Reconquista - The Full History

[Music] [Music] when the great Empire the Romans fell in the West it was the Visigoths who settled in Spain and established a kingdom they were a race that had been nearly enslaved by the Romans but they had risen up grown in power and rebelled along the way to their rise in power they destroyed Roman armies killed a Roman Emperor and in the year 410 they sacked Rome something that hadn't been done mind you in 800 years now unlike their predecessors and quite apart from what later chroniclers would say Visigoths Spain was not a beacon of sophistication under the Romans the land was watered with aqueducts crossed with roads had cosmopolitan cities and was the birthplace of impressive emperors but with the coming of the quote Dark Ages the economy languished into subsistence and barter infrastructure sad neglected and the population plummeted the Visigoths would eventually convert to Christianity and would persecute those not of their faith but as far as power structure was concerned they were the only game in town yet even this sense of power was deceiving by the early 8th century as the Islamic conquest had come to the neighboring shores of North Africa the Visigoths were in a dynastic struggle and were essentially emerging from a civil war it was then that a king Roderick managed to claw his way to the top of the heap but he wasn't destined to stay at the top for very long in April of the year 711 a Berber commander named Tariq Evan Zion led a force of perhaps three or four thousand men into southern Spain King Roderick who was busy putting down a rebellion in the north rushed down to engage him the King stopped along the way to pick up some reinforcements from his countrymen and the two armies met at the Battle of Guadalupe now on one side of the field tonics men were disciplined and ready for a fight and on the other side Roderick's men were disloyal and rebellious and when the king of the Visigoths rode into that battle he was betrayed by his own vassals when the dust settled from the Battle of Guadalupe the last king of the Visigoths was dead in his army was destroyed and with that Visigoths Spain collapsed tada given Zayed and his Muslim army was soon to be heavily reinforced by his superior the governor of Africa a man named Musa had been Lucien who basically didn't want to be left out on the spoils and said the two men joined their forces and then led a rapid campaign a conquest they quickly moved in and took the populated Valley the beta's River which they would call an Arabic on Wadi el kebir which meant the great river awadhi al Kabeer is where the river would later get its Spanish name the Guadalquivir and it was along her banks that the cities of Cordoba and Seville were located which in time these two cities would become the illustrious capitals the Arabs would call their new province all on the loose professor catless eloquently describes what the new conquerors thought of this land quote aside from the rainy mountainous fringe along the northern Atlantic coast its geography bore a strong resemblance to the Maghreb Africa Egypt and Syria a succession of arid Plains punctuated by scrubby mountains and frost by rivers whose waters if harnessed could awaken the sun-baked but fertile soil into shimmering abundant green thus the many newcomers it would have seemed not only familiar but ideal ik a paradise all Andaluz was the furthest point west that the muslim horses have reached in the arab imagination it was a distant and exotic land thermal and overflowing with wealth end quote by the year 720 nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was under the control of the Caliphate in fact in the eternal quest for more money the Muslim armies would even go off into France to raid for more plunder and it was here that they were eventually defeated at the Battle of poitiers or tours and 732 by Charles Martel the grandfather of Charlemagne though in my personal humble opinion the significance of this battle is just a little overhyped but back in Hispania the muslims reigned supreme that is all except for a small sliver of land in the extreme north which was protected by the contagion mountain range this last bastion where the christians were holding on by their fingernails would eventually be known as the kingdom of Asturias the kingdom of Asturias takes on an almost mythological presence at least in the minds of the later Christian chroniclers to them she was the heir to the vaunted Visigoths and it was here where the birth of the Iraq hongki's that was to begin but it needs to be said that at this point in history that at conquista was very little to do with actual conquest and retaking of Muslim land and much more to do with simply surviving and this would be essentially its major goal for the next 300 years O'Callahan summarizes this really well quote indeed for most of the 9th 10th and 11th centuries that Christians were at the mercy of the Muslims and could only make weakened and effectual efforts to oppose their intrusions the chroniclers of the 10th and 11th centuries scarcely touch on the theme re conquest in as much as the Christians and all they could do to survive the overwhelming power the Caliphate to speak of the expulsion of the Muslims and recovery of Spain and such circumstances one would have to have great faith in God's promises and quirt in reality Asturias was a backwater area a place that even the Romans had a difficult time with as such there was very little infrastructure no major roads and few urbanized areas ironically enough it was this lack of development that may have saved her from the Islamic conquest tatak even zyad in his countrymen when they came through found that the Roman roads and the rest of Hispania to be a boon to their expansion a studious became a rallying point for the refugees and for guerrilla fighters you know those who had fought for the Visigoths and for those who would not succumb to Muslim rule amongst these who fled was a Visigoths nobleman in some accounts he was even the cousin to the falling king Roderick his name was Pelagius or Pelayo and he managed to organize what was left of the fighting men of Hispania and was credited with being the first to rise up against the Muslim horde and refused them their annual tribute this didn't go over very well in the forces of all Andaluz decided to pay him a visit in 718 or 722 dates are not exactly precise but the latter appears more often the Muslim army arrived near the city of covadonga and demanded Pelagius and surrendered to which Don poleo was recounted as saying at least according to chroniclers that recorded this much much much later quote I will not associate with the Arabs and friendship nor will I submit to their authority for we confide in the mercy of the Lord that from this little hill that you see the salvation of Spain and the army of the Gothic people will be restored hence we spurn this multitude of pagans and do not fear them end quote at which point after saying this at least according to the same historians poleo wrote forth and took on a Muslim army of one hundred and eighty seven thousand men and defeated them masterfully using the terrain of the high mountain passes not a bad bit of killing for one afternoon if I can say so myself the Battle of Covadonga who would go on to mark the beginning of the reconquest and would become a symbol of christian