Thorgalaeg
Deity
The first reason to post this article is because I have always found fascinating the middle-ages, above all early middle ages, although it is not a very well documented period. Focusing on Spain i find the Visigoths times and above all the end of the Visigoths and the begining of the Astur Kingdom very interesting. It amazes me how with a bunch of primitive guys, hidden in an isolated mountain were able not only to resist a much more advanced, organized and numerous power that controlle the whole Iberia but to defeat it, begining the reconquist of the entire Iberian peninsula. Maybe becuase such lack of reliable information the figure of Don Pelayo is even more interesting for me. In fast it could be a very hollywoodiense character. I wonder why nobody has made a movie about this guy yet. 
BTW sorry for my English. The second reason for this article is because i need to practice it a bit
The Visigoths were one of the two main branches of the germanic group called goths, they came to Spain in the 5th century . Then the Visigoths were already a romanized poeple who considered themselves the heirs of the defunct imperial roman power. Around the middle of this century, the threefold pressures of the Suevi, from the west (Galicia), the Cantabrian-Pyrenaic herdsmen from the north and the Byzantines from the south, the Betica, forced them to establish their capital in Toledo, in the centre of the Peninsula. it was significant because it constituted a first attempt at Peninsular unity, idependent of the rest of the old roman empire, and therefore the Visigoths have been considered, practically to up to the present day, the creators of the first Peninsular hispanic kingdom. The Visigoths defended themselves well against the Suevi in Galicia and subdued them in the 6th century A.D, and they succefully expelled the byzantines of the south. They were able to control the northern semi-savage tribes of Asturians, Vascones and Cantabrians. Along a centuriy there were relative peace and some "prosperity" in the Iberian peninsula (it is the time of San Isidoro de Sevilla (556-636) for instance) with no invasions at least, but nonstop treasons and fights for the power among Visigoths noblemen ended this short period.
Visigothic Hispania:
In fact the last years of Visigothic Hispania would see a radical feudalism, never seen before at another occidental countries. The last monarches - Egica ( 672-680 ), Wamba ( 680-687 ), Ervigio ( 687-702 ) , Witiza (702-710) Rodrigo ( 710-711 ) and Agila II (¿710-714?)- would struggle between trying to reinforce the royal power, with one policy of hard-hand against the opposing nobility ( Wamba, Egica ), and a policy of concessions to the noblemen ( Ervigio, Witiza ). But even the first would not conceive another form to strengthen his position more than increasing his personal and his family economic base, benefitting his vassals noblemen, conceding them lands and jurisdictions over the people. However in despite of allt his the attempts of rebellion and usurpation for part of ambitious noblemen would multiply during these years.
Rodrigo was dux of the Bética- South of Spain - and he was member of the family of Chindasvinto (Chindasvinto was king since 642 to 653, so the good old times), confronted to the one of Wamba. At Witiza's death this fight exacerbated when Rodrigo was proclaimed king by a part of nobility, while another group had proclaimed Agila II, the son of Witiza. the Visigothic kingdom's was divided between both rivals, controlling Rodrigo the main part of Hispania while Agila controlled Narbonense and part of the Tarraconense - present day southern zones of France and north of Catalonia -. Within this context of civil war appear the muslims guided by Tarik. The Moslem crossed the strait of Gibraltar in the spring of 711. Legend counts than the visigoth count Don Julian, governor of Ceuta, propped the Islamic entrance at the Peninsula due to an offense accomplished by Rodrigo to his daughter Florinda. The beautiful youth was sent to Toledo to complete his education and in the Visigoth capital she was seduced by Rodrigo. From that moment the girl will receive the name of Digging by the Moslem, so prostitute. Maybe exist some truth in this legend because Don Julián was since that point Agila's ally and permited the step of Moslems who would supposedly help his master Agila, into the peninsula . At that time Rodrigo was combatting in the peninsular North against the vascones and when he received he news he conducted his army to the South. The encounter between Rodrigo and the army of Tarik had place in the "Wadi Lakka" according to the muslims, place unidentified today, but surely the Guadalete river or Barbate, in Cádiz, extreme south of Spain. Mozárabe Chronicle considers that the two wings of visigoth army had been trusted by Rodrigo to two Witiza's brethren (not very clever i would say), Opas and Sisberto, so they betrayed the king when they abandoned the principal contingent. Obviously the Visigoths were defeated and Rodrigo died. The battle is dated between July 19 and July 26 at year 711.
So, lacking any centralized organization, and within a growing discomfort among the most humble people due to savage feudalism and circumstantially due to catastrophic natural factors - droughts famines, epidemics...- and also due to problems of ideological and ethnical minorities too, like the jews who were forced to an obligatory conversion or to a total dispersion and esclavization ( 694 ) the Visigothic kingdom disappeared under muslim advance inmediately. The last Visigothic resistances at lands of the present-day Catalonia would have ended between the 716 and the 719.
