4th Lesson: Islamic Spain

I.TIMELINE

a) The origins of islamism

Hegira         622

Death of Muhammad   632

Muslim conquest Alexandria  642

Division among sunnites and chiites (Ali) 656

Foundation of Kairwan  (Tunisia)  670

Muslims conquer Sebta (Ceuta)  709

b) Basic chronology of Al-Andalus

1. Conquest and occupation 711-756      

2. Emirate of Cordoba (756-929)

Abd-al-Rahman I 756-788

Hisham I 788-796

al-Hakam I 796-822

Abd-al-Rahman II 822-852

Muhammad I 852-886

al-Mundhir 886-888

Abdallah 888-912

Abd-al-Rahman III 912-929

3. Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1031)

Abd-al-Rahman III 929-961

al-Hakam II 961-976

Hisham II 976-1009

Amirid dictators:

al-Mansur 976-1002

Abdul-Malik 1002-1008

Last Caliphs 1008-1031.

4. First Taifa kings 1031-1090

Conquest of Toledo 1085

5. Almoravid empire 1090-1147

6. Almohad empire 1147-1212

Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa 16 July 1212

7. Second Taifa Kings 1212-1275

Conquest of Seville 22 December 1248

8. Marinid interventions 1275-1340

Battle of El Salado 30 October 1340

9. The end of the Nasri Kingdom of Granada 1340-1492

The Catholic Kings enter in Granada 2 January 1492

10. Mudéjars and moriscos in Spain 1492-1614

II. SOME WORDS

Hegira

Sharia

Quran

Aleya

Sura

Sunna

Hadith

Muslim

Sunnite

Shiite

Dhimmi

Emir

Caliph

Sultan

Cadi

Fakih

Mufti

Fatwa

Ramadan

Hadj

Jihad

Hajib

Visir

Wali

Mozarab

Muladi

Mudejar

Morisco

Gibraltar

Alcalde

III. SOME QUESTIONS

1. Why muslims came to Spain and occupied so quickly the peninsula?

2. Why Did Abd al Rahman I created and independent Emirate in Cordoba?

3. Why Muslim Spain never became a fully homogeneous society?

4. Why did Muslim authorities in Spain chosed the Maliki rite?

5. How were treated the Christians and the Jews in Al-Andalus?

6. What is the difference between an Emirate and a Caliphate, and why Abd al Rahman III dared to become a caliph?

7. The State organization of the Caliphate of Cordoba was centralized or decentralized?

8. Why the Caliphate did not last long after the Amirid Dictatorship?

9. Why the end of the Caliphate was not the end of Muslim Spain?

10. How were treated the muslims after 1492?

IV. TEXT

MUSLIM SPAIN: AL-ANDALUS

1. Conquest and occupation (711-756)

 The Visigothic monarchy had failed to build stable institutions, successful means for transmitting power, or a stable and loyal elite behind the throne. Strife between rival pretenders and their supporters persisted throughout the history of Visigothic Hispania.

During the latter part of the seventh century the main antagonism was between the descendants of Chindaswinth (642-653) and those of a subsequent ruler, Witiza (702-710). Supporters of Witiza's clan rused to accept the election of a rival candidate, Roderic, in 710, and sought assistance from the newly established Muslim overlords of North Africa. After a conquest that had taken nearly forty years.

After a small exploratory raid, the Muslim commander of Tangier, Tariq, led a force of perhaps no more than 12,000 men, mostly Berbers from northern Morocco, across the straits in 711. Their goals were apparently ambiguous at first. The intervention was organized at the behest of the Witizan clan; the invaders probably hoped at the least to win booty and to exert some degree of Muslim influence in Hispania, possibly to make it a client state of the Arab caliphate.

However, discovery of the hollowness of Visigothic power, both crown and oligarchy, coupled with a swift and decisive victory, expanded Muslim ambition. At that moment Roderic was engaged in trying to subdue Basque and Visigothic rebels in the northeast. He hurriedly marched south, where the invaders awaited him in July 711 at the Guadalete, a small stream in the extreme southern tip of Spain. There the Witizans arranged the withdrawal of the bulk of Roderic's forces; the outnumbered remainder resisted stubbornly but were destroyed. Roderic was killed, and the remnants of his army were shattered near Ecija, where they made a desperate attempt to bar the road to the north. Córdoba, demoralized and almost undefended, was quickly taken. Roderic's supporters in the Visigothic capital, Toledo, were then overthrown by the Witizans, who opened the gates to Tariq.

After this surprising victories the Arab governor of northwest Africa, Musa ibn Nusair, personally led a force larger than the first, some 18,000--a high proportion of them the best Arab warriors--in the second wave of [16] invasion. Muslim armies had perfected a swift, flexible, hard-hitting style of battle that proved extremely difficult for Visigothic levies to cope with. Seville, the largest city in the peninsula and center of Hispano-Roman culture, fell easily after a short siege. The remaining elements of the Roderician faction withdrew to Mérida, which withstood a long siege but finally fell on June 30, 713. Much of the Visigothic aristocracy resisted little or not at all. Theodemir, duke of the Cartagena district in the southeast, made a treaty allowing him to retain control of his territory so long as the inhabitants paid regular taxes to the Muslim command. The spring and summer of 714 were then devoted to subduing the heavily populated northeast. Zaragoza was conquered and many of its aristocrats put to the sword. Nearly all the territory northeast of Zaragoza was rendered tributary, after which the main Muslim column apparently marched westward across north-central Hispania before returning southward.

The Muslim "conquest" took only three years, but the Muslims in fact made no effort to conquer and occupy the entire peninsula. That would have been impossible for an army of no more than 30,000 to 40,000 men. They occupied directly only the main strongholds of south-central and northeastern Hispania, the old centers of Roman civilization. The old Suevic district in Portucale to the west and Galicia to the northwest were rendered tributary but not occupied. The Witizan clan served as clients of the Muslims, who could in a sense present themselves as the protagonists of a legitimist cause. During the first generation of occupation, three thousand estates from the royal domain were bestowed on the Witizans.

The Muslims were concerned first with booty and secondly with the prosecution of the jihad--the holy war to extend Islamic dominion ever farther afield. By 720 an expedition had crossed the Pyrenees and seized Narbonne, and this was followed for the next twenty years by intermittent onslaughts into France. Conquest beyond the Pyrenees was the major new concern of the overlords of "Al-Andalus" as the Muslims called their new peninsular domain. Between 721 and 732 three governors of Al-Andalus were killed leading expeditions into France, the last expedition culminating in a major defeat by the Frankish army at Poitiers in 732. This did not put an end to the Muslim offensives, however, for the Muslims were further encouraged by internal strife in southern

The relative ease with which Muslim domination was established over most of the peninsula can be explained by the fact that only some of the Visigoths resisted, and almost none of the rest of the population. Religious antagonism caused surprisingly little difficulty. Early Islam, despite its emphasis on the jihad, was comparatively tolerant of Christians and Jews as "peoples of the book." Moreover, there was little sense of racial antipathy; the majority of the first wave of invaders were not even Arabs, but Berbers who differed little in appearance from the Hispanic people.

To most of the population the conquest was represented as a liberation. Christians that remained in Muslim territory were called mozarabs. They were promised free practice of their religion and in some cases greater social and economic justice as well. The rights of the minority of Hispanic smallholders were apparently respected. Though Christians were required to pay a special tribute, it was at first modest. In all, exactions were perhaps no greater than under the Visigoths. For more than a century, the Christians in the towns were permitted to live a semi-autonomous local existence, and in some cases shared their churches with Islamic worshippers.

People began to accept conversion to Islam almost immediately, in large numbers. Muladís appeared.  At first Islamic overlords did not encourage mass conversion, because it reduced the number of non-Muslims who paid heavier taxes, but once the Muslim authorities were firmly established in power many Christians converted simply to be on the dominant side, escape special taxes, and gain greater economic opportunity. It has also been suggested that a portion of the enserfed sector of the peasantry accepted Islam to be freed of their servitude.

 The third religious group in the peninsula, the Jews, who may have numbered 2 or 3 percent of the population, eagerly collaborated with the Muslims. Hispanic Jews had achieved considerable wealth under the Visigoths but were subjected to intermittent persecution. Muslim rule promised greater freedom and security. Jews sometimes assisted the Muslims, and a detachment of Jewish soldiers (perhaps related to Hispano-Jews exiled to the Maghreb) accompanied the invaders. Several important cities were given to Jewish leaders to govern temporarily after the Muslims took over. During the next three centuries Jewish financial and cultural influence expanded in southern and south-central Hispania. Because of their unique position, and also because of their linguistic skills, Jews served for generations as mediators between sectors of the Muslim and Christian populations.

