Announcement

**Fiera** · October 6, 2001, 12:06

Hi, Bernd! Glad to know Sevilla will make it into C&C!

You're asking for somewhat difficult things to find here, since most of the websites about the Reconquista are in Spanish, and they aren't even that informative for what I've seen. But Waku will surely be able to show you some good links as he's a master in Internet Search.

Also, if you want, you may directly told us what are you looking for, so that we can look up in our written references.

Anyway, here's a timeline for the Reconquista, regretably in Spanish.

LA RECONQUISTA

http://www.sispain.org/spanish/history/reconque.html

Maybe the Altavista translator can be of some help here, since the texts are not complex, but if you still need help, let me know and I will translate it for you.

**BeBMan** · October 6, 2001, 12:11

Thanks so far, will check it tomorrow - now it´s time to visit a party...

However, some links in English would be fine too...

**Fiera** · October 6, 2001, 12:12

Just found this, taken from the Catholic Encyclopaedia ( www.newadvent.org ).

Maybe not that interesting since it seems to be an ecclesiastical history of the Reconquista, but anyway, it may be helpful for yo as a general introduction to it:

(2) The Reconquest

All the elements of the Spanish People already existed in the Kingdom of the Catholic Goths; the Latinized Celtibarian race, or Hispano-Romans, the Gothic element, and the Catholic faith. These elements, however, were as yet uncombined, and still lacked that thorough fusion which was to make one people out of them, with a character and historical destiny of its own. The agency employed by Divine Providence to effect this fusion was the terrible force of the Mussulman invasion. Under its immense pressure the Goths and Hispano-Romans, in the mountains of the North, became one people with one religion and one national aspiration, to reconquer their Spanish fatherland and make the Cross triumph over the Crescent. Though already morally a unit, the Spanish people were still eight centuries away from political unity, and the Reconquest was begun from four distinct centres. Chief among these four centres was Asturias. The fugitive Goths found a retreat in those mountains where the Romans had never been able to effectively establish their authority; only a few years after the rout of Guadalete, they gained a victory over Alkama, the lieutenant of El Horr, in the portentour battle of Covadonga, where popular faith saw Divine aid fighting for the Christians. Here was erected a sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin which afterwards became a collegiate church and still exists. Don Pelayo, or Pelagius, the Gothic chieftain who was victor at Covadonga, was acclaimed king, and took up his residence at Cangas. His son Favila was killed while hunting, torn to pieces by a bear, and was succeeded by Alfonso I, son-in-law of Don Pelayo, who set about pushing the Reconquest as far as Galicia and Tierra de Campos (the "Gothic Fields" or Campos Góticos). Fruela I (727-728) founded Oviedo. He was assassinated, and was succeeded by several insignificant kings (Aurelio, Silio, Mauregato, and Bermudo I, the Deacon) and at last Alonso I, the Chaste, who set up his Court at Oviedo, recommenced the great expeditions against the Arabs, and seems to have invited Chrlemagne to come to Asturias, thus occasioning the Frankish monarch's expedition which ended in the disaster of Roncesvalles.

In this region occurred the discovery of the body of St. James (Santiago) at Compostela. Ramiro I repelled the Northmen who tried to effect a landing in Asturias. To him legend attributes the victory of Clavijo. According to this legend Mauregato had promised the Moors a tribute of one hundred maidens which Ramiro refused to pay. In the battle that ensued, the Apostle St. James, Patron of the Spaniards, was seen fighting, mounted on a white charger- "Es visus in Praelio, equoque et ense acerrimus, mauros furentes sternere" as the Spanish Breviary has it. This king is said to have made the "Vow of Santiago", by which he bound himself to pay a certain tribute to the Church of Compostela. Modern critics pronounce the document apocryphal, but the national tradition loses none of its force thereby. Ordono I emulated the exploits of Ramiro, driving back the Northmen and defeating the Moors at Albelda; he also rebuilt León, Tuy, Astorga, and other cities. Alfonso III, the Great, continued the forays as far as the Sierra Morena, and founded Burgos, the future capital of Castile. His sons rebelled against him, and he abdicated the crown, dividing his dominions among them. With him ended the Kingdom of Asturias, the territory of which soon became subject to León.

Another rallying-point of the Reconquest was Aragón; the other two, Navarre and Catalonia, were placed by the circumstances of their origin in peculiar relations with France. The Basques on either side of the Western Pyrenees dissatisfied with Frankish rule, rebelled on several occasions. At Roncesvalles they annihilated the forces of Charlemagne, and in 824 another victory secured the independence of the Basques of Pamplona. The names and dates of their kings, or chieftains, are very uncertain until we come to Sancho II, Abarca. He abdicated in favour of his son, García III, the Trembler, in whose time the Leónese and Navarrese together were routed at Valdejunquera. Sancho III, the Great, was one of the monarchs who most influenced Spanish history; he was eventually King of Navarre, Castile, Aragón, and Sobrarbe. At his death (1035) he divided his kingdoms, giving Navarre to his eldest son García, Castile, with the title of King, to Fernando, Aragón to Ramiro, and Sobrarbe to Gonzálo. This fashion of regarding the various states as patrimonial possessions — an idea borrowed from French feudalism, and previously unknown in the Spanish kingdoms — was introduced at this time; it resulted in the numerous divisions which led to so many wars and which long formed an obstacle to the unity of the Reconquest in the West. (On the origin of the Countship of Barcelona, the fourth century of the Reconquest, see CATALONIA).

As the Reconquest advanced, the churches destroyed by the Mohammedan invasion were restored. The Reconquest went forward in the name of the Holy Faith. Alfonso I of Asturias, surnamed the Catholic, restored a great many churches; Alfonso II, the Chaste, founded the Diocese of Oviedo and built its first cathedral and the royal burial-place. The Dioceses of Pamplona and Sasave corresponded to the nascent Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragón, while in Catalonia the Diocese of Urgel seems never to have ceased to exist, and that of Gerona was soon restored. Unhappily distinguished among the bishops of Urgel is Félix, who, with Elipando of Toledo, embraced the Adoptionist heresy, asserting that Christ is the adoptive son of God. This heresy was combated by Theodulus, Bishop of Seville, by Etherius of Osma, and by St. Beatus of Liebana, and was condemned by the Council of Ratisbon. In the same period lived el Pacense, Isidore, Bishop of Beja, whose Chronicle, a continuation of St. Isidore's, begins at the year 610 and ends with 754.

As the year 1000 approached, it seemed that the Kingdom of Christ in Spain was about to be annihilated by the terrible and victorious expeditions of Almanzor. A second restoration began gloriously with Ferdinand (Fernando) I, who assembled the Council of Coyanza (Valencia de Don Juan), obtained from the King of Seville the relics of St. Isidore, which were translated to León, and fostered the Churches of Coimbra, León, Santiago, and Oviedo, and the monasteries of Oña, Arlanza and Sahagún. Fernando González, Count of Castile, restored the monastery of Silos, which has now been reoccupied by French Benedictines. Sancho the Elder restored and reformed many monasteries, and brought the Cluniac monks into Spain. Alfonso VI transferred to Burgos the ancient See of Valpuesta. During the same period the Dioceses of Osma, Sigüenza (1102), Segovia (1120), Salamanca, and Zamora were restored. Ferdinand II of León erected the Diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo, restoring the old Diocese of Caliabria (1171), Alfonso VII re-established that of Coria, and Alfonso VIII of Castile founded that of Plasencia. St. Olegario prepared the way for the restoration of the metropolitan See of Tarragona, which had his successor, Gregorio, for its first archbishop (1137). But eminent above all the other churches of Spain was that of Santiago de Compostela, to which was united the ancient Bishopric of Iria. The famous Don Diego Gelmirez, having been elected bishop (1100), raised the number of canons, and at last made Compostela the archiepiscopal see of the Province of Mérida, or Emérita.

