The Catholic Reconquest
by Chris Chaplow and Sam Pulman-Slater
The Reconquista is the period of the Iberian Peninsula's history between the Battle of Covodonga (c.718), the first victory of Christian military forces since the Islamic Invasion, and the eventual fall of the Islamic kingdom of Granada in 1492.
Umayyad caliphate collapsed due to civil war in 1031 and the iberian territory was divided up into independent states called taifas. Without a united front they could not defend themselves against incursions by Christian forces. These Christian raids finally became conquests and in the end the taifas had to request help from the Almoravids in northern Africa.
The In the mid-12th century, the Almoravid dynasty in Morocco, which ruled most of Iberian Peninsular, was overthrown by a different dynasty: the Almohads. By 1150, these Berbers from the Atlas Mountains had conquered the Islamic part of the Iberian Peninsula that was known to the Muslems as Al-andalus and to the Christians by the Castilian translation of La Andalucia.
ALFONSO VIII
The Christian kingdoms to the north were too well-established and prepared to be conquered by the Almohads and, despite some minor forays into 'alien' territories, the Almohads made no long-term advances against them. In 1212, Muhammed III (Al-Nasir) was finally defeated by King Alfonso VIII of Castile at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, initiating the rapid decline of Almohad dominance. Alfonso VIII then returned north to confront the Almohads near Toledo, in 1213.
FERNANDO III
After the death of Yusuf II in 1224, a crisis of succession arose in the Almohad Caliphate ('state'). Claimant Aballah al-Adil declared himself Almohad Caliph and quickly seized Seville, but as he turned his attention to the succession in the African regions of the Caliphate, Fernando III of Castile, heir to Alfonso in 1217, seized his opportunity.
Fernando continued his predecessor's work, ravaging the regions of Jaen and Vega de Granada, and fighting the Almohads in the Guadalquivir Valley. He captured Cordoba in 1236, Jaen in 1246, and Seville in 1248; he then took Arcos, Medina Sidonia, Jerez and Cadiz. His death in 1252 prevented the Castilians from crossing the Gibraltar Straits and taking the war to the African heartland of the Almohad empire.
Al-Ahmar ibn Nasr was founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and was appointed governor of his native town of Arjona in 1231, extending his power soon after from Jaén to Guadix. But by now the Christian reconquista was in full swing and, when Córdoba was conquered in 1236, the Nasrids aligned themselves with Fernando III of Castile and ruled as a vassal state based in for the next 250 years.
In this way the Mediterranean coast of today's Andalucía remained under Moorish occupation for the next 250 years. This region approximately comprised the present-day Almeria, Granada and Malaga provinces. The last Islamic rulers of al-Andalus were the Nasrids in Granada, who controlled the Taifa until 1492, and in that time built the Alhambra palace.
In 1236, Al-Ahmar ibn Nasr (Muhammad I), leader of the Nasrid dynasty, betrayed the de facto Moorish leader of al-Andaluz ibn Hud by helping Fernando III take Cordoba.
The Nasrids allied themselves with Fernando III of Castile and ruled the Taifa (kingdom) of Granada (the modern provinces of Granada, Almeria and most of Málaga) as a vassal state for the next 250 years. The Nazarites were famous for their architecture in Granada, such as the Alhambra Palace, but they often fought with Christian Castile for control of its border regions, particularly westwards into the modern province of Cadiz.
At this time, the narrow Strait of Gibraltar facilitated another wave of Moorish invaders. This time it was Sultan Abu Yusuf of the Marinid dynasty, Berber Muslims from Fez who had been ruled by the Almohads. The Nasrid sultan in Granada, Muhammad II, asked the Marinid sultan for help and offered him control of western al-Andalus (modern-day Cádiz). In 1275, Abu Yusuf led his army across the Strait and occupied not only Algeciras and Tarifa, but also Ronda and, in 1278, Malaga.
Alfonso X
Muhammad II of Granada now saw the Marinids as a greater threat and allied himself with Alfonso X of Castile to attack them. While Alfonso X blockaded Malaga by sea, Muhammad II retook the city in 1279. After a failed Castilian attack to retake Algeciras, Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, a military leader, was able to broker a truce between the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf and King Alfonso X of Castile. King Alfonso X rewarded Guzmán with the town of Alcalá Sidonia (now Alcalá de los Gazules).
King Alfonso X and Guzmán joined forces to attack Granada in 1281, but were unsuccessful. Around this time, King Alfonso X's eldest son, Ferdinand, died in the Battle of Ecija against the Nazrids. The king's youngest son, Sancho, then rebelled in a dispute over whether he was the heir to the late Fernando's sons. The deaths of Alfonso X in 1284 and Abu Yusuf in 1286 eased the pressure on Nasrid Granada. The Marinids, now led by Abu Ya'qub, retained Tarifa and Algeciras. Sancho was recognised and supported by the majority of the nobility and was crowned King Sancho IV of Castile.