The destruction of the Visigothic system of state and society was one thing, and the building of a Muslim Hispania something else that was much more difficult and took more time--indeed, nearly two centuries. The Arab clan leaders who formed the core of the new oligarchy quickly fell out with each other, and the heads of the caliphate in faraway Damascus revealed concern about maintaining control of their most distant dominion. The first official governor of Muslim Hispania, Abdul Aziz (who incidentally married Roderic's widow), was murdered by rivals in 716. During the four decades 715-755 there were approximately twenty different governors, many of them assassinated and only three retaining office as long as five years.

In addition to feuds between Arab clans and factions, a broad ethnic split emerged between the Arab aristocrats and the Berber population. The Arabs, who formed a minority among the mostly Berber invaders, assumed the place of privilege from the beginning and began to set themselves up as a landed Muslim neo-aristocracy. The Berber warriors, the rank and file of the invaders, tended to be shunted toward the less productive highlands. Many were settled on territory seized from or abandoned by the Visigoths in the northwest-central region. By 740 a major rebellion was underway across the straits in the Maghreb, where the Berbers were adopting Kharijism, a new, heretical form of Islam that accompanied protest against Arab domination of the Muslim empire. The revolt spread to the Berbers settled in the northwest-central part of the peninsula. They marched against the urban-associated Arab aristocracy in south-central and southern Hispania, outnumbering them, for the Arabs could not depend upon their new Christian subjects to fight for them. It may be that only the arrival of some 7,000 Syrian cavalry saved the aristocracy. During the 740s, the new polity in the peninsula virtually dissolved.

 The spectacle of general Muslim civil war did not encourage Hispanic loyalty, and small elements of the Christian population took advantage of this opportunity to migrate to the unoccupied northern mountains, whence border warfare had been waged since 718. After 750, crop failures and raiding brought widespread famine to the Berber-inhabited Duero valley of the northwest, forcing the remainder of the invaders to withdraw farther south. When political order was finally restored and the Berbers brought under control, the Duero valley south of the Asturian and Cantabrian hills had been evacuated, leaving a no-man's-land fought over by northern Christians and Muslims for the next two centuries.

2. The Emirate of Cordoba (756-929)

Unified government in Muslim Hispania was finally achieved after 755 by its first independent ruler, Abd-al-Rahman I (756-788), last surviving heir of the traditional Muslim Umayyad dynasty in Damascus after it had been deposed by the rival Abbasid dynasty. In flight from the Near East, Abd-alRahman, whose mother was a Berber, sought to regain an independent kingdom at the far western end of the Muslim world. Arriving in the peninsula in 755, he won the support not only of the Berbers but also of the strongest Arab faction, enabling him to overthrow the forces of the erstwhile governor outside Córdoba, the Hispano-Muslim capital since 719.

There Abd-al Rahman announced the establishment of an independent Umayyad emirate based on "true justice" and toleration for all religions and ethnic groups. This stand greatly strengthened his position among the heterogeneous population of the peninsula. He was eventually recognized as heir of the legitimate dynasty by nearly all regions save the independent Christian hill country of the far north, but years of intermittent campaigning were required to subdue dissident Muslim regional overlords.

Little effort was made to conquer and occupy the northern mountain areas, because of difficult geographic obstacles, the poverty of those regions, and the resistance of their inhabitants. Instead, three frontier districts or marches were established to hold the border, and the emirate adopted or accepted a variant of west European feudalism in dealing with the frontier areas. The key spots were mountains, castles, or fortified towns difficult to incorporate into a central system. Loose personal relations akin to vassalage were worked out with Muslim and at times with Christian overlords in the frontier area. The offensive military strength and the economic resources of the northern Christian hill people did not seem great enough to warrant the expenditure of means that would have been required to subdue those harsh, backward regions.

It is impossible to calculate the number of immigrants who entered the peninsula during the three centuries of the emirate. All told they may have accounted for the ancestry of 20 percent of the peninsula's population by the end of the tenth century, yet the influx in most years was quite small. Moreover, the bulk of the immigrants were not oriental Arabs but Maghrebian Berbers. The prosperous, increasingly cultured Al-Andalus must have looked very attractive to the rude tribesmen across the straits. But the more cultured Arabs tended to monopolize the most important lands, posts, and perquisites, and relations with the Berbers and other elements were never very good. Muslim Hispania never achieved a fully homogeneous society. Descendants of Arabs jealously preserved their family and tribal identities, together with a distinct sense of superiority to the rest of the Muslim population. Many of the Berber immigrants did not at first speak Arabic and for some time retained their separate community identity. The majority of the Muslims were of course descendants of Hispanic converts and never managed to absorb fully the aristocratic Arab elements; rather, upper-class HispanoMuslim muwalladun (or muladíes, as converts to Islam were later known in Castilian) later came to affect Arab ancestry or names for themselves. Interethnic tensions persisted throughout the history of Al-Andalus. They probably lay at the root of continuing internal political conflicts that were only temporarily assuaged, never eliminated.

 Nevertheless an Islamic culture in the peninsula developed with surprising rapidity. Though the first generation of Muslims had been relatively uncultured and had a rather weak grasp of Islamic theology, religious teachers arrived from the Near East soon after the conquest, and their numbers increased during the course of the eighth century. The roots of a genuine Muslim orthodoxy were established, in response to the problem of cultural heterogeneity and the challenge to the identity of the convert. Within three or four generations, Hispanic Islam was strongly identified with the Malikite rite. The religious teacher Malik (who died in Medina ca. 795) had propounded a rather simple and traditionalistic understanding of Islam, based on the formula of "the Koran, the words of the Prophet, and admitting that otherwise I do not know." The antirationalist conservatism of the Malikite rite was adopted as the semi-official observance of Muslims in the emirate during the reign of al-Hakam I (796-822). Malikite traditionalism, as propounded by local faqihs (jurists) throughout Al-Andalus, provided a degree of cultural unity for most of the Muslim population. Ultraorthodoxy was characteristic of Islam in the peninsula throughout almost the entire Muslim period, and contrasted notably with the greater tendency toward heterodoxy in other parts of the Muslim world. This may perhaps be explained by the peripheral location of Al-Andalus at the outer limit of Islamic lands, adjacent to Latin Christendom, containing a Christian minority (at first a Christian majority), and usually in a state of tension with its religious and cultural rival. It is interesting, too, that during the Middle Ages western Christianity also emphasized pragmatic legalism, ethics, and orthodoxy in contrast with the more speculative metaphysics of the Christian east.

A wave of major "orientalization" began during the reign of Abd al-Rahman II (822-852), who imported numerous oriental Muslim artists and educators. The high culture of the Middle East elicited a strongly eastward-looking orientation; though a few individual Hispano-Muslim art forms were developed by the tenth century (the muwashaha and zéjel songs and poems), the art and literature of AlAndalus was established almost completely on oriental Arabic forms.

Christian society in the south and east was completely unable to hold its own. The independent Christians of the north came to call their counterparts in the south Mozarabs, derived from the Arabic musta'rib, meaning Arabized or Arabic-speaking. Mozarab culture became fossilized, its postconquest literature for example rhetorical and usually mediocre, deficient in dialectic and analysis. Of course it must be recognized that Mozarab culture was placed under increasing pressure and not able to develop in full freedom. Limited tolerance never meant equality, and Christians were never permitted to dispute publicly the teachings of Islam. Religious practice and cultural opportunity were increasingly circumscribed. It is true that some towns had Christian majorities for a century or more, that most Mozarab dioceses were able to continue an uninterrupted line of episcopal succession for nearly three hundred years, that all-Mozarab church councils were occasionally called, and that some religious and cultural contacts were maintained with other parts of western Christendom.

Nonetheless, the strength and influence of Islam was increasingly felt. From about the beginning of the ninth century pressure mounted; taxes were raised and new restrictions were introduced, while the Muslim proportion of society steadily increased. One response to latent and then mounting persecution was the Christian "martyrs of Córdoba" movement of 850-859 in the course of which several score Christian spokesmen, confronting Islam directly, were put to death. A more common response was Mozarab emigration to the Christian principalities in the northern mountains. The Muslim state did not embark on a policy of extreme persecution until late in the tenth century, however, and the Mozarab minority persisted, in ever-dwindling numbers, until almost the end of Al-Andalus.

The growing strength and sophistication of Hispano-Muslim society was not reflected by political unity, for the ninth century was a time of political troubles for the emirate. Resentment among both Christians and Hispano-Muslims increased: against the overlordship of Córdoba by Muslims in other regions, against exclusivist Arab clans on the part of non-Arab Muslims, and against supposedly heterodox emirs by fanatical Mahikite faqihs. A major revolt occurred among the lower classes of Córdoba in 814, when popular discontent took the form of an uprising against the emir himself. This reflected the uncertainty about political legitimacy that had existed in Muslim Hispania since the emirate broke away from the central caliphate in the Near East. After the revolt was quelled, one-fourth of the population of the Andalusi capital was expelled.

