SPAIN 



601 



retained the Straits of Gibraltar and a few towns 

 in southern Portugal ; and some native tribes in the 

 Orospeda Mountains preserved their independence. 

 The abjuration of Arianism by the sons of Leovigild 

 strengthened the church at the expense of the 

 monarchy. The bishops were supreme in the 

 councils of Toledo, which were also the chief 

 councils of the state. The Jews, unmolested by 

 the Arians, were now persecuted and rendered 

 hostile. They intrigued with the Mohammedan 

 Arabs, who had conquered North Africa and 

 crushed out Christianity. Their assistance and 

 that of the count of the Roman possessions in the 

 straits enabled Tarik to land at Tarifa; and the 

 Gothic monarchy was destroyed at the battle of 

 the Guadelete (/ll), where fell also Roderic, last 

 of the Gothic kings. The chief mark left by the 

 Goths in Spain was in legislation ; first in the Lex 

 Romano, Vi&igothorum, then in the Fuero Juzgo or 

 Forum Judicum. The tradition of a conquering 

 caste and the events of the reconquest made the 

 Spanish aristocracy look on the Visigoths as the 

 English gentry do on the Normans ; otherwise 

 their influence has been exaggerated. The few 

 remains of art are copies of Byzantine models. Of 

 literature not a trace remains. 



The Moors in Spain. Seldom has there been so 

 rapid a conquest as that of Spain by the Arabs and 

 Moors. In 714 they had gaineu the whole of 

 Spain except the north and north-west. In 719 

 they had added the Narbonnaise to their domin- 

 ions ; in 732 they reached their extreme northern 

 limit when defeated by Charles Martel at the 

 battle of Tours. The Arabs and Moors were 

 divided by racial, tribal, sectarian, and dynastic 

 differences. The old quarrels which had existed 

 in Arabia before the time of Mohammed broke 

 out again in Spain as soon as the first enthusiasm 

 of conquest had subsided. Arabs and Berbers of 

 North Africa were ever at strife; the feuds 

 between the sects of Islam raged bitterly in Spain, 

 and the claims of rival dynasties e.g. the Abbas- 

 ides and Ommiades weakened the common cause. 

 Whenever the Moors were united the progress of 

 the reconquest was checked ; the Christians gained 

 ground when division and disunion spread among 

 the invaders. The final expulsion was delayed for 

 centuries through the civil strife of the Christian 

 kingdoms. The rule of the early emirs was by no 

 means harsh ; a Gothic chief Theodoric preserved 

 an independent Christian kingdom, Todmir, in 

 Valencia and the neighbouring provinces. _ The 

 Jews were treated almost as equals, the Christian 

 religion was tolerated to the Mozarabes (see MORIS- 

 COS). There were differences in the several pro- 

 vinces, but at Cordova only, which became the 

 capital of the western califate (see CALIF, MOORS), 

 was any persistent persecution carried on. Under 

 Abderrahman I., the heir of the Ommiades, and 

 his successors the Arab rule in Spain attained its 

 highest glories. He (756) and his son Hakam I. 

 (796) made Cordova the finest city in the west ; 

 its mosque (786-796) is still one of the grandest 

 remains of Arabic architecture. No Christian 

 people in the west was then capable of such work. 

 The greatest chief of this period was Almansor, 

 who forced back the tide of Christian conquest and 

 penetrated to Compostella in Galicia (997) ; but all 

 his conquests were lost at Catalanazor (1002). 

 Many Moorish names survive in Spanish topography 

 (gee NAMES). The origin of the various Spanish 

 kingdoms of the reconquest is obscure. Pelayo, said 

 to be of Gothic or mixed Roman blood, began the 

 reconqnest at Covadpnga in 718. A little later a 

 distinct organised resistance commenced in Navarre 

 and in Aragon. The counts of Barcelona estab- 

 lished themselves in the Spanish March which dated 

 from Charlemagne (q.v.) and Louis. The most 



important of these kingdoms was that of Asturias, 

 Galicia on the west was soon annexed to it, then 

 Leon to the south. Alfonso I. 739-756) had 

 already overrun the country as far as the Mondego 

 and the Sierra de Guadarrama. Alfonso II. (791- 

 842), the ally of Charlemagne, pushed his raids as 

 far as Lisbon, and founded in the north the cities 

 of Compostella and Oviedo. Alfonso III. (866-909) 

 removed the capital to Leon, and reached in one ex- 

 pedition the Sierra Morena. The unwise division of 

 his dominions among his sons retarded the advance 

 for a time. After the battle of Catalanazor the 

 Christian frontier stretched from the Tagus to 

 Tudela on the Ebro; and Castile (the land of 

 frontier castles), which had been governed from 

 932 by semi-independent counts, rose into a new 

 kingdom. From this period date the constitutional 

 liberties of Spain. The councils summoned by the 

 king continued those of Toledo, and were as much 

 political as ecclesiastical : assemblies of the nobles 

 and magnates to settle the succession or election 

 of kings were held in 931 and 933 ; but the first 

 more general Cortes was that of Leon, 1020. In it 

 was established the right of behetria i. e. of chang- 

 ing lords, which in Spain prevented many of the 

 worst feudal abuses, but encouraged civil, war. 

 Many of the fueros were now granted in order 

 to attract defenders to towns reconquered and 

 denuded of inhabitants (see FUERO). 



After the death of Bermudo III. (1037) the 

 crowns of Leon and Castile were united under 

 Ferdinand the Great ; his son, Alfonso VI. , by his 

 capture of Toledo (1085) made the Christian power 

 predominate. In spite of a defeat at Zalacca 

 (1086) and at Ucles (1108), Toledo was never 

 reconquered by the infidels, and the Guadiana 

 instead of the Tagns was now the Christian 

 boundary. To the reign of Alfonso VI. belongs the 

 story of the Cid (q.v.), of his strange career as ally 

 alternately of Moor and Christian, of his occupa- 

 tion of Valencia from 1096 to 1102. Henry of 

 Burgundy founded the country or kingdom of 

 Portugal in 1095 (see PORTUGAL). Alfonso VII. 

 lost the battle of Alarcos (1194), but the great 

 victory of Navas de Tolosa (1212), under the allied 

 kings of Castile, Navarre, and Aragon, broke 

 entirely the power of the Almohades, and made 

 New Castile secure. The separation of Leon from 

 Castile (1157-1230) weakened for a time the 

 Christian forces. Under St Ferdinand, the grand- 

 son of Alfonso IX. , the crowns of Leon and Castile 

 were finally united. He wrested Cordova from 

 the Moors (1236), Jaen (1246), Seville (1247), 

 Jerez and Cadiz (1250), Granada became a tribu- 

 tary kingdom, and the line of the Guadalquivir 

 was held by the military orders of Calatrava, 

 Santiago, and Alcantara. Ferdinand died in 1252. 

 Navarre (q.v.) by the succession of the line of 

 Champagne had become almost a French kingdom. 

 To the east Saragossa had been taken in 1118. 

 Valencia had been lost for a time, but first 

 Majorca and the Balearic Isles (1228), then 

 Valencia (1237) fell before the arms of Jaime I. 

 of Aragon, and Murcia was won for Castile (1244). 



In constitutional progress Navarre and Aragon 

 kept pace with Castile. Each had its separate 

 Cortes, with three estates in Navarre and four in 

 Aragon, and its own code of laws. Castile used 

 the Fuero Juzgo and the Fuero Heal, limited by 

 local fueros ; in Navarre and Aragon the fuero was 

 supreme. Catalonia had her vmtges. The Siete 

 Partidas of Alfonso X. did not become law till 

 1384. In ecclesiastical matters Spain had become 

 more closely papal ; the Roman rite had superseded 

 the Isidorian or Mozarabic after the taking of 

 Toledo; the finest of the cathedrals of Spain- 

 Leon, Burgos, Toledo, &c. date from this period. 

 Christian Spain had increased immensely in wealth, 



