The Spanish

Spain is located on the Iberian peninsula on the southwestern tip of Europe and has been inhabited by various groups. Spain borders the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees Mountains. The peninsula itself is marked by steep internal mountain ranges as well as virtual deserts. Second only to Switzerland, Spain is the highest area in western Europe with the land rising from the narrow coastland. Predominantly a dry area, there are some green belts. The soil is comparatively poor compared to most of the soil in western Europe. In ancient times, Iberian tribes moved into the peninsula in the second millenium BC, probably arriving from southern Europe.

The Iberians migrated into Spain during the Neolithic period and also later, at the end of the Bronze Age. First mentioned in the sixth century BC, they were then located in eastern Spain and in the Ebro Valley. The Iberian Peninsula is named for them. The Iberians were strongly tribal and warlike. Living in communities on the eastern coast, the most advanced Iberians were influenced by Greek and Phoenician merchants and colonies. Their communities were organized city-states similar to those found in Greece. The Iberians of the east had develped an alphabet as had the Tartesians to the south, both were alphabetic and syllabic in form. In the central plateau, the communities were representative in political and social structure; their towns governed by a republican assembly dominated by a semiaristocratic oligarchy. In the areas of the north and west, rural and illiterate communites existed with the most distinct being the Basques of the western Pyrenees and foothills. The origin of the Basques is unknown but they were possibly a pre-Iberian civilization. The society was familial and tribal with a pastoral economy. In the fourth century BC, the Iberian civilization reached its zenith and was later influenced by Carthagenian colonization. It was during the fourth century BC that the Celtic tribes began to migrate into Spain, leading to further deterioration of Iberian culture.

In the eighth and ninth century BC the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and Celts from central or northern Europe entered the area now known as Spain. These then became the ancestors of the Spaniards. The Celts merged with an earlier population forming Celtiberian communities. Some of these practiced agriculture as well as a pastoral economy. In the Duero valley tribal social patterns were observed, while in the northern hills of Asturias and the central Cantabrian range, tribal life was more primitive. In this area the original population was mostly from southern France and northern Italy and the people were taller and more muscular than the Iberians. Economy in the northwestern area was largely pastoral and social patterns tended towards matriarchy, possibly deriving from Celtic influences. The west was known as Lusitania, having been named by the Romans and was separated from the northern and central areas by watersheds. Here the Lusitanians had developed an agrarian culture, which was more prosperous than the communities of central Spain. Because of the advanced southern and eastern areas of Spain, Lusitania was largely ignored by the outer world.

The conquest of Spain by the Romans lasted from 218 BC to 19 BC, though most of the area was conquered by 133 BC. The land then was known as Hispania, so called by the Romans. The lack of political or cultural unity in Spain impeded the Roman occupation of Spain. The Romans met with fierce resistance with a struggle to the death in the town of Numantia in 133 BC. Many of the tribes had to be conquered separately rather than having a cohesive and unified government that could be forced into Roman rule. Perhaps another reason that the Roman occupation took so long was the relative backwardness of the population of Spain compared to other Mediterranean civilizations. The population was less urbanized and more pastoral than more sophisticated Mediterranean regions. The social structure was archaic and dominated by a military aristocracy. However,most of the gold in ancient Mediterranean civilizations came from the Iberian Peninsula and Hispanic gold ornaments were known throughout the ancient world.

The Romans described the indigenous population as short, dark-haired, white-skinned, physically agile people though not necessarily muscular. At the time of the Roman occupation, the most advanced of the ancient communities was the kingdom of Tartessos in the south (modern Andalusia). First encountered by the Greeks, Tartesian society consisted of a number of fairly large cities with a well-developed culture based upon agriculture, cattle, fishing, commerce and mining. The society itself was dominated by warrior and priestly castes as well as a small class of large landholders and wealthy merchants. The bulk of the population consisted of peasants with few rights. Ruled over by a despotic monarchy, the Tartessian state reached maximum strength in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BC, but by the fifth century had fallen under Carthagenian domination. Following the Roman occupation of Spain, the Iberians accepted Roman culture.

Rome established political unity in Hispania and juriical norms. The Romans ended the warfare and raiding between the pastoral tribes and more settled communities. The golden age of Roman Hispania lasted from the first to the third centuries A.D. in which the entire peninsula was incorporated militarily and most of the population was incorporated culturally into the Roman world. Latin derived dialects slowly replaced the many former native languages, even among the peasants. Extensive Roman colonies were established in the eastern and southern areas and in other regions, Roman culture was spread by administrators, educators, soldiers, merchants and technicians. Some of the Hispanic upper class was sent to Rome for their education and in the early second century, Rome was ruled by emperors of Hispano-Roman origin, while in the fourth and fifth centuries, three or more emperors were from Hispania.

Large numbers of Hispanic troops were found in Roman forces and indeed, some of the closing phase of the Roman occupation of Hispania was accomplished with Hispanic auxilliaries. The majority of "Roman" troops besieging Numantia were Hispanic. Hispanic mercenaries served abroad under Carthage and later defended Rome itself. Indeed, the Iberian peninsula would become the major source of mercenaries in the Mediterranean for some two thousand years. Roman Hispania possibly had a population of five million or more. Though Roman rule was established throughout most of Hispania, the northern region was controlled by the primitive, warlike tribes and a tenuous military dominion was maintained.

In the second and third centuries, Christianity spread throughout Roman Hispania though it was predominantly an urban religion but gradually spread throughout Hispania in the fourth century.