Sancho IV
In 1292, the new Castilian king, Sancho IV, made an alliance with the Nasrids of Granada with the intention of removing the Marinids from the Iberian Peninsula. He conquered Tarifa in October 1292. Muhammad II expected Tarifa to be returned to Nasrid control, but Sancho IV refused to cede it and asked Guzman to defend it.
Guzman faced a besieging army that included not only Nasrid and Marinid troops, but also Sancho's brother, Juan Infante de Leon. Guzman's defense of the castle of Tarifa is enshrined in popular legend. The attackers had captured Guzman's son and were holding him as a ransom for Guzman's surrender. From the octagonal tower, Guzmán threw his own dagger at his captors and shouted, "Kill him with this, if you wish, for I would rather have honour without a son than a son with my honour stained".
When a Marinid attempt to recapture Tarifa failed in 1294, Abu Yaq'ub decided to withdraw from the Iberian Peninsula and concentrate on his campaigns in the Maghreb. He ceded Algeciras and Ronda to the Nasrids, thus regaining some of Granada's former territories.
For his successful defense of Tarifa, Sancho IV promised Guzman the lordship of Sanlucar. However, the king died the following year and his son, King Fernando IV, formalised the award in 1297. In 1299 Guzman was also granted the Almadraba of Conil and in 1303 Chiclana de la Frontera. In 1307 he received the lordship of Vejer de la Frontera. Guzmán el Bueno died in 1309 in Gaucin, together with the Moorish general Ozmín, defending the Christian frontier against the Nazari of Granada. The House of Guzmán became the most important line of high nobility in Andalucia during the late Middle Ages.
The tombs of Guzmán el Bueno and his wife María Alfonso Coronel, made by Juan Martínez Montañés, are in the church of the Monastery of San Isidoro del Campo in Santiponce.
Battle of Rio Salado
After the victory of Alfonso XI of Castile in the Teba Campaign of 1330, Muhammad IV, Sultan Abu al-Hasan Nazari of Granada asked for help from the Marinids, whose power was growing in Africa. Sultan Hasan sent a fleet and 5,000 troops, who landed in Algeciras in early 1333. They set out to help the King of Granada capture the Castilian outpost of Gibraltar. The Moors then embarked on a campaign to reunite these territories with the kingdom of Granada. Back in the Maghreb, Abu Hasan gathered his largest army to invade Castile, with the intention of reversing the Christian advances of the previous century.
In early 1340, Abu Hasan gathered his fleet: 60 war galleys and 250 other ships concentrated in Ceuta. They landed an army at Gibraltar and, on 8 April 1340, met the Castilian fleet under Admiral Alfonso Jofre de Tenorio in the Straits, surrounded it and destroyed it. Meanwhile, Alfonso XI had sought the help of the King of Aragon and his father-in-law, King Afonso IV of Portugal. The latter sent a Portuguese naval fleet, with the addition of 27 ships hastily completed in Seville; the Christian fleets appeared in force in the Strait in October, cutting off the supply routes between Morocco and the peninsula. Abu Hasan was now in a difficult position, not only because the troops besieging Tarifa depended on supplies from Morocco, but also because the Kingdom of Granada needed them.
The Battle of Río Salado, also known as the Battle of Tarifa, was a battle between the armies of King Alfonso XI of Castile and King Afonso IV of Portugal against Sultan Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of the Marinid dynasty and Yusuf I of Nazari Granada. The Rio Salado is a tributary of the Rio Jara, north of Tarifa.
The allied Castilians and Portuguese pursued the Muslims ruthlessly, chasing them to the river Guadamecí, 6 km from the battlefield, although many remained in the hills and plundered the Sultan's camp. Little mercy was shown here, and many of the Sultan's women were killed. Both Abu Hasan and Yusuf reached Algeciras; the Sultan took refuge in Gibraltar and crossed to Ceuta in a galley that night. The Marinids had suffered a decisive defeat and returned to Africa.
Siege of Algiciras
Never again would a Muslim army be able to invade the Iberian Peninsula. Control of the Straits of Gibraltar was now in the hands of the Christians, specifically the Castilians and the Genoese. The war with the Nazarids of Granada continued for another ten years, during which Alfonso XI made some small territorial gains on the western frontier. Most importantly, the city of Algeciras, a valuable bridgehead held by the Marinids, was finally retaken in 1344 after a two-year siege.
The siege was widely publicised and attracted volunteers from all over Europe. An attempt to retake Gibraltar from the King of Granada was thwarted, but Castile was content to isolate the citadel from the rest of the Muslim territory when peace was agreed in 1350, following the death of Alfonso XI in his camp during the Great Plague. Gibraltar was not conquered until 1492.
Kingdom of Cordoba, Kingdom of Jaen, Kingdom of Sevilla and Kingdom of Granada.
The territories captured by the Crown of Castile during the latter part of the Reconquista became known as the Kingdoms of Andalucía (Reinos de Andalucía). These were delineated in line with the former Moorish 'taifas', and comprised the Kingdoms of Cordoba (1236), Jaen (1246), Sevilla (1248) and later Granada (1492). The Kingdoms remained for administration until the post French reorganisation of Spain in 1833 when the present provinces were created.