Reconquista
Matthias Maser
Abstract In 711 CE Muslim troops from North Africa invaded the Iberian peninsula. Within a few years they had conquered former Visigothic kingdom of Toledo and made land, which called al‐Andalus, part pan‐Islamic caliphate. As result this invasion Christian rule was abruptly reduced to small residual area in northwest. A military re‐expansion dominion could be achieved only slow steps: it took almost eight hundred until 1492 Granada, last stronghold peninsula, fell back into hands Christians. Western historical narratives often portray centuries‐long (re‐)expansion as monolithic “reconquest,” an incessant process territorial recuperation moral recovery “Spanish nation” (Tolan 2002). This highly ideological view presents Reconquista most defining event Middle Ages, even scientific parlance term “reconquest” is frequently used synonym for whole epoch. equation, however, problematic: During Ages peninsula witnessed multitude migrations, settlements, cultural entanglements, were far more varied than biased narrative unidirectional suggests.
The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration