The Reconquest of Spain
D. W. Lomax
Longman, first published 1978
It is surprising to read (p. 179), “There seems to be no serious book in any language devoted to the history of the whole Reconquest,” (at least when the book was published in 1978) despite the fact that it would seem to be the underlying theme of the history of the Middle Ages in the Peninsula, with the nice firm dates of 711-1492. The author commends O’Callaghan’s A History of Medieval Spain.
Like everywhere else, from Persia to the Atlantic, Islam rolled unstoppably over the whole of Spain, except its tiny northern edge, probably leaving that out in favour of richer pickings in southern France. Even here, in Asturias, only active resistance to the Arabs ensured the survival of the tiny state and an early civil war amongst the Moslems led to the withdrawal of disaffected Berbers from northern territory which was then occupied by Christians.
The author claims, with some evidence, that quite early the ideal of Reconquest was the ambition of the Christian kings and people. However, the initial Ummayad emirate, subsequently caliphate, flourished until the end of, and particularly during, the tenth century, though the last caliphs were puppets. It is probably this period of the Muslim occupation that has been idealised as a time of toleration by Muslims of Christians and Jews, though these were definitely second-class citizens and persecution of them not unknown.
The break-up of the caliphate enabled the Christians to advance again, with some assistance from France; also the crusading ideal, though mainly focussed on Jerusalem, was some help, sometimes by crusaders en passant. The capitulation of Toledo, even though it remained something of an outpost, signalled this. However, about 1085, some of the Muslims, in desperation invited in from North Africa the Almoravids, a puritanical sect (often hated by the more liberal decadent Spanish Muslims) who, in the great battle of Sagrajas (1086) halted the reconquest. The Cid (1043-99) is of this period. Much of the time he as often served Muslim kings as Christian, but after capturing Valencia, “was the only Christian leader to defeat the Almoravids in battle in the eleventh century”. (p. 74)
By this time the Christian states were Portugal, Leon-Castille (gradually united), Aragon and Navarre, sometimes allied, but more often not and generally with no scruples about fighting each other with Muslim allies. However, Aragon was pushing down the Ebro valley, taking Saragossa in 1118, though the Almoravids fought back successfully to prevent it reaching Valencia, which had been evacuated after the death of the Cid.
Like the Caliphate before them, the Almoravids disintegrated and were largely replaced, from 1157, by another sect from Africa, the Almohads, who soundly defeated the Castilians at Alarcos in 1195. This defeat seems to have first cowed then roused the Christians (particularly the Pope); finally Christians from all the Spanish kingdoms, and some from France, united in a campaign which won the decisive victory of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). In the forty years after the battle the Almohad empire broke into pieces which were annexed by” Castile and Aragon. Vital cities – such as Cordova (1236) and Seville (1248) – passed permanently into Christian hands so that “by 1252 the whole of the Peninsula was nominally under Christian suzerainty” (p. 129), though this, of course, did not mean the end of Muslim kingdoms.
The pace of reconquest slowed down, initially as a result of another transfusion from Africa, the Marinids, who, however, could only defend the Muslim rump. In 1340, at Tarifa, their sultan was decisively defeated and no successor state in Africa invaded Spain again. Muslim Spain survived as Granada for another 150 years, the Christians occupying much of the time fighting and rebelling against each other. One is forced to add: when they should have been completing the Conquest. The process, when it happened, certainly united Spain. In the end, “Fernando and Isabel could cure one crisis in 1481 simply by setting the war-machine to work once more to conquer Granada.” (p. 178)
The author, at his Conclusion makes the persuasive claim that “Only Spain [and also, I suppose to a lesser extent Portugal, which he does not mention] was able to conquer, administer, Christianize and europeanize the populous areas of the New World precisely because during the previous seven centuries her society had been constructed for the purpose of conquering, administering, Christianizing and europeanizing the inhabitants of al-Andalus.” (p. 178) As so often in books published from the 1970s on, the maps leave much to be desired; certainly places are mentioned in the text which are not to be found on them.
Two days after I had finished this book I listened to a discussion on “Cordovan Spain” under Melvyn Bragg’s chairmanship on Radio 4. The three other participants were Tim Winter, a Muslim convert, of the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University, Mary Nickman, a Jewess (carefully correcting herself from AD to Common Era) and an executive director of the Maimonides Foundation, and Martin Palmer, whose voice was not to me sufficiently distinguishable from the first, an Anglican lay preacher and theologian, and author of A Sacred History of Britain. Although the consensus was largely positive about the Ummayad regime, and their tone “multicultural” in the modern sense, the first two did seem to agree that the three religions, while coexisting, did not indulge in dialogue, let alone interpenetrate. This confirms an episode mentioned in the book, that even when promised immunity in a bilateral debate, a Christian was executed “when he expressed his real opinion of Mohammed”. (p. 23) Nor was the Koran translated into Latin “until the twelfth or thirteenth century”, someone said in the discussion. Needless to say, the rosy view of Muslim Spain did not take into account that the Muslim conquest fatally disrupted Mediterranean civilization, the burden of Pirenne’s Mohammed and Charlemagne. To pick up the shards and pass a few of them on does not strike me as a very large recompense.