resistance that islam even though the magnitude of this titanic battle might have been a tad bit overhyped indeed it doesn't even show up in the muslim historical record even though other major islamic defeats are pretty well documented from this point onwards story s was grow and become the precursor christian kingdom if there's any really hardcore Tolkien fans in the audience become a candidate fabled island kingdom of númenor where all the kings of men arose so it would come to be there for the next fifty years she would cautiously expand along the cantar a and mountain range and take over the northwestern portion of Hispania along the atlantic coast and by the year 775 under Alphonse of the first Asturias would encompass the northern Duetto River Valley while this sounds promising the land that she took was not exactly prime real estate the valley that was north of the Duetto River was sparsely populated and considered at this point in history to be an arid wasteland it was even referred to as the desert of the Duetto which would serve as a buffer zone or a no-man's land or for the Trekkies in the audience it was a neutral zone harsh wasteland it might have been but this wouldn't stop the emirate of Cordoba now unified under Abdel Rahman the first were raiding and attacking in fact it really wouldn't be until a latter part of the eighth century that Asturias would really begin to coalesce Alfonso the second would firmly establish her as a kingdom and then 789 made the city of OVA though the capital it was also during the time of Alphonse of the second that the bones of st. James or Santiago were discovered in Santiago de Compostela would bloom into significance as a shrine and a pilgrimage route in fact this pilgrimage route would explode in popularity and in time would rival pilgrimages that were happening in the Holy Land what can I tell you they built a Cathedral there and people came in areas such as Galicia Lyon and Castile began to get really repopulated but this wasn't gonna be the last miracle professor catalyst gives us the riveting if perhaps a little sarcastic account of Astoria sis rise in significance quote it was the year 844 as the story goes and the army of abdul-rahman ii was arrayed on the south bank on the ebro river and a place called la vie co this was in a region of northern Spain near Pamplona which is now known as Nadia ha on the opposite bank and much fewer in numbers to the ragtag forces of Ramiro of a studious the cruel Muslim Prince says the legend fancifully claimed that marched north to punish the Christian King for his refusal to render the annual tribute of 100 virgin girls although outnumbered that Amira was confident his victory had been pre staged in a dream God was on his side and as the Muslim hosts swept into his line a heavenly figure appeared in the skies a knight on a white horse who together with a celestial army turned the tide of battle and led a Ramiro's forces to victory in the massacre of his foe that figure was none other than Saint James the greater who would eventually be called Matamoros the Muslim killer and would take on the role of patron saint in what would later be referred to as la conquista in quote historia Snowhead land a capital of growing population waterfront real estate and a patron saint to top it all off and this wasn't any ordinary Saint but Saint James Matamoros himself this was a figure that later crusading orders would be named after crusading orders that would have mottos like ruh bet and cyst sang why not able may the sword run red with the blood of the Arab despite the ongoing raids from all Andaluz things were going pretty well for a store to get us up until about the Year 910 this was the year that the king who is now Alfonso the 3rd was forced by his own family at gunpoint or I should say sword point to abdicate the throne and divide Asturias into 3 parts of which in the year 924 one of the newer states leon managed to conquer the other two and establish the kingdom of leon the Reconquista was beginning to warm up [Music] this was the year that the king who is now Alfonso the third was forced by his own family at gunpoint or I should say sort point to abdicate the throne and divide Asturias in the three parts of which in the year 924 one of the newer states Leone managed to conquer the other to win established the kingdom of Leone the red conquista was beginning to warm up but if you read Sun Tzu he'll tell you that the first thing you need to do is establish a justifiable cause for fighting and again having a super-powerful militant saint like Santiago Matamoros helps this along nicely catless goes into the method of how the historians of that time galvanized the people and established the justification for the reconquest quote the histories from the era of Alfonso the third and those composed in the 11th century and later were written by foreign clergymen who had an explicit commitment to supporting the political supremacy of the leonie's monarchy they happily invented history's forged documents concocted genealogies in order to frame the history of Spain in terms of the grand Christian Muslim conflict these histories conceive of the world in terms of celestial struggle their language was biblical in their rhetoric for them the Christians of Spain were the true Israel the people chosen by God but cast down for their disobedience and sin and who were now called on to reclaim their rightful place through inner piety and earthly battle against the infidel a catalyst goes on to explain even more quote the narrative that they crafted one of an eternally united Spain defeated by foreign Muslims but then gloriously reclaimed through a process of Crusade and reconquest is no less false than the legends of Clavijo Santiago and Pelagius but in its dramatic simplicity and self affirming moralization it is exercised an incredible appeal both in Spain and elsewhere in quote the history of Leon dates back to Roman times the city was founded as a military outpost by the Roman legion septum--ah Gemina as such she had city walls and fortifications and made a natural fort base not to mention a good capital she was incorporated into historia sin 742 but as mentioned became a state of her own when historia s-- was partitioned now it would be under her new and somewhat belligerent king or of doneö ii that she would fight and eventually overrun her Christian neighbors and thus unifying northwestern Spain but it wasn't gonna be until 931 under Romero ii that leon began to really rise to prominence the meter ii pushed her borders east nearly to the pyrenees and took the city of Burgos in the surrounding land this land would soon be known as the county of Castile much more than that just a little bit Romero was a prominent military figure and the people of all Andaluz would affectionately refer to him as the devil you see it was under his administration that he went toe-to-toe with the Muslims of the south in 939 the Emir now Calif of Cordoba led a massive army into the north to teach the Christian kingdoms a lesson this Calif was none other than Abdul Rahman the third one of the greatest rulers of all Andaluz and at the time was riding high in this military successes in fact he was so confident that he was leading his own men personally on campaign I'm dodging the third had unified most of all Andaluz at this point and had been victorious during his famous US