As early as the eighth century there existed the monasteries of San Millán (or S. Emiliano), Sahagún (S. Facundo), S. Vicente de Oviedo, and Sta. María de Obona, and in Catalonia that of Sta. María de Lavax. In the ninth century two hundred monks of the Monastery of Cardeña, near Burgos, suffered martyrdom. From the monastery of Moreruela, on the banks of the River Esla, its two founders, St. Froilan and St. Atilanus, went to occupy the Sees of León and Zamora. St. Eulogius has left us an account of the monasteries which he visited in the ninth century — S. Salvador of Leire, S. Zacarías, Urdax, S. Martín de Cillas, and S. Vicente de Igal. That of S. Cugat, in Catalonia, seems to date from Gothic times, while the first ibndependent count founded those of Ripoll and Montserrat. In the eleventh century the Cluniac Reform was introduced into Spain. Bernard, formerly a monk of Saint-Orence at Aux, planted it at Sahagún, making the monastery there the mother-house of the reformed branch in Spain, as Cluny was in France. The migration of French monks into Spain made its influence felt in the famous reform of the Mozarabic Rite, for which the Roman was substituted. Known also as the Isidorean, or Spanish, Rite, the former was abolished in Aragón in 1071, through the exertions of the Cluniacs and the queen, who was a Frenchwoman, and the Roman Rite was first introduced in the Cluniac monastery of S. Juan de la Peña. The same innovation was made a little later in Catalonia, and in 1076 in Navarre. The Castilians offered a strong resistance to the supplanting of their ancient rite, and Pope John X, having sent the Legate Zanelo to examine and report on it, approved it. Fifty years later, Alexander II sent Cardinal Hugo Cándido, but neither would he undertake to make any change. Gregory VII sent Cardinal Ricardo, who, together with Alfonso VI, the conqueror of Toledo, decreed the abolition of the ancient rite, although, according to the chronicle, appeal was made to the trial by combat, and Don Juan Ruiz, the champion of the Mozarabic Rite, was victorious. It was, nevertheless, permitted in certain chruches, and is even yet preserved at Toledo as an historical monument of the ancient Spanish Church.

The Cistercian Reform, too, was introduced into Spain, during the lifetime of St. Bernard, and the cathedral chapters lived by the Rule of St. Augustine. The most characteristic development of this period, however, was that of the military orders. The oldest of them seems to have been that of the Knights of La Terraza, founded by Don García de Najera, in the eleventh century; but this order, as well as those of the Palms, of the Redeemer, and of the Crusaders, established by Alfonso I of Aragón in the twelfth century, disappeared, becoming merged with the orders which came from Palestine. The Order of Calatrava was founded by St. Raymond, Abbot of Fitero, in La Rioja, who, in 1158, undertook to defend the stronghold of Calatrava, abandoned by the Templars. Its havit is white with a red cross. The Order of Alcántara was at first known as that of St. Julian of the Peartree (del Pereiro), but it soon took the name of the town of Alcántara, which was ceded to it by the Knights of Calatrava. Its habit is white with a green cross. The order of Santiago was founded to protect pilgrims to Compostela, to which service thirteen knights vowed themselves. With these knights the Augustinian Canons of S. Eloy of León joined to form the famous order whose badge is an elongated red cross (1170). These three orders were all approved by Alexander III. The importance to which the Spanish military orders attained may be gathered from the fact that King Alfonso the Fighter (El Batallador) wished to hand over the Kingdom of Aragón to them, believing that there was no better way of securing the speedy completion of the Reconquest. The Aragónese, however, would not consent to their king's testamentary disposition of them, and had recourse to Ramiro, a monk of S. Ponce de Tomeras, who wore the crown until a successor was forthcoming.