Reconquista: A Visual History

The Reconquista is the traditional name for the long process by which Christian states conquered the Muslim-ruled territory of al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula. It is conventionally dated from the Battle of Covadonga around 718-722, a minor skirmish later mythologised, to the surrender of Granada on 2 January 1492. It was never a continuous crusade: Christian and Muslim rulers allied with and fought each other in every combination, and long periods of peace and cultural exchange alternated with campaigns of conquest. The kingdoms it created, Portugal, Castile and Aragon, went on to build the first global empires.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Reconquista. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Share of the Iberian Peninsula under Christian rule

Rough estimates of the proportion of the peninsula controlled by Christian kingdoms at each date.

Timeline of the Reconquista

1. 711
   Muslim conquest beginsTariq defeats King Roderic at Guadalete.
2. c. 718-722
   CovadongaPelayo's victory; Kingdom of Asturias founded.
3. 778
   Roncevaux PassCharlemagne's rearguard destroyed by Basques; the Song of Roland.
4. 929
   Caliphate of Cordoba proclaimedAbd al-Rahman III at the height of al-Andalus.
5. 1031
   Caliphate collapsesThe taifa kingdoms.
6. 1085
   Toledo takenAlfonso VI captures the old Visigothic capital.
7. 1094
   El Cid takes ValenciaHeld until 1102.
8. 1139
   OuriqueAfonso Henriques proclaimed King of Portugal.
9. 1212
   Las Navas de TolosaThe decisive Christian victory.
10. 1236
    Cordoba fallsFerdinand III of Castile.
11. 1248
    Seville fallsOnly Granada remains.
12. 1340
    Rio SaladoThe last major North African intervention defeated.
13. 1482-1492
    Granada WarThe Catholic Monarchs' final campaign.
14. 1492
    Granada surrenders2 January; Boabdil hands over the keys.

The Muslim conquest and the Christian remnant

In 711 a Berber and Arab army under Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa, defeated the Visigothic king Roderic and within a few years controlled almost the whole peninsula. Muslim forces crossed the Pyrenees and were turned back by Charles Martel at Tours in 732. Only the mountainous north, Asturias, the Basque country and the Pyrenean valleys, remained outside their control.

According to later chronicles, a Visigothic nobleman named Pelayo defeated a Muslim force at Covadonga around 718-722 and founded the Kingdom of Asturias. In the eighth and ninth centuries the Christian statelets were tiny and often paid tribute to Cordoba; the frontier along the Duero was more depopulated no man's land than battle line.

Cordoba's greatness and collapse

Al-Andalus reached its height under the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031), when Cordoba was probably the largest and richest city in Europe. The vizier al-Mansur raided deep into Christian territory in the 980s and 990s, sacking Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela. Then the caliphate tore itself apart in civil war and fragmented into some thirty taifa kingdoms.

The Christian kingdoms exploited the divisions, extracting tribute (parias) and finally conquering. Alfonso VI of Castile took Toledo, the old Visigothic capital, in 1085, a turning point. In alarm the taifas called in the Almoravids from Morocco, who beat Alfonso at Sagrajas in 1086 and absorbed the taifas themselves. This was the age of El Cid, who fought for both sides.

Las Navas de Tolosa and the great advance

The Almoravids were replaced by the even more militant Almohads, who crushed Castile at Alarcos in 1195. But in 1212, with papal backing and a rare alliance of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal, the Christians won a decisive victory at Las Navas de Tolosa. Almohad power in Spain collapsed within a generation.

The thirteenth century saw the fastest conquests: Ferdinand III of Castile took Cordoba (1236) and Seville (1248); James I of Aragon took Mallorca (1229) and Valencia (1238); Portugal completed the conquest of the Algarve by 1249. By 1250 only the Emirate of Granada remained, surviving as a tributary of Castile for another 240 years.

Granada and 1492

The Nasrid kingdom of Granada endured through Castilian civil wars, the Black Death and its own diplomacy, and built the Alhambra. Its end came when the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon united the two crowns. Their ten year war (1482-1492), using artillery on a new scale, took the kingdom city by city.

The last emir, Muhammad XII (Boabdil), surrendered Granada on 2 January 1492. Within months the Catholic Monarchs expelled the Jews and sponsored Columbus, whose ships sailed in August. Guarantees of religious freedom to Granada's Muslims were soon broken; forced conversions followed, and the Moriscos were expelled in 1609-1614. The word 'Reconquista' itself is a nineteenth-century coinage, and modern historians debate how far it was ever a single, conscious project.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Umayyad Caliphate (661 to 750)
• Emirate of Cordoba (756 to 929)
• Caliphate of Cordoba (929 to 1031)
• Almoravid dynasty (1040 to 1147)
• Almohad Caliphate (1121 to 1269)
• Visigothic Kingdom (418 to 720)
• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• First Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)
• Francia (Frankish kingdoms) (481 to 843)

Wars of the same era and region

• Crusades (1096 to 1291)
• Ottoman-Venetian wars (1396 to 1718)

10 surprising things about the Reconquista

1. El Cid, Spain's national hero, spent years fighting for the Muslim emir of Zaragoza against Christians; his nickname comes from the Arabic 'sayyid', lord.
2. The Song of Roland turned a Basque ambush of Charlemagne's rearguard in 778 into an epic battle against Saracens.
3. Santiago de Compostela's Saint James was recast as 'Matamoros', the Moor-slayer, and supposedly appeared on a white horse at the Battle of Clavijo, which almost certainly never happened.
4. Cordoba in the tenth century reportedly had street lighting and hundreds of public baths when most of Christian Europe had neither.
5. The Christian kingdoms spent as much time fighting each other as fighting Muslims; Castile and Aragon fought a war in the 1350s-1360s while Granada watched.
6. Boabdil is said to have wept looking back at Granada, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not defend as a man; the spot is still called the Moor's Last Sigh.
7. The 1492 surrender agreement promised Granada's Muslims freedom of religion; within ten years they were being forcibly baptised.
8. The Portuguese completed their part of the Reconquista in 1249, more than 240 years before Spain, and turned to Africa and the sea.
9. The Alhambra, the Reconquista's most famous casualty, was built largely in the fourteenth century by a kingdom that was already paying tribute to Castile.
10. The term 'Reconquista' was popularised in the nineteenth century; medieval chroniclers spoke of 'restoration' or simply war against the Moors.

Sources

• Reconquista Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Reconquista Wikipedia
• Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa Wikipedia
• Granada War Wikipedia
• Joseph F. O'Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (2003) University of Pennsylvania Press
• Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain (1992) Weidenfeld and Nicolson

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