campaign about twenty years earlier it was during this campaign that he not only torched Pamplona but also wrecked the combined forces of Lyon and Nevada he was now in the north to essentially finish the job [Music] but romero ii was not one to be pushed over very easily he set up an ambush and the calif who felt a little too secure in his supremacy in fact he even called his campaign omnipotence rode right into the trap at the Battle of samantha's in 939 the ladies king destroyed the Muslim army and came within a hair's breadth and killing the Calif himself it was due to victories like this that Leon was able to expand she now encompassed the southern portion of the Duetto River Valley again it was a bit of a wasteland but whichever way you look at it the border between Cross and Crescent was moving south and in the process the lands of al-andalus had been diminished however that all said that at conquista was then going to be put on hold for the next 100 years Abdul Rahman the third came to power in the year 912 he inherited a land that was on the verge of collapse after a series of well how else can you say it stunning military campaigns he restored his emirate to military power and ushered in a golden age for his economy in 929 he declared himself abdul al mu'minin which meant commander of the faithful hence he made himself caliph and turned his emirate into a Callen meat al-andalus was transformed under his leadership from a regional power to an international one and regarded by some historians as the superpower of Western Europe this was a time when Cordoba rivaled Constantinople and Baghdad and population and sophistication and was regarded by the court of the Holy Roman Empire as the ornament of the world this was a time when Abdul Rahman the third and Constantine the seventh of the Byzantine Empire had an unusually warm and close relationship with changing diplomats and knowledge in fact if you ever go to the Great Mosque of Cordoba you can see Arabic inscriptions that are created using Byzantine craftsmen with important businesses a this was a period where Abdul Rahman son and al hakam ii created a library that held it was said four hundred thousand books but this was also a time when the Caliphate of Cordoba held supremacy over the peninsula savagely putting down rebellion when she had to and terrified the Christian kingdoms of the north who she raided with near impunity when the usurper al-mansour took control of the cordovan government he only intensified the strength of the army and brought all Andaluz to the pinnacle of her military prowess during his reign he led over fifty campaigns in 985 he left Barcelona a burning pile of rubble and in 997 he breached the sanctity of santiago de compostela deep within galicia while he was there he demolished her Cathedral and stole the sacred shrines zobelle's as professor catless masterfully puts it in his book the Caliphate at this point held the Christian kingdoms by the bells but in the end just as massively did the Caliphate rise so did she fall extensive internal upheaval persistent rebellions and a disaffected populace brought down the mighty state in the fury and by the year 1031 the Caliphate was abolished and replaced by a fragmented mess of competing and petty typhus states it was time now for the Christian kingdoms to rise to predominance once again and in the north eastern part of the peninsula a small Christian Enclave would seek our destiny [Music] the people of the Basque region on the western end of the Pyrenees they're one of the most ancient in Europe [Music] their ancestry is over 7,000 years old and some claim that they were there even before agriculture became the norm in fact their native language is unique in Europe and while they've been subjugated by others they've maintained a strong and proud sense of identity and rightfully so prior to the Islamic conquest the Basque region was within the sphere of influence of the Franks and it wasn't until 718 that they were overrun by the Muslim forces of all Andaluz they became a vassal but in time they established some degree of autonomy when Charlemagne came through in 778 he attacked them and destroyed the city walls of their capital Pamplona but the Basque who were fierce fought back they annihilated Charlemagne's rearguard at the pass of ronsis valleys and killed a famous knight Roland inflicting some say Charlemagne's only major defeat now for the next fifty years the land would alternate back and forth between the interests of the Franks and the Muslims of the Emirates of Cordova however that sense of basket on amigo and eventually lead to rebellion in 824 a Frankish army was sent to subdue the rebellious Basque and made it as far as the gates of Pamplona but as they were making their way back the Basque once again attacked them in the very same path of ronsis vias the Second Battle of ronsis vias went exactly like the first but this time the Basque also had Muslim allies the Frankish army was destroyed and his generals were sent back to forth OVA as a present and as such the Basque chieftain who led the attack in llego arista was elected as the king of Pamplona and has since been recognized as the founder of the kingdom of Pamplona [Music] now the kingdom would need time to grow and would find itself being attacked and attacking all of her neighbors both Christian and Muslim alike however her true fortune was intimately tied to the success of the Cordoba demerant now to give you an example when the emirate was weak Pamplona would be expanding in 907 the rulers Sancho the first - two years earlier had declared himself king sent his armies out and took the county of Aragon but when the emirate was strong that is when Abdullah when the third came to power and made the emirate into a caliphate Pamplona would be on the receiving end of pain it was during abdul-rahman 's moyes campaign that basque land would be devastated and as mentioned before the city of Pamplona was sacked in 924 but this was just for starters when al-mansour took power the raids into the northeast would only intensify it became almost like a hobby for the Caliphate to sucker-punch the kingdom over and over and over again now that said one of the reasons that the kingdom of Pamplona would in part survive was due to her astute use of political marriages by the end of the 10th century her royalty would be related to nearly all the major powers including blood ties with the Caliphate itself after all Abdul Rahman the Third's paternal grandmother was on Yakka for Junius who was the daughter of the king of Pamplona now I don't know about you but a family reunion in this type of political environment I think would have been a very interesting affair the kingdom of Pamplona would eventually get her chance if you recall in the early 11th century the great Caliphate fell and fractured into the smaller typhus states which they promptly began to fight and kill one another and this was the perfect opportunity it was then that the kingdom of Pamplona would once again be able to assert her Authority sansho the third or as he'd be known as Sancho the great inherited the kingdom of Pamplona in 1000 for just as the Caliphate of Cordoba was about to be consumed in some cases literally by fire and internal revolt the man was both a shrewd politician and a skilled military leader and for what I've read was quite dashing with the ladies the