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 Visigothic 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 he quotes Dark Ages the economy languished into subsistence and barter infrastructure sat 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 is the Islamic conquest had come to the neighboring Shores in 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 given ziod 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 and 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 guadalest 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 new sian who basically didn't want to be left out on the spoils and so 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 al wadi 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 but what the Arabs would call their new province all on the loose professor catless eloquently describes what the new conquerors thought of this land what 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 al-andalus was the furthest point west that the Muslim forces had reached in the Arab imagination it was a distant and exotic land fertile and overflowing with wealth and 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 over height 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 Reconquista 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 ineffectual efforts to oppose their intrusions the chroniclers of the 10th and 11th century scarcely touch on the theme of reconquest in as much as the Christians had all they could do to survive the overwhelming power the caliphate to speak of the expulsion of the muslims and recovery of spain in such circumstances one would have to have great faith in God's promises and quit in reality Astoria's 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 story us 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 fallen king Roderick his name was Pelagius or Pelayo and he managed to organize what was left in the fighting men of his yeah and was credited with being the first to rise up against the Muslim horde and refuse them their annual tribute this didn't go over very well and the forces of Allah Andaluz decided to pay him a visit in 718 or 722 dates are not exactly precise but the latter date appears more often the Muslim army arrived near the city of covadonga and demanded Pelagius surrender to which Don pelayo 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 spurned this multitude of pagans and do not fear them end quote at which point after saying this at least according to the same historians jaleo wrote forth and took on a Muslim army of 187 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 would go on to mark the beginning of the reconquest and would become a symbol of Christian resistance to 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 the story s would grow and become the precursor Kremlin Kingdom if there's any really hardcore Tolkien fans in the audience should become akin to the fabled island kingdom of númenor where all the kings of men arose so it would come to be that for the next fifty years he would cautiously expand along the catarrian mountain range and take over the northwestern portion of his fun along the atlantic coast and by the year 775 under Alfonzo 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 a bell rock and the first from 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 ii would firmly establish her as a kingdom man and 789 made the city of ova though the capital it was also during the time of Alfonzo 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 Leon 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 Asturias this 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 at a place called we hope this was in a region of northern Spain near Pamplona which is now known as naughty Oh ha on the opposite bank and much fewer in numbers to the ragtag forces of Ramiro King of Asturias the cruel Muslim Prince says the legend ffensive LY claimed that march north to punish the Christian King for his refusal to render the annual tribute of 100 virgin girls although outnumbered primero 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 and 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 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 not echoing Kista in quote Asturias now had land a capital a 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 roux bet and cysts and why not Abel may the sort run red with the blood of the Arab despite the ongoing raids from all Andaluz things were going pretty well for Asturias up until about the Year 900 this was the year that the king who is now Alfonso the third was forced by his own family at gunpoint or should say swordpoint to abdicate the throne and divide Astoria sin the three parts of which in the year 924 one of the newer states leon managed to conquer the other two and established the kingdom of leon the Reconquista was beginning to warm up