rodercby erryng the Muslm army across the Strats nto the pennsula

Such moralzng perspectes nd lttle aour wth hstoranstoday The act that theYsgothc monarch was oerthrown wth suchapparent ease was not because ts rulng class was n any way decadent nor because ts all was preordaned It s true howeer thatwhen rq crossed the Strats n 7 1 1 he encountered a kngdom ren

by poltcal dons On the death o Kng Wttza n 710 the successon had been dsputed between Achla (710-13) and the supporterso Roderc Roderc was elected kng by a secton o the Vsgothcarstocracy and establshed hmsel n Toledo but Achla won supportn the northeast o the pennsula and n Septmana Rodercs ablty to stand up to the Muslm nason o 7 1 1 was probably seerelycompromsed by he need to campagn aganst both Achla and the

Basque trbes at roughly the same tme There are also reports that anumber o leadng agnates deected rom Rodercs camp whle agreous shortage o ghtng men appears hae undermned the abltyo the major ctes to mount any eecte resstance to Muslm attackParallels are oten drawn between the sudden demse o the Vsgothckngdom and the equaly dramatc all o AngloSaxon England to theNormans n 1066 The deeat and death o Roderc the decmaton ohs mltary entourage and the palatne arstocracy and the all o the

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S PA I N A N D I S L A M , 71 1 - 1 0 0 0

capital, Toledo, all in quick succession, caused paralysis at the heartof the Visigothic govement and left what remained of the ruling lite

without the will or the means to coordinate rther resistanceWith their king dead and no clear successor at hand, some members

of the Visigothic hierarchy led across the Pyrenees Bishop Sindered ofToledo, like a hireling rather than a shepherd , in the barbed wordsof the Chronicle of , abandoned his ock altogether and travelledto Rome Other magnates sought refuge in the remote mountainousregions in the north of the peninsula yet others were captured andexecuted outright The landed estates of those who ed or resistedwere seized and distributed among the army of conquest, which beganto settle in the new lands Yet a signicant number of Visigothic notables sought to preserve their power and status by speedily coming toterms with the Muslims One such man was Theodemir (d 744), lordof Orihuela, Alicante and a handful of other towns in the southeast,

_ h __pril 7 1 3 agreed a treaty with Abd alAzz The communities under Theodemir s rule were guaranteed their safety and freedom

of worship in retu for a pledge of loyalty and an annual tribute ofone dinar per head and quantities of wheat, barley, grape juice, vinegar,honey and oil Similar terms were probably oered and accepted elsewhere However, it is unlikely that these Christian enclaves retainedtheir autonomous status for long part of the territory ruled by Theodemir and his son Athanagild, for example, may have een allotted tonewly arrived Syrian soldiers in 744 Some leading Visigothic familieslater became s, or converts to slam, such as the Ban Qasdynasty of Tudela in the pper Ebro valley, and the Ban Amrs ofHuesca, who came to prominence at the end of the eighth century andwho were to hold sway in these areas for some time to come The pacication of the peninsula was further eased by intearriage betweenthe Muslim conquerors and leading female members of the Visigothicaristocracy thus, Abd alAzz took as his wife King Roderic'swidow, Egilona slamic law prohibited marriage between Christian

men and Muslim women, although the practice does not appear to havebeen entirely unknown

Agreements such as these enabled the Muslims to concentratetheir military forces where they were most needed n 720, the lastVisigothic positions in Catalonia and Septimania were overrun, andMuslim armies began to conduct a series of plundering raids deepinto southe France n 725, Carcassonne was captured and raidingparties penetrated as far east as Autun in Burgundy However, rther

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territorial expansion north ofthe Pyenees was seerely constrained bya shortage of manpower and the need to attend to the administration of

the newly conquered territories in alAndalus. The defeat by CharlesMarte of the Franks near Poitiers, probably in late 733, did not spellthe immediate deah knell for Muslim ambitions in France, as is oftensupposed, but it is certainly the case that the slamic presence inSeptimania came under increasing pressure from the Franks thereafter,until Narbonne, their last foothold north of the Pyrenees, was nallyrelinquihed in 759.

ALANDALUS

The beginnings of slamic rule in the peninsula were far from auspicious. t is reported that the oeor Abd alAzz, acting on theadice of Qeen Egilona, began to wea a crown in imitation ofVisigothic practice and attempted to set himself up as the ruler of an

independent alAndalus Howeer, in 7 1 5 Abd aAzz was assassinated by his folowers in Seille, perhaps with the conniance ofthe caiph During the next 40 years, alAndaus was to be ruledby a succession of wali, or goeors, most of whom were directyappointed by the goeors of rqya and all of whom ultimatelyowed allegiance to the Umayyad caliph in Damascus. To guardagainst further secessionist pots, these goeors were rarely retainedin post for more than one or two years At a ocal lee, a number of

s, or judges, attended to the scal and military administrationof the distrcts under their command. Howeer, although the caliphwas remembered in the Friday sermon in the mosque and his nameappeared on the coins that were issued under his authority, the linesof communication between Damascus and Crdoba were so long thatin practice he wielded only limited inluence oer peninsular aairsThe Muslim settlrs of alAndaus were determined not to relinquish

their hod on the spoils of conquest, to the extent that it is debatablewhether the onefh share of booty, to which the caliph was traditionally entitled, was eer sent to Damascus at all

The samic inaders were a far from united or homogenous force.n the aftermath of the conquest, Muslim settlement in the peninsulaoccurred largely aong tribal or ethnic ines. The Arab minority settledchiely in the major towns, such as Crdoba, Seille and Zaragoza,an in the rich agricultural ands of the Guadalquiir ally, Murci