As Rome declined, the Suebi, Vandals and Alans migrated into Hispania. These were followed by the Visigoths, who conquered all of Hispania in the fifth century A.D. The Visigothic kingdom lasted until 711, when it fell to Islamic Moors from North Africa. The Visigothic monarchy was very slow in replacing Roman authority, as there was no sudden Visigothic conquest. A small host of Visigoths under their ruler, Ataulf crossed the Pyrenees into Hispania in 415, charged by the Romans with expelling the Vandals from southern Hispania and subduing the Germanic Suevi who dominated the northwest corner for several years. With their base in southwestern France, the Visigoths slowly began to spread their control over the central plateau, sometimes in the name of the emperor, sometimes in their own interests. With the breakdown of Roman government, the Hispanic population lacked the means to defend itself. It was not until the reign of Alaric II (484-507), that the Visigothic main body entered Hispania under pressure from the Franks in the north. The Visigoths perhaps numbered 300,000 in a population of four million. Superior only in the application of armed force, the Visigoths were far less advanced economically, socially and culturally to the Hispanic popularion.

The Visigoths were primarily a pastoral people, unlike the Ostrogoths and the Suevi, which were agrarian. Settling primarily in the less populated areas of Hispania (the north and north-central areas), the Visigoths were basically isolated from the primary social and economic centers of Hispania. The Visigoths first proclaimed a Visigothic monarchy under Euric in southwestern France in 476. It was not until the reign of Athanagild (551-567) that the Visigoths moved their capital to Hispania, when their capital was made at Toledo in the central plateau. Slowly, Visigothic authority expanded throughout Hispania with the conquest of the Suevi during the reign of Leovigild (568-586) and the expulsion of Byzantine forces from their stronghold in the southeast by Swinthila (621-631).

Toledo, Espagna

Visigothic kings considered themselves heirs of the Roman Empire and adopted Roman insignia and symbols of authority. Viewing themselves as successors, the Visigothic monarchy accepted the Roman idea of the state as a public power based on absolute authority, though during the reign of Leovigild and the official conversion to Catholicism, it was altered to become a royal sovereignty based upon the religious and ethical tutelage of the church.

Visigothic aristocracy emerged in an elite of some two hundred leading aristocratic families associated with court and with the aristocratic class. The aristocracy was not a closed caste but rather one which steadily recruited from below based upon personal achievement or favor.

The Visigothic monarchy was an elected institution in which the king was chosen or ratified by the aristocracy. A royal council advised the monarch and the aristocracy ratified important decisions. By the sixth century, the historic Roman administrative system failed and a pattern of regional and local overlordship based upon regional dukes evolved along with heads of smaller districts known as counts. The dukes ruled over areas comparable to the old Roman provinces, while the counts held sway over former old civitas units. The old municipal system was replaced by royal administration and local overlords who were nominally ratified by the crown.

Visigoth

The cultural and economic life of Hispania was carried on by the native Hispani, almost exclusively allowing for the great prosperity of the sixth and seventh centuries. Over the centuries, a fusion of Visigothic and Roman common law evolved with a general trend away from the Roman system of explicit private property and more towards a communal, reciprocal relationship of ownership and use of property.

The early Hispanic church reached a cultural height during the reign of Isidore of Seville in the seventh century in which Spain became the center of learning in western Europe. Hispanic monasteries became numerous, raising spiritual standards and expanding the church's influence. However, even as late as the seventh century, the Hispanic church failed to include all the population of Hispania and the rural population remained nominal at best.

Not even the Romans had been able to eliminate the strong regional and ethnic differences in Hispania, which became more pronounced under Visigothic rule. Ruled for two hundred years by the Suevi, the northwestern corner remained a distinctive, unassimilated region. Septimania, in southwestern France tended to link northeastern Hispania with France. The eastern coastal region had become a sophisticated region associated with commerce and culture and with Italy and the cities and towns of the south were associated with northern Africa. The Asturians and Cantabrians were only partly assimilated, while the Basques remained distinctly apart. A significant Jewish minority in the south and east played a major role in manufacturing and commerce.

Under the Visigoths, the history of the monarchy was one of revolt, assasination and internecine feuding. A process of protofeudalization developed and was expanded rapidly under the Visigoths, rather than a cohesive polity. Power, within the Visigothic system became a matter of personal relationship and example. This protofeudalization created a splintering of juridical and economic sovereignty further weakening political unity. This kind of society was like a house built of sticks, unable to withstand the first heavy blow from without.

Visigothic crown

However, the Visigothic aristocracy was the beginning of the historic Hispanic master class in which the military aristocracy had its roots, creating a style of the warrior nobleman providing the dominant leadership for Hispanic society for over a thousand years. These values became imprinted upon the society as a whole.

In the years following 700, Spain's history becomes elusive. Strife and corruption continued throughout the Visigothic reign. Leovigild, strongest of the Visigothic rulers, faced a five-year revolt by his son. The election of the monarch guaranteed endemic civil war. Byzantium had been able to entrench a control of southern Hispania for almost a century and the Frankish monarchy intervened on several occasions in the seventh century.

In the latter seventh century, antagonism between descendants of Chindaswinth (642-653) and a subsequent ruler, Witiza (702-710) struggled to control Hispania. Witiza's supporters refused to accept the election of Roderic in 710 and sought the help of Muslim overlords in North Africa. (This is much the same as the invitation of the Britons to the Anglo-Saxons, with the same results.) The Muslim commander of Tangier, Tariq, led a force of 12,000 men, mostly Berbers from northern Morocco, into Hispania in 711. The Muslims hoped to win booty, expand Muslim influence into Spain and possibly make it a client state of the Arab caliphate.

Once the Muslims discovered the lack of Visigothic power, along with a swift and decisive victory, Muslim ambition grew. As Roderic sought to subdue Basque and Visigothic rebels in teh northeast, he rushed to the south, where the invaders waited in July 711 at Guadalete, a small stream. The Witizans arranged the withdrawl of the bulk of Roderic's forces and though the forces remaining were outnumbered, they put up a valiant reisistance but were destroyed. Roderic was killed and the remnants of his army shattered near Ecija. Córdoba, demoralized and all but undefended, was quickly seized. Roderic's supporters in the capital of Toledo were overthrown by Witizans who opened the gates for Tarig and by 712, the kingdom was divided and all but leaderless with its central military elite destroyed. The Arab governor of northwest Africa, Musa ibn Nusair, led a larger force of 18,000, mostly highly trained Arab warriors in the second invasion.

