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| caption3rd century BC Rome conquers and colonizes and romanizes Iberia for 250 years centuries. BC. Iberia remains Roman until the fifth century AD |
| Description |
English: Rarely do weather patterns and satellite overpass schedules align to provide cloud-free views of Western Europe in the spring. However, a high-pressure pattern kept skies spectacularly clear over the Iberian Peninsula and east into France and Germany as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed over on March 8, 2014. The cloud-free area began to emerge on March 5 and persisted through March 11. Explore Worldview—a near-real time browser from the MODIS Rapid Response Team—to see a wider view and how the cloud-free area changed over time. This unobstructed view of Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and southern France exposed a variety of natural features. Meseta Central, the broad mountainous plateau at the center of the Iberian Peninsula, appears brown compared to the greener coastal lowlands to the west. Near the center of the image, the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains serve as a natural barrier between France and Spain. The Cantabrian Mountains, another range in northern Spain, are visible to the west of the Pyrenees. The snow-covered areas to the north are the highlands of France’s Massif Centra
l.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Linguistic_map_Southwestern_Europe.gif/360px-Linguistic_map_Southwestern_Europe.gif
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| Arabic is arabic. Mozarabic means either the dimmi christians under moslem rule in Spain or their romance dialects or their different latin liturgy . Except Basque ,ALLthe languaguages on the map are romance dialects , from Latin with originally much fluider origens and continual changes at every river or whatever from lisbon to the Rhine, from Cologne to Rome. Many do not follow political boundaries all that much. | |||
To understand the background ,you do really need to go back to the key differentiating point, the "reconquista", for all that it finished 500 years ago.
What's that ?
The Iberian peninsula , run after the Romans by a Germanic people known as Visigoths was completely conquered by Arabic and Berber muslims early in the VIIIth century A.D.
The Visigiths kingdom, based in Toledo, was utterly smashed.
but
There were Resisters/Rebels. Their winning it all back is called the "reconquista", the REconquering. Altogether it took nearly 8 mostly bloody centuries. See below.
Try Wikipedia in Spanish on Covadonga for starters .Back to that in a moment . Meanwhile even with no sound the following are helpful ,if partial, with significant gaps : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5lDYDPg2IA,
Modern Spain consists of 17 autonomous regions , with varying degrees of localist and nationalist feelings , with or without extra languages and dialects , and different social cultural and legal traditions (let alone they all have acute and expensive Clochemerle-Babylonitis,) comparable in number to preunification Italy and Germany ,where the British Isles have always had ….. hmmm say five , with England the biggie.
Spain hasn’t got a biggie.
Andalusia 8 1/2millions ,
Catalonia 7 1/2 million,
Spain hasn’t got a biggie.Andalusia 8 1/2millions ,
Catalonia 7 1/2 million,
Madrid region 6 1/2 million
Valencia* kingdom/region 5 millions
Balearics* (ie Majorca, Minorca, & Ibiza) about 1million plus (Spaniards) and / may include hundreds of thousands of yearround Germans
Aragon++ about 1 1/4million
Etc to a sum total of 45+ odd million , that is Catalonia is 1 Spaniard in every six
(++*Valencia and the Balearics have a romance dialect halfcognate with, half derived from Catalan- Catalonia was the principal and first subcomponent of the kingdom of Aragon - Valencia and the Balerics were later components of Aragon's constitutional monarchy . even all together they would still be a minority, though far more viable , within Spain. None of them nowadays are very keen on the idea.)
One of all local nationalist groups in Spain's tiresome habits ,which the Catalan nationalists share ,is saying
Balearics* (ie Majorca, Minorca, & Ibiza) about 1million plus (Spaniards) and / may include hundreds of thousands of yearround Germans
Aragon++ about 1 1/4million
Etc to a sum total of 45+ odd million , that is Catalonia is 1 Spaniard in every six
(++*Valencia and the Balearics have a romance dialect halfcognate with, half derived from Catalan- Catalonia was the principal and first subcomponent of the kingdom of Aragon - Valencia and the Balerics were later components of Aragon's constitutional monarchy . even all together they would still be a minority, though far more viable , within Spain. None of them nowadays are very keen on the idea.)
One of all local nationalist groups in Spain's tiresome habits ,which the Catalan nationalists share ,is saying
"US vs Spain "
- Spain being a varying compendium of the 16 other chunks !
which for the others such as the Basques includes Catalans (and Catalan's general but separate drift companions : Valencians ,the Balearics ( and culturally and linguistically Andorra and a couple of chunks of what has been France for the last odd century or so)
for
they all always were different from each other,
started that way ,
some were/are more diffffffffferent than others,
ALL are NOW in fact MORE similar to each other than ever, ever , before
and
more of their populations intermingled than ever ; including sharing comitting suicide by lack of children and relying both on somewhat integratable Spanishspeaking immigration from South America , rapidly integrated from Eastern Europe, varfiable fromsubsaharan Africa, and also immigration from Moslem Morroco.
As Mark Steyn frequently points out today’s primary school intake is not a prediction of the future..... it's a snapshot of it, in fifteen years time.
In fifty the locals are going to be a rumour, like Picts.
they all always were different from each other,
started that way ,
some were/are more diffffffffferent than others,
ALL are NOW in fact MORE similar to each other than ever, ever , before
and
more of their populations intermingled than ever ; including sharing comitting suicide by lack of children and relying both on somewhat integratable Spanishspeaking immigration from South America , rapidly integrated from Eastern Europe, varfiable fromsubsaharan Africa, and also immigration from Moslem Morroco.
As Mark Steyn frequently points out today’s primary school intake is not a prediction of the future..... it's a snapshot of it, in fifteen years time.
In fifty the locals are going to be a rumour, like Picts.
Independance for any of Spain from the rest looks like a futile one- generation only exercise.
The rest of Spain and Portugal's Reconquest
When early in the 8th century a Moslem Arab-Berber army, loyal to the Calif thousands of miles away , completely overran this peninsula ,they were a tiny minority.But On top.
However
As more and more was gradually reconquered
3 steps forward two steps back
later and later
century by century
it was the Christians who began to be found to be an ever smaller minority .
Each bit of what is now Spain or Portugal was /is
either
one of the starting points of reconquest
or
had some original characteristics combined with some from which chunk or chunks had reconquered it and wholly or partially repopulated it.
Except Catalonia
It was very early reconquest, VIIIth century, a liberation from the invader for the local Christians.
BUT reconquered from the Moors by FRANCE
not from local initiative and...... see below
To go back to the key differentiating point, the “reconquista”, for all that it finished 500 years ago.
What was that ?
The Iberian peninsula , part of the Roman empire for four centuries in the North and seven centuries on the Med was run after the Romans by a Germanic people known as Visigoths . It’s important to note that unlike the Angles Saxons and Jutes in Britain they were Christians and fairly civilized, and replaced Roman rule at the top rather than replacing the locals.
They were hit by the “tusanami” coming out of Mecca.
Through Palestine , through Egypt, all along north Africa, year by year , fight, win, mop up, settle, and move along , all too soon invading the Iberian peninsula from what is now Morroco , the west, or Magreb, once that had itself been conquered and settled and its locals converted to Islam or killed.
Early in the VIIIth century A.D. in the twinkling of an eye almost, the peninsula was overrun, (even a small area the other side of the Pyrenees on the Mediterranean) . The Visigoths’ kingdom, based in Toledo, was utterly and irrevocably smashed by Arab and Berber armies loyal to the Calif thousands of miles away.. Their victories were overwhelming , their looting tremendous , and such Christian statues etc as survived, some to be found later like our lady of guadalupe or our lady of Almudena in Madrid , were well hidden and usually buried.
There might have been little to say if there had been the same treatment as for Morroco ; but Arab strategy was to have areas with Dhimmis as cash cows interpersed with 100% Moslem areas, replicas of the Arabian peninsula, so as not to be caught out, and have reserves of warriors and support if need be. The Magreb was the staging area for Iberia , where many separated large populations and towns and Christian areas with treaties were left as taxpaying subjects,
but
there were initially very very few Resisters/Rebels. Subject Christian counts paying tribute (and secretly biding their time?) a few more.Their winning it all back is called the “reconquista”, the REconquering. Altogether it took nearly 8 mostly bloody centuries to recover what had been a walkover of months rather than decades.
They were hit by the “tusanami” coming out of Mecca.
Through Palestine , through Egypt, all along north Africa, year by year , fight, win, mop up, settle, and move along , all too soon invading the Iberian peninsula from what is now Morroco , the west, or Magreb, once that had itself been conquered and settled and its locals converted to Islam or killed.
Early in the VIIIth century A.D. in the twinkling of an eye almost, the peninsula was overrun, (even a small area the other side of the Pyrenees on the Mediterranean) . The Visigoths’ kingdom, based in Toledo, was utterly and irrevocably smashed by Arab and Berber armies loyal to the Calif thousands of miles away.. Their victories were overwhelming , their looting tremendous , and such Christian statues etc as survived, some to be found later like our lady of guadalupe or our lady of Almudena in Madrid , were well hidden and usually buried.
There might have been little to say if there had been the same treatment as for Morroco ; but Arab strategy was to have areas with Dhimmis as cash cows interpersed with 100% Moslem areas, replicas of the Arabian peninsula, so as not to be caught out, and have reserves of warriors and support if need be. The Magreb was the staging area for Iberia , where many separated large populations and towns and Christian areas with treaties were left as taxpaying subjects,
but
there were initially very very few Resisters/Rebels. Subject Christian counts paying tribute (and secretly biding their time?) a few more.Their winning it all back is called the “reconquista”, the REconquering. Altogether it took nearly 8 mostly bloody centuries to recover what had been a walkover of months rather than decades.
Go back to Covadonga.
Ten or so years after the Moslem invasion. A bedraggled and very hungry band a few hundred strong at most led by the third son of the fifth head of the stables at the Royal Visgothic court at Toledo when there had been a court to be at ,whatever, something like that ,( and formally it boots not , with the Visigoths' tradition having an elected monarchy among a surprisingly large number of candidates, he and his men were the last men standing, they elected him, Pelayo by name, boy nobody, head of the last dregs of brigands one or two valleys ahead of whover was after them ) of the overwhelmingly and crushingly defeated Visigothic kings and nobility of the peninsula , this lad and his lads , then , little after electing him chief in theory of the visgothic kingdom , won a decisive battle , Covadonga . in the mountains in the Asturias . against (possibly a few hundreds, )probably tens of thousands of invaders. (Local knowledge certainly helped.)
Very closely afterwards we find Our Lady( of Covadonga) was given the credit.
You can scrub the faith right out of it. Its very easy to try . Everybody does. They were Christians , like us , like me, meaning sinful sweaty bloodthirsty and often utterly contemptible, lustful, and selfish . and being Spaniards, all on a dramatic scale.
But
how come something like the whole northern third of Spain ,continually mountainous and harder to subdue , mountainous but poorer, colder, and wetter , kicked out their Arab governers and their retinues . or broke off their subject and tributary status ,and joined up or joined in ?
Ok let’s be secular : a few years of sharia was perhaps enough to have turned politically tepid Christians, the 95% without Visgothic blood, right off the illusion as to one lot of rulers being much like another . If we want to say they shared the memory of the same Visgothic kingdom , the same inheritance from Rome and the same religion which is like any other religion only worse , we are saying what today’s cleverdick historians in essence DO say in reasonablesounding learned tomes with breakouts of fotnoteitis.
Meself I think those sweaty bloody selfish sinful men DID have something the invaders didn’t have, and what good is political unity without it?
(The European union, in its political refoundation , chose to erase mention of Christianity, which is when they lost me.)
From these eighth century beginnings to the end of the 15th century in fits and starts and great reverses ramshackle coalitions of very imperfect ,scandalously quarrelsome and backstabbing , ambitious, and poorer Christian kingdoms and principalities, counts , peoples, and even entrepreneurial warband leaders like” El Cid “ ( Charlton Heston for film buffs) gradually reconquered the whole of the richer rest of the Iberian peninsula – seven centuries for what had fallen in months.
(It hasn’t happened anywhere else , it irks those of them who are irkable, and they badly want it all back.)
Meself I think those sweaty bloody selfish sinful men DID have something the invaders didn’t have, and what good is political unity without it?
(The European union, in its political refoundation , chose to erase mention of Christianity, which is when they lost me.)
From these eighth century beginnings to the end of the 15th century in fits and starts and great reverses ramshackle coalitions of very imperfect ,scandalously quarrelsome and backstabbing , ambitious, and poorer Christian kingdoms and principalities, counts , peoples, and even entrepreneurial warband leaders like” El Cid “ ( Charlton Heston for film buffs) gradually reconquered the whole of the richer rest of the Iberian peninsula – seven centuries for what had fallen in months.
(It hasn’t happened anywhere else , it irks those of them who are irkable, and they badly want it all back.)