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and the middle Ebro The Berber tribes, who made up the bulk of thearmy of conquest, were established in the pasturelands of the central

meseta, and there were other important concentrations of Berberpopulation in the hill country of Andalusia and Valencia Subsequentfriction between Berber and Arab was caused less by any perceivedimbalance in the division of spoils aer the conquest than by a senseamong Berber ranks - both in the peninsula and in the Maghreb - thatthey had been reduced to subordinate status within slamic societyWealth and power in most of alAndalus was the preserve of an Arablite of landowners, military goveors and civil administrators; mostof the Berbers, it has been said, constituted a rural proletariat , or elsefound humble employment as artisans in the towns of alAndalus n740, the Berbers of the Maghreb, incensed by the decision of the Arabauthorities to levy the kharj or land tax, upon them, when as fellowbelievers they should have been exempt, rebelled against Umayyad

- le eollowing year, the revolt spread to the peninsula and theBerber garrisons began to evacuate the territories they had earlier

occupied in the northemost regions of Galicia, Asturias and theDuero valley and advanced on Crdoba The caliph Hishm (724-43)dispatched an army of Syrian troops to the Maghreb to restore order,but these forces suered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Berbers ofnorthe Morocco n 7 42, the remnants of the vanquished Syrian armycrossed to alAndalus to help the goveor Abd alMalik b. Qaanpacify the rebellious Berber tribes The Berbers were soon subdued,but the Syrian newcomers, who were organized in military units calledjuns, then refused to leave and were eventually allowed to settle in thesouth of the peninsula, in retu for which they were required to rendermilitary service to the goveor

The consequences of the upheaval of 741-2 were widely felt First,the arrival of the Syrians exacerbated the interethnic tensions andresentments that already festered within Andalusi society While mostof the original Arab settlers were descended from the Yemeni confed

eration of tribes, the Syrian newcomers belonged to that of their longstanding archrivals, the Qaysis Conict between the two major Arabfactions broke out iediately in 7 42 and would become a prominentfeature of Andalusi politics for generations to come Second, theBerber uprising led to the evacuation of the Muslim garrisons thathad earlier been established north of the River Duero and allowed theChristians of Asturias, who in 7 1 8 or 722 had rebelled against slamicrule, to consolidate their independence The movement of the Berbers

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southwards accelerated aer 750, as a period ofprolonged drought andfmine devastated the Duero valley They left behind a vast swathe of

lightly populated territory, which thereafter would act as a buer zonebetween the emerging states of the Christian north and alAndalusAlthough Muslim armies would retu to raid the Christian principaities at regular intervals in the future, there would be no attempt toreconquer the far north of the peninsula

THE UMAYYAD EMRATE

Since 661 the Umayyad caliphate had enjoyed supreme authority overthe entire slamic world However, this supremacy was soon to bechallenged by those who believed that the caliphate rightly belongedto the descendants of the Prophet Muammad and who resented thedominance of ethnic Arabs in the Umayyad state n 750, the Umayyads and their Syria supporters were overthrown by a rival dynasty,

the Abbasids, who in 7 62 moved the centre of the slamic empirefrom Damascus to Baghdad n an attempt to reinforce the authority ofhis dynasty, the rst Abbasid caliph, alSa (749-54) conducteda brutal political purge of his enemies, in the course of which most ofthe leading members

f the Umayyad ruling family were executedAmong the few to survive the bloodbath was a grandson of the formercaliph Hishm, Abd alRamn, who took refuge in the Maghreband then crossed to alAndalus in 755 Thanks to his ability to attract

support among he Yemenis and other ethnic groups, Abd alRamnseized Crdoba, refused allegiance to the Abbasids and proclaimedhimself er, or prince, of an independent alAndalus in July 756

From his powerbase in the Guadalquivir valley, Abd alRmn (756-88) gradually extended his authority over the southe and centraldistricts of the peninsula However, Umayyad pretensions to rulethroughout alAnlus were to be ercely resisted and Abd alRamn

had to face numerous challenges to his power, some of them orchestrated by agents of the Abbasid caliphate The emir and his successorshad particular diculty imposing their writ over the lrgely autonomous marches, or frontier territories, known collectively as the ?hughror front teeth of alAndalus the Lower Mrch, based on Mrida theMiddle March, whose centre was Toledo and the Upper March in theEbro valley, whose capital was Zaragoza n these regions, power laychely with the Berber tribes, with prominent local Arab failies, an

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with muwallad notables of Visigothic descent Not only was frictionand conlict between these ethnic groups coonplace but also all of

them vigorously resisted any attempt by the mayyads to bend them totheir will In this way interethnic rivalries and tribal divisions helpedto fuel the intense spirit of local autonomy that had been such a featureof peninsular society since the end of the Roman Empire. A strongand charismatic emir might temporarily override local sepatism ofthis sort by subtle diplomacy and force of arms but Andalusi societyremained markedly ssile The reign of Abd alRamns grandsonalIakam I (796-822) was particully troubled in this regard. Therewere rebellions in Zaragoza Toledo and Mrida and the emir also had

AbdaMalk

Muammad'Abd al Hishm I l l

Ramn I (1 027-31 )

( 1 0 1 8 )

'Abd aRamn I

(756-88)

Hishm I(788-96)

alakam I(796-822)

Abd aRamn

(822-52)

Muammad I

(852-86)

aMundhir(886-88)

Abd Allh(888-91 2)

Muammad

'Abd aRamn I l l(912-61)

'Ubayd Allh allakam Sulaymn (961-76) 'Abd aRahmn

I Hishm11 al-1akam11

(976-1 009,I101Q-13)

Muammad I l l Sulaymn(1 024-5) (1 009

1013-16)

Abd aJabbr

HishmMuammad Abd al

(1 009-1 0) Ramn V(1 023-4)

