Encyclopedia
Spain, officially the
Kingdom of Spain , is a
European
parliamentary monarchy. It is the largest of the three sovereign nations that make up the
Iberian Peninsula—the others are
Portugal and
Andorra—located in
Southern Europe. To the west and to the south of Galicia, Spain borders
Portugal. To the south, it borders
Gibraltar and, through its cities in North Africa ,
Morocco. To the northeast, along the
Pyrenees mountain range, it borders
France and the tiny
principality of
Andorra. It also includes the
Balearic Islands in the
Mediterranean Sea, the
Canary Islands in the
Atlantic Ocean and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the
strait of Gibraltar, known as , such as the
Chafarine islands, the
isle of Alborán, the "rocks" of
Vélez and
Alhucemas, and the tiny
Isla Perejil. In the northeast along the
Pyrenees, a small
exclave town called Llívia in
Catalonia is surrounded by
French territory.
The name
Spain comes from the Latin name
Hispania.
History
Prehistory and Pre-Roman peoples in the Iberian Peninsula
The earliest record of hominids living in Europe to date has been found in the Spanish cave of
Atapuerca which has become a key site for world Paleontology due to the importance of the fossils found there, dated roughly 1.000.000 years ago.
Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian peninsula from north of the
Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The more conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the northern Spanish Altamira , which were done ca. 15,000 BCE and are regarded, along with those in
Lascaux,
France, as paramount instances of
cave art.
The earliest urban culture documented is that of the semi-mythical southern city of Tartessos, pre- 1100 BCE. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries.
Around 1100 BCE, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of
Gadir or Gades near Tartessos. In the 9th century BCE the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion , were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name
Iberia, after the river Iber . In the 6th century BCE the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western
Mediterranean. Their most important colony was
Carthago Nova .
The native peoples which the Romans met at the time of their invasion in what is now known as Spain were the
Iberians, inhabiting from the Southwest part of the Peninsula through the Northeast part of it, and then the
Celts, mostly inhabiting the north and northwest part of the Peninsula. In the inner part of the Peninsula, where both groups were in contact, a mixed, distinctive, culture was present, the one known as
Celtiberian.
Roman Empire and Germanic Invasions
The
Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula during the
Second Punic war in the 2nd century BCE, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the tenacious Celtic and Iberian tribes . These, along with the Phoenician, Greek and
Carthaginian coastal colonies, became the province of
Hispania. It was divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late
Roman Republic; and, during the
Roman Empire,
Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast,
Hispania Baetica in the south and
Lusitania in the southwest.
Hispania supplied Rome with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors
Trajan,
Hadrian,
Marcus Aurelius and
Theodosius I, the philosopher
Seneca and the poets
Martial, Quintilian and Lucan were born in Spain. The Spanish Bishops held the Council at Elvira in 306. The collapse of the
Western Roman empire did not lead to the same wholesale destruction of Western classical society as happened in areas like Britain,
Gaul and
Germania Inferior during the
Dark Ages, even if the institutions, infrastructure and economy did suffer considerable degradation. Spain's present languages, its religion, and the basis of its laws originate from this period. The centuries of uninterrupted Roman rule and settlement left a deep and enduring imprint upon the culture of Spain.
The first hordes of Barbarians to invade Hispania arrived in the
5th century, as the Roman empire decayed. The tribes of
Goths,
Visigoths, Swebians ,
Alans, Asdings and
Vandals, arrived to Spain by crossing the Pyrenees mountain range. They were all of Germanic origin. This led to the establishment of the
Swebian Kingdom in
Gallaecia, in the northwest, and the
Visigothic Kingdom elsewhere. The Visigothic Kingdom eventually encompassed the entire Iberian Peninsula with the Catholic conversion of the Goth monarchs. The famous horseshoe arch, which was adapted and perfected to great effect by the later Muslim era builders was in fact originally an example of
Visigothic art.
Muslim Iberia
In the
8th century, nearly all the
Iberian peninsula, which had been under
Visigothic rule, was quickly conquered , by mainly
Berber Muslims , who had crossed over from
North Africa, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad. Visigothic Spain was the last of a series of lands conquered in a great westward charge by the Islamically inspired armies of the Umayyad empire. Indeed they continued northwards until they were defeated in central France at the
Battle of Tours in 732. Astonishingly the invasion started off as an invitation from a Visigoth faction within Spain for support. But instead the Moorish army, having defeated King Roderic proceeded to conquer the peninsula for itself. The Roman Catholic populace, unimpressed with the constant internal feuding of the Visigothic leaders, often stood apart from the fighting, often welcoming the new rulers, thereby forging the basis of the distinctly Spanish-Muslim culture of
Al-Andalus. Only three small counties in the mountains of the north of Spain managed to cling to their independence:
Asturias,
Navarra and
Aragon, which eventually became
kingdoms.
The Muslim emirate proved strong in its first three centuries; stopping
Charlemagne's massive forces at
Saragossa and, after a serious
Viking attack, established effective defences. Indeed it became a terror in its own right to Christian neighbours, with its "al-jihad fil-bahr" . Christian Spain struck back from its mountain redoubts by seizing the lands north of the
Duero river, and the
Franks were able to seize Barcelona and the Spanish Marches), but save for these and some other small incursions in the north, the Christians were unable to make headway against the superior forces of Al-Andalus for several centuries. It was only in the
11th century that the break up of Al-Andalus led to the creation of the
Taifa kingdoms, who attempted to outshine each other in art and culture and were often at war, became vulnerable to the consolidating power of Spain's Christian kingdoms.
The Moorish capital was
Córdoba, in southern Spain. During this time large populations of Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in close quarters, and at its peak some non-Muslims were appointed to high offices under the some of the more lenient Muslim rulers. At its best it produced exquisite architecture and art, and Muslim and Jewish scholars played a major part in reviving the study of and
Roman cultures. However there were restrictions on non-Muslims that grew after the death of Al-Hakam II in 976. Later invasions of stricter Muslim groups led to persecutions of non-Muslims, forcing some to seek safety in the then still relatively tolerant city of
Toledo after its Christian reconquest in 1085.
Spanish society under Muslim rule became increasingly complex, partly because Islamic conquest did not involve the systematic conversion of the much larger conquered population to
Islam. At the same time, Christians and
Jews were recognized under Islam as "peoples of the book", and so given
dhimmi status. Most importantly, the Islamic Berber and Arab invaders were a small minority, ruling over a few million Christians. Thus, Christians and Jews were free to practise their religion, but faced certain restrictions and financial burdens. Conversion to Islam proceeded at a steadily increasing pace, as it offered social and economic and political advantages. Merchants, nobles, large landowners, and other local elites were usually among the first to convert. By the
11th century Muslims are believed to have outnumbered Christians in Al-Andalus.
The Muslim community in Spain was itself diverse and beset by social tensions. From the beginning, the Berber people of
North Africa had provided the bulk of the armies, clashed with the Arab leadership from the
Middle East. The Berbers, who were comparatively recent converts to Islam, resented the aristocratic pretensions of the Arab elite. They soon gave up attempting to settle the harsh lands of the north of the
Meseta Central handed to them by the Arab rulers, and many returned to Africa during a Berber uprising against Arab rule. However, the Berbers later took over power and Muslim Spain fell under the rule of the
Almoravid and then the
Almohad dynasties, amongst others. Over time the relatively tiny number of Moors gradually increased with immigration and cross marriages. Large Moorish populations grew, particularly in the south, especially in the
Guadalquivir river valley, along the narrow but fertile Mediterranean coastal plain and in the
Ebro river valley, south of Barcelona.
Muslim Spain was wealthy and sophisticated under Islamic rule. Cordoba was the richest and most sophisticated city in all of western
Europe. It was not until the
12th century that western
medieval Christiandom began to reach comparable levels of sophistication, and this was due in part to the stimulus coming from Muslim Spain.
Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange flourished. Muslims imported a rich intellectual tradition from the
Middle East and
North Africa, including knowledge of mathematics and science, and they helped revived. Crops and farming techniques introduced by the Arabs, led to a remarkable expansion of agriculture, which had been in decline since Roman times. In towns and cities magnificent mosques, palaces, and other monuments were constructed. Outside the cities, the mixture of large estates and small farms that existed in Roman times remained largely intact because Muslim leaders rarely dispossessed landowners. The Muslim conquerors were relatively few in number and so they tried to maintain good relations with their subjects. This relative social peace, which was already deteriorating from the late
10th century, broke down with the later, stricter, Muslim sects.
Roman, Jewish, and Muslim culture interacted in complex ways. A large part of the population gradually adopted Arabic. Arabic was the official language of government. Even Jews and Christians often spoke
Arabic, while
Hebrew and
Latin were frequently written in Arabic script. These diverse traditions interchanged in ways that gave Spanish culture — religion, literature, music, art and architecture, and writing systems — a rich and distinctive heritage. However, as the 11th century drew to a close most of the north and centre of Spain was back under Christian control.
Fall of Muslim rule and Unification
The long period of expansion of the Christian kingdoms, beginning in 722, only eleven years after the Moorish invasion, is called the
Reconquista. As early as 739 Muslim forces were driven out of Galicia, which came to host one of Christianity´s holiest sites,
Santiago de Compostela. Areas in the northern mountains and around Barcelona were soon captured by Frankish and local forces, providing a base for Spain's Christians. The 1085 conquest of the central city of
Toledo largely completed the reconquest of the northern half of Spain.
In 1086 the
Almoravids, an ascetic Islamic sect from
North Africa, conquered the divided small Moorish states in the south and launched an invasion in which they captured the east coast as far north as Saragossa. By the middle of the 12th century the Almoravid empire had disintegrated. The
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 heralded the collapse of the great Moorish strongholds in the south, most notably
Córdoba in 1236 and
Seville in 1248. Within a few years of this nearly the whole of the Iberian peninsula had been reconquered, leaving only the Muslim enclave of
Granada as a small tributary state in the south. Surrounded by Christian
Castile but afraid of another invasion from Muslim northern Africa, it clung tenaciously to its isolated mountain splendour for two and half centuries. It came to an end in 1492 when
Isabella and
Ferdinand captured the southern city of
Granada, the last Moorish city in Spain. The Treaty of Granada guaranteed religious tolerance toward
Muslims while Spain's Jewish population of over 200,000 people was