Muslim advance.
Due to the nonstopable and threatening Moslem advance, some noblemen and some priests linked to the last Visigothic king Rodrigo refugied in the mountains of the Peaks of Europe and surroindings between Cantabria and Asturias at the Sella's valley and the zone of Liébana, east of current city of Oviedo. All very escarped and heavily wooded zones. The chronicles talk about a tribal meeting in the deep forest celebrated in the year 718 organized by a guy called Don Pelayo. He managed to an agreement among his nobiliary group and the savage astures to guide the highlanders's traditional hostility against the Visigoths, against the new bosses, the Moslems. Don Pelayo's figure is surrounded by a legendary halo that endows the character of great attraction. Nowadays the specialists doubt that he had something to do with the royal visigothic family, being rather the governor of Asturias under Don Rodrigo Kingdom or somebody linked to the circles of power in the Sella's district. However in a first moment these meetings did not have a great repercussion for the muslims in. Anyway in the year 722 the muslim governor of Asturias, loacated in the city of Gijón, a guy called Anbasa, sends an expedition of punishment directed by the general Alqama against the group of agitators. Alqama defeats easily Pelayo´s group, so the rebels must leave the valley and go to hide at the high mountains of the Peaks of Europe. The muslims follow them into the mountains but Pelayo has reorganized his people and is waiting ambushed for the arab army, occurring then the famous battle of Covadonga (722) the first important defeat of the muslims in Europa, ten years before that the more famous Battle of Tours (733). Obviously, according to the Christian chronicles, the Virgin Mary intervened to help his devotees, enough reason to build the Marian sanctuary of Covadonga that we can see there today. This first victory motivated that Gijón's Arab governor left the zone, permitting Pelayo and his congregation go ahead controlling part of the Asturian territory . In this years Pelayo fomented the process of Christianization of the pagan Astures too. After a new victory in Olalíes - the present-day Proaza - Pelayo settled in Cangas de Onis, about 10 kilometers NW of the peaks of Europa, going from the mountain to the valley. Cangas will be the first capital of the future kingdom. Pelayo was succeded in the lead by his son Fafila. However Fafila died soon, killed while the was hunting, in a fight with a bear. We must warn that neither Pelayo nor Fafila considered himself kings. This honor will be for Pelayo´s son in law. Who will be called Alfonso I.
Alfonso was born from Don Pedro the duke of Cantabria, a Visigoth nobleman. After the death of his father maybe in the fight against the moors he was refuged at the forested region of the mountains of asturias. There he got in touch with rebels's group led for Pelayo and married with Pealyo´s Daughter, Ermesinda. After Fafila death he was chossen the successorof Pelayo lineage and at an unknow moment the proclaim himself king. Obviously Alfonso's nobiliary ascendancy motivated the use of such title. We can think up that he established at the capital - Cangas of Onís - some habits and a more structured way of life than the existent until that moment, vindicating the Visigothic past. And the fact is that Alfonso I had an authentic plan of expansion of his territory, making good use of the politic crisis that was affecting to al Andalus (muslim iberia). In that years the majority of the lands among the Cantabric Range - the mountains along all northern Spain- and the Central System - the mountains northern of Madrid- were left empty by his inhabitants's who flight towards the south due to the Berber rebellions against the arabs that were occurring in the northwest of muslim Spain, mainly in Galicia, and due to the terrible drought that desolated the peninsula in those years, provoking the desertization of the Duero's plateau.. This demographic abandon permitted to Alfonso to accomplish a series of victorious expeditions for Galicia, the Duero's valley and the high Ebro, occupying all the Cantabric Range from the Atlantic to the Basque lands and going southwards, taking possession of León, Astorga and Simancas. Present-day Tierra de Campos - a semi-desertic land northern of the Central System mountains- would be left as a nobody´s desertic zone to make the Moslem attacks more difficult, resettling the population's further Northwards. This way Alfonso gained important military and demographic contingents for his kingdom and later it was possible to accomplish the gradual repopulation of these lands. The kingdom of Asturias would spread over the present-day Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Alava, and La Rioja, raiseeing fortresses at the frontiers. After Afonso´s death in 757 his kingdom would continue expanding with countless up and downs, being the initial point for all christian knigdoms in the Iberian peninsula. The Asturia kingdom would evolve in the Leon Kingdom and later in the Castile-Leon Kingdom and Later in Castile, and later, after the unification with the Kindom of Aragon , Spain.
Covadonga Valley in Asturias. At the front, in the center of the image, you can see the Naranjo de Bulnes, heart of the Europa Peaks.