Figure mayyad rulers of alAndalus 756-1031

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to fae two serous hallenges to hs rule n Crdoba tself a onsprayhathed by leadng members of the loal Arab lte, whh was desed

n 805; and a major uprsng n the southe suburb of the ty, whhwas suppressed wth onsderable brtalty n 8 1 8 The long regn of alakams son, Abd alRamn (822-52),

saw the Umayyad emrate begn to onsoldate ts grp on powerThe nreased nanal soleny of the state, made possble by eenes n tax olleton, allowed the emr to expand the bodyguardof merenares, some of whom were aqliba (slaes of Slaonor Northe European orgn), whh had rst been establshed by

alakam , and to fund a state bureauray. The latter, under theoerall resposblty of the jib, or hef mnster, was subddednto departments of nane, juste, foregn relatons and admnstraton of the marhes, eah under the ontrol of a wazr or zer Theourt was losely modelled on that of the Abbasd alphs of Baghdadand the emr hmself beame an nreasngly remote and naessblegure On the poltal front, the emr demonstrated hs readness to

defend the fronters of alAndalus the Chrstan prnpaltes of thenorth were subjeted to a number of attaks by Muslm fores, and aVkng radngparty whh had saked Selle n 844 was repelled.Abd alRamns regn also wtnessed a more determned eort bythe emrate to assert t authorty oer the quasautonomous fronterterrtores Goernors and gasons loyal to the Umayyad regmewere nstalled n Mrda, Toledo and Zaragoza, but the hnterland ofthese tes remaned rmly under the ontrol of loal hefs n the

Upper Marh, or example, the muwallad Ban Qas, who had establshed lose tes wth the Chrstan kngdom of Pamplona, remaned neete ontrol of the Ebro alley under ther leader Ms b Ms(d 862), the selfstyled thrd kng of Span

The fragle nature of Umayyad ontrol oer the prones wasgraphally demonstrated durng the seond half of the nnth entury.n the Mddle Mah, the Toledans repudated the authorty of the emr

Muammad (852-86) after hs aesson to the throne and were toreman largely ndpendent of Umayyad ontrol untl the early tenthentury n the Upper Marh, the Ban Qas ontned to alteatebetween rebellon and submsson, untl they were nally dsplaedfrom power by a ral famly, th Tujbds, n 907 And n the LowerMarh, the muwallad bn Marwn rebelled aganst the emr n 868and agan n 874/5 Wth the assstane of Kng Alfonso (866-910)of the Chrstan kngdom of Asturas, bn Marwn establshed an

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has estimated that as many as half of the Christians in alAndalushad convered by the middle of the tenth century and 80 per cent by

the eleventh But Bulliets research based on genealogical evidenceocuses largely on the social lite of Crdoba and we have no wayof knowing if that rate of conversion was replicated in all places andat all levels of society ndeed when the Arab geographer bnawqalvisited the peninsula in 948 he observed that Christians still formedthe majority of the rural population

t is oen said tha the multifaith and multicultural diversity ofalAndalus was underpinned by a culture oftolerance or convivencia,

as it is known in Spanish This claim requires careful qualicationhowever Whie it is undoubtedly true that Christians and Jews enjoyedprotection by law and that social and economic interaction betweenthe faiths was probably extensive sectarian prejudices persisted on allsides The eminent philosophe jurist and poet bn azm of Crdoba(d l 064) for one described the Christian community as altogethervile Furthermore legal sources suggest that the authorities were

particularly anxious that Muslims should avoid contamination by theother religious groups The three religions certainly coexisted but thatis not to say that interfaith relations were necessarily always enlightened or harmonious

Yet even if they did not embrace slam the Christian communitiesof alAndalus became increasingly Arabized in language as well ascustom as a result of which they are usually known as Mozarabs Theword probably derives from the Arabic musta rib meaning Arabized

although the trm does not appear to have been used by AndalusiMuslims themselves Cultural assimilation together with a possiblerise in the rate of conversion to slam by the middle of the ninth centurycaused considerable disquiet in some Christian quarters Writing in854 Paul Alvar of Crdoba lamented the fact that Christian youthsseemed to display far more enthusiasm for the language and leingof the Arabs tha they did for their own Latin traditions Discontent

may have been furher elled by the fact that the scal burden on theMozarabic commnity had increased markedly during the precedingdecades Some disenchanted Mozarabs responded to the progressiveslamicization of alAndalus by emigrating to the Christian principalities of the north Another more radical group of Christians most ofthem drawn from a handful of monasteries around Crdoba deliberately courted martyrdom at the hands of the slamic authorities bypublicly denouncing slam or by encouraging muwalladto apostatize

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both of which were punishable by death in slamic law Between 851and 859, when the leader of the movement - Eulogius of Crdoba -

was himself executed, some 48 Christians, most of them monks andclerics, were put to death However, the martyrdom movement, withits emphasis upon confrontation and selfsacrice, did not commandwidespread support among the Christian ecclesiastical hierarchy or thewider Mozabic community, and after Eulogius s execution it appearsto have largely subsided

THE OTHER SPANS

The Muslim armies of the early eighth century may have destroyed theunitary Visigothic kingdom in the peninsula, but they did not extinguish all resistance to the invader During the eighth and ninth centu

ries,te emerged a cluster of embryonic Christian principalities inthe north of the peninsula that would eventually develop into large and

powerful kingdoms, and would ultimately challenge slam for politicalsupremacy This long and complex process of conict and expansion,which was to culminate in the Christian conquest of the last Muslimstronghold in the peninsula, Granada, in 1492, is conventionally knownto historians as the Reconquista, or Reconquest First coined in theearly nineteenth century, Reconquista is a concept tha in Spain remainspolitically and ideologically highly charged For those intellectuals andpoliticians rmly wedded to the idea of the historical unity of Spain,the Reconquista has traditionally been regarded as a war of religion, averitable crusade, whose aim was to restore the unity of Christian beriathat had been rent asunder by the Muslim invasion of 7 1 1 n reality,however, the conquest of Muslimheld territory did not always dominate Christian strategic thinking during this period, relations betweenthe Christian states and alAndalus were by no means consistentlyhostile, and political alliances between the two were commonplace

