Reconquista

FEATURED EVENT

1492

Granada reclaimed by Spain

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Reconquista, English Reconquest, in medieval Spain and Portugal, a series of campaigns by Christian states to recapture territory from the Muslims (Moors), who had occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 8th century.

The Alhambra, a palace and fortress in Granada built between 1238 and 1358 at the end of Muslim rule in Spain.Though the beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to about 718, when the Christian Asturians opposed the Moors at the Battle of Covadonga, the impulse toward reconquest was expressed only sporadically through the first three centuries of Muslim hegemony. After a failed invasion of Muslim Spain in 778, in 801 Charlemagne captured Barcelona and eventually established Frankish control over the Spanish March, the region between the Pyrenees and the Ebro River. Asturian kings, presenting themselves as the heirs to the Visigothic monarchy that had ruled Spain prior to the Muslim conquest, capitalized on dissension within the Moorish ranks and expanded their holdings in the late 9th century. The Reconquest might have taken root at that earlier date had it not been for a resurgence in the power of the Córdoban caliphate and a break between the Christian kingdoms of Castile and León in the 10th century.

The Carolingian empire and (inset) divisions after the Treaty of Verdun, 843.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.