“Needless to say, the rosy view of Muslim Spain did not take into account that the Muslim conquest
fatally disrupted Mediterranean civilization…”
Actually, the Muslim conquest helped rejuvenate the European civilization. The Umayyad was exporting tech (at some point, importing the tech after they were overthrown in Damascus by the Abbasid) to Andalusia.
And at that time, Europe was still in the Dark Ages.
“Mary Nickman, a Jewess “? I’m not sure that I have read the term “Jewess” in any recent publication, and pretty sure that I have never heard it used in speech. I believe it is currently considered offensive.
Does anyone know for sure? It would be a shame to unwittingly use an offensive term.
It’s an archaic term that went out of style after “Ivanhoe” was published.
Well, the Muslim conquest of the Southern Med fatally disrupted the Byzantine reconquest there, in any case… We’re not talking about the destruction of Classical civilization, which Christians and barbarians, and Christian barbarians had already managed.
Just because the Islamic world is nasty nowadays doesn’t mean it was always a bad thing relatively speaking. Given the choice between living in 10th century Cordoba and 10th century Aragon, the former looks pretty attaractive.
“Just because the Islamic world is nasty nowadays doesn’t mean it was always a bad thing relatively speaking.“, writes Guy Herbert.
This statement is typical of the Islamophobia of our time … a polite nod to the Middle Ages and a kick in the groin when it comes to the present. I know. I’m a convert to Islam and I work at the European Commission. Naturally, I have a few wives, because I earn a good salary and can look after them all.
Yet every time my wives and I want to go to a Commission restaurant together or they come to meet me in my office, they have to sign in and I have to collect them from the reception desk, check out who is under which burqa, match their eartags with the brandmarks on their lower arms, double-count them to ensure that none are missing, etc, and then traipse along with them in crocodile file to our destination.
Sometimes I feel quite embarassed, I can tell you, especially since some of the secretaries in our unit have taken to ridiculing me by dressing up in makeshift outfits made of bedsheets and ostentatiously kow-towing to me on the corridor in a concerted campaign to mock my deeply held convictions and traditional, time-hallowed way of life, asking me whether my flying carpet arrived on time and so forth … in other words, I am at the receiving end of buckets of Islamophobic bias! Sadly, to some people, nothing is sacred.
Fortunately, islamophobia will soon be declared illegal pursuant to a European Directive. That will put an end to the kind of insulting, racist remarks made by Guy Herbert and his ilk…
Congratulations, Findlay — your contribution is one of the best I’ve read on Samizdata.
You mention, as regards the Radio 4 discussion, that two of the discussants claimed that “the three religions [Judaism, Islam, Christianity], while coexisting, did not indulge in dialogue, let alone interpenetrate.”
I don’t know much about Jewish participation in what are known as ‘interfaith’ movements, but there is one thing that is certain about the involvement of most of the Christian churches (Catholicism, Anglicanism, etc.):
Christians grovel to the Muslims. They cringe, they kow-tow, they bow and scrape. They avoid any kind of islamically incorrect behaviour. As French philosopher Alain Besancon put it in his essay “La confusion des langues”, Christians engage in a langue de bois and refuse to recognise the possibility that there might be such a thing as an enemy — an enemy intent on destroying one’s faith and one’s culture. They bend over forward to bend over backward and allow themselves to be royally shafted. And they bullshit about the ‘religion of peace’ while the Islamists whet their knives.
Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad.
The book to read is is Robert Spencer’s “Islam Unveiled” (reviewed here).
Islamophobia? So people are not allowed to express their discontent and aversion with Islam? Speaking against Islam is not racist – all moslems who speak against and curse Christianity are just as much racist by that definition. Racism is discrimination or prejudice based on race, not based on religion.
Johan: I believe chuck was only joking. Also, i’m Portuguese and i think the author is correct when only mentioning Spain when it comes ti conquering and christianizing large swats of land. Portugal was never really into that. We just started colonizing Brazil in mass in the 17th century for example.
madne0: I hope Chuck was only joking.
Sweet suffering Jesus! Johan, if you would believe I wasn’t joking you would believe anything.
Allah be praised!
Chuck the Obscure
You guys got me confused…
As it happens I’m averse to all the bullying desert monotheisms–and please count in Mormonism too, while we’re at it–but those who are inclined to Chuck the Obscure’s devil’s advocacy–or is that grey/black propaganda, Charles?–should note I wrote “the Islamic world”. The temporal and spiritual order do not always coincide.
BTW, I’ve no objection to people ordering their lives according to rules provided centuries ago by retired camel merchants and carpenters, priesthoods and tribal kings. What I object to is their trying to order my life that way.
Thanks to Chuckles for the informative link. If history repeats itself then Moorish Spain speaks to us today, if we care to listen. Reminded me of the esteemed Razib’s very plain-spoken Next Christianity post from October 25th, 2002 over at Gene Expression(www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001148.html).
This is just about the only blogging site I rate over Samiz but it is quite a distance over, and proof that the scientific mind is the communicatory equal of any journo or politician.