Our knowledge of the emergence and expansion of the mountainkingdom of Asturias is almost entirely dependent upon the testimonyof two brief Latin chronicles probably begun at the end of the ninthcentury: the Chronicle of Albelda and the Chronicle of Aonso IlThey relate that in 7 1 8 (or 722), a group of Asturians rose up in revoltunder the leadership of one Pelayo - the former swordbearer of KingsWittiza and Roderic according to one account, and of royal descentaccording to another - and defeated and killed the Arab goveor of

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Gijn in battle at Covadonga at the foot of the Pios d e Europa mountains From then on, the Chnicle of Albelda delared, freedom

was restored to the Christian people and by divine providene thekingdom of Asturias was bo For all their dierenes of detail andemphasis, the message of the Asturian hroniles was lear the sinsothe Visigoths may have allowed the Muslims to invade and triumph,but God had no intention of allowing His people to be vanquished altogether Asturias was the Visigothi kingdom rebo, not just in spirit,but in ersonnel, too However, there is no learut evidene thatsigniant numbers of Visigothi nobles took refuge in Asturias after

7 1 1 , let alone that Pelayo, their leader, was of royal lineage equally,although posterity would portray the vitory at Covadonga as the rststep in the Christian reonquest of the peninsula, ontemporaries areunlikely to have regarded it as suh

That the edgling Asturia monarhy was able to maintain itsindependen after Pelayo s rebellion, and even to expand its bordersthereafter, owed less to the military skill of the insurgents than to the

fat that in the immediate aftermath of the Muslim invasion, the governors of alAndalus preferred to devote most of their energies towardsmilitary operations in southe Gaul The Christians were furtherassisted by the Arab-Berber onit of the 7 40s and the devastatingfamine of the 750s, boh of whih led the Berber tribes to evauate thelitary outposts they had established in the northemost regions ofthe peninsula This breathing spae allowed the Asturian kingdom tosurvive and thrive By the marriage of Pelayos daughter, Ermesinda,

to Alfonso, son of Duke Peter of Cantabria, the region to the east ofAsturias was inorporated to the Crown Under Alfonso (739-57)and his son Fruela (757-68), the Asturian kingdom began to extendits authority into neighbouring Galiia and the weste Basqueregions, and the same monarhs reputedly arried out a number ofraids southwards into the Duero valley, during the ourse of whihlarge numbers oChristians are said to have migrated north However,

another entury would then elapse before the territorial expansionof the Asurian kingdom was renewed There are reports of intealdisorder, prinipally the result of disputed suession to the throne orrevolts against the monarhy by dissident nobles The region was alsosubjeted to regulr raids by Muslim armies and by a Viking eet thatattaked the Galiian oast in 844

Te outbreak of renewed inteal strife within alAndalus duringte seond half of the ninth entury enabled the Asturian kingdom to

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begin to expand southwards on to the plains of the meseta The processwas begun by Ordoo (850-66), during whose reign several of the

old Roman towns, such as Len and Astorga, were resettled, and wascontinued by his son Alfonso , who oversaw the repopulation of theDuero valley from Porto in the west to Burgos in the border region ofCastile in the east By the time the court chroniclers of the late ninthcentury came to write up their accounts of the deeds of the Asturiankings, a triumphalist spirit prevailed, so much so that the author ofthe socalled Prophetic Chronicle of 883/4 could condently predict

that the defeat of the indel and the salvation of the Christians'was just around the coer As if to underline the selfcondenceof the Asturians, when Alfonso was deposed by his son Garca (9 1 0-1 3 14) in 9 10, the decision was taken to move the chief royalcentre of the kingdom from the mountain fastness of Oviedo to theplains of Len thenceforth the rulers of this expanding kingdom wereo eted kings of Le

By proclaiming the political continuity between the Toledo of the

Visigothic kings and the Oviedo of Alfonso , the court chroniclersof the late ninth century sought to establish the legitimate rights ofthe Asturian kings to rule over the whole of the peninsula However,political realities on the ground were considerably more complex Atroughly the same time as the inhabitants of Asturias were throwing othe yoke of Muslim domnation, other centres of Cristian resistancewere emerging n the weste Pyrenees, a small independent principality based upon the old Roman town of Pamplona came into beingby the second quarter of the ninth century, although its origins areutterly obscure Like the Asturians and Cantabrians, the Basque tribeshad ercely resisted the centralizing pretensions of the Visigoths, andMuslim and Frakish attempts to impose their own authority over theregion met with a simlar lack of success n 740, the Arab goveorof Pamplona and his troops were forced to withdraw after a rebellionby its citizens n 778, the king of the Carolingian Franks, Charles the

Great (Charlemagne), captured Pamplona in the course of a militarycampaign in the Upper Ebro. However, forced to withdraw, the rearguard of his army was subsequently ambushed and annihilated by theBasques as it made its way through the pass of Roncesvalles, a military disaster that was later to be commemorated in the famous Frenchepic poem, the Chanson de Roland n 806, the Franks again capturedPamplona and at the same time established a marcher county in thevalley of the River Aragn; however, after a second heavy defeat in 824,

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w0

Pelayo (718-37) IFfila Ermesinda

(73739)

PeterAlfonso I (73957)

Christian Dynasties

Le6n and Castile

Fruela

Fruela I(757- 68)