ambitious policy of expansion that he would adopt would require him to use all of these abilities [Music] to expand his eastern border he would seize lands from the Franks north of the Pyrenees and then south of the Pyrenees his army would conquer large portions of the county of a de gand on his western border he astutely married the daughter of the count of Castile and under the pretense of being its protector he became the de facto ruler this county and then in 1034 after defeating a string of rivals and it should be noted that most of them were Christian it captured the city of Lyon by the time of his death the very next year in 1035 the kingdom of Pamplona extended from the city of Lyon to the Pyrenees and onward to the borders of Catalonia which as the easternmost portion of Spain but from this point onwards it would be a period of decline Sancho the Third's lands would be divided and over the next 200 years the kingdom of Pamplona soon to be known as the kingdom of Nevada would be picked at by a host of aggressive neighbors however despite being reduced in size her core would remain strong just ask anybody of Basque descent today and remember this later when the powerful Caliphate of North Africa the Almohad invaded it was at the Battle of lust Navas de Tolosa in 1212 which turned the tide against the Almohad that it would be a king of Nevada Sancho the seventh or Sancho el fuerte the strong that would find exploit and breach the lines of the Muslim army and nearly execute the Calif but this is still in the future of our narrative and as just mentioned in the aftermath of Sancho the third his lands were divided but this division would give rise to two of the most powerful kingdoms that conquista Aragon and Castile now like I've mentioned before in the first 300 years roughly 711 to 1031 the nature of the Reconquista was more about survival and towards the end of this time it eventually became more about consolidation of the Christian kingdoms not so much about reconquering the south but you got to keep in mind that up until 1031 when the you mine Caliphate the of Cordoba was officially abolished the Christian kingdoms were still pretty much at the mercy of the Muslims in the south the flow of tribute would come from the north and make its way directly into the Treasury of the caliph but when this mighty state fell the situation was turned completely on its head catless again puts us really well quote the political environment of post Khalifa al-andalus was ruthlessly pragmatic reflexively opportunistic and highly atomized among the clans families and individuals that struggled to hold power none had a coherent ideological or religious platform and their internal politics were characterised by regular usurpations betrayals revolts and intra-familial violence end quote well this is Game of Thrones on steroids that was like playing a game of Risk except with 50 players people would wake up one day and that three type of states were wiped out in the night in time that bigger fish swallowed the smaller ones and the typhus of the great cities like Seville Zaragoza Badajoz Paulino Granada became the big kids on the block but this was all relative the Christian kingdoms in comparison now are just as big if not bigger and this would seem like the perfect opportunity for reconquest no not quite O'Callahan sums it up nicely quote the christian states of lyon castile Nevada Aragon and Catalonia however were as much rivals of one another as the kings of the typhus rather than presidente united front in opposition to Islam Christian rulers abide with one another in imposing the tributes on the tyfa's and later contended over rites of conquest when it suited their purpose christian princes did not hesitate to make alliances with muslims from time to time individual knights including the cid who was often hailed as the great hero of the Christian reconquest entered the service of Muslim rulers and fought against their fellow Christians end quote that conquista was still not quite the United Front that later chroniclers what have you believed what it was changing the Christian kingdoms of the north seemed for the most part more content and just reaping in the tribute to called Padilla's rather than reconquering the south and why would they I mean why would you want to attack your cash cow this was basically a new normal that was being established where you had ruthless kings who were willing to play really dirty in order to succeed and not just against the typhus but also against their fellow Christians the playing field had after all changed and the rules for playing the game had only gotten more brutal the mentality is that echoing Kista and the Christian Kings had firmly gone from survival to full exploitation [Music] [Music] between Lyon in the West and Nevada in the east was the small county of Castile which during the late 10th century was slowly gaining a sense of sovereignty she had been a part of Lyon which by the early 11th century was in a bit of decline and then through marriage became a part of Nevada but in the year 1035 when the king of Nevada the Sancho the third died he divided up his lands amongst his sons and gave control of Castile to his youngest son Ferdinand Ferdinand was only in his teens when he became the count of Castile and being one of the youngest sons was soon an open target by all of his siblings for those of you in the audience who were the youngest member of a large family you'll probably know what this must have felt like now remember when I said this generation of rulers had to play really dirty Ferdinand was really good at it in 1037 overall land disputes he fought his brother-in-law Bermuda the third who was the king of Lyon at the Battle of Tama Rome it was said that bir Muto fell from his horse and Ferdinand's men pounced on him now if you thought julius caesar's death was brutal the 20th century autopsy showed that bir Muto had approximately 40 that's for zero Lance wounds to the abdomen I guess Ferdinand really wanted to make sure the guy was dead at which point he claimed that Leone as his own property and proclaimed himself king over a decade later he turned his attention east and defeated his brother who was the king of Nevada and took a big chunk out of his land and reduced Nevada to a vassal he even went so far as to fight Aragon as well now with his power base secured and growing major tyfa states like palazzo began to pay him tribute now those tyfa states that didn't pay him tribute while they became a target for the fury of his armies which he was not shy to unleash in 1055 he attacked deep into what would one day be portugal taking the city of Coimbra after a long siege he also brought the fight to other tyfa's like Seville bat a host in Valencia Ferdinand the first of Lyon as he'd be known was nearly unstoppable indeed in 1056 he was given the title emperor this man gave new life to that a conquista and was remembered by muslim chroniclers this same quote we demand our land which a long time ago you concurred in which you have inhabited for as long as been ordained by God now he has given us victory over you on account of your wickedness depart to your own shores of North Africa and give our land up to us but there is no good in your living with us any longer nor will we turn away from you until God has judged between you and us end quote Ferdinand the first of Leon clearly had