Muslim armies had developed a swift, flexible, hard-hitting style that was very difficult for the Visigothic levies to withstand. Seville, the largest city and the center of Hispano-Roman culture following a short siege while the remaining Roderician supporters withdrew to Mérida, which fell following a long siege on 30 Jun 713. Visigothic aristocracy gave weak resistance if any. Theodemir, duke of Cartagena made a treaty allowing him to retain his territory, provided that regular taxes were paid to the Muslim command.

The spring and summer of 714 were spent in the northeast. Zaragoza fell and many of its aristocrats were put to the sword. The remaining territory of Hispania fell and the Muslim "conquest" took a mere three years, though the Muslims made no attempt to conquer and occupy Hispania. They held the main strongholds of south-central and northeast Hispania, old centers of Roman occupation. The old Suevic district in Portucale to the west and Galicia to the northwest were rendered tributary but not occupied. The Witizans became clients of the Muslims.

In the first generation of occupation, three thousand estates from the royal domain were given to the Witizans. The Muslim conquerors concerned themselves first with booty and secondly with the jihad or holy war to extend Islamic domination. By 720, the Muslims sent an expedition across the Pyrenees, seizing Narbonne, followed by intermittent onslaughts into france. The major concern of the Muslim overlords of "Al-Andalus" ("land of the Vandals") was conquest beyond the Pyrenees. Three Muslim governors were killed leading expeditions into France between 712 and 732 but this did not end Muslim offensives. The Muslims were encouraged by strife in southern France. The Gallo-Roman inhabitants of Provence stubbornly resisted Frankish domination, summoning Muslim aid. However, the expansion of Frankish power put the Muslims on the defensive and they held a tenuous foothold in Septimania, just north of the Pyrenees.

Early Islam was tolerant of Christians and Jews as "peoples of the book", in spite of the jihad. There was little racial antipathy; the majority of the first invaders not even being Arabs, but rather Berbers who were themselves not fully assimilated into Islam. The Muslim invaders were primarily interested in land and booty but their primary targets were resistant Visigothic aristocracy. The majority of the population felt liberated by the Muslims. Christians were promised freedom of religion and in some situations, greater social and economic freedom. Rights of minority of Hispanic smallholders were respected though Christians were required to pay a special tribute, which at first was modest. For more than a century, Christians in the towns lived a semi-autonomous local existence and in some instances shared their church with Islamic worshipers. Large numbers were immediately converted to Islam, especially in the south and east.

At first, the Muslims did not encourage mass conversion because it reduced the numbers of those non-Muslims who paid a higher tax, but once firmly established, many Christians converted simply to be on the winning side, to escape special taxes and to gain greater economic opportunity. Most probably saw Islam as a variant of Christianity, not the antithesis of Christianity. Later Muslims would claim that some of the Visigothic aristocracy were attracted to Muslim due to its acceptance of polygamy and legal concubinage. The Jews may have numbered two or three percent of the population and eagerly collaborated with the Muslims, sometimes assisting the Muslims. Indeed, a detachment of Jewish soldiers, perhaps part of the Hispano-Jews exiled to the Maghreb, accompanied the invaders. The Jewish leaders were given several cities to govern after the Muslims took over. In the next three centuries, Jewish financial and cultural influence expanded in southern and south-central Hispania. For several generations, Jews served as mediators between the Muslim and Christian population. The few Arabs in the original invasion of primarily Berbers, established themselves with privilege from the beginning as landed Muslim neo-aristocracy, while others formed an urban elite and established deep cultural and economic roots, bringing Islam into the cities.

The Arab leaders quickly fell out with each other and the heads of the caliphate in Damascus expressed concern about maintaining control of their distant dominion. The first official Muslim governor, Abdul Aziz, married Roderic's widow and was murdered by rivals in 716. Between 715 and 755, about twenty different governors served, many of those assasinated and only three serving as long as five years. Along with the feuds and factions, an ethnic split occurred between the Arabs and the Berbers and by 740 a major rebellion in the straits of Maghreb, where the Berbers were adopting Kharijism, a new heretical form of Islam, spread to the Berbers settled in the northwest-central area of Hispania. Marching against the urban Muslim aristocracy in southern Hispania, the Berbers outnumbered the Arabs and were it not for the arrival of 7,000 Syrian cavalry, the Arab aristocracy might have been defeated. General Muslim civil war did not encourage Hispanic loyalty and small elements of the Christian population took this opportunity to move into the northern mountains, which had been a site of border warfare since 718. Crop failures and raiding about 750 brought about a period of famine to the Berber inhabited Duero valley in the northwest forcing the remainder of the invaders to withdraw further south, leaving an uninhabited area over which northern Christians and southern Muslims fought for the next two hundred years.

After 755, unified government was achieved by the first independent ruler, Abd-al-Rahman I (756-788), last surviving heir of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus, following the deposing of this dynasty by the Abbasid dynasty. Fleeing from the Near East, Abd-al-Rahman, whose mother was a Berber, sought to establish himself in an independent kingdom at the western end of the Muslim world. Arriving in 755, he won the support of the Berbers as well as the strongest Arab faction, which enabled him to overthrow the forces of the current governor outside Córdoba, the Hispano-Muslim capital. Abd-al-Rahman announced the establishment of an independent Umayyad emirate based upon "true justice" and toleration for all religions and ethnic groups. Eventually, he was recognized as heir of the legitimate dynasty and by nearly all regions other than the Christian hill country in the north.

Though the number of immigrants to Hispania during the three centuries of the emirate is impossible to calculate, it is estimated that their descendants numbered about twenty percent by the end of the tenth century. The bulk of those immigrants were not Arab, but rather they were Maghrebian Berbers. Even so, the most important land, posts and prerequisites were monopolized by Arabs and Arab descendants jealously guarded their family identities along with a sense of superiority to the rest of the Muslim population. Many of the Berber immigrants did not speak Arabic and maintained their separate identity. Interethnic tensions persisted throughout the history of Al-Andalus (Hispania).

