El Sid and the Reconquista

El Cid and the Reconquest

Spanish Reconquest If the Muslim conquest of Spain can be traced back to 711, there is a good claim that the Christian reconquest of the peninsula started just 11 years later with a small but symbolic victory over the Moors at Covadonga. This picturesque town in the heart of what is now the hiking and climbing region of Asturias – a gateway into Los Picos de Europa but a fascinating and beautiful place to visit in its own right contains the tomb of Pelayo, one of the foremost heroes of the Reconquest, or Reconquista. The struggle to drive the Muslims out of Spain, though, was to take more than 700 years, until Granada fell in 1492. It truly was a tortuous process, complicated by the high degree of integration between Muslims and Christians in many parts of the country and also by the fact that the Christian states were often as much at war with each other as they were with the Muslims. However, a significant step was taken in 740 when the Arabs were distracted by a Berber uprising elsewhere and the Kingdom of the Asturians, established by King Pelayo, annexed the coastal region to its west – Galicia. By 757, although Pelayo himself was now dead, the Christians occupied nearly a quarter of the entire peninsula. In the early 9th century, Galicia made a powerful contribution to the essential ingredients of the Reconquista. In 813, some human remains were unearthed, which were claimed to be those of Saint James the Apostle, martyred in Jerusalem but floated over in a stone coffin to land at Padrón – famous for its ‘pimientos’ which have caught many a visitor unawares! – from whence it was taken to Santiago de Compostela. Santiago – Saint James in Spanish – who was to become the patron saint of Spain, became the focal point for Christians and visions of the apostle were said to have appeared to Christian leaders as he became their special inspiration and protector. Santiago was given the dubious title of ‘Matamoros’ – the Moor slayer – and helped galvanise the Asturian people. By the early 10th century, the Asturians moved their capital from Oviedo to León. The small principality to the east of León, Castile, achieved Kingdom status under Fernando I and subsequently became the dominant force of the region. One of Fernando’s subjects, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, was not only to become a symbol of national and Christian awakening, but also one of Spain’s greatest ever heroes – El Cid, the Chief. His exploits against the Muslims, on his white horse Babieca, thrilled Spaniards for centuries, although modern historians mainly see him as being more interested in power and financial rewards than religion. His impact, however, was of great significance. El Cid’s sword, Tizona, can be seen at the Army Museum in Madrid. Meanwhile, in 785 Gerona was captured by King Charlemagne and the Franks, followed by Barcelona in 801. This region, known then as Marcia Hispánica, was governed by the Counts of Barcelona, on behalf of the Franks, and by the end of the 10th century was the significant region of Catalonia. When, in 1150, the ruling count married the heiress from Aragón these regions were united. As Aragón was part of the Basque kingdom of Navarre, with its capital at Pamplona, which was making its own inroads into Muslim territory, this new alliance was becoming quite formidable.

In 1212, the combined Christian armies of Castile, Aragón and Navarra achieved a decisive victory over the Muslims at Las Navas de Tolosa in Andalucía and this was followed quickly by taking cities in Extramadura, the Balearic Islands and Valencia. Then in 1236, Ferdinand III, El Santo, captured Córdoba and the great mosque there was reconsecrated as a cathedral. When Sevilla was taken 12 years later, ironically with the assistance of the Muslim state of Granada – Sevilla’s arch rival – then the Christian territory in the country had more than doubled. When Portugal expelled the Muslims in 1249, Moorish political control was confined to the Emirate of Granada. The son of Ferdinand III, Alfonso X, El Sabio (The Learned), had his capital in Toledo and had both Jews and Muslims in his court, as well as Christians. Muslims who stayed on after the Reconquest, mudéjares, were allowed to practise their own religion and traditions – mainly because of the economic value of the Muslim traders and artisans – and many elements of Muslim culture were adapted by the Christians. In 1476, though, the Emir Abu al-Hasan of Granada refused to pay further taxes to Castile and Fernando II of Aragón, who had married Isabel I of Castile in 1469, to form the mighty Reyes Católicos (Catholic Monarchs), launched the final crusade of the Reconquista in 1482. Eventually, after a long siege, the monarchs themselves rode into Granada on 2 January, 1492. Boabdil, the final emir of Granada, was allowed to stay in the Alpujarras in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, south of the city, and Muslims were promised religious and political freedom – a promise that lasted only a few years. The story is of Boabdil turning from the Sierra Nevada to take one final look at his beloved Alhambra and weeping – only to be told by his mother ‘not to weep like a woman over what he had failed to defend like a man.’ The Christian Reconquest of Spain was complete, just 771 years after its beginning.