A generation or so after Pelayo his Asturian kingdom moved the capital for the third or fourth time into harm’s way in the valley leading from the main invasion route and easiest mountain pass, Oviedo. The Asturian Kingdom (or confederation ? or loose aggregate mess?) was small on the ground but had big ideas. They talked one to one with Charlemagne . They raided.but could not hold, Moorish Lisbon. They assembled a sort of government in exile of bishops from all over the moslem occupied peninsula, especially from twixt the Douro and the Tagus. ( as a way of proclaiming their continuity with Toledo? ). Better not spit in the street , you might hit a Bishop.
Their architecture is small and lowbudget, very, compared to the Pharaonic world class scale of Cordoba, but included baths and cute details.
(The Talibanstyle Marxist newmenmaking in 1934 in Oviedo burnt documents, lots, all of them, from this period , not before some investigation of things like stabling bills and such revealed that the Asturian army, at very least linguistically ,had three wings : Two wings , one each for each of thet wo romance dialects (and societies ) Gallego and Asturian , and a Basque wing. Corresponding to a polity from the Basques of the bay of Biscay Pyrenees, (and however far along the pyrenees towards the med )( linguistic pockets all the way existed )in the East to the Gallegos on the Atlantic on the West .
But
repeat
Cataluña was of the eighth century (one of the very very earliest ) reconquests and rallying points of local Christians as a defensive marcher county ,
but NOT a local effort originally
howsoever full of locals and locally supported, but rather founded by Charlemange, centred on Barcelona ,
done from France
to protect the Carolinian empire – and Christendom .
(I suspect for Charlemagne the two were not interchangeable concepts and not separable concepts either. my opinion. )
The name however IS the same as Castile : Castleland.
And for the same reason :
you had to be ready to fight at a moments notice… this required strong defensive points. Lots of them. Everywhere.
It was is and remains a historical example of following of a written moslem admonition that the default Moslem relationship with nonmoslems is war – truces are to be limited to periods of moslem weakness.
(The Vikings had a few remarkable successes in Moslem and Christian parts of Spain far from the frontiers - mostly they got hacked to pieces by the locals in half an hour as a routine bit of business.)
repeat
Cataluña was of the eighth century (one of the very very earliest ) reconquests and rallying points of local Christians as a defensive marcher county ,
but NOT a local effort originally
howsoever full of locals and locally supported, but rather founded by Charlemange, centred on Barcelona ,
done from France
to protect the Carolinian empire – and Christendom .
(I suspect for Charlemagne the two were not interchangeable concepts and not separable concepts either. my opinion. )
The name however IS the same as Castile : Castleland.
And for the same reason :
you had to be ready to fight at a moments notice… this required strong defensive points. Lots of them. Everywhere.
It was is and remains a historical example of following of a written moslem admonition that the default Moslem relationship with nonmoslems is war – truces are to be limited to periods of moslem weakness.
(The Vikings had a few remarkable successes in Moslem and Christian parts of Spain far from the frontiers - mostly they got hacked to pieces by the locals in half an hour as a routine bit of business.)
If the reconquest had followed this original and then amicable division, or the Castillian and Aragonese crowns never joined , there would probably be a mirror image of today, a country , Castili-Portugal ? going from halfway up the pyrenees to the atlantic , called whatever , and along the med north to nearly Alicante, and another , Aragon including kernel Aragon , Cataluña , long an Aragonese county/ principality ,Valencia ( reconquered )the Balearics (Reconquered) transpyrenean Cataluna (nobbled by Napoleon), Catalonia being its powerhouse and its new York if you like.Primus inter pares.
Didn’t happen that way.
But Catalonian self awareness both genuinely , and falsely , lives in a selfpromoted mental fog which starts HERE year seven hundred and whatever ,
in history follows thru with its local self government as part of greater Aragon,
and makes their culture,
provençal culture,
stomped on and uprooted in France( first with the Cathars’ removal and later with revolutionary and republican discrimination
(– they are right that their culture’s boundaries have shrunk , their language is under threat, etc) ,
the prefall Eden of Europe and them its last , best and only legitimate heirs, a light to the surrounding and adoring rough primitive abos.
We may also note:
Just because in contrast to much of Spain ,
they usually go to bed early,
work very very hard if not necessarily very efficiently ,
prize “seny ” supposedly “common sense” ,
and consider savings and pensions from about 16 years old,
have a centuries old history of supressed self government
does not mean
that particularly those over about 50 do not share a default condition with other Spaniards when exited or under stress
of going stark staring bonkers.
in history follows thru with its local self government as part of greater Aragon,
and makes their culture,
provençal culture,
stomped on and uprooted in France( first with the Cathars’ removal and later with revolutionary and republican discrimination
(– they are right that their culture’s boundaries have shrunk , their language is under threat, etc) ,
the prefall Eden of Europe and them its last , best and only legitimate heirs, a light to the surrounding and adoring rough primitive abos.