Adosinda = Silo(774-83)

Mauregato Aurelio Vermudo I (78891)(78388) (76874) Ir

Alfonso 11 (792-842)

Garca I (910-14) Ordoo 1 (91424) Alfonso IV (92531) Ramiro 11 (93151)

Ordoo 1J (95860) Ordoo Ill (95156) Sancho I

I (956-66)Vermudo 11 (98499) I

I Ramiro IllAlfonso V (999-1028) (96684)I

Vermudo Il l (1028-37) Sancha Ferdinand I (1035-65) Sancho 11 Alfonso V (10651109)

(106572)of Castile

IGarca

of Galicia(1065-73)

Ramiro I (84250)

IOrdoo I (85066)

IAlfonso Ill (866-910)

Fruela 11 (924-25)

aarre and ragonNv

Sancho 1 1 Garcs of Navarre and Aragon (97094)

IGarca 11 Snchez (994-1000)

I r - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sancho the Great 1 A(100 9-35) I I

Garca Ill

Ramiro I (1035-63)

I(10

T54)

Sancho Ramrez I (1063-94) IFigure 2 Dynasties of the kingdoms of Christian Iberia, c .7 1 8-1350


16/26

w

.

ITeresa Henry1 of Burgundy

- - - 1 - - - - Afonso I(1128-85)

ISancho I

(1185-1211)I

Afonso 11

(1211-23)I - 1Sancho 11(1223-48)

Afonso Ill(1248-79)

Portugal

Alfonso I Urraca Raymondof Aragon (1109-26) of

I BurgundyAlfonso VII (1126-57)I 1

Sancho Illof Castile(1157-58)

IAlfonso VIII

of Castile(1158-1214)II 1

Ferdinand 1 1of Le6n(1157-88)

Heny I Berenguela = Alfonso IX(1214-17)

Iof Le6n

(1188-1230)

Ferdinand Il l (1217-52)I

Alfonso X (1252-84)I 1Ferdinand Sancho IV

(1284-95)I

Ferdinand IV(1295-1312)

IAlfonso XI(1312-50)

Figure (Contnued)

II !Ir 1 Peter I Alfonso I = UrracaSancho Sanqho IV (1094-1104) (1104-34) .

(1054-76) . Ram1ro 11

Ramiro

IGarca IV(1131-50)Sancho VI(1150-94)

ISancho VI I(1194-1234)

(1 i

T37)

Ramon Berenguer IV PetronillaCount of Barcelona

I(1131-62)Alfonso 11

(1162-96)IPeter

(1196-1213)I

James I(1213-76)

IPeter Ill

(1276-85)I IAlfonso Ill(1285-91)

James 11(1291-1327)

IAlfonso IV

(1327-1336)


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A HI STO RY OF SPAI N

Frankish attempts to create a military march in the weste Pyreneesere abandoned. n the ensuing power vacuum, there emerged a small,

independent Christian kingdom of Pamplona - later to be known as the kingdom of Navae - under the leadership of a local lord named igoArista (d. 85 1 ), whose dynasty would remain in power until it wasoerthrown y Sancho Garcs (905-25) of the rival Jimeno family in905 t was Sancho Garcs who in 925 brought the area of the RiojaAlta, including Njera, which became the new royal centre, under hiscontro. The county of Aragon also came under the orbit of the kings ofPamplona and would remain there until it was elevated to the status of

an independent kingdom in its own right in 1 035.At the easte end of the Pyrenees, Frankish military incursions

proved rather more successl. Gerona was conquered in 785 andCharlemagnes son, Louis of Aquitaine, captured Barcelona in 801,establishing a Frankish protectrate over the territory between that cityand the Pyreees whose boundaries were to remain largely unchangeduntil the eleventh century. This potectorate, known as the Marca

Hispanica, or Spanish March , was divided up into a number of counties, such as Ausona (Vich), Barcelona, Besal, Cardona, Cerdanya,Gerona, Pallars, Ribagorza and Urgel, which were placed under thecommand of royal appointees recruited from the ranks of the Frankisharistocracy The number of counties within the Spanish March luctuated over time and it ws by no means uncommon for a number of themto be held under the authority of a single gure. The counties enjoyedconsiderabe autonomy and were frequently in rebellion against the

Crown when rankish power subsequently began to wane during thesecond half of the ninth century, they gradually dried into independence.By f the most prominent of the independent dynasts who emerged atthis time was Wifred the Hairy (870-97/8), count of Barcelona,Gerona and Ausona, whose descendants would eventally rle over allof the Spanish March. Even so, formal political ties with the FrnkishCrown were not iediately sundered. The counts of Brcelona andthe lay and ecclesiastical magnates continued to date their chrters bythe regnal years o the Frankish kings, and Catalan monasteries thoughtit worthwhile to have their charters conrmed by Fankish rlers. twas not until the Carolingian dynasty was nally overthrown by theCapetians in 987 that e polite political ction that linked the Catalancounties to the Frankish empire was formally brought to an end.