El Campeador Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (or Ruy Díaz de Vivar; also spelled Bivar), also known as El Campeador ("the Champion"), was a notable military leader and the national hero of Spain. His title of "the Cid" comes from a Spanish dialect of Arabic, sidi, meaning "sir" or "lord," and was a title he acquired during his lifetime. El Cid is the subject of many legends, stories, and poems, including the 12th-century epic El cantar de mío Cid ("The Song of the Cid"). Born a member of the minor nobility, Díaz was brought up at the court of Ferdinand I in the household of the king's eldest son, Sancho. When Sancho succeeded Ferdinand as King Sancho II in 1065, he appointed el Cid as commander of the royal troops and standard-bearer. In 1067 Sancho made war on his brother Alfonso, who had inherited Leon, and the Cid played an important part in the successful campaigns of his king. This put Díaz in a difficult position when, in 1072, Sancho died without having fathered any children, leaving Alfonso as his only heir. However, though Díaz lost his position as standardbearer, Alfonso allowed him to remain at court; and in July of 1074, the Cid married Jimena, Alfonso's niece. Still, his position at court was precarious, and he became regarded as a natural leader to those Castilians who weren't particularly happy about being governed by a king of Leon.

In 1079, while on a mission to Seville, Díaz encountered Count García Ordóñez, who had supplanted him as standard-bearer and who had become his bitter enemy. El Cid defeated the superior army and captured the count. In 1081, he led an unauthorized military raid into Toledo, a Moorish kingdom which was under Alfonso's protection. King Alfonso thereupon exiled Díaz, and although there were several attempts at reconciliation, never again was the Cid able to stay for very long in Alfonso's lands. Díaz then offered his services to the Muslim ruler of Saragossa. The Cid served al-Mu'tamin and his successor, al-Musta'in II, loyally for almost a decade. He was victorious in battles against the Moorish king of Lérida and his Christian allies, as well as against a large Christian army under King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon. In 1086, Alfonso was defeated by Almoravids from North Africa, and he overcame his antagonism to the Cid long enough to recall him from exile. Although his presence at Alfonso's court in July 1087 is documented, Díaz was soon back in Saragossa, and he did not participate in the ensuing conflict whereby the Almoravids threatened the survival of Christian Spain. Instead, the Cid began a long, complex political campaign to gain control of the wealthy Moorish kingdom of Valencia. The Cid gradually increased his control over Valencia's ruler, al-Qadir, who became his tributary. When in October of 1092, Almoravids and the city's chief judge, Ibn Jahhaf, instigated an uprising which resulted in the death of al-Qadir, el Cid responded by laying siege to the city. The siege lasted a year and a half. By this time Díaz had established his own kingdom on the coast of the Mediterranean; he ruled it in the name of Alfonso, but in actual fact he was its independent ruler until his death in 1099. Not long after his death, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar became the subject of an admiring biography, and soon thereafter the hero of the epic poem El cantar de mío Cid. The actual facts of his life and career were quickly obscured amidst his lionization as a national hero. Historians must turn to the few contemporary documents available, including the Arab historian Ibn 'Alqamah's detailed, eyewitness account of the Cid's conquest of Valencia. The reconquest has long figured prominently in stories about Spains modern national identity.  As such, chroniclers have often portrayed it as a heroic Christian crusade to expel the heretical Muslims intruders. But these accounts oversimplify centuries of intermingling between Christians and Muslims. They also exaggerate the coherence of the reconquest. All told, more than 750 years of intermittent fighting and shifting alliances would pass before the reconquest was complete. By the late 9th century Christian rulers had gained control of about one-third of the peninsula. Under the rule of Alfonso III the kingdom of Asturias expanded greatly, reaching across much of the northwest and as far south as the valley of the Douro (or Duero). The territorial gains of Asturias came at the expense of Christian and Muslim rulers alike. Several new Christian kingdoms began to emerge in the northeast, including Navarre in the Pyrenees and, farther to the east, AragСn. Frankish rule also extended into northern Spain and included several counties in Catalonia. With the collapse of the caliphate in CСrdoba and fragmentation of Muslim Spain into small and independent kingdoms, Muslim regions became increasingly vulnerable to Christian expansion. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Christian forces gradually moved south, bringing central Spain under Christian rule.

The northwestern kingdom of Castile and LeСn, which included the former kingdom of Asturias, gained the greatest share of lands reconquered from the Muslims. Castile and LeСn captured the Muslim kingdom of Toledo in 1085, annexed its lands, and pushed the frontier of Christian Spain south beyond the Tagus River. The Muslim lands annexed by Castile and LeСn became known as New Castile. The capture of Toledo≈the ancient capital of Visigothic Spain≈marked the first time a major city in Muslim Spain had fallen to Christian forces, and it served to sharpen the religious aspect of the Christian reconquest. In subsequent centuries this dimension of the conflict would grow stronger. Christian expansion was slowed at first by new Muslim forces entering Spain. In the early 11th century, a large part of northwestern Africa was under the control of the Almoravids, a fundamentalist Muslim movement led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, a Berber chieftain. The fall of Toledo alarmed many Spanish Muslims and prompted several Muslim leaders to invite Yusuf and the Almoravids to Spain. The Almoravids invaded Spain in 1086, conquered numerous Muslim kingdoms, and pushed back the Christians. But the advancing Muslims failed to retain control of the kingdom of Valencia, which was captured by Spanish hero El Cid in 1094. El Cid became legendary as the one Christian leader who defied the Almoravids. After El Cids death in 1099, however, Valencia returned to Muslim control. A second conservative Muslim movement from North Africa, the Almohads, entered Spain and attacked the Almoravids. By the 1140s the Almoravids power had disintegrated. Once again Muslim Spain became a mosaic of small taifas. Over the next half century the Almohads established control in AndalucМa and recaptured much of New Castile. Christian kingdoms, however, gradually learned to collaborate. In 1212 the Almohads suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Christian forces in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, on the plains of Toledo. Muslim power collapsed, opening the heart of AndalucМa to Christian attack. The Christian kingdoms of Castile and AragСn continued to expand into Muslim territories, and by 1230 Christian armies had captured most of AndalucМa. Only the wealthy kingdom of Granada remained Muslim. Muslims maintained control of Granada until 1492, when Castile, with the help of AragСn, conquered the kingdom, ending centuries of Muslim rule in Spain. Catholic Kings In 1469 Isabella of Castile (later Isabella I), heiress to the Castilian throne, married her cousin, Ferdinand of AragСn (later Ferdinand V). Isabella was declared queen of Castile and LeСn in 1474, and by 1476 Isabella had won control of the kingdom amidst a war of succession for the crown. Ferdinand, who ruled Castile alongside Isabella, inherited AragСn in 1479, and the two monarchs became joint rulers of both kingdoms. The partnership between the rulers of the Iberian Peninsulas most powerful monarchies set in motion the developments that made Spain a great power. During their rule, they established the Spanish Inquisition to enforce uniform adherence to the Catholic faith. In 1492 Isabella and Ferdinand conquered Granada, the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, and expelled from Spain Jews who would not convert to Christianity. That same year they sponsored a voyage of Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus, who was seeking a westward route to Asia. Columbuss discoveries preceded a spectacular expansion into the Americas that brought enormous wealth and control of vast new overseas territories to Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella greatly expanded Spains influence on the continent by marrying their children to the heirs of other European rulers. When their grandson, Charles, came to the throne as Charles I of Spain, he inherited a vast amount of territory in Europe. In 1519, as Charles V, he