Muslim revolts grew serious during the second half of the ninth century. At times the emir controlled only the greater Córdoba region. Major rebellions occurred in the districts of Toledo in the center, Seville and Bobastro in the south, Mérida in the southwest, and Zaragoza and Lérida in the northeast. The partly Christian city of Toledo was more or less autonomous from 873 to 930, required only to pay a nominal tribute to the emirate. A more fully autonomous principality was carved out in the upper Ebro valley of the northeast by the Banu Qasi dynasty, descendants of the Visigothic overlord Casio (Cassius) of Tudela, who had accepted Islam in 714 at the start of the conquest. The Banu Qasi ruled the upper Ebro region for two hundred years, waxing at times rich and powerful. At their height in the late ninth century they were sometimes called "third kings of Hispania" (following the emirs of AlAndalus and the kings of Christian Asturias-León). The most serious of the new revolts, however, was that begun by Omar ibn Hafsun at Bobastro in the hills above Málaga in 883. The descendant of muladíes, ben-Hafsun rallied Muslims and Christians alike and soon made most of the eastern Andalusian hill country independent of the emirate. In 894 he returned to Christianity, the religion of his ancestors. That cost the support of most of his Muslim following, but even so he held out in the Bobastro district until his death in 917. This domain was defended by his sons for another twelve years until it was finally reincorporated by the emirate in 929.

3. The Califate of Cordoba (929-1031)

An effectively unified state was finally achieved during the long reign of Abd-al-Rahman III (912-961).The son of a Navarrese princess, this greatest of Cordoban rulers was a short, blue-eyed Muslim who dyed his red hair black to match that of most of his subjects. In 929 he took the step of raising his dominion from an emirate, or kingdom, to a caliphate, or empire. Originally the Islamic world had been unified under a single caliphate as the political successor to the prophet's authority. The Umayyad emirate of Al-Andalus had been nominally subordinate to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad, but establishment of a new caliphate under the aggressive Fatimids in Egypt threatened military and political pressures through North Africa. Abd-al-Rahman III countered the claims and ambitions of the Fatimids by taking advantage of new Muslim theories to assert the imperial independence of Al-Andalus. This nominal authority also strengthened the claims of the Cordoban state over the local regions of the peninsula.

The caliph restored central control over all the Muslim population and carried on major border campaigns against the small Christian principalities of the north, receiving token submission from most of them. During the latter part of his reign he extended military dominion over part of the northwest Maghreb, briefly expanding Al-Andalus into an imperial domain.

The strength of the tenth-century caliphate was due as much to the efficiency of the state system as to the size and prosperity of its population, for the caliphate developed the best organized administration found anywhere in western Europe during that era. This had begun nearly a century earlier under Abdal-Rahman II, who had commenced to refashion what had begun as a fairly simple despotism into a well-articulated structure patterned after the Abbasid caliphate in Damascus. Executive authority was nominally autocratic, administered by an hajib or chief minister through batteries of visirs or departmental ministers for varied aspects of administration, with complements of subsecretaries, scribes, and clerks. A fairly efficient treasury with some degree of central accounting was eventually developed. Theoretically, each district of the emirate was administered by a regional wali, or governor, responsible to the central government for the affairs of his province. The legal system was headed by a cadi aljamaa (chief justice), though his authority was restricted to the Córdoba district. The court structure was divided by region and municipality, with separate jurisdictions for different kinds of grievances according to civil need and Muslim custom.

4. The Amirid Dictatorship (976-1008)

The Cordoban state reached the height of its power in the middle of the tenth century under Abd-alRahman III, yet survived for only seventy-five years more. No state in Europe or the Mediterranean basin during the Middle Ages possessed the instruments to guarantee central government unless strong leadership and a continuous principle of legitimacy were preserved; by the eleventh century these were lacking in Al-Andalus. Abd-al-Rahman III's successor, al-Hakam II, ruled for fifteen years, but when he died in 976 he left as heir a twelve-year-old son who was recognized as Hisham II. The government was soon dominated by its vigorous and efficient hajib, an Hispano-Arab known to history as al-Mansur ("The Victorious"). In 981 young Hisham was forced to officially ratify the complete authority of the hajib over all aspects of government.

The historic title al-Mansur was won in a long series of summer campaigns against the Christian principalities of the north. The motives were more political and economic than religious, but al-Mansur found it useful to strengthen his position by preaching the jihad against the northern Christians, little troubled by the fact that Christian mercenaries sometimes served in his forces. At one time or another he ravaged every major part of Christian territory save Navarre, with whose ruling dynasty he was allied by marriage. No ruler since the original conquest had inflicted such heavy damage on Christian Hispania. Moreover, at the very end of the century his son, Abdul-Malik, restored Cordoban authority over the northwest corner of the Maghreb, of which the city of Fez was the center. Al-Mansur died in 1002 at the height of power, exhausted by his triumphant exertions. He was succeeded by Abdul-Malik, who quickly obtained from the impotent Hisham the same plenary authority held by his invincible father. Abdul-Malik survived his father by only six years, however, dying in 1008, possibly assassinated.

The Amirid dictatorship had raised the caliphate to the pinnacle of its military power, yet sowed within it the seeds of its political destruction. For one thing, the dictatorship fatally weakened the principle of political legitimacy. Al-Andalus had always been difficult to rule, relying on both forceful leadership and administration and the legitimate authority of the Ummayad dynasty. In the long run, the dictatorship supplied force alone; it replaced the dynasty, yet could not develop a new principle of legitimate descent from Mohammed.

5. The breakup of the Caliphate (1008-1031)

Soon after the death of the second Amirid, the political unity and authority of the caliphate collapsed altogether. Once the legitimate succession had been interrupted it was never successfully restored. Many regions of Al-Andalus were resentful of their treatment under the dictatorship and refused to heed new leaders in Córdoba. The feckless Hisham was deposed in 1009, briefly restored the following year, then deposed again. Altogether, over a period of twenty-three years, six relatives of the Ummayads and three members of a rival, half-Berber family disrupted the throne. The slave pretorians functioned as a powerful independent faction and the bands of Berber mercenaries who had become more numerous during the preceding half-century usurped power in local districts. Regional Arab oligarchs and clans withdrew into local exclusivism, and the state system soon dissolved. Córdoba was wracked by demagogy, riots, and pillaging, while the educated and wealthy fled. In 1010 the city was sacked by a Catalan expedition brought in by Muslim dissidents at Toledo.

The localism and factionalism that had proved an almost insuperable obstacle for the Visigothic monarchy also undermined the caliphate, and its official end was finally declared by a group of local leaders meeting in Córdoba in 1031. In the former capital it was replaced by a local government of notables ruling only the greater Córdoba district.

6. The First Taifa kingdoms (1031-1090)

After the collapse of the caliphate, political power coalesced around local leaders, oligarchies, or ethnic groups and coalitions in the principal urban economic centers of Al-Andalus. Nearly all the first overlords were local commanders and notables who had achieved power through the political and military network created by al-Mansur. The result was a series of about thirty regional taifa (local faction) kingdoms that divided up approximately the southern 75 percent of the peninsula.

Some of the taifas, chiefly Seville, Granada, Badajoz, Valencia, Toledo, and Zaragoza, quickly developed into fairly strong regional emirates or principalities, dominating large areas of the surrounding countryside and devouring their weaker neighbors.

The taifas managed to preserve most of the economic achievements of Al-Andalus and often to develop them further. Some of their capitals reached a greater level of prosperity and sophistication in the eleventh century than any towns under the caliphate save Córdoba. Hence the collapse of the Hispano-Muslim state did not bring the collapse of Hispano-Muslim culture.

The taifa kingdoms and their successors were the late blooming of Muslim Hispania's Indian Summer. Wracked by incessant factionalism, they divided and dissipated their civic and military energies. When the military balance in the peninsula began to change in the middle of the eleventh century, the taifas could not defend themselves in regional isolation and were destroyed one by one. The dissolution of the caliphate had been the political prelude to the political and military decline of all of Al-Andalus. They needed help of North African Muslims.

7. The Almoravid Empire (1090-1147)

The Almoravids were a Berber dynasty of Morocco, who formed an empire in the 11th century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus. The term "Almoravid" comes from the Arabic "al-Murabitun" which is the plural form of "al-Murabit" - literally meaning "one who is tying" but figuratively meaning "one who is ready for battle at a fortress". The term is related to the notion of Ribat, a frontier monastery-fortress.