an army plus he had the motivation and what's more he had nearly United all of the Christian kingdoms so what could possibly go wrong right he died in 1065 and divided his vast Kingdom to his three sons who immediately began to fight and try to kill one another [Music] Ferdinand's land was divided into three kingdoms going from east to west you had Castile Leon and Galicia now his oldest child named Sancho the second guy Castile his middle child it was also his favorite and Alfonzo the sixth got Leon and his youngest son names got to see the second guy Galicia to make a long story short the two older brothers ganged up on the youngest and took his land and then after a brief respite the oldest brother again such a the second also seized the middle one's land I guess the gang was just on a roll Sancho the second after unifying the three kingdoms decided I guess for his own amusement to subject the middle brother to a series of humiliations he had him first imprisoned then he had him confined in a monastery he made the monks shave his head and then to top it all off he exiled him to the Muslim taifa state of Toledo in retrospect I think such of the second probably should have just had his brother killed right then and there the man who was exiled to Toledo again the middle child who was named Alfonzo the sixth would not stay in exile for more than just a couple of months later in the very same year that he was exiled 1072 the older brother who had stolen his land again santa ii was assassinated under somewhat suspicious terms while laying siege to the city of Zamora naturally all eyes turn to Alfonzo the sixth who had to strenuously deny any involvement in the murder even went so far as to lay his hand on the Bible and in a somewhat dramatic scene publicly declare that he was innocent yeah right elfonzo the sixth immediately returned to the north to reclaim the Crown's of three kingdoms which over the next decade he consolidated brutally in some cases into a powerful state that would be called the kingdom of Lyon Castile in his rise to power he even managed to strongarm that kingdom of Nevada into giving him territory and paying him tribute he was beginning to feel so confident in his position that he even took the title Emperor Otto totus Hispania Emperor of all of Hispania the growing power of Castile Leon made the Muslim taifa States extremely nervous and in the shadow of this rising state that Padilla's the tribute began to just flood in now strangely enough while Alphonso the sixth was getting ever more powerful and not to mention insanely rich the typhus began to fight amongst themselves even more again this would have been a great opportunity for reconquest but the allure of milking the typhus for money was just too much to turn away and it would seem that this would be the status quo for quite some time however it would be in the year 1085 that everything would change the ruler of Toledo due to massive internal unrest couldn't hold on to power and made a deal with Alphonso to basically give him the city if the king of Castile Leon could grant him safe passage to another tyfa it was a deal that alfonso vi couldn't pass up and so after a mock siege on may 25th in the year 1085 Toledo was returned to Christian rule forever this was a critical turning point that conquista had now made its way from the Duetto River Valley down to the Tagus and the typhus states were really freaking out they realized that even the biggest amongst them was not involve the Christian kingdoms something needed to be done to turn the tide and the typhus response would be the equivalent of the medieval nuclear option in a state of extreme desperation some of the remaining tyfa states invited in the Almoravids from North Africa the Almoravids were a vast group of Berbers that have been brought together by the leadership of the tribes of the santosha they were united under their strict interpretation of Islam but strict religious orthodoxy aside these fierce veiled warriors from the Maghreb know their military power and ruggedness to the harshness of the Sahara which they once called home and they were gonna take the Iberian Peninsula by storm in 1086 the year after Toledo fell and almoravid army arrived in al-andalus and began to march north Alphonso the six disengaged from a siege of the city of Zaragoza and headed south to Stoppelman the ensuing confrontation was going to be a vicious one known as the Battle of cicadas in Arabic it was known as al salaka which meant slippery ground as the bloodshed was so great that the soldiers would literally slip on it as they fought the Almoravids would win this fight and deal Alfonso the sixth just a massive defeat but their momentum was still very strong and they would win again in 1097 at the Battle of Consuegra and again in 1108 at the Battle of Youkilis where Alfonso the 6th only son and male heir would be killed they would even bring down the mighty King of Aragon Alphonse of the battler at the siege of Fraga and 1134 where a lucky almoravid archers shot up through the eye in due time the Almoravids managed to annex pretty much all of all Andaluz into their domain which also included a vast swathe in north africa and in so doing they through the war of reconquest back a bit but lucky for the christians they never fully exploited their victories and they never let a full-blown war to subjugate the north but even as the Almoravids were stopping that i conquista in its tracks a new nation would be emerging [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the early land that would one day become Portugal was once a portion of the Roman province of Lusitania and Galicia it was during the time of the early reconquest that she became a portion of the kingdom of Asturias specifically she became a county when the city of Port Authority a kid by V Mata Medes in 868 this man was a vassal to the king of Asturias who would later make him the first count of Portugal later after Asturias fell she became a portion of the kingdom of Lyon the gained a greater sense of autonomy went Lyon and poor leadership however the story of the birth of Portugal as itself kingdom was about as close to a telenovela as one can get and telenovela by the way for those who are not familiar his Spanish for soap opera now going back for a second does that just mentioned the Almoravids had just arrived and had Delta founds of the sixth a massive defeat at the Battle of cicadas in 1086 Alphonse of the 6th was in a really bad position his army was destroyed and he was kind of desperate and so he called on the Knights of Western Europe for help [Music] a handful of Lords came including Raymond of Burgundy in his cousin Henry these two men distinguished themselves in the fight against the Almoravids so much so that Alfonso gave them his daughters in marriage now of the two men Raymond seemed to come out on top he married a legitimate daughter and was given the governorship of Galicia in the Northwest but by the time I got to Henry Alfonso was running out of daughters and so he arranged for him to be married to Teresa of Leon his illegitimate daughter by his mistress and men at munos but don't feel so bad for him in the end he lucked out Teresa of Leon proved to be a formidable woman and an excellent partner as it would eventually turn out Raymond and Henry really liked Leon Castile in fact they got together and concocted a plan to