Dynasty of the Arabs, or, as they.r.re more properly termed, the Moors (q.v.), held Spain for the first few years of their rule, as a dependency of the province of n. Africa; but, after the downfall of Muza (q.v.), and his son Abd-el-aziz, who had been the deputy governor of Spain.'the country was governed (717) by emirs appointed by the caliph of Damascus. The favorite scheme pursued by the Spanish emirs was the extension of their conquests into Gaul, to the neslect of the rising power of the Goths in Asturias; they also took the Balearic h.nlands, Sardinia, Corsica, and part of Apulia ,and Calabria; the Mediterranean was infested by their fleets, but their northward progress was most signally checked on the plain of Tours by Charles Martel (q.v.). Anarchy and bloodshed were prominent features of the first 40 years of Mohammedan rule,in Spain. -The walls, or local governors of districts and provinces, frequently rebelled against the emir, and drew sword against each other according as ambition or animosity dictated. Within this period of 40 years, no fewer than 20 emirs had been called to the direction of affairs; but a revolution at Damascus, which unseated the Ommiades, and placed the Abbasides in possession of the caliphate, put an end to this state of misrule in Spain. The last of the emirs, Jussuf, was in favor of the Abbasides, but the walls and aleayda being chiefly of the Ommiade faction, invited one of this family, who was in concealment among the Zeneta Arabs iu Barbary, to become an independent caliph in Spain. See OMMTADES. Thus was founded the caliphate of' Cordova, from which, in 778, the FranLs wrested all its possessions D. of the Pyrenees, and north-eastern Spain to the Ebro; the latter acquisition, subsequently denominated the Spanish March, being alternately in the hands of the Moors and dependent upon France.
Christian this period of Moorish domination, the small indepen dent kingdom of Asturias, founded by Pelayo (q.v.), had been growing in power and extent. It was increased by Galicia in 758, and by parts of Leon and Castile toward the close of the century. In 758 a second independent Christian kingdom was founded in Sobrarve, and increased by portions of Navarre on one hand and Aragon on the other, but though it, along with the French Gaseous, aided the Moors at Roncesvalles (q.v.), it was, in 801, again swallowed up by the caliphate of Cordova. However, 89 years afterward a Navarrese count, casting off his allegiance to France. founded the third Christian kingdom, that of Navarre (q.v.), which from this time easily maintained itself, owing to its situation, in independence of the Moors. The kingdom of Asturias, now (900) Leon, was for a long time distracted by bitter and bloody strife among the mem bers of the royal line, and with its neighbor Navarre would have fallen an easy prey to the powerful Ommiades, had not the latter directed their chief attention to the subjuga tion of Morocco; and under cover of this relaxation of the constant warfare between Moors and Christians, another independent monarchy, an offshoot from Leon, was founded in Castile (933, kingdom in 1035), which, from its central position, and conse quent greater facilities for expansion, soon became the most powerful of the Spanish states, especially after its union (temporary, 1072-1157), in 1230, with Leon. A con siderable part of Aragon had been wrested from the Moors by Sancho III. (1000-35) of Navarre, and at his death this part of his dominions passed by inheritance to his son Ramiro, who added to it the districts of Sobrarve and Ribagorza, and a considerable !extent of country which he conquered from the common enemy, the Moors. This dom of Aragon was the last Christian kingdom formed in Spain; and though it increased by acquisitions from the Moors, yet being limited by Leon, Castile, and Navarre cn one side, and the Spanish March (now only the county of Catalonia or Barcelona) on the other, its princes aimed at maritime power; and by the union, through the marriage of the. count of Barcelona with queen Petronilla, of the Spanish March with Aragon, means were obtained of carrying out this policy, and the spread of the Arayonese dominion to Sicily (q.v.), Naples (q.v.), and other regions bordering on the Mediterra swan, was the consequence. These three kingdoms—Castile and Leon, Navarre, and Aragon—continued, sometimes in combination and sometimes separately, to war against their common enemy, the Moors—Castile being, from its greater power and proxinuty, ,the most persistent assailant, and Navarre, for the opposite reason, the least so; but whenever the arrival of fresh levies from Africa, or the accession of an energetic caliph threatened serious danger to any one of the three, the others generally came to its aid.