Muslim religious teachers arrived from the Near East soon after the conquest and their numbers steadily grew during the eighth century. Within three or four generations, Hispanic Islam was closely identified with the Malikite rite, which was adopted as the semi-official observance of Muslims in the emirate during the reign of al-Hakam I (796-822) and provided a degree of cultural unity for most of the Muslim population throughout Al-Andalus.

Under Abdal-Rahman II, a wave of orientilization occurred in which Muslim artists and educators were brought to Al-Andalus. Christians in the north called the Muslims of the south Mozarabs, from the Arabic musta-rib, meaning Arabized or Arabic speaking. Tolerance of Christians was limited. Christians were never permitted to publicly dispute Islam. Some towns had Christian majorities for a century or more but the strength and influence of Islam was increasingly felt. Pressure mounted from the beginning of the ninth century and new restrictions were introduced, while the Muslim proportion of the population increased. In 850-859, the Christian "martyrs of Córdoba" movement began in which several score of Christian spokesmen confronted Islam directly and were put to death but the more common response was Mozarab emigration to the Christian principalities in the northern mountains. Extreme persecution of Christians began in the tenth century.

Muslim revolts grew serious during the second half of the ninth century and at times the emir controlled only the greater Córdoba region. Major rebellions in Toledo, Seville and Bobastro, Merida, Zaragoza and Lérida broke out, leaving the city of Toledo basically autonomous from 873-930. A more autonomous region was created in the upper Ebro valley of the northeast by the Banu Qasi dynasty, descendants of the Visigothic overlord Casio (Cassius) of Tudela, who had accepted Islam in 714. Banu Qaxi ruled the upper Ebro for two hundred years. At their height in the late ninth century, they were sometimes called the "third kings of Hispania" (following the emris of Al-Andalus and the kings of Christian Asturias-León.

The most serious revolt was led by Omar ibn Hafsun at Bobastro above Málaga in 883. The descendants of muladies, ben-Hafsun rallied Muslims and Christians alike and soon the eastern hill country of Andalusia was independent of the emirate. In 894, he returned to Christianity, the religion of his ancestors, which cost him the support of most of his Muslim followers. He held out in the Bobastro until his death in 917 and his domain was defended by his sons for another twelve years until it was finally reincorporated into the emirate in 929.

Under Abd-al-Rahman III (912-961), a unified state was finally achieved. The son of a Navarrese princess, he was the greatest Cordoban ruler. He was a short, blue eyed Muslim who dyed his red hair black to match his subjects. He raised his dominion from an emirate to a caliphate (empire) in 929. He restored central control over all the Muslim population and carried on major border campaigns against the Christians in the north. He extended military dominion over part of the northwest Maghreb, briefly expanding Al-Andalus into an imperial domain. Under Abd-al-Rahman III, Al-Andalus enjoyed the best organized administration found anywhere in western Europe during that era. This had begun under Abd-al-Rahman II a century earlier. Executive authority was nominally autocratic, administered by an hajib or chief administrator through batteries of visirs or departmental ministers along with subsecretaries, scribes and clerks.

Al-Andalus

In the tenth century, the flowering of the Hispano-Muslim society took place and the culture of Al-Andalus was more advanced than anything in Christianized western Europe. The studies in philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, botany and medicine between the tenth and twelfth centuries have become standard in medieval history textbooks. New Persian and Nabatean agricultural techniques were introduced, old irrigation systems restored and new ones developed. East Mediterranean fruits, as well as grain, olives and rice were important crops. The real strength of Al-Andalus was in its cities, with their productive economies, skilled labor, technological development and learning. They excelled in the production of silk and other textiles, ceramics, leather work, armaments and some types of fine steelworking.

Córdoba was the urban showplace and an estimated one hundred thousand residents filled the streets. The city was without peer in services, culture and economy, rivaled only in the east by Constantinople. Though the architecture of the period is described as Moorish, it far excelled that of Morocco during the period.

Abd-al-Rahman III's successor, al-Hakam II ruled for fifteen years and was succeeded at his death in 976 by his twelve year old son, Hisham II. The government was dominated by al-Mansur ("the Victorious"), the hajib, an Hispano-Arab. The young Hisham was forced to ratify the complete authority of the hajib over all aspects of government in 981. The dictatorship of al-Mansur was cemented by religion and a strong, centralized army. He allied himself with the influential Malikite fagihs in suppressing the few pockets of Islamic heterodoxy that had appeared in Córdoba and won a reputation among the superstitious lower classes as a defender of the faith. He expanded the standing army and hired large numbers of Berber mercenaries from the Maghreb as well as Christian mercenaries. Under al-Mansur, the most powerful military machine ever in the history of Hispania was built but it severed bonds between local leaders and the Cordoban government and became a resented agent of centralization. The title, al-Mansur, was won during a long series of campaigns against the Christians in the north, which were more political than religious, though al-Mansur preached that the campaigns were a jihad, though Christian mercenaries served in his campaigns. At one time or another, he ravaged every Christian principality in the north but for Navarre, with whose ruling dynasty he was allied by marriage. No leader in the history of Al-Andalus had inflicted such heavy damage on Christian Hispania. Al-Mansur died in 1002 and was succeeded by Abdul-Malik, his son, who quickly obtained the same agreement with the weak Hisham as had his father. Abdul-Malik lived only another six years, perhaps assasinated.

Al-Mansur

Al-Andalus, with a collapsed caliphate, found itself coalesced around local leaders, oligarchies, or ethnic groups and coalitions in the principal urban centers. The overlords were local commanders and notables who had achieved power under al-Mansur and the result was about thirty regional taifa (local faction) kingdoms dividing up about seventy-five percent of the peninsula. Some of the taifas, chiefly Seville, Granada, Badajoz, Valencia, Toledo and Zaragoza quickly developed into regional emirates or principalities devouring their weaker neighbors. These taifas were governed by local dynasties of Arab aristocrates or local Berber military factions but the power was often disputed by claimants: Arab oligarchs, Berber mercenaries or immigrants, the "Andalusian" or ordinary Hispano-Muslim majority and other mercenaries. The Hispano-Muslim culture managed to survive and it is in this period that the muwashahas and zéjels were incorporated into written literature. Hispano-Muslim literature was marked by materialism and hedonism.