The Christian societies of northe beria were neither wealthy norsophisticated. Their rudimentary economy was based overhelmingly

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S PA I N AN D I S LA M 71 1 - 1 0 0 0

on subsistence agriculture and pastoral activities; royal centres suchas Oviedo Len and Pamplona fullled important administrative and

ceremonial functions but ey were little more than small fortiedsettlements; trade was sluggish and based on barter; and industrywas almost nonexistent until the tenth century when there are therst signs of smallscale artisan activity in such places as Len andBurgos. The Christian rulers did not have the wherewithal to sustaina professional army or a state bureaucracy and relied upon a smallentourage of waior nobles and ecclesiastical magnates to defend and

administer the realm on their behalf However these were expanding societies Demographic growth in the north accompanied bythe arrival of Mozarabic immigrants from the south prompted theAsturian kingdom to expand on to the plains of Len during the ninthcentury A slow piecemeal movement of colonization ensued as smallgroups of peasants began to establish themselves in the numerous

ees that cross te northe meseta, until they had reachedthe banks of the Duero by 900 t was a similar story in the region

of the Spanish March which was extensively repopulated by settlersfrom the Pyrenean area and by Mozarabic immigrants from alAndalusduring the course of the ninh and tenth centuries

The emigration of Mozarabs from the south appears to have begunduring the late eighth century; however the movement of populationaccelerated during the second half of the ninth during the turbulentreign of Abd Allh and reached a peak during the early decades

of the tenth t was chiey through the agency of the Mozarabs thatthe cultural traditions of the Visigoths began to take rm root in theChristian north. Alfonso of Asturias (791-842) is reported to haveestablished the ceremonial of Gothic rule as it had been in Toledoboth in church and palace alike in his chief royal centre Oviedo.Mozarabic monks established new communities in the Christian realmsor took up residence at existing monastic houses for example themonastery of Samos near Lugo in Galicia was entrusted to the care

of two monks from alAndalus by King Ordoo of Asturias in 857These monks brought with them their own distinctive artistic traditionsthat were very dierent from those then in vogue in Asturias. They canbe seen in the various Mozarabic monastic churches - whose typiclfeatures include horseshoe arches slender columns and small doublearched windows - which were erected in the territory of Len duringthe early decades of the tenth century such as those of San Miguel de la

Escalada (founded 913), San Cebrin de Mazote (915) and Santiago


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A H I STO RY O F SPAI N

de Pealba (937); they can also be seen in the Mozarabic manuscript illuminations, characterized by abstract bidimensional drawing

and striking use of colour, which embellish the various tenth and eleventhcentury copies of the Scriptures and the monk Beatuss Commenta on the pocalypse of 786 At a more prosaic level, Mozarabimmigrants were probably responsible for introducing the irrigationtechniques of the Muslim wold to the north of the peninsula, with theresult that the Christian settlers who occupied the Duero basin were ableto bring far larger areas of land under the plough and to increase agri

cultural yieldsKings and counts were enthusiastic patrons of the Church, foundingor endowing monasteries and commissioning elaborate altar goods,such as the bejewelled Cross of the Angels which was presentedto the church of Oviedo by Alfonso II in 808 Alfonso also demonstrated his support for the emerging cult of St James, whose supposedbody was dscovered by Theodemr, bishop of Iria Flavia, some timebetween 8 1 8 and 842 in the place that came to be known as Santiago

de CompostelaLiterate culture in the Christian north was overwhelmingly the

preserve of clerics and monks In the northwest of the peninsula,monasteries like those of Samos in Galicia, Sahagn near Len andSan Miln in the Ra acted as repositories of the leing of theVisigothic age; they seem to have had only limited contact withintellectual currents further aeld and made little by way of originalcontributio t literary culture By far and away te most importantarea of cultural activity in the Christian north was the Spanish March,whose monasteries and churches were exposed to the cultural inuences of both the Carolingian world and alAndalus Catalan monasteries adopted the Rule of St Benedict rather than the Visigothic Ruleof St Fructuosus that still predominated furher to the west, and theRoman rite dislaced the traditional Visigothic liturgy Chief amongthe monasteries

of the March was that of Ripoll, founded by Wifred

the Hairy in 880, which became one of the most distinguished centresof leaing in Wee Europe Its wellstocked library, which includedcollections of works by classical authors, as well as Arabic mathematical and astronomical treatises , attracted scholars from beyond thePyrenees, such as the cleric Gerbert of Aurillac (later Pope SylvesterII), who visited Ripoll some time during the 960s It was Gerbertwho, as a result of his Spanish studies, went on to compose a series ofinluential mathematical and astronomical works, including a treatise

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S PA I N A N D I S LA M , 71 1 I 0 00

on the abacus, which introduced HinduArabic numerals to ChristianEurope, with farreaching consequences

THE CALPHATE OF CRDOBA

When Abd Alh died in 912, the authority of the emirate did notextend far beyond Crdoba and its hinterland, and the days of theUmayyad state in alAndalus appeared to be numbered However,under the able and vigorous leadership of Abd Allh s grandson, AbdalRamn (9 1 2-61), the Umayyad dynasty was to undergo anextraordinary recovery in its fortunes The immediate priority for thenew emir was to neutralize the rebellious elements within alAndaluswho had earlier rejected Umayyad authority One by one, the rebelswho had tried to establish independent lordships in the south were

oreack into obedience The contumacious bn Hn died in91 and his sons and supporters were nally brought to heel in 928

Subsequently, between 929 and 93, the recalcitrant marches werealso subdued

Abd alRamn also led a number of military expeditions againstthe Christian principalities of the north He did not seek to conquerthe Christian states, but to assert his authority over them and deterfuture raids against Muslim territory at the same time, he sought toenhance his prestige among his own sbjects, make his presence feltamong the troublesome goveors of the frontier marches, and enrichhimself and his followers with the spoils of war Among the mostsuccessful of these raids was that of 920, during the course of whichthe emir defeated the armies of Ordoo of Len (91314-24) andSancho Garcs of Navarre at Valdejunquera near Pamplona fouryears later the city of Pamplona was itself sacked by the emirs forcesThe only Christian monarch to stand up successlly to the Umayyadoensive was Ramiro of Len (930-51), who reinforced Christian

control over the Duero valley and inlicted a humiliating defeat onAbd alRahmn at Simancas near Valladolid in 939 After thedeath of Ramiro , however, and for the rest of the tenth century, theUmayyad state held the upper hand in its dealings with the Christianprincipalities, which became little more than client kingdoms n 958,Sancho of Len (956-66), ousted by his subjects because he wasreputedly too obese to mount a horse, travelled in person to Crdobain the hope that Abd alRahmns physicians would help him shed