 From the year 1053, the Almoravids began to spread their religious way to the Berber areas of the Sahara, and to the regions south of the desert. By 1062 Yusuf ibn Tashfin founded the city of Marrakech after having brought into complete subjection what is now known as Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauretania. In 1080, he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen (in modern-day Algeria) and founded the present city of that name, his rule extending as far east as Oran.

In 1085 Alfonse VI of Castile and Leon occupied Toledo from the muslims. It was the old capital of the visigothic Kingdom and became a symbol. The Taifa kings feared that the Christians would conquer rapidly the rest of Al Andalus and they asked the help of Almoravids. In 1086 Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by the Muslim taifa princes of Al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula to defend their territories. Yusuf ibn Tashfin crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Algeciras, and defeated Alfonse VI at the Battle of az-Zallaqah (Battle of Sagrajas). He was prevented from following up his victory by trouble in Africa, which he chose to settle in person.

He returned to Spain in 1090, avowedly for the purpose of annexing the taifa principalities of Iberia. He was supported by most of the Iberian people, who were discontented with the heavy taxation imposed upon them by their spend-thrift rulers. Their religious teachers, as well as others in the east, (most notably, al-Ghazali in Persia and al-Tartushi in Egypt, who was himself an Iberian by birth, from Tortosa), detested the taifa rulers for their religious indifference. The clerics issued a fatwa (a non-binding legal opinion) that Yusuf was of sound morals and had the religious right to dethrone the rulers, whom he saw as heterodox in their faith. By 1094, Yusuf had annexed most of the major taifas, with the exception of the one at Saragossa. Yusuf did not reconquer much territory from the Christian kingdoms, except that of Valencia, but he did hinder the progress of the Spanish Reconquista by uniting al-Andalus.

After friendly correspondence with the caliph at Baghdad, whom he acknowledged as Amir al-Mu'minin ("Commander of the Faithful"), Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 1097 assumed the title of Amir al Muslimin ("Commander of the Muslims"). He died in 1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100. The Almoravid power was at its height at Yusuf's death: the Moorish empire then included all of North-West Africa as far as Algiers, and all of Iberia south of the Tagus as far eastward as the mouth of the Ebro, including the Balearic Islands.

 Three years afterwards, under Yusuf's son and successor, Ali ibn Yusuf, Sintra and Santarém were added, and Iberia was again invaded in 1119 and 1121, but the tide had turned, the French having assisted the Aragonese to recover Zaragoza. In 1138, Ali ibn Yusuf was defeated by Alfonso VII of León, and in the Battle of Ourique (1139), by Afonso I of Portugal, who thereby won his crown. Lisbon was conquered by the Portuguese in 1147.

8. The Almohad Empire (1147-1212)

The Almohad Dynasty (from Arabic al-Muwaḥḥidun, "the monotheists" or "the unitarians"), was a Moroccan Berber-Muslim dynasty founded in the 12th century that established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains in roughly 1120.

The movement was started by Ibn Tumart in the Masmuda tribe, followed by Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi between 1130 and his death in 1163, the Almohads defeated the ruling Almoravids, extending their power over all of the Maghreb. Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) under the Almoravid dynasty, followed the fate of Africa.

The Almohad dominance of Spain continued until 1212, when Muhammad III, "al-Nasir" (1199–1214) was defeated at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena by an alliance of the Christian princes of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal. Nearly all of the Moorish dominions in Iberia were lost soon after, with the great Moorish cities of Cordova and Seville falling to the Christians in 1236 and 1248 respectively.

The Almohads continued to rule in Africa until the piecemeal loss of territory through the revolt of tribes and districts enabled the rise of their most effective enemies, the Marinids in 1215. The last representative of the line, Idris al-Wathiq, was reduced to the possession of Marrakesh, where he was murdered by a slave in 1269; the Marinids seized Marrakesh, ending the Almohad domination of the Western Maghreb.

9. Second Taifa Kingdoms and Marinids (1212-1340)

 After the fall of the Almohad Empire Muslim Spain was again divided in independent Taifa Kingdoms, that could not resist Christian militar offensives. By 1250 Aragon and Portugal had finished the Reconquest and fixed their frontiers with the Kingdom of Castile-Leon, where Ferdinand III (1217-1252) had conquered from muslim cities as important as Cordoba (1236), Jaen (1246), and Seville (1248).

The Christian advanced was slowed down by the Civil War that opposed Alfonse X of Castile and his Son Sancho IV since 1275. The former called a Bereber dynasty from Norther Africa in his help: the Marinids. They will remain since then the firm allies of the Nasri Kingdom of Granada.

The Marinids had overtaken the Almohads controlling Morocco in 1244, and briefly controlled all the Maghreb in the mid-14th century. They supported the Kingdom of Granada in Al-Andalus in the 13th and 14th centuries; an attempt to gain a direct foothold on the European side of the Strait of Gibraltar was however defeated at the Battle of Salado in 1340 and finished after the Castilian conquest of Algeciras from the Marinids in 1344.

10. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada (1340-1492)

After the battle of El Salado, the Taifa Kingdom of Granada, founded by Ibn Nasr in 1238, remained the only Muslim independent kingdom in Spain. Twenty-three different emirs ruled Granada from the founding of the dynasty by Mohammed I ibn Nasr until January 2, 1492, when Muhammad XII surrendered to the Christian Spanish kingdoms of Aragon and Castile.

The relatively long lasting history of the Nasrid Kingdom was essentially due to the fact that this part of Spain (South East of the Iberian peninsula) is hilly and therefore difficult to occupy militarily, and second because the kingdom of Castille was torn by Civil Wars from 1350 to 1479, when the Catholic Kings (Isabel and Fernando) won the succession war started 5 years earlier. This enabled them to start the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada in 1483. It was a long and difficult war that ended in 2 January 1492 when Isabel and Fernando entered Granada after the surrender of the last Nasrid king Mohamed XII.

11. Mudejar Spain (1492-1614).

The occupation of Granada did not mean the expulsion of muslims. They were first tolerated with their religion and their laws and customs. Nevertheless step by step the pressure of the Catholic Church forced the Spanish muslims called “mudéjares” (from the Arabic word “Mudaijan” which means domesticated) to convert to Catholicism and became moriscos. The Moriscos would still remain in Spain for a century until they were expelled by Philip III between 1609 and 1614, because of the social pressure exerted by “Old Christians”.

Sources:  http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne1.pdf, wikipedia and Aguilera-Barchet, Bruno (2007) Iniciación histórica al Derecho Musulmán. Madrid: Dykinson. 

3d Lesson: The Christian and Germanic Age

I. TIMELINE

A. The origins of christianism

A. JUDAISM

The Origins of Judaism. 

1800 BC          Arrival of the Israelites to Judea. 

1700                Emigration to Egypt.

1372-1350      Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton).  Religious reform.       

1250                The Israelites flee to Egypt, led by Moses.

1029-974        David, King of the Hebrews.

First Temple: The writing of the Bible begins (Old Testament) (10th – 13th centuries BC)

973-935                                 Rule of Solomon. Construction of the Temple of Solomon:

                                                Period of the First Temple

973-936                                 Scission of Jewish territory into the kingdoms of Israel and

                                                 Judah.

Age of the Prophets (8th to 6th centuries BC)

722                  The kingdom of Israel is conquered by the Assyrians.

586                  Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem.  Start of captivity in Babylon.  End of the                                  kingdom of Judah.                 

Second Temple: beginning of the Talmudic Era – Mishnaic Stage - (6th century BC – 1st century AD)

539                  Cyrus the Great destroys Babylon.  The Israelites return to Jerusalem.

320                  The diadochus Ptolemy, governor of Egypt, conquers Jerusalem.

167                  Beginning of Hellenistic domination.  Persecutions (Antiochus IV).

165                  Revolt of Judah Maccabee.

160                  Start of the reign of the Maccabees.

142                  Judea, autonomous territory.

63 BC              Pompey conquers Jerusalem.  Judea, a Roman province.

74 AD                         Conquest of Masada by the Romans.  End of the Jewish resistance (Third

                          Temple [74-135]).

                       

The Diaspora (135-1948)

            135                  After another rebellion by the Jewish, the Emperor Hadrian orders

                             the definitive destruction of the Temple of Solomon. Thus begins the

                             Diaspora, to last 1813 years, until the foundation of the State of Israel in

                            1948.

End of the Talmudic period :

            4th century      Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud

            6th century      Babylonian Talmud (“Babli”).

B. CHRISTIANITY

The origins (1st century )

7 BC                Birth in Bethlehem (Palestine) of Jesus during the Principate of Augustus.                                     (27 BC - 14 AD).

