History of Galicia: Encyclopedia II - History of Galicia - Medieval Galicia

History of Galicia - Medieval Galicia

History of Galicia - Visigothic Kingdom

With the Catholicization of the Visigothic kings, the Catholic bishops increased in power, until, at the synod held at Toledo in 633, they took upon themselves the nobles' right to select a king from among the royal family.

Rodrigo,the last elected king, was betrayed by Julian, count of Ceuta, who called for the Umayyad Muslims (or Moors) to enter Hispania. During the battle of Guadalete in 711, king Rodrigo lost his life. His left wing turned against him, as it was led by bishop Oppas, a collaborator with the Moors and a member of a rival royal faction. By the end of the battle the whole kingdom fell, and the throne was left empty, for the Moors did not allow the Oppas’ faction to regain it. One of the few survivors was Pelayo, a noble in charge of the royal guard (Comes Spatharius).

This marked the beginning of the Muslim conquest of Iberia in which most of peninsula came under Islamic rule by 718. The Moorish advance was aided by the native population. This rapid conquest can be understood as a continuation of the civil wars that had afflicted the peninsula for centuries, as well as the Moors following the Islamic command to gain converts by force.

A Visigothic nobleman, Pelayo, is credited with beginning the Christian Reconquista of Iberia in 718, when he defeated the Umayyads in the Battle of Covadonga, and established the Kingdom of Asturias in the northern part of the peninsula.

History of Galicia - Reconquista

During the ninth and tenth centuries, the counts of Galicia owed fluctuating obedience to their nominal sovereign, and Normans/Vikings occasionally raided the coasts. The Towers of Catoira (Pontevedra) were built as a system of fortifications to stop Viking raids of Santiago de Compostela.

The north of Iberia (the former duchy of Gallaecia) even if conquered, were not the most ideal place for the Moors, who just sent a military force and collected taxes, and as with the Romans, not bothering the Astures and Cantabri. But by the late 710’s Al-Andalus suffered of revolts. The Berbers did not like the lands they were given and were repressed by the emiral forces in several battles until the rebellion stopped, but then the Berbers turned against the Astures, claiming higher taxes and setting punishment patrols against their villages. This forced the Astures to start a guerrilla war. During the Moorish invasion of Spain, the Moors briefly occupied Galicia until they were driven out in 739 by Alfonso I of Asturias. The kingdom was known as Kingdom of Asturias until 924, when it became the Kingdom of León.

Constant rivalry between the Kingdom of León and the Kingdom of Castile opened rifts that could be exploited by outsiders, and Sancho III "the Great" of Navarre (1004–1035) absorbed Castile in the 1020s, and added León in the last year of his life, leaving Galicia to temporary independence. In the division of lands which followed his death, his son Fernando succeeded to the county of Castile. Two years later, in 1037, he conquered León and Galicia. In 1065, Ferdinand I of Castile and León divided his kingdom among his sons. Galicia was allotted to Garcia II of Galicia.

History of Galicia - Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal

The Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal was formed in 1065 after the County of Portugal declared independence following the death of Ferdinand I of León of Castile-Leon. The Count of Portugal, Nuno Mendes, took advantage of the internal tension caused by the civil war between Ferdinand's sons to finally break off and declare himself an independent ruler. However, in 1071 king Garcia II defeated and killed him at the battle of Pedroso, and annexed his territory, adding the title of King of Portugal to his previous ones. In 1072, King Garcia II himself was defeated by his brother Sancho II of Castile and fled. In that same year, after Sancho's murder Alphonso VI became king of Castile and León; he imprisoned Garcia for life, proclaiming himself King of Galicia and Portugal as well, thus reuniting his father's realm. From that time Galicia remained part of the kingdom of Castile and León, although under differing degrees of self-government.

In 1095, Portugal separated almost definitely from the Kingdom of Galicia, both under the rule of the Kingdom of León, just like Castile (Burgos). Its territories consisting largely of mountain, moorland and forest, were bounded on the north by the Minho, on the south by the Mondego.

History of Galicia - Santiago and Galicia

The translation of Saint James relics to Galicia in the northwest of Iberia was affected, in legend, by a series of miraculous happenings: decapitated in Jerusalem with a sword by Herod Agrippa himself, his body was taken up by angels, and sailed in a rudderless, unattended boat to Iria Flavia in Spain, where a massive rock closed around his relics at Compostela. The Historia Compostellana provides a summary of the legend of St. James as it was believed at Compostela in the 12th century. Two propositions are central to it: first, that St. James preached the gospel in Spain as well as in the Holy Land; second, that after his martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I his disciples carried his body by sea to Spain, where they landed at Padrón on the coast of Galicia, and took it inland for burial at Santiago de Compostela.

An even later tradition states that he miraculously appeared to fight for the Christian army during the battle of Clavijo during the Reconquista, and was henceforth called Matamoros (Moor-slayer). Santiago y cierra España ("St James and strike for Spain") has been the traditional battle cry of Spanish armies.

The possibility that a cult of James was instituted to supplant the Galician cult of Priscillian (executed in 385) who was widely venerated across the north of Spain as a martyr to the bishops rather than as a heretic should not be overlooked.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Medieval Galicia", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki