The Visigoths and the Reconquista
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Summary
A brief introduction to the Reconquista and the history of the Iberian Peninsula. A few hundred years before the Spanish conquests, the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe who along with other tribes during the migration era, carved out kingdoms from the crumbling Western Roman Empire, fought on the same side against Attila the Hun in one of the most pivotal battles in world history, the Battle of the Catalonian Plains.
Transcript
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Spain. I am in Manzanares a bit north of Madrid and I thought to take this opportunity to
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give a brief introduction to the Reconquista because it's one of the most inspiring events
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in history in my humble opinion. So basically in order to understand the Reconquista we have to go
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back a few hundred years before it began to see the situation in the Iberian Peninsula.
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And even before that we have to discuss the Visigoths, a Germanic tribe who along with other
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tribes during the migration era carved out kingdoms from the crumbling western Roman Empire. That being
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said it's important to point out that the Visigoths and the Romans fought on the same side in one of
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the most pivotal battles in world history, the Battle of the Catalonian Plains.
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Attila the Hun has begun storming through Gaul, sacking numerous towns. Fearing an attack on
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northern Italy, magister militant Flavius Aesius has mustered an army in an effort to resist the
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Hunnic advance. The Romans have found an unlikely ally in the form of Theodoric I, king of the Visigoths.
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Intercepting Attila on the Catalonian Plains, the two sides meet in battle.
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The battle was won by the Roman and Visigothic forces and soon afterwards the Visigoths began to
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take over formerly western Roman territories in France and Spain
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and eventually they had conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula.
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Unfortunately, the Visigothic Kingdom couldn't last because the
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ever-expanding Muslims came into the European scene during the 700s. They got stopped at Tours by
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Charles Martel in 732 but they managed to conquer most of Spain, most of Iberia.
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However, there was one last area in Spain that remained unoccupied in Asturias.
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In 722, the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius won a decisive battle, the Battle of Covadonga against the
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Muslim invaders. That was seen as the beginning of the Reconquista and he is seen as the founder of
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So even though it took about 800 years for the Reconquista to be complete,
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the majority of land gains were won during the central part of the Middle Ages. As seen on this map,
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the absolute majority of the Iberian Peninsula was reconquered by the year 1270.
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And then Granada in the south, which is the deep purple in this map, held out the longest.
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The Reconquista began almost immediately after the Muslims got stopped in northern Spain. And even
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though it was a conflict between European Christians versus Muslim Arabs and Berbers,
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the conflict was not black and white. There was plenty of infighting between both the Christian
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sides and the Muslim side. So during the Middle Ages, the general trend was that the Christian kingdoms
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took more and more lands back from the Muslims, but there was some setbacks as well. And again,
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there was fighting between the various Christian kingdoms because they obviously wanted a larger
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slice of the cake, the geographical cake, so to speak. And the same thing with the Muslims,
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Then of course, after the Spanish, the Iberian Peninsula was united, or at least Spain was united
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completely, a golden era for Spain awaited with new territories to conquer in the new world.
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And that will have to be a video for another time. I thank you kindly for watching and wish you a great day ahead.