Astur Kingdom:
General map about the Reconquista:
BTW sorry for my English. The second reason for this article is because i need to practice it a bit
The Visigoths were one of the two main branches of the germanic group called goths, they came to Spain in the 5th century . Then the Visigoths were already a romanized poeple who considered themselves the heirs of the defunct imperial roman power. Around the middle of this century, the threefold pressures of the Suevi, from the west (Galicia), the Cantabrian-Pyrenaic herdsmen from the north and the Byzantines from the south, the Betica, forced them to establish their capital in Toledo, in the centre of the Peninsula. it was significant because it constituted a first attempt at Peninsular unity, idependent of the rest of the old roman empire, and therefore the Visigoths have been considered, practically to up to the present day, the creators of the first Peninsular hispanic kingdom. The Visigoths defended themselves well against the Suevi in Galicia and subdued them in the 6th century A.D, and they succefully expelled the byzantines of the south. They were able to control the northern semi-savage tribes of Asturians, Vascones and Cantabrians. Along a centuriy there were relative peace and some "prosperity" in the Iberian peninsula (it is the time of San Isidoro de Sevilla (556-636) for instance) with no invasions at least, but nonstop treasons and fights for the power among Visigoths noblemen ended this short period.
Visigothic Hispania:
In fact the last years of Visigothic Hispania would see a radical feudalism, never seen before at another occidental countries. The last monarches - Egica ( 672-680 ), Wamba ( 680-687 ), Ervigio ( 687-702 ) , Witiza (702-710) Rodrigo ( 710-711 ) and Agila II (¿710-714?)- would struggle between trying to reinforce the royal power, with one policy of hard-hand against the opposing nobility ( Wamba, Egica ), and a policy of concessions to the noblemen ( Ervigio, Witiza ). But even the first would not conceive another form to strengthen his position more than increasing his personal and his family economic base, benefitting his vassals noblemen, conceding them lands and jurisdictions over the people. However in despite of allt his the attempts of rebellion and usurpation for part of ambitious noblemen would multiply during these years.
Rodrigo was dux of the Bética- South of Spain - and he was member of the family of Chindasvinto (Chindasvinto was king since 642 to 653, so the good old times), confronted to the one of Wamba. At Witiza's death this fight exacerbated when Rodrigo was proclaimed king by a part of nobility, while another group had proclaimed Agila II, the son of Witiza. the Visigothic kingdom's was divided between both rivals, controlling Rodrigo the main part of Hispania while Agila controlled Narbonense and part of the Tarraconense - present day southern zones of France and north of Catalonia -. Within this context of civil war appear the muslims guided by Tarik. The Moslem crossed the strait of Gibraltar in the spring of 711. Legend counts than the visigoth count Don Julian, governor of Ceuta, propped the Islamic entrance at the Peninsula due to an offense accomplished by Rodrigo to his daughter Florinda. The beautiful youth was sent to Toledo to complete his education and in the Visigoth capital she was seduced by Rodrigo. From that moment the girl will receive the name of Digging by the Moslem, so prostitute. Maybe exist some truth in this legend because Don Julián was since that point Agila's ally and permited the step of Moslems who would supposedly help his master Agila, into the peninsula . At that time Rodrigo was combatting in the peninsular North against the vascones and when he received he news he conducted his army to the South. The encounter between Rodrigo and the army of Tarik had place in the "Wadi Lakka" according to the muslims, place unidentified today, but surely the Guadalete river or Barbate, in Cádiz, extreme south of Spain. Mozárabe Chronicle considers that the two wings of visigoth army had been trusted by Rodrigo to two Witiza's brethren (not very clever i would say), Opas and Sisberto, so they betrayed the king when they abandoned the principal contingent. Obviously the Visigoths were defeated and Rodrigo died. The battle is dated between July 19 and July 26 at year 711.
So, lacking any centralized organization, and within a growing discomfort among the most humble people due to savage feudalism and circumstantially due to catastrophic natural factors - droughts famines, epidemics...- and also due to problems of ideological and ethnical minorities too, like the jews who were forced to an obligatory conversion or to a total dispersion and esclavization ( 694 ) the Visigothic kingdom disappeared under muslim advance inmediately. The last Visigothic resistances at lands of the present-day Catalonia would have ended between the 716 and the 719.
Muslim advance.
