Al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms

Al-Ándalus y los reinos cristianos

711–1492. For almost eight centuries the peninsula was shared, and fought over, by Muslim al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms of the north.

What happened

For almost eight centuries the peninsula was shared, and fought over, by Muslim al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms of the north. Umayyad Córdoba, an emirate from 756 and a caliphate from 929, was one of the great cities of its age. After the caliphate broke into taifa kingdoms in 1031, Castile took Toledo (1085), North African Almoravids and Almohads intervened, and the Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) opened the south: Córdoba, Valencia and Seville fell by 1248, leaving only Nasrid Granada, which surrendered in 1492. Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side, traded, translated and also persecuted one another. Spanish absorbed thousands of Arabic words, and the medieval kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal took shape.

Within it

Its events

  1. 711: The Muslim conquest
  2. between 718 and 722: Pelayo at Covadonga
  3. 14 May 756: Abd al-Rahman I founds the emirate of Córdoba
  4. c. 780s: The Great Mosque of Córdoba is begun
  5. between 820 and 830: The tomb of St James
  6. 16 January 929: The Caliphate of Córdoba
  7. between 950 and 1100: The Glosas Emilianenses: the first written Romance?
  8. 25 May 1085: Alfonso VI takes Toledo
  9. 17 June 1094: El Cid takes Valencia
  10. between 1140 and 1207: The Cantar de mio Cid
  11. 16 July 1212: The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
  12. between 1236 and 1248: Valencia and Seville fall to the Christian kings
  13. 1252–1284: Alfonso the Wise and the Castilian language
  14. 1333–1391: The Nasrids build the Alhambra
  15. March 1348–1350: The Black Death reaches the peninsula
  16. 6 June 1391–1392: The anti-Jewish riots of 1391
  17. 2 January 1492: The fall of Granada

Sources

  1. Muslim Spain (711-1492) — BBC Religions
  2. Abd al-Rahman I — World History Encyclopedia
  3. Abd al-Rahman III — World History Encyclopedia
  4. Reconquista — World History Encyclopedia
  5. History — Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife
  6. Review of Paola Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew (Hussein Fancy) — Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 9 (2014), Boston College