Reconquista

Beginning in the late eighth century and ending in 1492, the Reconquista, or reconquest, was a campaign aimed at reclaiming the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims, who had invaded in 711.

The Reconquista began almost immediately after the Muslims had solidified their hold on the Iberian Peninsula, or modern-day Spain and Portugal. Muslim forces had crossed into Spain from present-day Morocco in 711 as a part of the dramatic expansion of Islam during the first 100 years after the prophet Muhammad’s death in 632. Under the command of the general al-Tariq (after whom the Strait of Gibraltar would later be named in honor of his crossing) and his successors, a combined Arab-Berber army pressed northward, to be stopped only between Tours and Poitiers in 732 in a confrontation with Frankish forces under the command of Charles Martel.

The first phase of the Reconquista took place under the leadership of the grandson of Charles Martel. Charlemagne, or Charles I, dispatched a force southward from France across the Pyrenees to create a “Spanish march,” or frontier in northeastern Spain. The progress of the Reconquista for the next several centuries was slow. The turning point came between 1010 and 1031, beginning with the Christian victory over and sack of the Muslim capital of Cordoba and ending with the collapse of the entire caliphate into fragmented taifa kingdoms. Many of these entities became tributary states to the Christian kingdoms, making regular payments, known as parias, in exchange for protection from both Christian and Muslim foes.

The relationship between Christian and Muslim states in the Iberian Peninsula during the 10th through the 15th century defies simple characterization. Despite gradual Christian advances and occasional important victories, an eventual Christian victory was never assured. Christian advances were often the impetus for Muslim religious and political revivals that shifted the balance of power for a time. On the other hand, relations were never exclusively inimical; both Christian and Muslim states were home to members of the other religion, as well as large Jewish communities. Both Muslim and Christian governments tried to limit interaction between the religious factions, but with little success. Normal political activity was also part of the relations between the two sides in the Reconquista. For example, there were Catalan ambassadors at the court of the caliph of Cordoba as early as the mid-10th century.

The Reconquista stalled temporarily during the political troubles endemic to the Christian kingdoms during the first half of the 15th century but received a boost when the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 revived the moribund crusading ideal—the idea of papally sanctioned holy war against enemies of the faith. The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1479 helped to create the political stability necessary for a successful Christian effort, and the combined kingdoms of Aragon and Castile were now able to lay aside their centuries’-old differences and unite their armies in the common cause of conquering the kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim-ruled political entity in the peninsula.

The final phase of the Reconquista began with the Christian conquest of Alhama in 1482 and continued over the next 10 years, detaching one region after another from the kingdom of Granada until only the capital city remained. The success of the Christian advance was in part due to the internal political struggles of the Muslim kingdom, dissension that the Catholic monarchs skillfully manipulated to their advantage.

The capture of the city of Granada in January of 1492 ended the reconquest on Spanish soil, but it gave birth to a new phase of fighting to vanquish or convert enemies of the faith beyond the water’s edge. Spanish forces attempted— and largely failed—to establish a Christian foothold across the Strait of Gibraltar. Although these efforts were largely unsuccessful, it is worth noting that it was only three months after the Christian entry into Granada and only six miles away, in the town of Santa Fe, that an agreement was reached on the terms for the voyage of the Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus. The establishment of New Spain and the activities of both conquisTADORes and Christian missionaries would carry the ideal of the Reconquista into the early modern period.

Further reading: L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250-1500 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Derek W. Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (London: Longman, 1978); Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975); Bernard Reilly, The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain: 10311157 (Oxford, U. K.: Blackwell, 1992).

—Marie A. Kelleher