Wracked by incessant factionalism, the taifa kingdoms were divided and dissipated their civic and military energies. As the Cordoban caliphate weakened, the Christian states were expanding, Key to this expansion was the recuperation of Leonese strength and unity and the reunification of Castile and León under the Castilian monarchy, accompanied by reinvigoration of the old Leonese program of imperial reconquest and Hispanic unity, first sketched out in the eighth century. Contributing factors included the development of mailed heavy cavalry, a distinct advantage over Muslim light cavalry and infantry. Aragón and Catalonia increased their military power, assisted by French adventurers and crusaders, though their forces remained smaller than those of the large kingdom of León-Castile.

León and Castile were reunited under Fernando I (1037-1065), second son of Sancho el Mayor, who later inherited Castile and raised it to the rank of kingdom after the Navarrese "anti-emperor"'s death in 1035. Vermudo III, the young Leonese king (1028-1037), had regained his capital following Sancho's death and began to reassert the imperial authority of the Leonese crown. He attempted to reoccupy the territory in eastern León that had been seized earlier by Sancho for Castile but was killed in battle by the Castilian forces of Fernando in 1037. Vermudo left no heir and was succeeded by Fernando of Castile, who also happened to be Vermudo's brother-in-law, since Fernando was married to a Leonese princess. Fernando was then ruler of "Castile-León," the younger, less developed kingdom taking precedence in the royal title because it was Fernando's inherited patrimony. Castile-León, fell to the historic Leonese imperial program and was interrupted by a century of internal weakness and Muslim pressure. Two decades passed in settlement of the border quarrel with Navarre, which finally resolved 1054 upon the death of the Navarre king, Garcia. In 1055, Fernando I launched a series of assaults against the Muslim border taifas resulting in major territorial conquests in the southwest where viseu was seized in 1057 and Guarda and Coimbra in 1064. Badajoz, Toledo and Zaragoza were reduced to tributary status, which resulted in large tribute payments to the Castilian-Leonese crown encouraging the military mercenary.

Adopting the feudalizing inheritance policy of his father, Fernando I divided his domains among his three sons and gave territorial grants to his two daughters, giving them the title of queen. Intense conflict and rivalry followed Fernando's death and at the end of seven years of internecine strife, the second son reunited the dual kingdom as Alfonso VI of Castile-León (1065-1109), "Emperor of Hispania".

Within another decade, most of Al-Andalus had been subjected to tributary status under the Leonese crown and in 1082, Alfonso VI led an expedition to the southern tip of the peninsula, where he rode his horse out into the water in a symbolic gesture to show all Hispania that it was under Leonese suzerainty. The major prize was the city of Toledo.

New towns were founded as urban life developed and the few already established, grew. Commerce increased to an unprecedented level, stimulated by Alfonso VI's encouragement of the immigration of monks, merchants and artisans, boosting the middle class in the towns of northern Castile and León. The road to Santiago de Compostela was heavily traveled as thousands of west European pilgrims made their way to the shrine. Building was stimulated along with the endowment of churches, the develpment of the arts and the general growth of Leonese culture. Population expanded and by 1100 the greater kingdom of Castile-León numbered about two and a half million. Much of the newly acquired land between the Duero and Tajo was settled by common soldiers and peasant immigrants, who formed communities given royal charters as semi-autonomous council districts. These became governing councils of rural districts with a fortified village or small town in the center. These eleventh century districts were accompanied by the establishment of an intermediate military elite, the commoner-knights. This had begun in Castile during the tenth century and hastened by two developments. There was a tendency for the aristocracy of León and to a lesser degree in old Castile to settle into an hereditary caste. What had earlier been a military and administrative service aristocracy had established itself as a privileged group, exempt from taxation and in some cases military service but enjoying hereditary dominion and family titles, elevating its members into a feudal caste of regional, socio-economic domination in Galicia, Old León and Old Castile, depriving the crown of services originally provided. Secondly, heightened warfare in the tenth century, followed by renewed expansion called for a more mobile and offensive force. In order to establish military domination, the Christian principalities had to expand heavy cavalry. Thus, providing the class of caballeros villanos, ordinary peasants proven in battle with land or condominium shares in the districts was made possible by the fact that the horse was more available in the Hispanic frontier than anywhere else in western Europe. This nonaristocratic elite group strengthened royal power and discouraged aristocratic factionalism while building military strength on the frontier. Common shepherds and peasants could rise to an elite status.

The eleventh century saw the emergence of the Hispanic venturero or professional soldier- adventurer, who would become a common figure throughout western Europe and the Mediterranean for over five hundred years. Most of the Spanish ventureros were from Castile but the most famous were the special companies of Catalonia. There were two groups of ventureros, campeadores on land and mareantes on sea. The campeadores would later become the conquistadors of the sixteenth century.

The taifas of the south continued to flourish but tribute payments rose higher and higher and threatened this prosperity. This led to the request of the taifas for Muslim aid.

A Muslim Maghrebi jurist and evangelist, Ibn Yasin, had been invited to incubate Islam among the wild Toureg tribes of the western Sahara in 1039. He preached a simple, ascetic and militant interpretation of Islam and collected a group known as al-murabi-tun ("united for holy war"), in the west known as Almoravids. The movement spread like wildfire across the western Sahara and within twenty years the Almoravids had carved out a loose theocratic state covering much of the western Sahara, which in theory was subject to the Fatimid caliphate in Cairo. The Almoravids conquered the tribes of the upper Senegal and spilled into western Algeria, capturing Morocco by 1084. These Almoravids had been approached by the taifa as early as 1077. In 1086, al-Mutamid of Seville made an explicit invitation to the Almoravids, while attempting to ensure that the taifas did not fall under Almoravid domination. The Almoravids agreed to support the emir of Seville against Castile.

