reconquista

(noun)

A period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, spanning approximately 770 years, between the initial Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 710s and the fall of the Emirate of Granada, the last Islamic state on the peninsula, to expanding Christian kingdoms in 1492.

Related Terms

Examples of reconquista in the following topics:

  • The Reconquista

    • The Reconquista is a period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula dominated by almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians and followed by the Spanish Inquisition.
    • The Reconquista ("reconquest") is a period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, spanning approximately 770 years, between the initial Umayyad conquest of Hispania in the 710s and the fall of the Emirate of Granada, the last Islamic state on the peninsula, to expanding Christian kingdoms in 1492.
    • Historians traditionally mark the beginning of the Reconquista with the Battle of Covadonga (most likely in 722) and its end is associated with Portuguese and Spanish colonization of the Americas.
    • The period of Reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition that followed, turned Catholicism into the dominant religion of Spain, which have shaped the development of the Spanish state and national identity.
    • Explain how the Reconquista led to Spain's increasing commitment to Catholicism

  • Spanish Exploration

    • Only late in the century, following the unification of the crowns of Castile and Aragon and the completion of the reconquista, did an emerging modern Spain become fully committed to the search for new trade routes overseas.

  • The Silo D'Oro

    • It begins no earlier than 1492, with the end of the Reconquista, the sea voyages of Christopher Columbus to the New World, and the publication of Antonio de Nebrija's Grammar of the Castilian Language.

  • The Crusades

    • At the western edge of Europe and of Islamic expansion, the Reconquista (recapture of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims) was well underway by the 11th century, reaching its turning point in 1085 when Alfonso VI of León and Castile retook Toledo from Muslim rule.

  • The Islamic Golden Age

    • The end of the age is variously given as 1258 with the Mongolian Sack of Baghdad, or 1492 with the completion of the Christian Reconquista of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus, Iberian Peninsula.

  • Arts and Sciences

    • The increased contact with Byzantium and with the Islamic world in Spain and Sicily, the Crusades, and the Reconquista allowed Europeans to seek and translate the works of Hellenic and Islamic philosophers and scientists, especially Aristotle.