The extinction of the Ommiades in Spain in 1081, and the disruption of the caliphate into the minor kingdoms of Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Lisbon, Zaragoza, Tortosa. Valen cia, Murcia, Badajos, and seven others of less note, was an occurrence by which the kings of Castile and Aragon did not fail to benefit, for by well-directed and unremitting attacks they subdued some, rendered others tributary, the kings of Portugal also on their side gallantly and successfully pursuing the same policy; and a few years more would have certainty annihilated Moorish domination in Spain. had not Mohammed of Cordova and Seville, hard pressed by Alfonso VI. of Leon and Castile, about the close of the 11th c., applied for aid to an Arab tribe, whose military career in n. Africa had been of the most brilliant character. This trilre• the Alinoravirles—i.e.. men devoted to the service of God--had made themselves masters of the provinces of Africa and Almagreb, and founded the empire of Morocco. to the request of Mohammed, the Almoravides crossed over to Spain. defeated the king, of Aragon and Castile, and recovered much of New Castile. Then, tinning upon their ally Mohammed, they compelled him to yield up the provia COP of Cordova and Seville, and all the minor yi norish princes to follow his example; so in 1094. the Almoravide sovereign was acknowledged sole monarch of Mohammedan Spain. The power of this tribe, however. began to decline about 1130, and was extinguished by the Almohades a fanatical sect of Ylollam- • molar's. who landed in Spain in the middle of the 12111 c., arid conquered the territories of the Mohnumiedans in Spain. During the reign of the third monarch of this dynasty • took place the battle between the combined forces of Castile, Leon, Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal, with the Moors, in which the former gained the most celebrated victory ever obtained by the Christians over their Moslem foes, the latter losing, according to the account transmitted to the pope, 100,000 killed and 50,000 prisoners. This sanguinary conflict, fought on the plains of Tolosa (14/3 made de To.'oea), July 16, 1212, bloke the Alinohade power in Spain, as that of Salamanca (July 22, 1812), almost exactly six centuries afterward, did the more formidable strength of Napoleon. On the fall of the Ahnohades, Mohammed-ben-Alharnar, the king of Jaen, rose to the first place among the Mohammedan princes, and founded (1238) the kingdom of Granada. '1 he king of Granada was speedily forced to become a vassal of Castile, and from this period all danger from Moslem power was over. The rest of the history of the Spanish kingdoms before their union is undeserving of a detailed account. The Castilian court was the scene of almost constant domestic strifes and rebellions, varied with a campaign against Granada or in favor of the monarch of that kingdom against his rebellious vassals; the only prominent monarchs of this kingdom being Ferdinand III., who confined the Moori-h dominion to the s. of Andalusia, Alfonso X. (q.v.), Alfonso XI., Pedro the Cruel (q.v.), and queen Isabella, the last sovereign of Castile, who succeeded her brother Henry IV., owing to a widespread belief in the illegitimacy of the latter's daughter. Aragon, on the other hand, was almost wholly free from intestine dissensions, doubtless owing so the interest taken by the Aragonese monarchs in Italian politics; of these sov ereigns Jayne I. (1213-48) conquered Valencia and Majorca, and, first of all the Ara gonese kings, received a voluntary oath of allegiance from his subjects; Pedro III. (1248 b5). who obtained Sicily (1282), Minorca, and Iviza; Jayne II., who conquered Sar dinia and Corsica; Alfonso V. (1416-68), who conquered Naples; and Ferdinand II. (q.v.), the Catholie, the last soverein of Aragon who, by marriage with Isabella, queen of Castile, in 1409, the conquest of` Granada in 1492, and that of Navarre in 1512, united the whole of Spain (and French Navarre) under one rule.