Marrakesh was built by the Almovarids

Alfonso VI met the Almoravids on Muslim territory near Badajoz. The Almoravids relied upon compact, trained infantry protected by hippopotamus-hide shields along with an elite corps of black African guards and light cavalry interspersed with camel corps. As the Sevillians bore the brunt of the Castilian charge, the Almoravids attacked the Castilian rear. The Castilians retreated and the Almoravids returned to Africa.

By 1090, an Almoravid party had formed among the larger taifa cities led by fanatical fiqihs and supported by traditional Muslims, fearful of Christian domination, as well as the poor, seeking financial relief. Yusuf ibn Tashfin, the Almoravid leader, returned to Al-Andalus in 1090 and within two years had seized the primary taifa capitals in the south. The entire southern half of the peninsula was incorporated into the Amoravid empire soon thereafter marked by a frontier south of Tajo separating Al-Andalus from the new line of Castilian settlements in the center of the peninsula.

With the establishment of the Almoravids in Al-Andalus, intense hostility towards Christians was sharpened. The traditionalist Malikite rite was rigorously reimposed and the religious teachers were used as an instrument of policy. The Almoravids instituted a policy of direct persecution of the remaining Christians in the south. Jews also were for the first time looking towards Christian princes as saviors from Muslim persecution. By the twelfth century, religious intolerance had formed a deep gap between Christian and Muslim Hispania.

As Almoravid power grew, it veered away from the Castilian center towards the prosperous urban centers of the east coast where at Valencia, the legendary hero Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar "the Cid" had created a protectorate.

The Cid was a renowned Castilian knight vassal of Alfonso VI who was banished from Castile due to a misunderstanding. Entering the military service of the emir of Zaragoza, he gained more laurels in the eastern part of the peninsula. As the Almoravid danger grew, he was again accepted into the service of the Leonese crown and though Alfonso VI remained jealous and suspicious, he was granted hereditary autonomous dominion under the crown of León of all Muslim land he could conquer in the peninsula's east. Between 1088 and 1092, the Cid conquered a domain reaching from the region of Lérida and Tortosa to Valencia. He was a shrewd ruler and a clever and ruthless warrior. He collected large tributes from the Muslims. In 1092, the pro-Almoravid party in wealthy and populous Valencia rebelled against their emir, a vasal of the king of León and mobilizing his force, the Cid took advantage of the strife to add that city to his domain following a long siege that decimated the Muslim population. Valencia withstood two major Amoravid attempts to regain Valencia, ending with even the Muslims admitting the extraordinary astuteness and military prowess of the Cid.

The Cid represented the growing initiative of Castile, personified in the warrior overlord and prosecuted the reconquest while demonstrating an understanding of Muslim psychology and ability to treat with and govern Islamic people. In the last decade of his career, he cooperated with the Leonese, Aragonese and Catalans in the struggle against the Almoravids. The Cid died in 1099 and the Levantine regions could not be defended. Alfonso VI drove off a Muslim force besieging the Cid's widow in 1102 but lacked the strength to do more than evacuate and burn Valencia. The surrounding district was quickly seized by the Almoravids.

A Succession Crisis and Social Revolt occurred 1109-117 and the second half of Alfonso VI's reign was a painful anticlimax. This Leonese-Castilian king who called himself emperor, had seemed to be gaining the entire peninsula from the Muslims only to lost most of the territory back to the Almoravids following his harsh tributary policies. He had been the most European of Leonese kings and tried to bring Castile-León into the orbit of European diplomacy and encouraged the Romanization of Castilian Catholicism. He had displaced both of his brothers and outlived four wives but after 1086/1089 his armies remained on the defensive. Between 1097 and 1108, New Castile was devastated by Amoravid raids. Despite his four marriages, he left only two daughters on his death in 1109: Urraca, a legitimate and Teresa a bastard. Alfonso had established strong political and religious ties with Burgundy and had married three French princesses, had wed both of his daughters to Burgundian nobles who had come to seek their fortunes battling the infidels in Hispania. Teresa and her husband, Count Henrique, had been awarded the county of Portugal, forming the southwestern corner of Leon. They began to intrigue against the crown while governing their own territory independently and the resulting emergence of the independent kingdom of Portugal was the result.

Alfonso's heiress, Urraca, already widowed at her father's death was unable to receive the crown by Leonese custom so immediately following her father's death, she was married to the only reigning king in Hispania, Alfonso I "the Battler", sovereign of Aragon and Navarre but it was a political and conjugal failure from the beginning. Dona Urraca was stubborn, independent and given to frequent changes of mind. The Battler was a pious Crusader with a streak of misogyny who devoted himself to a rarely interrupted series of campaigns against the Muslims. The powerful Leonese magnates resented a strong new king and were rebellious and eager to increase their own power. Conflict between king and queen and the machinations of grasping nobles had, by 1110, led to civil war in León. This struggle was deepened and complicated by the first major social revolt in Leonese history led by the middle classes in some of the newly expanded towns of northern León and Castile, in part, spearheaded by French immigrants. This revolt was similar to the revolt of communes in France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some looked to the Battler as their champion, as he had been generous to the towns and small commercial class in his own kingdom where there was not yet a strong aristocracy or strong monasteries. Most of the Leonese aristrocracy and church hierarchy struggled to isolate Alfonso from his new kingdom. The marriage between the distant cousins was annulled by the papacy as incestuous and after several years of political frustration and civil war, Alfonso the Battler withdrew completely and returned to his raids against the Muslims, leaving Urraca's very young son by her first marriage to eventually succeed him as Alfonso VII of Castile-León.

In 1117, the social revolt was finally quelled ending in a complete victory for the upper classes and some of the townspeople who had been active in the rebellion were forced to leave the kingdom. Towns in Castile-León remained few, small and poor as internal affairs of the kingdom were dominated by the aristocracy. The society was composed almost exclusively of aristocracy and peasants, warriors, priests and shepherds with no developing middle class, though aristocrat-dominated export trade did lead to commercial and maritime development in the second half of the eleventh century.