26 AD             Crucifixion of Jesus during the principate of Tiberius (14-37).

Circa 33 AD    St. Peter elected bishop of Rome, according to tradition.

           

Writing of the New Testament (second half of the 1st century) :

            54-68                          Emperor Nero. First persecutions of the Christians.

            64 (h.)                         Martyrdom of St. Peter.

            66 (h.)                         Death of St. Mark the Evangelist.

            67 (h.)                         67 Decapitation of St. Paul

            74                               End of the Jewish era of the Second Temple.

            100 (h.)                       Death of St. John the Evangelist.

135                  Destruction of the Third Temple. Initiation of the Jewish Diaspora.

           

The spread of Christianity (2nd – 3rd centuries)

The apologists

165                  Death of St. Justin (born  100).                     

208                  Death of St. Irenaeus (born  130).

240                  Death of Tertullian (born  160).

258                  Death of St. Cyprian (born  210).

270                  Death of St. Gregory the Wonderworker (born  215).

           

The last persecutions

270-275          The Emperor Aurelian attempts to impose a new official religion.

284-305          Emperor Diocletian.  Last persecution of the Christians.

           

           

The official establishment of Christianity (4th century)  IV)

311                  The Edict of Toleration by Galerius recognizes Christianity.

313                  Promulgation of the Edict of Milan by Constantine and Licinius.  Possible                                     celebration of the Council of Elvira (old Iliberis near Granada, Spain).

314                  Council of Arles.        

325                  Council of Nicaea, First Ecumenical Council.

Circa 345        Birth of St. Jerome (419), translator into Latin of the Old Testament, or                                        Jewish Bible.

354 (h.)           Birth of St. Augustine.

361-363          Julian (the Apostate), emperor.  Last attempt to restore the ancient pagan                          rites.

380                  Edict of Thessalonica through which Theodosius (379-395) decrees the

                      official status of Christianity.

381                  Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. 

392                  The Edict of Constantinople prohibits all pagan practices.  Christianity is                          the only religion tolerated.

431                  Ecumenical Council of Ephesus.

451                  Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon.

B. THE GERMANIC KINGDOMS 

(4th-7th centuries)

First wave: the Visigoths (378-382)

378                  The Visigoths defeat Emperor Valens at Adrianople.

382                  Theodosius signs a first foedus with the Visigoths.  They may settle in the

                         Empire if they pledge to defend it.

The second wave: the Suebi, Vandals and Alani (406-425)

406                             The Suevi, Vandals and Alani cross the Rhine, defeating the federated

                        troops defending the Empire’s border.

407                              The Romans abandon the British Isles.

410                  24 August Alaric I sacks Rome.

414                  Ataulf’s marriage to Placidia. 

416                  Second foedus between Rome and the Visigoths, signed this time between

                          Honorius and Valia.

425                  Signing of the third foedus between Theodoric and Aetius.

Third wave: Franks, Burgundians, Alamanni, Angles and Saxons (434-451)

434                             Attila (+ 453) becomes leader of the Huns.

 

436                  Aetius' victory over the Burgundians.  Rome, however, cannot prevent the

                    Burgundians from permanently settling in the Rhone Valley, nor keep the

                    Angles and Saxons out of Great Britain, nor the Franks from Gaul.

451      Attila is defeated at the Battle of the Catalonian Fields (Chalons, northern France).

            The Hun leader fights alongside a series of Germanic tribes paying homage to him

            (Ostrogoths, Burgundians, Gepids, Heruli and Thuringians, etc.).  Fighting against

             the Huns was the Roman general Flavius Aetius, supported by Rome’s Germanic

            allies (Visigoths, Franks, and Alani).

  

453           Death of Attila.

454                  Assassination of Aetius.

455           Capture of Rome by the Vandals.  The emperor takes refuge in Ravenna.

463                  The Burgundians settle in the Rhone Valley.

The early Germanic kingdoms: the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse and the Frankish kingdom (451-507)

466                  Euric (+ 484) becomes the King of the Visigoths.

 

476                  Following the overthrow of Romulus Augustulus by Odoacer, King of the

             Heruli, the Visigothic kingdom of Tolosa, having arisen in 416 with Valia, becomes

             the largest Germanic kingdom in the West.

481                  Clovis (+511), of the Merovingian clan, becomes King of the Franks. 

486                  The Franks, led by Clovis, defeat the Gallo-Romans, led by Afranius, at

                  Soissons.

The last Germanic invasions: the Ostrogoths and Lombards occupy Italy (493-568) 

493                  The Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great (+526) creates a powerful Germanic

                kingdom in Italy.

496                  Clovis converts to Catholicism.  Soon after he defeats the Alamanni at

               Tolbiac.

500                  The Burgundians are defeated by the Franks. 

507                  Clovis annihilates the Visigoths at Vouillé (Campus Vogladensis) in

                      southern France.  Death of the Visigoth’s King Alaric II. 

511                  Death of Clovis.

516                  The Burgundian King Sigismund converts to Christianity.

526                  Death of the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great.

550                  Rechiar, King of the Suebi,  converts to Christianity through the influence

                 of St. Martin of Dumium.

552                             The Byzantine troops sent by Justinian (527-565) fail to conquer the entire

                  Italian Peninsula after a brutal war.

568                  The Lombards, led by King Alboin, invade Italy when pressured by the

                Avars.  They soon drive the Byzantines out of northern Italy (Po Valley, which

                comes to be called “Lombardy”).

The Visigothic kingdom of Toledo and the Muslim expansion (573-711)

573      Leovigild (573-586) ascends to the Visigothic throne. He is considered the founder

          of the Kingdom of Toledo, which would last until 711.

585                  Authari, King of the Lombards, converts to Catholicism.

589                  Reccared I renounces Arianism. 

622                  Muhammad flees from Mecca and takes refuge in Medina (Hijra). 

631                  The Byzantines are expelled from the Iberian Peninsula by Suintila. 

632                  Muhammad dies in Medina. 

642                  The Muslims manage to conquer Alexandria.

647                  The Byzantines are defeated by the Muslims at Sbeitla.  However, Emperor         

                        Constant II buys the Muslims’ withdrawal from North Africa.

655                  The Byzantine fleet is defeated by the Muslims at Lycia.

676                  After four years the Arabs lift their siege of Constantinople.  The caliph

                  Ahmed-ben-Moavia signs            a 30-year peace.

695                  The Muslims conquer Carthage (Tunisia) and manage to permanently drive

                     the Byzantines out of the Maghreb.

709                  The Visigoths lose Ceuta to the Moors.

711                  The Visigoths’ King Roderic is defeated by the Muslims. 

Christianity and the Germanic peoples (5th and 6th centuries)

325                  Council of Nicaea.  Condemnation of Aryanism.

380                  The Edict of Thessalonica, issued by Theodosius (379-395), decrees the

                  official nature of Christianity.

383                  Death of Ulfilas (born in 311).

392                  The Edict of Constantinople prohibits all pagan practices.  Christianity, the

                   only religion tolerated.

431                  St. Patrick begins the evangelization of Ireland.

496                  Baptism of the Frankish king Clovis by St. Remigius.

516                  The Burgundian King Sigismund converts to Christianity.

529                             Foundation of the first monastery in the West.  Monte Cassino (Italy) of the

                  Benedictine Order (St. Benedict of Nursia [480-547]).

550                  Rechiar, King of the Suebi, converts to Christianity, thanks to the influence

                     of St. Martin of Dumium.

585                  Authari, King of the Lombards, converts to Catholicism.

589                  The Visigoth King Reccared I renounces Arianism.

590-604          Pope Gregory the Great significantly bolsters the authority of the Church of

                  Rome over all of Christendom.

           

II SOME WORDS

Akhenaton

Solomon

Torah

Talmud

Diaspora

Saint Paul

Edict of Milan

Council of Elvira

Apostate

Edict of Thessalonica

Church

Orthodox

Catholic

Caesaropapism

Foedus

Odoacer

Nation

König

Mallus

Auctoritas vs potestas

Euric

Kingdom of Toulouse

Leovigild

Kingdom of Toledo

Dukes

Liber Iudiciorum

Councils of Toledo

Arianism

Ulfilas

Reccared I

St. Benedict of Nursia

Priscillian heresy

Protofeudalization

III QUESTIONS

a) The origins of Christianity

1. Church and state in the western tradition

2. The origins of Judaism: from Moses to king Solomon

3. The origins of Christianism: from Jesus (Christ) to St. Paul

4. Christianity and the Roman empire: from persecutions to officiality

5. Christianity’s political dimension: a state within the state

6. From Christian churches to Catholic church.

b) The Germanic kingdoms

7. Diversity vs unity

8. The origin of European nations

9. Roman monarchy vs German Royalty

10. The gradual assimilation of the Roman imperial tradition by the Germanic kingdoms

11. The structural weakness of the Germanic kingdoms: patrimonial possession, inheritance and protofeudalism

12. Christianity and the Germanic peoples: the Church and the preservation of the Roman “state” tradition

c) The Visigothic kingdom

13. ¿How and when did the Visigoths came to Spain? ¿Where did the y settle?