divide up Alfonso's land and steal the Treasury however Alfonzo vi got wind to the attempted coup now he could have had them killed but instead Alfonzo raised his pinkie to the side of his lip and masterfully decided to make Henry the governor of the County of Portugal effectively making him Raymond's neighbour and as expected the two cousins now with a shared border but with conflicting interests began to quarrel and of course any plot to overthrow the government went simply out the window Henry of Burgundy and his new wife Teresa became very protective of their new turf and as the Almoravids provided a decent distraction for the rest of the Christian kingdoms they declared Portugal a separate entity from Galicia and 1095 even though technically she was still under the jurisdiction of Castilla Lyon when Henry died in the year 1112 his son Afonso and malika's came to power but here's the thing Henry's wife that he said Leon now Tony SEF Portugal was not quite ready to relinquish command she and her new lover raised their own personal army to maintain control but when these two lost favor in the courts of Castile Afonso Henriques finally had the green light to act [Music] Afonso had to struggle but eventually he raised his own army and then had to fight his own mother and her lover who was count Fernando Perez de Travie of Galicia at the Battle of Sal Mehmed June 24th in the year 1124 Afonso came out victorious and was proclaimed Prince of Portugal he would go on from there to distinguish himself again and again in battle but this time he was fighting against the almoravids [Music] at the Battle of Auriga in 1139 he stopped the Muslims in their tracks despite being outnumbered after this confrontation he was proclaimed king of Portugal that king he might have been declared but the forces of Leone who are now under the control of Alfonso the seventh arrived on his doorstep in 1141 to put him in his place the fonz of the first road out to engage the forces of Lyon at the Battle of Valdez the fight became more or less a jousting tournament as the elmora myths were still powerful and the two Christian kingdoms realized wisely that they needed to conserve their respective manpower but when that day ended Afonso their first at 1 d tournament and two years later with the Treaty of Zamora Portugal had wanted her independence but Afonso the first wasn't done yet now it just so happened that a few years later in 1147 that the Second Crusade broke out now Knights from all over Western Europe were making their way to the Holy Land and including a contingent that just happened to stop off at the city of Porto in the mouth of the Duetto river Afonso their first just happened to be around and so the king of Portugal decided to convince the Crusaders to take a break from their holy religious duties and instead join him in taking the city of Lisbon Afonso sweeten that deal and presented them with the prospect of plunder and so they readily agreed to fight for him and thus in October of 1147 after a siege Lisbon became a part of Portugal in approximately a hundred years later would become the capital now along with the fall of Toledo this was another great type of state that had fallen the capture of Lisbon would be a major milestone in that conquista and from then on there was gonna be no disputing that Portugal was a sovereign realm in fact she would be recognized by the Pope in 1179 and despite the attempts of Lyon and later the almohads to recapture her territory she would hold firm in Portugal would even go on under her next king alfonso ii to contributor forces to help at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and even after this battle she would continue her contribution of the retcon Kista by advancing further south into a lotta loose and taking the lands known as the Algarve by the year 12 49 she had just about established her modern borders afonso the first would be known to history by many names Afonso Henriques advance of the great the founds of the Conqueror but perhaps his best title was Afonso the founder Portugal came into being with the baptism of fire first from the aggression of Leone and then in the shadow of the Almoravids and in time under the assault of the al Mahad she was gonna prove herself capable of the challenge but she was not the only one on the other end of the peninsula the last great Christian Kingdom was about to join that I called Kista as well [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ah daguan than the nearby counties of Catalonia which would join through marriage would develop into some of the most passionately proud lands of medieval Spain and some of those traits are still alive and well today much like Castile Aragon got a relatively late start in the game but would go on to become a major player as mentioned before when Sancho the third of the kingdom of Pamplona later to be known as the kingdom of Nevada died in 1035 he divided his lands into three parts now of the three parts the western portion became Castile the central portion remained Nevada but the easternmost section would give rise to the kingdom of Aragon this latter portion would be given to his illegitimate son but Ramiro than first who had to fight extensively to establish the independence of his new territory his expansion and that of his son would see the small kingdom of Aragon grow from a small estate nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees to encompass a much larger area and this at the expense of both his Christian and his Muslim neighbors eventually as a consequence of his expansion in 1096 the new capital of the kingdom of Aragon was established in the city of questa which had just been recently captured but it was Romero's grandson who would also be the son-in-law of Alfonzo the sixth more on that just a little bit who really got things rolling this man was known as Alfonzo the first of a tag on and was given the title at bat Theodore or the battler and trust me he earned this title ironically enough for a man who would later be known for his military prowess Alphonse of the first of Aragon began his early life in a monastery it would be here that he would learn the art of reading and writing and of course there'd be a very heavy emphasis on medieval warfare which granted was pretty standard stuff for the time this was after all in the wake of the crusading era when crusading orders like that of the Templars in the hospital errs were becoming very powerful indeed Spain had her own crusading orders now it wouldn't be very long until Alfonso started to join his siblings on military campaigns most of which were directed against the Almoravids of North Africa not a gun was as much on the front line as anyone could possibly be so there was always ample chance to expend his education further when it was all said and done the man would have a major in medieval warfare against the moor with a minor in crusading ideology it was even said that he joined the legendary El Cid on expedition to take Valencia in 1094 so no matter which way you look at it his upbringing gave him a taste for battle that never seemed to have left him now in the grand scheme of things fortune began to smile on him deaths in the family put the young Alphonse of the first in line to assume the throne which he did in the year 1104 he was pretty young at the time and other Christian kingdoms saw this as an opportunity