Honestly, this piece is just an attempt on my part to get you to watch this interesting video about the period of Moorish rule in Spain. As you know, we spend a lot of time in Spain and are probably more interested in its history than most retirees. We think it is a good place to visit and to spend our winters. Perhaps knowing a little bit more about its history may make you feel inclined to give it a visit as well.
I will let the video speak for itself, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time reviewing the historical facts addressed in the video. But to provide context, I’m going to speak to some of the less positive periods of Spanish history you will probably have heard about already.
If you have ever travelled to Spain, intend to travel to Spain, have a vague interest in Spain, or are just a bit of a history buff, this is a great historical piece to watch. It is a very different history from those which you may have already heard about.
Here is the link that will allow you to watch the full documentary uninterrupted via YouTube. Streaming it to your television would probably be the best way to do this but watching it on one of your devices will work just as well.
First of all, a bit of history about that rich, interesting time in Spanish history. The information and the images used in this article are principally from Wikipedia.
When the Moors Ruled
Moors is a term used to describe the Muslim population who lived and ruled in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages, between 711 AD and 1492 AD. Muslims originating from Africa pushed out the Visigoths, an East Germanic group who had conquered the Iberian Peninsula. They subsequently controlled most of the region, which consists of modern-day Spain and Portugal, for almost 800 years.
At its peak, this large Muslim controlled area was known as Al-Andalus. The modern-day Spanish region of Andalusia reflects the historical reference to the name.
The only part of Spain not controlled by the Moors was a narrow sliver of land north of the Pyrenees Mountains, now identified as the Basque region in Spain.
For almost 800 years this was a thriving region of Muslim rule and culture in Europe. The Moorish influence remains very strong in Spain to this very day. It resonates in the architecture, you hear it in the language and music, you sense it in the culture, and you taste it in the food.
Yet, even with all that, it tends to be a generally forgotten and ignored period of Spanish history. Instead, other darker periods are more frequently referenced and romanticized.
To put it in context, the Moorish period was very much a time of enlightenment, of science and math, and of religious tolerance and inclusion while the rest of Europe was deeply immersed in the Dark Ages (476 AD – 1000 AD) and wallowing in ignorance and warfare.
The Bad Stuff
I am not planning on dwelling on any of the details of the Moorish period in Spanish history, because you can see and learn that for yourself by watching the documentary. But I do think it is important to look at those darker periods in Spanish history for which the country, unfortunately, is most well-known.
Reconquista (722-1492)
According to Wikipedia:
“The Reconquista is the historical term used to describe the military campaigns that Christian kingdoms waged against the Moors from the 8th century until 1492, in order to retake—or reconquer—the Iberian territories that were lost due to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania.”
Sometimes when you read or hear about the Reconquista it gives a bit of an impression that Ferdinand and Isabella leapt onto their steeds and swept down from the north conquering all of Spain in a few short months after unifying Castile and Aragon. In reality, the process lasted hundreds of years.
While the Moors ruled, a widely-accepted tolerance for all religions existed for the most part. Of course, there were several different sorts of Muslim rulers during those almost 800 years and some of them were more tolerant of Christians and Jews than others. But mostly, the three monotheisms lived in relative harmony.
This all ended as the Reconquista unfolded. As the saying goes, Muslim rulers were tolerant, the Catholic rulers, not so much.
By way of example, on June 6, 1391, violence was unleashed against the Jewish population in the city of Seville that resulted in about 4,000 Jews being murdered, their homes destroyed, and those that weren’t killed were forced to convert to Christianity or leave. This violence spread all over Spain.
The Reconquista was followed by the oh so delightful Spanish Inquisition.
Spanish Inquisition (1478 – 1834)
The Spanish Inquisition, introduced after the Reconquista, lasted between 1478 and 1834. It was ostensibly a judicial institution that was set up to combat heresy in Spain. It was a horrendously cruel time in Spanish history with widespread suffering and death.
The Inquisition was originally set up to identify heretics among the large number of people who were forced to convert from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims had been forced to convert after royal decrees were issued to that effect in 1492 and 1502. Convert or leave was the order of the day.
The Spanish inquisition forced those who had converted to prove that they were true converts. Those who could not do so were tortured and put to death.
Not to make light of this terrible period in history – I often ask, “when do you think the Spanish inquisition ended?” as a trivia question. Officially, not until 1834… I had an aunt to was born in the 1800s, so it doesn’t seem like all that long ago.
Pillage of the Americas (1492 – 1800s)
Interestingly, the city of Grenada, the last bastion of Muslim rule in Spain, fell in January of the year 1492. A few months later, on the west side of Spain, Columbus set off on his voyage to look for a western sea route to the “Indies”.
From 1492 to the 1800s, Spanish “explorers”, proxies, and opportunists exploited vast areas of the Americas as their personal fiefdoms and sources of riches. Starting with Columbus in 1492 and ongoing for the next 350 years, Spain occupied and pillaged most of the Caribbean, South America, and the American Southwest.
I would speculate that many of these areas have still not fully recovered from this onslaught.
Fascism (1939 – 1975)
After all that collective “fun”, fascism reared its ugly head in Spain. After overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War, Francisco “Franco” Bahamonde ruled Spain as a dictator with an iron fist. The fission created by the Civil War and the creation of a fascist state still promotes “feelings” amongst older Spaniards who lived through it all.
As a footnote to the Franco era, I hung out in Torremolinos, Spain during the winter of 1975 for a couple of months shortly before Franco died. We longhairs were frequently subject to scrutiny by machine-gun-wielding militia in funny looking hats. We consciously avoided getting ourselves into trouble. 🙂
Am I Painting These Many Historical Events a Little Too Dark?
Perhaps! But the Moorish era in Spanish history sure looks good compared to all the rest of it. 🙂
In all fairness, most of the darker periods I have described took place during times that were harsh and violent all over Europe and the rest of the known world, so the events described were not totally dissimilar to what went on in other locations. But I will leave it to you to look up a more balanced examination of all these histories.
Again, check out this video, it is an interesting and informative look at a little-known period of Spanish history.
