Visigoths and Moors

In the early fifth century A.D., Spain was invaded by Vandals and other Germanic tribes. In the second half of the century, the Visigoths achieved dominance, pushing the Vandals into Africa. The Visigothic kingdom collapsed in 711 when the Moors—North African Muslims—invaded from Morocco. Within a few years the Moors conquered nearly all of the peninsula and advanced into southern France, until turned back by Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours in 732. Many Spaniards took refuge in the northern mountains and from there kept up a bitter resistance against Muslim domination.

For nearly two centuries, the southern two-thirds of Spain was under Moorish control. A separate Muslim domain, the Western (or Spanish) Caliphate, was established at Córdoba in 929. Moorish Spain fostered scholarship and played an important part in transmitting ancient Greek and Roman learning to the Christian countries of western Europe. Córdoba became a great intellectual and artistic center.

Meanwhile, the Christian kingdoms of León, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre were being formed in the north. They exerted constant pressure along the Moorish frontier, gradually pushing it south. The caliphate, undermined by anarchy and civil war, collapsed in 1031 and southern Spain was reduced to a number of petty principalities. Although the Christians often warred among themselves, the conquest of the Moors proceeded rapidly, with the kingdom of Castile assuming leadership. The independent kingdom of Portugal was proclaimed in the mid-12th century. In 1230, Castile annexed León. Aragon, in the northeast, became a Mediterranean power, gaining control of Sicily in 1282 and of Naples in the 1400's.