shortly after Alfonzo the first assumed the throne the king of Castile Leone again sensing an opportunity the man basically wanted to extend the rule of his family and so offered his daughter florica of Leon to Alphonso and in due course of time the two were married which was lovely at least at the time but Rocca had absolutely no intention of handing over even an iota of power to her new husband and so the two begin to quarrel intensely and quarrel probably doesn't even come close to giving this justice I mean I don't think any amount of marriage counselling would have helped the personal fight between these two got so bad that it spilled out into open warfare between a dagoon and Castile at one point Alfonzo had a lay siege to the city of historico where his wife vodka was essentially trapped inside now if laying siege on your wife isn't enough to settle your disputes and solve your marital woes Alfonzo would go on to defeat her army in battle twice the two people like the two kingdoms figured out that they could not kill or subjugate the other decided finally just to part ways and do their own thing which was just fine for Alfonso the man had another agenda Alphonse of the first known as a bat Theodore would now resume control over his domain he quickly turned his attention to fighting the Almoravids and over the next several years he attacked them throughout the entire ever a river valley slowly pushing them back and taking a half dusted cities in the process [Music] but his crowning achievement was getting the pope to sanction his own personal crusade and then leading in onwards to take the city of Sadiq Gaza which he managed to do in 1118 this was one of those milestones that Iraq conquista where one of the major tyfa's had fallen into Christian hands but Alfonso was just getting warmed up over the course of the next ten years he would destroy an Al Morrison for me at the Battle of Crete andhe he went on to seize pretty much the entire ever a river valley and then captured another dozen cities he did so well that the king of Castile Leon even made a treaty with them dividing up al Andaluz into separate spheres of conquest these two Kings were so confident that they had basically divided up the pie that was all on the loose and assigned each and area to conquer so that their armies wouldn't god forbid clash with one another which is kind of thoughtful as far as bloody invasions go anything less I guess would be uncivilized but this plan was not to work out Alfonzo died like he lived in battle during the siege of the city of Fraga he was shot through the eye by a Muslim Archer and died shortly thereafter his death at 11:34 led to a succession crisis as he had no air and had bequeathed in his will most of his lands and money to the crusading orders which if you think about it for a medieval King this is noble and generous I mean what a great last wish of a dying man no well this was promptly ignored by the aristocracy of Aragon and his brother came to power instead now once he had taken power he decided to solidify a de gand strength through marriage it was decided at this point that the princess of Aragon who was Alfonso's niece a woman named petronia would marry Raymond the count of Barcelona and thus in 1137 the kingdom of Aragon and the county of Catalonia were merged together at least in marriage into what would be called as the crown of Aragon which was not officially sanctioned until the son of Raymond and petronia came to power in 1162 the Christian kingdom seemed like they were making advances in all fronts indeed the mid 12th century from 11:30 to 11:50 you would appear that that conquista was in the fast-track of having complete victory part of this had to do with the fact that the nature of the retcon pista had changed once again the Christian kingdoms had gone from survival to consolidation to exploitation to full-blown war and then reconquest but along the way it had been infused with the zeal of religious holy war ideology now we need to go back a second to the Year 1064 this was the year that pope alexander ii declared remission of sins for any western knight willing to cross the pyrenees and free the city of bar bassdrum remission a sins by the Pope was huge and the call-to-action was quickly accepted barb Astro after a few months the CG was taken but then the next year it was retaken by the Muslims but you know for the time being just table that fact this was one of the first times that the idea of a papal sanctioned religious war was recorded and just to emphasize the point it happened thirty years before the first crusade but you got to admit the precedence was set and subsequently when the Crusades actually did break out well then everybody wanted to be a part of it it suddenly became the new normal for Christians and not just those of Iberia the band together for the common goal of fighting the infidel and what's more nearly the same thing was happening on the Muslim side Chris Lowney in his book a vanished world that gives us all a dose of reality and I'm paraphrasing a little here quote instead of moving forward Spain seemed to be stuck on a treadmill hatred and violence with Toledo's capture that treadmill only began to spin at a faster pace it was now that Muslim revivalist Almoravids faced off against Crusader Knights both sides were ratcheting up the religious rhetoric to accompany the more hostile tempo of their encounters Lowney continues quote the momentum was slowly tentatively yet inexplicably shifting to the Christian side but the balance of power remained uncertain and yet the violent religious rhetoric only intensified as both sides called on co-religionists to nothing less than a holy war end quote the kings of Hispania were going to milk crusading ideology when it suited them and for their conquista this was gonna be a great time think about the advances that were made odda gone took is that a goes an 11 18 via Crusade and then later consolidated with Catalonia into a powerful state the Portuguese 1147 to the Lisbon with the help of Crusaders even during the same time Castile Leone under her new king Alfonzo the seventh would put his kingdom on the offensive and would rape deep into all Andaluz he would raise and pillage the lands as far south as Cordoba eventually he made it all the way south and touched the coastal city of almería in 1147 and this was done again with the help of other Christians this time as far away as Genoa and to help things along the Almoravids who took the peninsula by storm and seemed initially unstoppable were now under attack from seemingly everywhere including a new massive uprising in their homeland of Morocco which would eventually wipe them out [Music] as I had just mentioned this was a great time for the retcon Kista but it's usually when everything seems like it's going well and perfectly lined up that's when the rug gets pulled out from beneath you the Almoravids of North Africa were brought down by the Almohad who took their capital of mattock cash-in 1146 the almohads were a new political entity in the Mokka habit they had established a Caliphate in what is now Morocco which had an even stricter view on Islam they felt it was their religious duty to bring down anybody who didn't share in their orthodoxy and to them it didn't matter if you were Christian or Muslim whereas the almoravid took Hispania by storm the Almohad would take it by