14. From Toulouse to Toledo.

15. ¿How was Visigothic Kingship: Roman, Theocratical, Aristocratical?

16. ¿What means the statement that the Kingdom of Toledo developed a new pattern of regional and local overlordship?

17. ¿What Law was applied in the Kingdom of Toledo?

18. ¿Was the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo a Unitarian state? Think about the type of population, the social structure, the political institutions.

IV TEXTS:

1st text: the ten commandments (Deuteronomy 5: 1-32)

“5. Moses summoned all Israel and said:

Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. ³ It was not with our ancestors^[a] that the Lord made this covenant, but with us,with all of us who are alive here today. ⁴ The Lord spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. ⁵ (At that time I stood between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

⁶ “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

⁷ “You shall have no other gods before me.

⁸ “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁹ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parentsto the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ¹⁰ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹ “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

¹² “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. ¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

¹⁶ “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁷ “You shall not murder.

¹⁸ “You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁹ “You shall not steal.

²⁰ “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

²¹ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

²² These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

²³ When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me. ²⁴ And you said, “The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks with them. ²⁵ But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. ²⁶ For what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? ²⁷ Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”

²⁸ The Lord heard you when you spoke to me, and the Lordsaid to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. ²⁹ Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

³⁰ “Go, tell them to return to their tents. ³¹ But you stay herewith me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”

³² So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. ³³ Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess”

2^nd text: Judaism as the basis of political and legal structure of Jewish society

“Judaism is not only a religion, as it features a political and a legal dimension as well. This is why the famed Torah contains legal aspects in addition to religious ones. Concretely, in its first five books (the Pentateuch), the most important for the Jews, it contains rules aimed at allowing early Hebrew society to become the Kingdom of Israel after its flight from Egypt . The best-known law is that of the Ten Commandments, said to have been given by Yahweh to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:3-17 and Deuteronomy 5:7-21), but this is not the only one appearing in the Biblical text.  Also worthy of mention is the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22-25, 33), which is a genuine codification of laws and customs, featuring religious norms (condemning false gods and regulating celebrations and clerical statutes), social norms (regulations of slavery) and penal ones (the death penalty for cases of murder; punishments for beatings or injuries, robbery, rape; the indemnification of damages, etc.).

The social, political and legal dimension of the Bible was crucial, as it allowed the Jews to survive as a people for 18 centuries, without a homeland, dispersed throughout the world. Despite the "Diaspora" the Jewish people were able to maintain their religion and their law, even without a fixed territory. The Jews constitute a unique illustration in history of how religion can become the basis upon which a society is structured and the source of its law”

   

3d text: Had not been for Saint Paul

“Ironically, it was an enemy of the Christians who would assure the new religion’s triumph.  Namely, Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, who in his youth had been one of the most zealous persecutors of the new “sect.”   But Saul, suddenly, converted to Christianity (The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 9), and, to the dismay of his former allies, decided to spread the teachings of Christ among non-Jews (“Gentiles”).  To this end Paul organized and paid visits to various communities of Christians, and later sent them letters: the famous Epistles of St. Paul .  Coming from a lettered person and a former Pharisee, Paul 's writings had an enormous impact. Thanks to the “apostle of the Gentiles” Christianity spread rapidly among non-Jews, the vast majority of the Empire’s inhabitants . Had it not been for Paul, Christianity would not have become one of history’s major religions. 

It is worthy of note that Paul, despite being of Jewish origin and being educated as a Pharisee, was legally a Roman citizen.  It was this that bolstered his influence amongst the Gentiles. In fact, when he was arrested as a subversive by the Roman authorities he appealed to Rome, as was his right, and was, therefore, not crucified like St. Peter, but beheaded by order of Nero in 67 AD”.   

4th text: From Christianity to Church

“Official recognition by Rome of Christianity had far-reaching implications for it, as it took on a political dimension which it originally lacked.  The church (ekklesia in Greek, meaning “assembly”) as the meeting of all the faithful, went from being a mere abstraction to a strong and thoroughly structured political and administrative organization, extending territorially throughout the Empire, featuring parishes and patriarchates, overseen by dioceses presided over by bishops, in what amounted to a veritable state within a state, with its own governing bodies, bishops gathered in councils, and its own law determined by council-issued ecclesiastical accords (canons).  The emergence of churches called for a class of people devoting all of their time to ministerial activities”. 

5^th text. Catholicism

Following the Council of Elvira (early 4th century) the records indicate that councils were held with increasing frequency. In these early councils the bishops not only resolved organizational issues, but began to define the dogmatic features which would eventually come to define official Christian doctrine in an effort to advance the unity of the Church.  The churches continued to retain their autonomy, but above them the idea of a universal  church was crystallizing, whose members embraced a single body of beliefs (Hanzon, 1989). 

The universality of the Church required, however, choosing the correct interpretation of the Scriptures which, once adopted by all the bishops, were to be maintained as the only valid ones for all churches. Fundamental to the orthodox consensus (Pelikan 1975, 333) was the affirmation of the authority of tradition believed “everywhere, always, by all” (Ubique, Semper, Ab Omnibus) .  This approach entailed condemning views which deviated or diverged from those approved by the councils. Thus emerged the concept of heresy – from the Greek hairesis (choice) – to designate all those doctrines that were rejected by the gatherings of bishops. In this way a whole series of beliefs were dismissed and condemned, among them those of the Arians, the Pelagians, the Pneumatomachi, the Monothelites, the Nestorians, the Monophysites, the Donatists and the Priscillianists.  Thus was constituted a body of interpretations of the Scriptures established as “orthodox” – (from the Greek words orthos (straight) and doxa (opinion).  

All this work involving the unification of dogma was also possible because, during the 4th century, there appeared a number of remarkable Christian authors and thinkers producing writings of great importance (Young, 1989). This second generation of Christian intellectuals came to be called the “Fathers of the Church” to differentiate them from the “Apologists” who had preceded them.  While the latter arose primarily in the West, the Fathers of the Church were more numerous in the Eastern area of the Empire (Greek Patrology) though there were also important Fathers in the Western sphere as well (Latin Patrology) . 

The orthodox interpretation of Scripture led to a progressive universalization of Christianity.  Thus did the Christian churches unify, forming a single entity, the Catholic Church (from the Greek katholikós, meaning “universal” or “general;” the preposition katha meaning “on” or “downwards” while the adjective holós means “whole” or “complete.”). 

6th text: Caesaropapism.

“The recognition of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire would give rise to the problem of relations between the civil and ecclesiastical powers (Caesaropapism), as the emperors were loath to tolerate the existence of an independent power over a strictly spiritual domain. It may be said that following the Edict of Milan (313) the emperors acted to intervene in the ecclesiastical sphere, even in regards to strictly doctrinal matters, in order to strengthen their political positions”.

7th text: The origins of European nations  

“It is significant that most of these kingdoms adopted the name of the Germanic people which settled the territory.  And that each one of these peoples formed a “nation”, a term then used to designate all its individuals. So the territory of the old Western Roman Empire was now occupied by the Visigothic, Ostrogothic, Frankish, Burgundian or Lombardian nations. Every Germanic nation tended therefore to have its own “national” law.   

Over the course of the Middle Ages these national denominations ended up designating either kingdoms or regions. In the early 13th century the kingdom of the Franks would end up becoming the kingdom of France.  The Alamanni ended up giving their name to what in Spanish is Alemania, in Portuguese Alemanha, in French Allemagne, etc. (Germany). England is so named as it was the “land of the Angles.”  Burgundy, meanwhile, is the region where the Burgundians settled; Bavaria, the land of the Bavarians; and Lombardy, the land of the Lombards. The names of other regions in Europe, however, retained evidence of their Roman heritage, probably because they were settled by multiple peoples:  this was true of Spain (originally Hispania, España in Spanish) settled by the Romans, Byzantines, Suevi and Visigoths before the Muslim takeover in the 8th century; and with Italy (Italia), occupied by the Romans, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines and the Lombards.  In both cases the geographical denominations prevailed.

