Reconquista

Battle of the Reconquista from the Cantigas de Santa María

The Reconquista (Spanish and Portuguese word for "Reconquest"; Arabic: الاسترداد, "Recapturing") was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which the several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula grew by conquering Al-Andalus (Arabic الأندلس), the Muslim states on the peninsula.

The Reconquista began shortly after the Islamic conquest of the peninsula. Much of the ideology of the Reconquista was common to most Crusades, and soldiers from all Christendom travelled to Iberia to fight the Muslims as an act of Christian repentance.

The Reconquista came to an end on 2 January 1492, with the capture of Granada. The last Muslim ruler of Granada surrendered his kingdom to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the Catholic Monarchs (Spanish: los Reyes Católicos). That event marked the end of Muslim rule on the peninsula.

Bibliography

• Watt, W. Montgomery: A History of Islamic Spain. University Press of Edinburgh (1992).
• Watt, W. Montgomery: The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe. (Edinburgh 1972).
• Timothy Reuter, Christopher Allmand, David Luscombe, Rosamond McKitterick (eds.), " The New Cambridge Medieval History", Cambridge University Press, Sep 14, 1995, ISBN 0-521-36291-1.
• Bishko, Charles Julian, 1975. The Spanish and Portuguese Reconquest, 1095–1492 in A History of the Crusades, vol. 3: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, edited by Harry W. Hazard, (University of Wisconsin Press)

Other websites

• Timeline of the Reconquista Archived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine, The University of Calgary.
• Battles of Castile & Leon Archived 2008-10-10 at the Wayback Machine: 844–1521.
• Exiles from Andalusia Archived 2007-08-12 at the Wayback Machine.