the arianist visigoths invaded the iberian peninsula and lived there for eight centuries.
who invaded the iberian peninsula and lived there for eight centuries?
the arianist visigoths
in 1500 bce the area that is now known primarily as catalonia was, along with the rest of the iberian peninsula, inhabited by proto-celtic urnfield people who brought with them the rite of burning the dead, the mountains of the pyrenees were inhabited at the time by the basques and still today almost every town name in the catalan pyrenees is of basque origin. the indo-european people mixed with the basques were absorbed by the iberians beginning in 600 bce in a process that would not be complete until the fourth century bce. these groups came under the rule of various invading groups starting with the greeks that founded empúries and the phoenicians and carthaginians, who set up colonies along the coast, including barcino (present-day barcelona). following the punic wars, the romans replaced the carthaginians as the dominant power in the iberian eastern coast, including parts of catalonia, by 206 bce. rome established latin as the official language and imparted a distinctly roman culture upon the local population, which merged with roman colonists from the italian peninsula. an early precursor to the catalan language began to develop from a local form of popular latin before and during the collapse of the roman empire. various germanic tribes arrived following nearly six centuries of roman rule, which had completely transformed the area into the roman province of tarraconensis. the german visigoths established themselves in the fifth century, making their first capital in the iberian peninsula barcelona, and they later would move to toledo. this continued until 718 when muslim arabs took control of the region in order to pass through the pyrenees into french territory. with the help of the frankish, a land border was created commonly known nowadays as old catalonia (which would consist of the counties county of barcelona, ausona, county of pallars, county of rosselló, county of empúries, county of cerdanya and county of urgell) which faced muslim raids but resisted any kind of settlement from them. "new catalonia" and its native peoples were fully in control of the arab invaders for around a century. the franks on the other side of the pyrenees held back the main muslim raiding army which had penetrated virtually unchallenged as far as central france at the battle of tours in 732. frankish suzerainty was then extended over much of present-day catalonia. larger wars with the muslims began in the march of barcelona which led to the beginnings of the reconquista by catalan forces over most of catalonia by the year 801. barcelona would then become an important center for christian forces in the iberian peninsula.
catalans
neither north africa nor the iberian peninsula were strangers to semitic culture: the phoenicians and later the carthaginians dominated parts of the north african and iberian shores for more than eight centuries until they were suppressed by the romans and by the following vandal and visigothic invasions, and the berber incursions. after the arab invasion of north africa, the berber tribes allied themselves with the umayyad arab muslim armies in invading spain. later, in 743 ad, the berbers defeated the arab umayyad armies and expelled them for most of west north africa (al-maghreb al-aqsa) during the berber revolt, but not the territory of ifriqiya which stayed arab (east algeria, tunisia, and west-libya). centuries later some migrating arab tribes settled in some plains while the berbers remained the dominant group mainly in desert areas including mountains. the inland north africa remained exclusively berber until the 11th century; the iberian peninsula, on the other hand, remained arabized, particularly in the south, until the 16th century.
arabization