In 732 A.D. a Frankish army led by Charles Martel defeated an Umayyad (Arab) army at the Battle of Tours near Poitiers in modern day France,

In 732 A.D. a Frankish army led by Charles Martel defeated an Umayyad (Arab) army at the Battle of Tours near Poitiers in modern day France,

halting the Islamic conquest that had swept across northern Africa and into Europe. Had the Muslim army prevailed that day, the history of Europe and the rest of the western world might have turned out much differently.

As a result of Martel’s victory, Gaul did not fall under Islamic rule, but the Muslim invaders retained control of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal). Over 700 years would pass before they were finally defeated and driven out. This period of Spanish and Portuguese history is remembered (sometimes controversially) as the “Reconquista” (reconquest).

For centuries the small Christian kingdoms in the mountainous north of modern-day Spain held on, engaged in more or less constant warfare with the Muslim dynasties in the south (remembered collectively as “the Moors”). The full history of the Reconquista is long and complex and will require multiple Doses to recount. For today’s purpose we advance to 1469, when two teenaged monarchs—Queen Isabella of Castille and King Ferdinand of Aragon—married, combining their kingdoms, giving birth to what would eventually become Spain, and creating a realm strong enough to push the Moors out of Iberia.

Over the next two decades the Castilian-Aragónese armies of Ferdinand and Isabella scored a series of victories, pressing back the Moors. By 1491, the city of Granada was the only remaining Muslim-controlled area of the Iberian Peninsula.

Surrounded and besieged for over eight months, Granada finally capitulated. Fighting ceased in November and in January 1492, the victorious Christian army entered Granada. The Reconquista was complete.

The terms of surrender were generous to the Muslim population. They were granted freedom of worship and forced conversions were forbidden. Over time, however, these terms were violated, so that the often-oppressive mistreatment and persecution of Christians under Islamic rule came to be replaced by even more oppressive mistreatment and persecution of Muslims and Jews under Christian rule. In July 1492 all Jews were expelled from Granada and ten years later Catholicism was made compulsory in Castile, forcing the conversion or expulsion of the remaining Muslim and Jewish population.

The long struggle of Reconquista was a unifying force in Iberia, uniting the rival Christian kingdoms there in a common cause, and giving rise to Spanish identity and nationalism. The ultimate victory assured that Spain would be dominated by Christianity rather than Islam, and that Spain would enter the Age of Discovery as a Christian power, rather than a Muslim power. 

Granada was captured by the Castilian-Aragónese army on January 2, 1492, five hundred thirty-two years ago today, bringing an end to the Reconquista.