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A H I STO RY OF S PAI N

the excess pounds he also obtained the military backing with which he reclaimed the Leonese throne from the usuer Ordoo V (958-9)

the following year. The prolonged period of political dissension in theLeonese kingdom enabled the lay magnates of the realm to becomeincreasingly entrenched in power most notably of all Count Feonzlez (d. 970), who by playing o the rival factions against oneanother was able to establish the county of Castile as an eectivelyindependent principality.

n anuary 929, Abd alRamn had himself proclaimed caliphand adopted the titles of Commander of the Believers and Defender

of the Faith of Allah , thereby making himself both the spiritual andtemporal head of the Sunni community in alAndalus and rtheraeld. The assumption of the caliphal title by Abd alRamn appears to have been prompted partly by awareness that the powerof the Abbasid caliphate in aghdad was rapidly on the wane. Moreparticularly, it was designed as a counterweight against the risingpower of the Shi ie Fatimid dynasty at Kairouan (in mode Tunisia),

whose ruler Ubayd Allh had himself adopted the caliphal title in909 and had begun to extend his inuence into the weste Maghreb.Fatimid expansion was a threat not only to Umayyad authority andprestige, but also to the trading networks that linked alAndalus tothe Mediterranean, ad most notably to the transSaharan route alongwhich gold, salt and slaves lowed from West Africa via Sijilmassato the peninsula. Abd alRamn backed up his claim to temporaland spiritual authorit over the Mageb with a number of military and

diplomatic initiatives. He ensured Umayyad dominance in the westeMediterranean by building a new leet in 956 and by establishing navalbases and coastal fortications along the Mediterranean and Atlanticseaboard he also secured an important strategic presence on the NorthAfrican coast with the conquest of the strongpoints of Melilla (927),Ceuta (93 1 ) an Tangier (95 1 ) At the same time, the Umayyad caliphestablished a ntwork of alliances with some of the chieains of the

Berber tribes of the Maghreb, who were implacably opposed to theShi ite Fatimids . Faced with such vigorous resistance, the Fatimidregime shifted its strategic objectives away from the Maghreb towardsthe east in 969, Egypt was conquered and a new Fatimid capital wasestablished at Cairo.

Thanks in large part to the customs duties that were levied on thebooming commercial sector, the various levies on personal wealth andproperty, and the taxes paid by nonMuslims, public ances wre


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SPAI N AN D I SLA M 7-00 0

buoyant under the caliphate, with annual revenues reportedly in theregion of six and a quarter million gold dinars. The lions share of

this wealth was probably designated to the military budget. The caliphwas able to put bigger and better equipped armies into the eld (towhich he recruited large numbers of Berber and Christian mercenaries, in order to reduce his dependence on traditional tribal levies), toerect fortresses and coastal bases, and to build and equip a eet Theprosperity of alAndalus was also reected by the resumption of theminting of gold coins and by the promotion of a number of ambitious building projects the Great Mosque of Crdoba was rtherextended and embellished, and a vast and luxurious palace complex,set amid fountains and gardens, was erected at Madnat alZhra(reputedly named after one of the caliphs concubines) on the outskirtsof Crdoba. Madnat alZhra became the nerve centre of the statebureaucracy and the mint, and home to a lavish court that was serviced

. _ b aable army of functionaries and servants. The state bureaucracy was reorganized and the caliph sought to reduce his dependence

on the old families of alAndalus by recruiting large numbers ofmuwallad, Christians, Jews and aqliba to high oce within thebureaucracy The Jewish scholar and physician Hasdi b. Shaprt, whocarried out diplomatic negotiations on behalf of the govement, wasbut one among a number of eminent Jews to hold inuential positionsat the mayyad court. The Christian Recemund, wh served as secretary under Abd alRamn , was sent as an ambassador to the courtof the emperor Otto of Germany in 955-6 and was rewarded with the

bishopric of Elvira on his retu.Such was the power of the mayyad state by the middle of the

tenth century that foreign rulers eagerly sought to establish diplomaticrelations with the caliphate. n 953, for example, Otto of Germanysent John, abbot of the monastery of Gorze in Lorraine, to the caliphalcourt in an attempt to secure mayyad help to curb Muslim piracy inthe weste Mediterranean There were rther diplomatic contacts

between Crdoba and Germany in 974, and ambassadors from theByzantine emperors of Constantinople are recorded to have visitedCrdoba in 949 and 972

The burgeoning wealth of the caliphate owed much to its ourishing agrarian base. n the two centuries that followed the Muslim invasion, the rural economy was gradually transformed and revitalized.Large latifundia were broken up, peasant tenants were oered morefavourable sharecropping arrangements, and Roman iigation systems

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were substantially upgraded with the introduction of Middle Eastetechnologies such as the noria (water wheel) The diusion of irriga

tion allowed for more intensive exploitation of the land, increasedproductivity and the introduction of a wide range of new crops,including citrus fruits, bananas, artichokes, cotton, rice, hard wheat,sorghum and sugar cane. n highland areas, olive groves, vines, gtrees and cereals predominated, although the area of land designatedfor the latter appears to have contracted under Muslim rule, with theresul that grain had to be imported from North Africa. The eects ofwhat has been described as a green revolution in alAndalus were

widely felt population levels began to rise increased prots fromagricultural surpluses acted as a stimulus to industrial and commercialactivity; and urban centres, always the fulcrum of slamic society andeconomy, began to expand Among the latter, by far the greatest wasCrdoba, dubbed the navel o alAndalus , which by the tenth centuryhad becom one of the great cities of the Mediterranean world witha population of ound 100,000 The towns of alAndalus became