For the first three and a half centuries there was no real religious friction in the peninsula. For the Muslims, all this changed during the hegemony of al-Mansur and the jihad was preached intensely during the Almoravid invasion. For the Christians, the ideal of a Crusade as a holy war against Muslim usurpers was introduced from France and Italy during the Catholic religious renewal of the eleventh century, a consequence of expanding population, military strength and assertive spirit in western Europe as well as the increased power of the Hispanic kingdoms. The primary target of the western Crusades was the Holy Land but the struggle against Muslims in the peninsula also received attention. As early as 1064, nearly three decades before the first Crusade to the Holy Land, the papacy promised indulgences to French knights who volunteered to assist an Aragonese campaign against the Muslims. From this point forward, crusading expeditions against the Hispano-Muslim states were common in the military life of Hispano-Christian kingdoms, including the new state of Portugal. The papal authorization boosted morale, encouraged Hispano-Christian unity and provided financial and military support through subsidies and indulgences.

Both branches of military crusading orders, the Knights Templars and the Hospitalers, were soon established on the peninsula followed by the organization of strictly Hispanic crusading orders of which the three most important were the Knights of Calatrava on the southern extremity of New Castile in 1157, the Order of Alcántara, founded in Extremadura about 1165 and the Order of Santiago, formed near Cáceres in 1170. These orders played a major role in defending and expanding the frontier and within a century of their foundation, the three largest orders had become wealthy institutions holding vast domains.

However, even at the end of the twelfth century, León still formed a temporary alliance with the Almohads against its own Christian rival, Castile. Antipathy to Islam was never so strong as to preclude admiration for and adoption of certain practices of Hispano-Muslim society. Muslim baths were retained in some of the cities seized by reconquest, the practice of veiling women was adopted and maintained by Christian society in some of the southern regions for several centuries and hundreds of Arabic words were incorporated into the Hispanic language.

Alfonso VII, the son of Urraca's first marriage, came of age in 1126 and restored unified rule in a long thirty-one year reign, until his death in 1157. The Almoravid empire broke up in the 1140's and Alfonso VII extended the reconquest deep into the south, though he was unable to hold most of his gains. Like his grandfather, Alfonso VII claimed the title of emperor and along with it, the right to divide his kingdom among his heirs. All of Castile was given to his eldest son, who in 1157 became Sancho III of Castile, while the lands of León were granted to a younger son, Fernando II of León. Castile and León remained separate for three quarters of a century until reunited by San Fernando III in 1230.

The Almoravid empire failed to establish a unified empire. To most Hispano-Muslims, the Almoravids were foreigners and their rule came to be seen as a military occupation opposed by local variants of Hispano-Muslim religious heterodoxy with religious trends leaning towards the mystical. Revolts began in the 1120's and became widespread in Morocco, where the last defenders of the Almoravid emperors were Christian mercenaries. By 1147, the empire had been rent apart. Power, once again, fell to local taifa rulers. However, another Muslim empire was rising in Morocco known to the Europeans as Almohads, a new power based on a Muslim reform movement that began among the Berbers of the Atlas Mountains. The Almohads ("asserters of religious unity") preached a sophisticated and mystical version of Islam and by 1147 had replaced the Almoravids as masters of Morocco.

The Almohads made a counter advance against the Castilian advances of Alphonso VII, forcing the Castilians from Córdoba and Almeria. The Almohads also added Algeria and Tunisia to their realm and by 1172 held firmly all the neotaifa territories in the peninsula.

The Almohads came from a more advanced urban culture than their predecessors, the Almoravids and were significantly more sophisticated. Establishing their capital in Seville, the Almohads were much more interested in the arts and the last and fullest blooming of Hispano-Muslim culture came in the late twelfth century under their rule. The Almohads maintained political unity but did not generate sufficient military power to face the large warrior kingdom to the north, which drew assistance from other Hispanic kingdoms and other parts of western Europe.

Sancho IV

Sancho III survived his father by one year, leaving a three-year old son Alfonso III (1158-1214). Power was violently disputed by factions of the Castilian nobility, most especially the houses of Castros and Laras. The already powerful nobility of León grew even more powerful. By the end of the twelfth century, much of León and Castile had become feudal. This was de facto feudalization rather than de jure feudalization as was practiced in France and other western European nations. Seigneurial jurisdiction in León and Castile was with some exceptions, limited to economic control and governmental and juridical power over the seigneuries, which at least in theory, remained in the hands of the crown.

When Alfonso VIII (1158-1214) came of age , he reasserted the authority of the crown in Castile and restored a degree of domestic order, resuming the military contest with the Almohads. He signed the Treaty of Cazorla with the Aragonese in 1179, settling a long-standing border dispute with them and set a line dividing all remaining Muslim territory in the peninsula between the Argonese and the Castilian areas of conquest.

Hispanic military technology developed in the late twelfth century and early thirteenth century bringing a shift from the massed heavy charge and a movement towards greater tactical dexerity, with the use of light cavalry. Both Christians and Muslims used the light cavalry from the thirteenth century forward. Alfonso VIII was defeated at Alarcos in New Castile in 1195 but virtually shattered Almohad military power at the great Christian victory of Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Each of the four Christian kingdoms, who had formerly only fought one another in border disputes, joined Castile in this battle, which consisted of possibly fifty thousand on each side. This was the largest battle in the history of Hispania and resulted in a slaughter of the defeated Muslims as they fled in disarray. The booty was enormous, replenishing the treasuries of the Hispanic crowns and for a short time, Sancho the Strong of Navarre was the leading money-lender of western Europe. The disease that followed the battle engendered perhaps by the rotting corpses, the scarcity and famine of the following year, discouraged Christian forces from following up their victory and dividing Almohad territory.