hurricane after conquering nearly all of northwestern Africa they brought their massive armies across the Strait of Gibraltar and they arrived at just the right time the Christian kingdoms who had enjoyed a period of winning over al-andalus were now in a completely different position in the latter part of the 12th century they were going through a new generation of let's just call it very ineffectual leadership ironically enough it was the typhus states that would initially be putting up the most amount of resistance against the Alamo hog but the armies of the Almohad with their seemingly inexhaustible manpower gradually subjugated all of the taifa States by approximately 1170 to al-andalus was firmly under their control at which point they turned their attention to the north and launched a series of attacks the Christian kingdoms Portugal would be pushed back not a gun in Castile which had been at one point confident enough to set up areas of conquest were stopped in their tracks and with the death of the rather militant Alfonso the seventh and 1157 Leone and Castile would be once again divided and just like the last time within a blink of an eye the two respective kingdoms of Lyon and Castile would be at each other's throats and then of course things went from bad to worse in July of 1195 the almohads met up with the Castilian army now under their new king Alphonse of the 8th at the Battle of a lot of coasts this would turn out to be a horrendous fight but in the end the Almo had crushed the Castilians and in the aftermath of this disaster the Christian kingdoms would turn against one another violently in fact the king of Leon Alfonzo the ninth even made an alliance with the Almohad to attack his fellow Christians so ask yourself just how bad did things get at this point well let's take a look at the response to Alphonse of the Knights attack on his fellow Christians O'Callahan relates the story quote Sancho the first of Portugal appealed to the Pope for crusading indulgences not against the Almo hot but against Alphonso the ninth to which in response Celestine the 3rd on April 10th in the year 1197 conceded to those who attacked the king of Leon the same remission of sins that were given to Crusaders end quote this was absolutely nuts not only did you have the Christian kingdoms attacking but you also had them declaring holy war on each other crusading against fellow Christians and keep in mind that this was all happening while a powerful Muslim force was just watching on the only thing that really saved that Christian kingdoms was the fact that the AL mohan didn't exploit their victories but there were a lot of reasons why this happened the al Mohan never had a good logistical system they never had really good siege equipment and then there was the fact that they were a vast empire and we're putting down rebellions and uprisings on pretty much every other front now it also seemed that they just lacked the motivation to decide hey you know what we're gonna get it together and we're gonna conquer the rest of the Iberian Peninsula but that mentality changed in the year 1211 that was the year they decided to get serious about invading the almohads had unwisely given the Christian kingdoms a chance to rebuild and as soon as Castile and Aragon even had a chance they promptly began to raid all Andaluz all over again thus the Almohad had to finally get serious about them and it gets their mentality was is that they had toyed with these non-believers long enough and it was time to teach them a stern lesson and discipline perhaps even to end them once and for all in particular Alfonso the eighth of Castile and Pedro the second Nevada gone were especially large thorns in their sides and would be the focus of their fury a massive Muslim army was raised and sent a cross into the Iberian Peninsula where they managed to take a few castles this was done with the intent of continuing campaign to conquer Castile the next year Alphonso the Eighth knew he couldn't went alone but at the same time he knew where he could get additional powerful soldiers who knew how to fight that is he knew the fighting spirit of his fellow Christian kingdoms I mean after all he had fought nearly all of them he gambled on the idea that he could unite them together and therefore he asked the Pope who was now innocent to third for help Alfonso the eighth got really lucky a new crusade was proclaimed and the Knights of Western Europe answered the call but they were not going to be alone the Portuguese who had fought long and hard for their independence arrived the fighting men of Aragon and their Catalonian allies who were just as skilled at warfare came the soldiers of Nevada who had proudly defended their unique Basque homeland showed up and even though the king of Leon Alfonzo the ninth refused the Knights of Leon came anyway they were then joined by the crusading orders of the Templars the hospital errs and the orders of Santiago to name a few just south of the pass of this Pena Petros in central Spain the two armies met in July the Year 1212 and when the dust settled from what would be known as the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa it was the combined Christian armies united under the banner of crusade that had won the day the battle of lust Navas de Tolosa was a fight that the Alamo hod were never able to fully recover from at least not in all Andaluz they would be turned back and within a few decades their vast empire would fall unfortunately the Christian kingdoms were not in a position where they could really exploit their victory that I conquista began with a resolution to simply avoid annihilation and which starts and stops in multiple side quests and distractions and conflicting alliances and crusading rhetoric it grew into a position of authority along the way it would captivate the minds of Europe all Andaluz at one point held supremacy during the time of the Caliphate of Cordoba and was quote-unquote saved by first the elm or aphids and then later the Almo hot but now as the Alamo had retreated she reverted back to her fractured weak tyfa states and this time there was no one left to come to her rescue in contrast after Las Navas de Tolosa a new generation of Christian Kings would come to power they would prove to be even more ferocious than the last batch and they would unleash an assault that would bring an all new meaning to the term but I conquista to them there was no longer any question of failure the defeat of al-andalus was no longer an if but rather of when the only question that really mattered was who was going to be the biggest and most powerful when Islamic Spain fell with that dear listener is a story for another time [Music] [Music]

Channel: Flash Point History

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Keywords: spanish reconquista documentary, reconquista, christian kingdoms, history of the reconquista, asturias, leon, history of spain, navarre, history of navarre, iñaki tejerina, reconquista of spain, reconquista history, christian reconquest of spain, christian reconquest, castile, alfonso vi of leon, alfonso vi, history of the reconquest, reconquista documentary, history of portugal, portugal, afonso the conqueror, history of aragon, aragon, batellador, history of aragon spain, spain

Id: o9UnQa0m8pQ

Length: 77min 1sec (4621 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 11 2019