Due to the nonstopable and threatening Moslem advance, some noblemen and some priests linked to the last Visigothic king Rodrigo refugied in the mountains of the Peaks of Europe and surroindings between Cantabria and Asturias at the Sella's valley and the zone of Liébana, east of current city of Oviedo. All very escarped and heavily wooded zones. The chronicles talk about a tribal meeting in the deep forest celebrated in the year 718 organized by a guy called Don Pelayo. He managed to an agreement among his nobiliary group and the savage astures to guide the highlanders's traditional hostility against the Visigoths, against the new bosses, the Moslems. Don Pelayo's figure is surrounded by a legendary halo that endows the character of great attraction. Nowadays the specialists doubt that he had something to do with the royal visigothic family, being rather the governor of Asturias under Don Rodrigo Kingdom or somebody linked to the circles of power in the Sella's district. However in a first moment these meetings did not have a great repercussion for the muslims in. Anyway in the year 722 the muslim governor of Asturias, loacated in the city of Gijón, a guy called Anbasa, sends an expedition of punishment directed by the general Alqama against the group of agitators. Alqama defeats easily Pelayo´s group, so the rebels must leave the valley and go to hide at the high mountains of the Peaks of Europe. The muslims follow them into the mountains but Pelayo has reorganized his people and is waiting ambushed for the arab army, occurring then the famous battle of Covadonga (722) the first important defeat of the muslims in Europa, ten years before that the more famous Battle of Tours (733). Obviously, according to the Christian chronicles, the Virgin Mary intervened to help his devotees, enough reason to build the Marian sanctuary of Covadonga that we can see there today. This first victory motivated that Gijón's Arab governor left the zone, permitting Pelayo and his congregation go ahead controlling part of the Asturian territory . In this years Pelayo fomented the process of Christianization of the pagan Astures too. After a new victory in Olalíes - the present-day Proaza - Pelayo settled in Cangas de Onis, about 10 kilometers NW of the peaks of Europa, going from the mountain to the valley. Cangas will be the first capital of the future kingdom. Pelayo was succeded in the lead by his son Fafila. However Fafila died soon, killed while the was hunting, in a fight with a bear. We must warn that neither Pelayo nor Fafila considered himself kings. This honor will be for Pelayo´s son in law. Who will be called Alfonso I.
Alfonso was born from Don Pedro the duke of Cantabria, a Visigoth nobleman. After the death of his father maybe in the fight against the moors he was refuged at the forested region of the mountains of asturias. There he got in touch with rebels's group led for Pelayo and married with Pealyo´s Daughter, Ermesinda. After Fafila death he was chossen the successorof Pelayo lineage and at an unknow moment the proclaim himself king. Obviously Alfonso's nobiliary ascendancy motivated the use of such title. We can think up that he established at the capital - Cangas of Onís - some habits and a more structured way of life than the existent until that moment, vindicating the Visigothic past. And the fact is that Alfonso I had an authentic plan of expansion of his territory, making good use of the politic crisis that was affecting to al Andalus (muslim iberia). In that years the majority of the lands among the Cantabric Range - the mountains along all northern Spain- and the Central System - the mountains northern of Madrid- were left empty by his inhabitants's who flight towards the south due to the Berber rebellions against the arabs that were occurring in the northwest of muslim Spain, mainly in Galicia, and due to the terrible drought that desolated the peninsula in those years, provoking the desertization of the Duero's plateau.. This demographic abandon permitted to Alfonso to accomplish a series of victorious expeditions for Galicia, the Duero's valley and the high Ebro, occupying all the Cantabric Range from the Atlantic to the Basque lands and going southwards, taking possession of León, Astorga and Simancas. Present-day Tierra de Campos - a semi-desertic land northern of the Central System mountains- would be left as a nobody´s desertic zone to make the Moslem attacks more difficult, resettling the population's further Northwards. This way Alfonso gained important military and demographic contingents for his kingdom and later it was possible to accomplish the gradual repopulation of these lands. The kingdom of Asturias would spread over the present-day Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Alava, and La Rioja, raiseeing fortresses at the frontiers. After Afonso´s death in 757 his kingdom would continue expanding with countless up and downs, being the initial point for all christian knigdoms in the Iberian peninsula. The Asturia kingdom would evolve in the Leon Kingdom and later in the Castile-Leon Kingdom and Later in Castile, and later, after the unification with the Kindom of Aragon , Spain.
Covadonga Valley in Asturias. At the front, in the center of the image, you can see the Naranjo de Bulnes, heart of the Europa Peaks.
Astur Kingdom:
General map about the Reconquista:
, but since I know notice a line representing "the northernmost limit of muslim interest", and since it coincides with a view I wanted to express, I think there is a bit of romanticising of the exploits of Pelayo and the situation imediatly after muslim conquest. It seems to me that the christians were never really enclosed in a desperate mountain enclave in Asturias. The muslims came with force, and occupied the southern regions, and central regions, but the north, and not just the region around Picos de Europa, would have probably been a sort of no man's land, with occasional rides from mulsims, followed by retribution from christians. Tariq and Musa campaigned of course in that area, but any sort of government they let in charge in any such northern city didn't really last long. Basicly, this all to say that I dont think Pelayo et al were really ever in such desperate situation once the initial campaigners retreated to more friendly latitudes. 