became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the largest Western empire since the Roman Empire. Subsequent Spanish kings ruled vast European domains and faced many foreign threats. They met these threats using wealth from Spain▓s huge American empire. After their marriage, Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded in combining Castile and AragСn into an effective political unit. But they were less preoccupied with the task of unification than with stabilizing their authority and building reliable political alliances at home. It was a union of crowns, rather than of kingdoms. The two rulers ruled jointly, collaborating on religious and foreign policies but retaining distinct parliamentary and administrative institutions in each kingdom. Castile and AragСn also kept their different outlooks toward the world. Castile was oriented to Africa and the Atlantic Ocean, while AragСn, the smaller and poorer kingdom, looked toward Italy and the western Mediterranean. Above all, Ferdinand and Isabella sought to establish law and order in their realms. For much of the 15th century Castile and AragСn were convulsed by civil war. A unified crown and stronger monarchy could help the rulers defend their lands from enemies, especially from non-Christians. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, royal power emerged as the greatest authority in the land. In Castile they reformed the judicial system and weakened the upper nobility by limiting their access to the royal administration. Both these steps laid the basis for royal absolutism. They also developed an efficient bureaucracy by favoring the selection of university-educated candidates as royal officials. This helped make Castile one of the largest and most modern European states of its time. Royal power was further enhanced with the conquest of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, in 1492. This completed the Christian reconquest of Spain. Spanish Inquisition For the Catholic Monarchs (Reyes CatСlicos)≈a title given to Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI for their religious devotion≈religious observation was central to achieving domestic peace. The Spanish monarchs, like their European counterparts, were believed to rule as trustees of God. This direct link to divine authority is what made rulers legitimate in Europe. It also made non-Christians or heretics dangerous because their rejection of Christianity implied that they did not accept the monarchs right to rule. In 1478 Isabella established the Spanish Inquisition under the leadership of Dominican monk TomАs de Torquemada. The Spanish Inquisition was originally founded to ensure the sincerity of former Jews and Muslims who had recently converted to Christianity, known as conversos and Moriscos respectively. Insincere converts were suspected of disloyalty and punished. As an institution that operated in both Castile and AragСn, the Inquisition was an important source of unity in Spain. It brought both monarchies closer to the Roman Catholic Church and it helped guarantee that Spain would remain a profoundly Catholic country. In its first decades the Inquisition tried and punished thousands of people, including many conversos involved in commerce and trade. People judged to be heretics were executed, often by burning at the stake. In 1492 all unconverted Jews were ordered to leave Spain, and many thousands emigrated to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and other parts of Europe. In the early 17th century the Spanish inquisitors turned their attention to Muslims. Between 1609 and

1614 more than 250,000 Spanish Muslims were driven out of Spain. Later, the Spanish Inquisition sought to discipline persons suspected of practicing Protestantism. At the time, many Spaniards considered the Inquisition a triumph for Roman Catholicism. However, the costs of the Inquisition were high. Spain expelled many of its most economically important citizens, depriving the crown of a source of much-needed tax revenue. The church, with royal cooperation, also censored books, and students were prohibited from studying abroad to prevent the importation of Protestant ideas into Spain. These practices eventually cut Spain off from intellectual developments in Europe and turned Spanish universities into academic backwaters. This isolation made it more difficult for Spain to modernize in later centuries. In addition, the urge to protect royal legitimacy, power, and prestige led Spain to fight wars it could not win, at great cost to Spains society and economy. Spanish Empire Spain rose from a partnership between two Iberian kingdoms to the status of world power in a short time. The new strength of Castile soon became evident to the world. The consolidation of a strong government at home allowed Castilian monarchs to focus the crowns resources on overseas expansion. At the same time, a series of strategic alliances and military initiatives permitted Spain to achieve dominance in Europe. Over the course of the next century generations of adventurers and explorers, known as the conquistadors, traveled to the Americas on behalf of the Spanish crown. HernАn CortИs destroyed the Aztec Empire in Mexico, and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. Explorers such as Vasco Nunjez de Balboa, Ferdinand Magellan, and Hernando De Soto were chartered by Spain. Spain eventually laid claim to all of Latin America, except for Brazil, and also claimed the southern part of the United States from Florida to California, as well as Jamaica and the Philippine Islands. At first the conquerors sent home gold and silver accumulated by the Aztec and Inca empires. These riches were soon exhausted, and little moveable wealth remained in the Americas that could bear the costs of shipment to Europe and still be sold for a profit. The conquerors then turned to the land and the labor of indigenous peoples to create wealth in ways that were familiar in Spain. They imported Spanish crops and livestock and attempted to build productive, largely self-contained, colonies. Spains empire in the Americas entered a new phase in the mid-16th century when extensive silver deposits were discovered, first in Mexico and then in Bolivia. By 1560 large amounts of American silver were flowing into the Spanish treasury annually. At the same time, European diseases had decimated native peoples in the Americas. To keep the silver flowing, Spanish colonizers forcibly moved shrinking numbers of indigenous peoples to new towns where they could be put to work in the mines. As native peoples died, Spain imported African slaves to work in its colonies. Spain also organized a system of seaports and regular transatlantic fleets with naval protection to control trade between Europe and the Americas. By the late 16th century American silver accounted for one-fifth of Spains total budget. This silver allowed Spain to build a huge structure of credit and to fight many wars. When Spains monopoly on American silver broke down after 1630, Spanish power quickly collapsed.