important centres of industrial activity, producing textiles (particularlylinens, cottons and silks), ceramics, glassware, metalwork, leathergoods and paper. These manufactured goods, together with metals,minerals and timber, and agricultural commodities such as olive oiland dried fruits, found ready buyers both in the peninsula and muchfarher aeld, as alndalus became fully integrated into an inteational commercial network that spanned not only the Mediterranean,but the entire slamic world. Andalusi woven textiles were exported

to Egypt and erhaps as far aeld as urasan and ndia Mlaga gswere enoyed in Baghdad AlAndalus imported spices, ax, raw wool,perfumes and precious stones, among other things, and it also acted asan important centre of transit trade, redistributing furs from NortheEurope Russia and Central Asia, gold from the weste Sudan, andslaves from Christian beria and Easte Europe.

Crdoba wa not merely the seat of Umayyad govement, it wasalso the cultural epicentre of alAndalus. The Great Mosque was thepremier seat of ling, where scholars and students devoted themselves to the study of the traditions of the Koran and the Malikitebranch of slamic law. The Umayyad rulers themselves were enthusiastic patrons of the arts and their courts were attended by poets,musicians and schoars. During the reign of Abd alRamn , theUmayyad court embraced the cultural inuences of the easte slamicworld. The exiled Persian scholar and musician Ziryb became the

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S PA I N A N D I S L A M , 7-000

arbiter of good taste to Cordoban high society, to which he introducednew fashions in hairstyles, clothes and cuisine, as well as such innova

tions as the guitar, toothpaste and underarm deodorants. As Andalusiculture became progressively orientalized during the ninth century,increasing numbers of berian Muslims sought to further their studiesin B aghdad and other cultural centres of the Middle East The reigns ofAbd alRamn and his son and successor, alakam (961-76),witnessed a notable lowering of cultural activity. mportant workswere produced in the elds of science, geography, history, philosophy and grammar. Arabic translations of Greek scientic treatises

and Persian astronomy circulated widely Crdoba became one of theleading centres of medical knowledge and expertise in Europe. Thepersonal library of alakam alone is reputed to have comprisedsome 400,000 volumes, although few scholars today give muchcredence to this gure.

n the politicalmilit sphere, alakam continued the policiesthat had been pursued with such success by his father The power

ful families of the marcher regions were integrated more fully intothe Umayyad state. Diplomatic envoys from the Christian north andfurther aeld continued to beat a path to the Umayyad court Substantial numbers of Berber mercenaries were recruited to the state ay.By a combination of diplomacy and force, the Christian realms of thenorth were kept rmly in check n 965, the fortress f Gormaz, whichstill towers impressively above the valley of the Duero near Soria, wassubstantially extended and reinforced; ten years later it would with

stand a threemonth siege by the kings of Len and Navarre n northweste Morocco, the power of the drisids was neutralized in 972-3and an Umayyad protectorate was established in the region

On alakam s death, he was succeeded by his 14yearoldson, Hishm (976-1009) A power struggle then ensud betweenthe caliphs regents, one of whom, Muammad ibn Ab! Amir, betterknown to history by his later honoric alManr, the Victorious ,

successfully eliminated his chief rivals within govement (the former alMu]af and the general Ghlib) and took power into hisown hands The caliph, Hishm, was sidelined from govement andrelegated to little more than a ceremonial role Thenceforth, until hisdeath in 1 002, alManrs authority as chief minister to the caliph andde facto ruler of alAndalus was to go largely unchallenged. As a markof his status, alManr erected a palace complex of his own, Mad!natalZhira (the Glittering City), on the easte outskirts of Crdoba,

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.:(

AS T U R I A SSan tiag ( 80vi ComposJae , o C A S T I L E

Astorga

LMinorca Majo rc a

lbizaDFormentera

BALEARICISLANDS

Mediterranean Sea

D MuslimD Christian

100 kmL_

Map 3 The Iberian peninsula, c.IOOO Adapted from O' Callaghan, A Histor of Medieval Spain, p. 108


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SPAI N A N D IS LAM 7-000

to which he moved the oces of govement in 981 He won theapproval of the conservative religious authorities by further extending

the Great Mosque of Crdoba and having part of alakams librarybued The state army was further expanded with the recruitment oflarge numbers of aqliba and Berber soldiers, with the result that therole of the traditional jund was diminished The size and strengthof the armies that alMansr had under his command ensured thatcentral control over the provinces of alAndalus was never seriouslycalled into question, just as they also enabled him to win considerablepersonal prestige, as well as impressive quantities of booty, by virtue ofthe devastating plundering expeditions in the name ofjihd that he ledat regular intervals into Christian territory: among the centres sackedby alManr were Barcelona (985) , Coimbra (987), Len and Zamora(988), Carrin and Astorga (995) and Pamplona (999) ; many monasteries, such as those of Sant Cugat del Valls (985), Sahagn and Eslonza

8} an Miln de ogolla (1002), were also despoiled Mostfamously of all, in 997 the holy city of Santiago de Compostela in

the far northwest was attacked, its cathedral was plundered and itsdoors and bells carried o to ado the Great Mosque in CrdobaAlManrs subjects could not fail to be impressed by the mrtialprowess of the selfstyled champion of slam, just as the Christiansto the north were suitably cowed, oering tribute and contingents oftroops to the jib as a mark of their obedience der alanrsrule, Abd A b Buluggn of Granada was to observe a centurylater, slam enjoyed a glory which alAndalus had never witnessedbefore, while the Christians suered their greatest humiliation Yet itwas to prove a brittle authority A remarkable shift in the balance ofpower between Muslim and Christian was at hand

BARTON History of Spain 2 (1)

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