It is true that two communities initially existed in all these kingdoms: the dominant Germanic minority and the remaining population, of Roman origin.  These two “nations,” however, melded into one people over time.  For example, in the case of Visigothic Spain the merging of these two communities had taken place by the middle of the 7th century.  Eventually the Germanic kingdoms tended to become genuine territorial states in which Germans and Romans ended up forming a single body of citizens.

Following the Germanic invasions  the term “nation,” thus, made its appearance in the West’s political and legal vocabulary. The term “nation” would continue to be used during the Middle Ages, though with another meaning. Specifically, in Europe’s medieval universities, which were made up of “nations,” a term which designated a group of students from the same region or province who spoke the same language. It is significant that the term “nation” would also be used to refer to the areas settled by merchants from the same region or kingdom, who did business in the Europe’s different trading squares; that is, associations of “foreign” merchants whose function was to defend the interests of their “nationals.”

It should be noted that the meaning of the term “nation” was originally quite different, as after the outbreak of the American and French Revolutions, in 1776 and 1789, respectively a “nation” came to be understood as a “body of citizens whose collective sovereignty constituted them into a state which was their political expression,” as subsequently observed by John Stuart Mill in 1861 and Ernest Renan in 1882.  This meaning of the term would persist after the end of the First World War, when U.S. President Woodrow Wilson argued at Versailles that the new European order should be based on a strict respect for the “principle of nationalities.”  This posture led to the appearance of new states and sparked a resurgence of nationalism, which led directly to World War II.  Currently the terms “nation” and “nationalism” are proving contentious in states where there are separatist movements, such as in Quebec (Canada); in Belgium, where the state is on the verge of disappearing due to the irreconcilable division of the Flemish and the Walloons; and, to a lesser extent, in Spain’s Autonomous Communities of Catalonia and the Basque Country, where there exist regional autonomy parties which, to varying degree, endorse independence. Or, more recently, in Scotland where First Minister Alex Salmond intends to ask voters if Scotland should become an independent country, in the line of the two former devolution referendums of 1979 and 1997”.

8th text: Germanic kings vs Roman emperors

“The Germanic peoples had no tradition of politically structured societies. Only during wars did soldiers designate a temporary military commander (Heerkönige), elected to lead their people or tribe’s army during a campaign. Unlike the Romans, however, the Germanic peoples did not feature “monarchy,” that is, the sustained possession of power by one individual. In this case, therefore, kingship and monarchy were not synonymous. The Germanic word to designate the king was könig, coming from the verb könen (to be able to).  The Germanic king was “he who can,” that is, he who is empowered to act.  He was held to be kind of priest or magician who interceded before supernatural powers.  Though king was thought to be favored by the gods, he was to be elected by the assembly (concilium). The electio in this sense has a declaratory role, as it served to confirm a pre-existing state of affairs.  It served to designate he who, through his personal qualities, imposed himself on the community (auctoritas versus potestas).

The Germanic king, thus, was no dominus with absolute power over a territory and its inhabitants. He stood at the head of a people who elected him, but after his appointment power still resided in the community.  Traditionally the most important decisions were made by the assembly of all the free men (mallus).  Over time, however, between the assembly of free men and the king, a group of eminent members of the community came to intercede (nobiles, magnates). They were the equivalent of the old companions of the emperor (comes), comprising the comitatum (Gefolgschaft in German).  They swore allegiance to the king, in return for which they obtained a substantial portion of the spoils from military campaigns”

9^th text: From German to Roman political and legal tradition

“If in the field of succession the Germanic kings gradually moved away from the Roman imperial tradition, in the legislative and jurisdictional fields they moved closer to it. They not only began to legislate, but appointed judges. Originally the law for the Germans had been the custom of each people, clarified by the assembly of warriors when there was a conflict.  The same assembly was the entity which judged cases and issued verdicts.  Thus, law was not created ex novo. Rather, the unwritten tradition was simply concretized when necessary.

From the time when the Germanic kingdoms emerged, however, monarchs strove to monopolize the legislative function by following the example of the emperors of the Dominate. Submission to the traditional or customary law of each people, inspired by the practices of past Germanic kings, gave way in many cases to monarchs gradually enacting laws.  In some cases they consolidated this new power to create law with the support of the Church, as happened, for example, at the councils of Toledo in the Visigothic kingdom, which approved the laws proposed by the kings”.

10^th text: Christianity and the new Germanic peoples

“One of the reasons Germanic kings had problems consolidating their power was that, from the beginning, they had to deal with local churches representing the whole of the predominantly Roman population. This conflict would be resolved in favor of ecclesiastical power after the kings converted to Catholicism. At this juncture the Church came to support royalty in exchange for the kings’ endorsement and defense of this religious organization, profoundly influenced by the Roman political and legal model”. 

11^th text: The Church and the “Romanization” of the Germanic kingdoms

“The influence of the church on the government and the legal organization of the new kingdoms was crucial because it served to sustain the Roman model of government. Moreover, it can be said that the Church encouraged its continuation by imposing its political ideology on the Germanic kings who converted to Catholicism.

The clearest and most relevant case is that of Visigothic Spain, where after the conversion of Reccared (589) the Church clearly imposed itself on the civil authority. Of special note in this regard was the role played by the councils of Toledo, mixed assemblies in which the members of the Visigothic nobility served together with the bishops, and which adopted rules essential to the organization of the kingdom.  For example, at the Fourth Council of Toledo (633) an elective procedure to designate the king was approved, having the important consequence that the nominee was anointed by the Church, a ceremony that made him a sacred and inviolable individual, with the corollary that, by becoming a Christian king, he was made subject to the Church’s authority.  It is in this significant sense that Canon 9 of the 16th Council of Toledo (693) regarded kings as “vicars of God.”

12th text: Christian Spain

Christianity spread through Roman Hispania during the second and third centuries. There, as elsewhere, it was a predominantly urban religion. Large portions of the countryside remained for a long time almost untouched, as did most of Cantabria and almost all the Basque region. By the beginning of the fourth century, however, Hispania apparently had a Christian minority at least as large proportionately as that of the empire as a whole--upwards of l0 percent. After the official recognition of the church early in the fourth century, its following greatly increased, until almost the entire peninsula had become Christian.

 The pattern of Hispanic church organization was similar to that of most other parts of the empire: bishoprics became coterminous with the urban-centered civitas units and archepiscopal sees were established in provincial capitals. Theologically the Hispanic church was orthodox Catholic, though the Priscillian heresy of the late fourth century originated in Galicia (the northwestern corner of the peninsula) and Donatism was temporarily widespread in the fifth century. Yet the orthodox Hispano-Catholic church became increasingly strong and well organized, and provided spiritual and cultural leadership and identity which a faltering imperial government could no longer offer.

http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne1.pdf

13th text: The Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo

13.1 Arrival of Visigoths

The dissolution of Roman authority and its replacement by that of a Visigothic monarchy was a long, slow process. There was no sudden Visigothic invasion or conquest. The small host of the Visigothic ruler Ataulf that crossed the Pyrenees into Hispania in 415 acted as a federated army of the feeble Roman state, charged with expelling Vandal invaders from southern Hispania and subduing the Germanic Suevi who had dominated the northwestern quarter of the peninsula for several years. From their principal base in southwestern France, Visigothic bands slowly began to extend their control over the more lightly inhabited central plateau of the peninsula, sometimes acting in the name of the emperor, sometimes merely advancing their own interests. The imperial government had broken down and the Hispanic population lacked the civil or military means to defend itself.

The main body of Visigoths did not enter the peninsula until the reign of Alaric II (484-507), and then largely as a result of military pressure from the Franks to the north. They may have numbered no more than 300,000 in a peninsula with 4,000,000 inhabitants. The Visigoths were superior to the Hispani only in the application of armed force; economically, socially, and culturally the Hispanic population was in most regions far more advanced.

Though before their entry into the peninsula the Visigoths were culturally more Romanized than any other Germanic group, they were an essentially pastoral people, unlike the Ostrogoths and Suevi, whose societies were agrarian. The Visigoths settled in greatest numbers in the more sparsely populated, largely pastoral north-central area of the peninsula, and were thereby isolated from the main social and economic centers of the Hispanic population.

13.2  Visigothic Kingdom

13.2.1 From Toulouse to Toledo

The Visigothic monarchy as an independent state was first proclaimed by Euric in southwestern France in 476, after the deposition of the last emperor in Rome by the Ostrogoths. The political center of the monarchy was not moved to the peninsula, however, until the reign of Athanagild (551-567), when a new capital was established at the town of Toledo in the central plateau, moving the axis of Hispanic life from the coastal regions for the first time. Visigothic authority was slowly expanded throughout the entire peninsula with the conquest of the Suevi during the reign of Leovigild (568-586) and the expulsion of Byzantine forces from their last remaining toehold in the southeast by Swinthila (621-631).