We may also note:
 |
| caption: Early 10th century : mainly basque Navarre had been the father of historically partly basque mountain Aragon , around Jaca in the pyrenees clearing away the relatively few Moslems garrisoning the area . It was also to some degree the father of partly Basque and bilingual Basque and romance speaking Castile , the reconquered area around Burgos . both separated out into separate independant kingdoms in the 11th century when King Sancho of Navarre , Master of christian iberia who had taken over from Galicia to languedoc. At his death divvied up his kingdoms amongst his sons. |
Just because in contrast to much of Spain ,
they usually go to bed early,
work very very hard if not necessarily very efficiently ,
prize “seny ” supposedly “common sense” ,
and consider savings and pensions from about 16 years old,
have a centuries old history of supressed self government
does not mean
that particularly those over about 50 do not share a default condition with other Spaniards when exited or under stress
of going stark staring bonkers.
Spain including Catalonia has a rich fascinating and bloody history up to the present day.(Brennan’s book was called "the Spanish labyrinth" for good reason).
There is fuel for plenty of local pride, resentment, grudges, and glory. For everybody.
There is fuel for plenty of local pride, resentment, grudges, and glory. For everybody.
Most have lost the Catholic faith in great part over a few recent years every bit as much as France Italy or Ireland.
What is endearing dottiness in a Christian context is frightening in a pagan one of hating with your mind.
Revering Bonnie Prince Charlie is one thing , pigmouthed nationalsocialist marxistoid thugs hiding behind enforced conformist tartanism another. Or equivalents.
There has just recently been in Catalan nationalism a reckless kick-over-the-applecart characteristic of forging ahead , blow the constitution , blow everybody else .
with a referendum with in any case no minimum on participation and mandating independence in the specific form of Republic should the yes vote be the majority howsoever qualified of votes cast. I don't understand it because I don't want to understand it. I dislike thinking badly of any of a superb people.
Other considerations aside the precedents for other parts of Spain would be dreadful.
Republics in Spain have twice been touted as panaceas, twice been a recipe for bloody tyranny mass murder and mayhem, not that they had the monopoly on any of those.
I dislike the mindset this reveals :
They are to achieve a however under whelmingly supported rupture by pushing the envelope in many politically correct leftie ways
betting that other Spaniards,
like other British Islesers vis a vis the Irish in the 19 twenties
will not like killing their fellowcountrymen brothers and cousins in any quantity for very long , whereas bloodshed causes the localist nationalists , in fact if not in theory, not a moments’ pause.
Whether they will/would be worse enemies of God’s church than they already are with the very extensive local autonomy they already control I do not know and cannot guess.
Their nationalists' othering of the rest of Spain in the press education and radio and TV since 1975 has been petty and ugly. Independence would sate payback?
with a referendum with in any case no minimum on participation and mandating independence in the specific form of Republic should the yes vote be the majority howsoever qualified of votes cast. I don't understand it because I don't want to understand it. I dislike thinking badly of any of a superb people.
Other considerations aside the precedents for other parts of Spain would be dreadful.
Republics in Spain have twice been touted as panaceas, twice been a recipe for bloody tyranny mass murder and mayhem, not that they had the monopoly on any of those.
I dislike the mindset this reveals :
They are to achieve a however under whelmingly supported rupture by pushing the envelope in many politically correct leftie ways
betting that other Spaniards,
like other British Islesers vis a vis the Irish in the 19 twenties
will not like killing their fellowcountrymen brothers and cousins in any quantity for very long , whereas bloodshed causes the localist nationalists , in fact if not in theory, not a moments’ pause.
Whether they will/would be worse enemies of God’s church than they already are with the very extensive local autonomy they already control I do not know and cannot guess.
Their nationalists' othering of the rest of Spain in the press education and radio and TV since 1975 has been petty and ugly. Independence would sate payback?
and nagging him as to when you could light the sparklers, while the grown-ups ate sausages 
A different version unfully integrated as yet
To go back to the key differentiating point, the “reconquista”, for all that it finished 500 years ago.
They were hit by the “tusanami” coming out of Mecca.
Through Palestine , through Egypt, all along north Africa, year by year , fight, win, mop up, settle, and move along , all too soon invading the Iberian peninsula from what is now Morroco , the west, or Magreb, once that had itself been conquered and settled and its locals converted to Islam or killed.
Early in the VIIIth century A.D. in the twinkling of an eye almost, the peninsula was overrun, (even a small area the other side of the Pyrenees on the Mediterranean) . The Visigoths’ kingdom, based in Toledo, was utterly and irrevocably smashed by Arab and Berber armies loyal to the Calif thousands of miles away.. Their victories were overwhelming , their looting tremendous , and such Christian statues etc as survived, some to be found later like our lady of guadalupe or our lady of Almudena in Madrid , were well hidden and usually buried.
There might have been little to say if there had been the same treatment as for Morroco ; but Arab strategy was to have areas with Dhimmis as cash cows interpersed with 100% Moslem areas, replicas of the Arabian peninsula, so as not to be caught out, and have reserves of warriors and support if need be. The Magreb was the staging area for Iberia , where many separated large populations and towns and Christian areas with treaties were left as taxpaying subjects,
but
there were initially very very few Resisters/Rebels. Subject Christian counts paying tribute (and secretly biding their time?) a few more.Their winning it all back is called the “reconquista”, the REconquering. Altogether it took nearly 8 mostly bloody centuries to recover what had been a walkover of months rather than decades.
Also to be born in mind , comparing the situation in 722 or so to 1212 is that when the Arab and Berber Moslems completely overran this peninsula ,they were , everywhere a tiny minority.
But On Top.Completely in control.The masters.
However
As more and more was gradually reconquered, three steps forward two steps back , later and later ,century by century , it was the Christians who began to be found to be an ever smaller relative numbers , even a minority .
So Covadonga.
The very name comes from the latin for “Cave of our Lady”
Try to imagine ,to not know the future of the guys involved, to not have the benefit of hindsight,
Ten or so years after the Moslem invasion. A bedraggled and very hungry band a few hundred strong at most led by the third son of the fifth head of the stables at the Royal Visgothic court at Toledo when there had been a court to be at ,whatever, something like that ,( and formally it boots not , with the Visigoths’ tradition of having an elected monarchy among a surprisingly large number of possible candidates, he and his men were the last men standing, they elected him, Pelayo by name, boy nobody, head of the last dregs, more like brigands than soldiers one or two valleys ahead of whover was after them ) of the overwhelmingly and crushingly defeated Visigothic kings and nobility of the peninsula , this lad and his lads , then , little after electing him chief ,in theory, of the Visgothic kingdom , won a decisive battle , Covadonga . in the mountains in the Asturias . against (possibly a few hundreds, )probably tens of thousands of invaders. (Local knowledge certainly helped. The cave itself played a part in some accounts.)
Moderns are sceptical, it’s all post facto later propagandizing. Miracles don’t happen etc.
You can scrub the faith right out of it. Its very easy to try . Everybody does. They were Christians , like us , like me, meaning sinful sweaty bloodthirsty and often utterly contemptible, lustful, and selfish . and (being Spaniards,) all on a dramatic scale.
But
how come something like the whole northern third of Iberia ,continually mountainous and harder to subdue true, restive by tradition , true, mountainous but poorer, colder, and wetter , thoroughly and convincingly conquered , suddenly kicked out their Arab governers and their retinues . or broke off their subject and tributary status ,and risked their necks joining up or joining in ? Coz the same lad and his band of stubborn nevergivein neerdowells who weeks before noone had wanted to know or help much beyond a coupla sheep on the sly and please dont stay here, had struck lucky with a few Arab soldiers been tricked into walking off a cliff in the mist ?
Really?
As a sceptic I find Our Lady’s help more convincing. I dont think holy mother church has ever universally said much as to details.
Ok let’s be secular and cynical : a few years of sharia and jizzia was perhaps enough to have turned politically tepid Christians, the 95% without Visgothic blood, right off the illusion as to one lot of rulers being much like another . If we want to say they shared the memory of the same Visgothic kingdom , the same inheritance from Rome and the same religion which is like any other religion only worse , we are saying what today’s cleverdick historians in essence DO say in reasonablesounding learned tomes with breakouts of footnoteitis. It’s all explained or explained away.
Meself I think those sweaty bloody selfish sinful men DID have something the invaders didn’t have, and what good is political unity without it? ( personal moan: the European union, in its political refoundation , chose to erase mention of Christianity, which is when they lost me.)
Their architecture is small and lowbudget, very, compared to the Pharaonic world class scale of Cordoba but included baths and cute details. They built churches , only a few a re left as they were built.
Spirit of Catalonia by Dr rueta press for link