In 1230, the crowns of Castile and León were finally reunited in 1230 under Fernando III, son of Alfonso IX of León and the daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile, when his uncle Enrique I of Castile died in 1217 without heirs. Fernando inherited the Castilian throne and reunited it with that of León thirteen years later upon the death of his father. About 1224, the Almohad empire began to break up. Fernando resumed campaigns resulting in the reoccupation of Córdoba. In 1243, Murcia fell and in 1246 Jaén, gateway to Granada fell and in 1248 Seville also fell. By the middle of the century, only Granada remained in Muslim hands and even it was reduced to a vassalage paying a large tribute in precious metals.

Fernando, the pious, crusading "el Santo" planned to bypass Granada and launch an attack upon Morocco when he died in 1252 in Seville.

Large numbers of Muslims were incorporated under the Castilian crown under Alfonso VI in the eleventh century. These Muslims were known as mudéjares, though most urban Muslims were deported to accomodate Christian immigrants in key economic and military centers. These deported Muslims were usually treated leniently and were allowed to take with them their possessions. A minority remained behind and the cities were converted from primarily Muslim to primarily Christian populations, while the Jewish community remained fixed. The mudéjares were primarily peasants who were allowed to continue to till the soil or practice their crafts as before and were guaranteed freedom of religion, together with the option to emigrate.

In the first two decades of Castilian rule in western Andalusia, the Christians remained a small minority. Encouraged by the invasion of the southern tip of the peninsula by the Merinid empire of Morocco, a great mudéjares revolt broke out in 1263 and at first threatened Castilian rule. This revolt was thwarted and royal policy changed whereupon the Muslim peasantry, particularly in western Andalusia, was driven out of the kingdom, some to Granada and others to Africa. Though some mudéjares remained, the Hispano-Christian advance did not absorb the Muslims or incorporate them into their society, but rather drove them out. The Castilians meant to ensure their advances through repopulation and resettlement, a distinct change from that of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Most of the lands of the Tajo-central plateau were divided among the nobility, the crusading orders and the church. Some peasants worked as day laborers but the majority rented small plots from overlords or worked as sharecroppers.

Under Alfonso VIII, the first codification of the rights of the aristocracy appeared as the Fuero Viejo de Castilla, which may have been a reaction to Alfonso VIII's effort to limit the granting of señoríos. In the thirteenth century, most seigneuries rested primarily on economic rights and in most cases did not include the juridical and fiscal control of the overlord over his peasants. Prior to the end of the thirteenth century, the military aristocracy of Castile had been fairly open to new recruits but from the late thirteenth century an increasing number of suits were brought by nobles in opposition to those who claimed aristocratic status.

In 1273, Alfonso X established the Honorable Council of the Mesta, a broadly based syndicate of sheep owners that subsequently gained great influence. Agriculture never reached the level of the Low Countries or northern Italy, partly because of the soil and climate and was considerably backward even by thirteenth century standards. The Castilians had always been a pastoral society and after conquering the south, did not continue the agricultural practices established in those areas but rather brought their pastoral practices with them. In Castilian society, wealth was not something to be created or built but rather something that was conquered or enjoyed because of one's status as a warrior or nobleman.

Alphonso X

Alphonso X and Volente

Alphonso X Lapidary

The struggle with the Moors lasted until 1492 and by 1512, the present territory of Spain was established.

An ancient connection between Spain and northern Britain is supported by many myths and legends as well as by ancient carved stones that share the same patterns. One Celtic tribe, the Brigantes, is believed to have been named for an ancient Spanish king in Iberia, Breoghan, King of Galicia, Murcia, Castile and Portugal and perhaps Andalucia. All of these areas were conquered during the period of Celtic expansion into Spain. Galicia is recognized as an ancient kingdom and is recognized as meaning "the Land of the Gaelic People". Galicia is also found in Irish legend as the origin of the Irish people. It is said in Irish legend that King Brigus (Breoghan) built Breoghan's Tower or Brigantia in Galicia and that the city of Brigantia in Portugal was also built by this formidable king. Irish myth also credits him with building the ancient kingdom of Castile, at that time known as Brigia and therefore identifies the people of Castile as Celtic in origin. This king, Breoghan, sent a colony of his people to Britain and settled in the area of Durham, Westmoreland, Lancaster and possibly Cumberland. These are the Brigantes, so named in honor of King Breoghan and were known as the Brigantes by the Greeks.

Breoghan's son, Bile is also known in British legend, called Bel or Belinus, who came from Spain to Ireland and is celebrated in the feast of Beltaine. His wife is known in legend as Danu. Bile or Bel is immortalized as a Celtic god, the god of death, known to the Cymric as Beli. Milesius (Galamh from the Celtic gall, meaning a stranger) is known as Bel's son, king of Spain and founder of the Irish race, who was noted for his military successes in Egypt. This Milesius married Scotta, daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh and from her name comes the term Scot, an ancient name for the Irish and the modern name for Scotland or land of the Scots.

The myths claim that Milesius' brother or grandfather, Ith, travelled to Ireland where he became involved in a dispute involving three kings of Ireland and Ith was killed in the dispute. Irish myth explains that this was the cause of the Milesian Invasion in which the Tuatha de Danaan were defeated. These Tuatha de Danaan were the people of Dana, ruling after Nemed and descended from one of his great grandsons who came from the northern isles of Greece. The Tuatha de Danaan were said to be a people of magic, which they had learned whle in the northern isles of Greece. Four Irish treasures are ascribed to have come with the Tuatha de Danaan: the Stone of Fal (upon which the Irish kings were crowned); the Spear of Lugh; the Sword of Nuada and the Cauldron of the Dagda. According to the Book of Invasions, the Tuatha de Danaan, upon arriving in Ireland, defeated the Fomorians and the Firbolgs before they themselves were defeated by the Milesians. The Firbolgs were themselves also from Greece, where they had been enslaved.

The sixteenth century found Spain one of the most powerful nations in Europe due to the immense wealth generated by their American colonies but by the end of the sixteenth century, Spanish power began a steady decline and by the nineteenth century, Spain had lost most of her colonies.

The official name of the nation is Reino de España, shortened to be España.

Our Spanish Ancestors