The Arabs held Spain for the first few years of their rule as a dependency of the Province of North Africa; but after the downfall of Musa (q.v.) the country was governed (717) by emirs ap pointed by the Caliph of Damascus. These emirs were intent upon the extension of their conquests into Gaul, to the neglect of the rising power of the Goths in Asturias. Their northward progress was arrested in the battle of Poitiers by Charles Martel (q.v.) in 732. The tra/is, or local gov ernors of districts and provinces, frequently rebelled against the emir, and drew swords against each other. Within a period of forty years no fewer than twenty emirs had been called to the direction of affairs; but a revolution at Damascus. which unseated the Ommiads, and placed the Abbassides in possession of the cali phate, put an end to this state of misrule in Spain. The last of the emirs, Vusuf, was in favor of the Abbassides, but the walis and alcay des, being chiefly of the Ommiad faction, invited one of this family, Abd-er-Rahman, who was in concealment among the Zeneta Arabs in Barbary, to become an independent caliph in Spain. (See OMMIADS.) Thus was founded (756) the Emirate of Cordova. By 778 the Franks had wrested from the Arabs all their possessions north of the Pyrenees and northeastern Spain to the Ebro. The latter acquisition, subsequently denominated the Spanish March, was for a time alternately in the hands of the Moslems and dependent upon France.
During the early period of Arab-Moorish domi nation the small independent Kingdom of Astu rias, founded by Pelayo (q.v.), grew in power and extent. Alfonso the Catholic, son-in-law of Pelayo, conquered nearly all of Galicia and recaptured Leon, together with Sala manca and other cities. Alfonso the Great (866-910) by his victories greatly extended the Asturian dominions, which soon after his reign figure as the Kingdom of Leon. In the course of the ninth century Navarre struggled into existence as a separate State. The Kingdom of Leon was for a long time distracted by bitter and bloody strife among the members of the royal line, and with its neighbor, Navarre, would have fallen an easy prey to the powerful Ommiads had not the latter directed their chief attention to the subjugation of Morocco. During this relaxation of the constant warfare between Moors and Christians another independent State, Castile, an offshoot from Leon, came into exist ence, at first under the rule of the famous Count Ferntin Gonzlilez. In 1033 it was erected into a kingdom. Castile, from its central position, and consequently greater facilities for expansion, soon became the most powerful of the Spanish States. A considerable part of Aragon was wrested from the Moors by Sancho the Great of Navarre (1000 35), and at his death this part of his dominions passed as a separate kingdom to his son Ramiro, who added to it the districts of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, and a considerable extent of country which he conquered from the Moors. In 1151
the territory of the counts of Barcelona (Cata lonia ) was united with Aragons. The last Chris tian kingdom to be founded in the Iberian Penin sula was Portugal (q.v.).
The Ommiads ruled Mohammedan Spain for about 275 years. The greatest of this dynasty was Abd-er-Rahman 111., who ruled from 912 to 961, and who in 929 assumed the title of Caliph. Ms capital, Cordova (q.v.), was the greatest city in Europe except Constantinople, and was unrivaled in the splendor of its edifices. The civilization of Spain during the Moorish supremacy was far in advance of that of the rest of Europe. At the great Mohammedan uni versities medicine and mathematics were culti vated, and Aristotle was studied there long be fore he u-as well known to Christian Europe. An extensive literature was developed, the caliphs themselves often being poets and authors of note. Commerce and agriculture were fostered. and the stranger marveled at the splendid system of irrigation, which made the country like a garden. The Moorish fleets controlled the Mediterranean and carried on an extensive trade. For the art which was developed in Spain by the Moors, see :MOHAMMEDAN ART.
The Ommiad dynasty came to an end in 1031, and a number of independent Moorish kingdoms were formed—Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Lisbon, Saragossa. Tortosa, Valencia. Murcia. Badajoz, and others of less note. The kings of Castile and Aragon did not fail to benefit by this disruption of the 'Mohammedan realm, for by well-directed and unremitting attacks they subdued some States and rendered others tributary. A few years more might perhaps have destroyed the Moorish domination in Spain had not the rulers. hard pressed by Alfonso VI. of Leon and Castile, who in 1085 conquered the Kingdom of Toledo (New Castile), applied for aid to the ruler of the sect of the Almoravides (q.v.) in Morocco. The Almoravides crossed over to Spain, but after defeating the Christians they turned their arms against the Spanish Moors, and by the beginning of the twelfth century the Almoravide sovereign was aeknowledged the ruler of Mohammedan Spain. The power of the Almoravides u-as ex tinguished by the Almohades (q.v.), a fanatical sect, who passed over from Morocco just before the middle of the twelfth century, and conquered the territories of the Mohammedans. In a great battle fought on the plains of Tolosa (las Maras de Tolosa), in 1212, the kings of Castile, Navarre, and Aragon broke the Almohade power in Spain. Soon nothing was left out, of the wreck of the Almobade realm but the Kingdom of Granada, which was forced to acknowledge the overlordship of Castile. This last Moorish king dom rose to great splendor.