13.2.2 Visigothic Kingship

Like other post-Roman rulers in different parts of the former empire, the Visigothic kings of Hispania considered themselves the heirs of Rome and adopted Roman insignia and symbols of authority. They viewed themselves as successors, rather than destroyers or even replacers, of the empire. The Visigothic monarchy accepted the Roman theory of the state as a public power resting upon essentially absolute authority, though the official conversion to Catholicism that occurred during the reign of Leovigild accepted a modification of royal sovereignty by the religious and ethical tutelage of the church.

13.2.3 An Hispanic church politically decisive

It has sometimes been maintained that under the Visigothic monarchy a mode of theocracy developed that thereafter characterized Hispanic religion and government. Such a notion is considerably exaggerated. Even during the Arian period of the Visigothic monarchy, when a great theological gulf existed between the rulers and organized Christianity, the Hispanic bishops proved themselves to be obedient to legally established authority. They rarely hesitated to uphold the power of the state in the secular realm, even to the extent of supporting one Arian king against his rebellious (but orthodox Catholic) son. When finally the monarchy accepted Catholicism in 589, it was made clear that this conversion was not forced upon the state by the church but was freely decided upon by the monarchy to promote its own interests. The church lost a significant measure of independence by recognizing the right of the crown to appoint the members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The king became the nominal head of church councils and took a formal responsibility to see that church affairs were properly run. The subsequent Councils of Toledo were organized along more or less Byzantine lines as mixed assemblies of high ecclesiastical and state officials, with the clerics responsible for church affairs and the secular officials bearing primary responsibility for state legislation.

Thus rather than theocracy there developed a church-state symbiosis in which the power of the crown was uppermost but in which the church played a major role in trying to stabilize public institutions and authority. After the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633. approval by the councils was required to legalize succession to the nonhereditary Visigothic throne, anathematize usurpers, and ratify amnesties. Church leaders were increasingly employed by the crown in administration because they were the primary source of educated, technically competent, and trustworthy personnel. Yet the crown did not intervene in the theological affairs of the church; religious councils were presided over by an archbishop, not the king. The Christian church became the only cohesive institution in Visigothic Hispania.

The early Hispanic church reached its cultural height during the era of Isidore of Seville (first third of the seventh century), shining briefly as the brightest center of learning in western Europe. For the common people it provided the only identity and hope which they knew during this period. Hispanic monasteries played a special role, becoming quite numerous, and the most active force in raising spiritual standards, expanding the influence of the church, and providing a spiritual leadership for the church.

Toward the end of the Visigothic period the church had become a major property holder, with almost every parish and monastery of note possessing lands or rights that provided it with income. The church had achieved a special legal status, developing a code of canon law and special tribunals for the clergy and their affairs. The Hispanic church thus came to constitute a fairly well ordered state of its own within the poorly structured Visigothic political framework. By the fifth century there had developed a distinctively Hispanic church, whose individual religious culture was most evident in the use of the special Hispanic rite (futur Mozarabic rite) in its services until the eleventh century.

Yet despite its outwardly imposing strength, the Hispanic church failed to incorporate all the population of the peninsula within its following even as late as the seventh century. The peoples of the northern hills remained vague in their religious identification, while the Basques were almost untouched by Christianity. Even among the more densely inhabited southern and eastern districts, conversion of much of the rural population remained nominal at best. Hispanic Christianity was still to a considerable degree an urban religion, and tended to become weaker the farther one moved from the principal centers of population.

13.2.4 Territorial organization

The Visigothic monarchy remained an elective institution, each new king nominally chosen or ratified by the aristocracy. The crown was assisted in decisions and administration by an aula regia or royal council, but until the next to the last generation of Visigothic rule broad assemblies of notables were called to ratify important decisions, a last residue of the earlier tribal assemblies of the Germanic peoples. Administratively, the Visigothic monarchy relied on much of Roman usage and employed Hispanic personnel in local administration. By the sixth century, however, the Roman administrative system had fallen into such decay that it could not be revived, and in place of the old provincial system there evolved a new pattern of regional and local overlordship based upon regional dukes (duces) and heads of smaller districts or territoria called counts (comes). The new ducal administrative regions tended to coincide with the old Roman provinces, and the territoria of the counts with the old civitas units. The old municipal system also fell into desuetude and was slowly replaced by a pattern of royal administration and local overlords nominally ratified by the crown.

13.2.5 The Law

 Roman law had to be relied upon in administering the affairs of the social and economic infrastructure, and over a period of two centuries there evolved a slow fusion of Visigothic custom and Roman common law. The general trend was away from the Roman system of explicit private property toward more communal, reciprocal, usufructural relations in the ownership and use of property. The Hispano-Visigothic modus vivendi found codified expression in the promulgation of the Liber ludiciorum (later commonly known in Castilian as the Fuero Juzgo) in 654. This fusion of aspects of Visigothic personal codes with Latin civil and property law superseded several less complete codifications and provided an organized code on which to base property rights and civil administration for the Visigothic aristocracy and, to some extent, the Hispanic common people.

13.2.6 Social structure: protofeudalization

The Visigothic monarchy never developed a cohesive polity. Visigothic aristocrats and military leaders deemed themselves part of a personal power association with the crown and resisted extension of control. Royal succession remained elective, and the entire history of the monarchy was one of revolt and assassination.  If the Visigothic aristocracy was unable to develop a unified, viable political system, it was nevertheless itself the beginning of the historic Hispanic master class. At the top of Hispano-Visigothic society there emerged an elite of some two hundred leading aristocratic families associated with the court and a broader aristocratic class of perhaps ten thousand people who held possession of most of the best land. Under the Visigoths, the aristocracy did not form a closed caste but were steadily recruited from below on the strength of personal achievement or royal favor. Over a period of a century or more there occurred a partial fusion of the original Visigothic warrior aristocracy and the socioeconomic elite of Hispanic society.

In this Visigothic caste the military aristocracy of the peninsula had its roots, creating a style and a psychology of the warrior nobleman that provided the dominant leadership for Hispanic society for more than a thousand years; this psychology ultimately managed to superimpose its values and attitudes on much of the society as a whole. Yet the success of the aristocratic ethos was a consequence of the experience of medieval Hispania, not of the rule of the Visigothic oligarchy, which largely proved an historic failure.

 The weakness of monarchy and the strength of the noble class (magnates) enabled the early development of a process of protofeudalization that expanded more rapidly in Visigothic Hispania than in Merovingian France. Decentralization was unavoidable, and power became a matter of personal relationship and example. The chief lieutenants of the crown were rewarded for their services by salaries or stipendia in the form of overlordship of land or temporary assignment of income from land held in precarium, that is, on a nominally revocable basis. This system was actually first used by the church to support local establishments, and by the seventh century was widely employed by the crown and also by the magnates (the high aristocracy) to pay their chief supporters and military retainers. The process of protofeudalization inevitably carried with it a splintering of juridical and economic sovereignty that further weakened political unity.

In the seventh century the caste relationship between the ruling group and much of the peasantry was little better than that of master to serf. A large proportion of the peasantry had been reduced to a kind of serfdom, and as the economy declined, economic exactions very likely increased. Evidence indicates that many Hispanic serfs and even many free peasants did not consider the protection and leadership they received worth the service demanded of them. During the last Visigothic century there were a number of peasant revolts and urban riots in protest against economic conditions.

Most of the Hispanic population remained juridically free, but the process of commendatio continued, as peasants pledged parts of their land or services to local overlords for security, and the class of enserfed coloni grew larger. Yet there were still a number of relatively autonomous local rural communities that preserved their legal identity.

13.2.7 Romans, Germans and others

Even at its height, Roman rule had been unable to eliminate the strong regional and ethnic differences that divided the peninsula, and these became more pronounced again under the Visigoths. Fusion between the Visigothic elite and the Hispani population was never complete. The northwestern corner of the peninsula, ruled for two hundred years by the Suevi monarchy, remained a distinctive, not thoroughly assimilated region. The southwestern tip of France, known as Septimania, remained under Visigothic rule and tended to link northeastern Hispania with France. The sophisticated eastern coastal region had long been interconnected with the commerce and culture of the Italian peninsula, while the equally sophisticated towns of the south were closely associated with northwest Africa and with Byzantine commerce. In the far north, Asturians and Cantabrians were at best only partly assimilated, and the Basques remained almost entirely apart. Finally, there was a significant Jewish minority in the southern and eastern towns that played a major role in manufacturing and commerce. Subjected to attempted conversion and sporadic persecution by the Visigothic crown in the seventh century, Hispanic Jews were a politically disaffected and potentially rebellious element in the major towns.

http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/payne1.pdf