Jollyjoy:


no fear,you wouldnt die.


What is the worst mistake you have ever done on a first date

firstEVA:
Lunatics have come to derail

God bless the Queen

Vanquay:
Cc: íamlegend1, BUTCHCASSîdy, SUNDÀNCE KíD, Freémanan

olajorn:
is that you on your Dp...you are looking sweet

misspicy:

i got angry when he didnt show up on time and left the venue....he called me 2 days later,he had an accident on his way,i couldnt forgive mysef,and Yes i lost that guy,coz he was disappointed at my attitude


lets do this at night please so i can concentrate.

SeXistBaStaRd:
Nigga, Spamming works faster than Derailing(Technically they are the same thing)

Misspicy you must make this thread open to guys you sexist piece of... Those are my conditions

firstEVA:
thanks

prettythicksme:
Nice thread op,vanquay abi na sexisttbastard what da fuvk is wrong with ur brain?

olajorn:
falz the bad guy #storythattouch

firstEVA:
Hold up, is olajorn not ipledge10?

olajorn:
we are twins...IPledge10 will take over tomorrow

olajorn:
we are twins...IPledge10 will take over tomorrow

IamLEGEND1:

firstEVA:
oh I see

What are you talking about?

prettythicksme:
Nice thread op,vanquay abi na sexisttbastard what da fuvk is wrong with ur brain?

gifttracy:
nice thread op..

misspicy:
@sexistbastard am on my knees,you know af never asked you for anything,do me this great favour,STOP please

misspicy:

i got angry when he didnt show up on time and left the venue....he called me 2 days later,he had an accident on his way,i couldnt forgive mysef,and Yes i lost that guy,coz he was disappointed at my attitude


lets do this at night please so i can concentrate.

SeXistBaStaRd:
[bThe Reconquista[a] ("reconquest" is a historical period of approximately 770 years in the history of the Iberian Peninsula, beginning after the initial stage of the Islamic conquest (711-718), to the fall of Granada, the last Islamic state on the peninsula, in 1492. It ended right before the discovery of the New World, and the period of the Portuguese and Spanish colonial empires which followed.

Traditionally, historians mark the beginning of the Reconquista with the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), in which a small army, led by the nobleman Pelagius, defeated an Umayyad army in the mountains of northern Iberia and established a small Christian principality in Asturias.

Concept and duration Edit

Catholic, Spanish, and Portuguese historiography, from the beginnings of historical scholarship until the twentieth century, stressed the existence of a continuous phenomenon by which the Christian Iberian kingdoms opposed and conquered the Muslim kingdoms, understood as a common enemy who had militarily seized Christian territory.[1] The concept of a Christian reconquest of the peninsula first emerged, in tenuous form, at the end of the 9th century.[2] A landmark was set by the Christian Chronica Prophetica (883-884), a document stressing the Christian and Muslim cultural and religious divide in Iberia and the necessity to drive the Muslims out.

Nevertheless, the difference between Christian and Muslim kingdoms in early medieval Spain was not seen at the time as anything like the clear-cut opposition which later emerged. Both Christian and Muslim rulers fought amongst themselves. Alliances between Muslims and Christians were not at all uncommon.[2] Blurring distinctions even further were the mercenaries from both sides who simply fought for whoever paid the most. The period is looked back upon today as one of religious tolerance.[3]

The Crusades, which started late in the eleventh century, bred the religious ideology of a Christian reconquest, confronted at that time with a similarly staunch Muslim Jihad ideology in Al-Andalus: the Almoravids and even to a greater degree, in the Almohads. In fact previous documents (10-11th century) are mute on any idea of "reconquest".[4] Propaganda accounts of Muslim-Christian hostility came into being to support that idea, most notably the Chanson de Roland, a fictitious 12th-century French version of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778) dealing with the Iberian Saracens (Moors), and taught as historical in the French educational system since 1880.[5][6]

Many recent historians dispute the whole concept of Reconquista (as well as that of a prior conquista by the Moors) as a concept created a posteriori in the service of later political goals. It has been called a "myth".[7][8][9][10][11][12] One of the first Spanish intellectuals to question the idea of a "reconquest" that lasts for eight centuries was José Ortega y Gasset, writing in the first half of the twentieth century.[13] However, the term is still in wide use.

The final campaign to conquer Granada, near the end of the 15th century, is never designated "reconquista" in Spanish; it is rather "la conquista de Granada", the conquest of Granada. Nevertheless, references to the reconquista as a whole are understood to include this campaign.

Background Edit

Islamic conquest of Christian Iberia Edit
Further information: Umayyad conquest of Hispania and Battle of Guadalete
In 711, Muslim Moors, mainly North African Berber soldiers with some Arabs, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and began their conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. After their conquest of the Visigothic kingdom's Iberian territories, the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees and took control of Septimania in 719, the last province of the Visigothic kingdom to be occupied. From their stronghold of Narbonne, they launched raids into the Duchy of Aquitaine.

At no point did the invading Islamic armies exceed 60,000 men.[14] These armies established an Islamic rule that would last 300 years in much of the Iberian Peninsula and 770 years in Granada.

Islamic rule Edit
Main articles: Berbers and Islam and Berber Revolt
After the establishment of a local Emirate, Caliph Al-Walid I, ruler of the Umayyad caliphate, removed many of the successful Muslim commanders. Tariq ibn Ziyad, the first governor of the newly conquered province of Al-Andalus, was recalled to Damascus and replaced with Musa bin Nusair, who had been his former superior. Musa's son, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, apparently married Egilona, Roderic's widow, and established his regional government in Seville. He was suspected of being under the influence of his wife, accused of wanting to convert to Christianity, and of planning a secessionist rebellion. Apparently a concerned Al-Walid I ordered Abd al-Aziz's assassination. Caliph Al-Walid I died in 715 and was succeeded by his brother Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik. Sulayman seems to have punished the surviving Musa bin Nusair, who very soon died during a pilgrimage in 716. In the end Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa's cousin, Ayyub ibn Habib al-Lakhmi became the emir of Al-Andalus.

The conquering generals were necessarily acting very independently, due to the methods of communication available. Successful generals in the field and in a very distant province would also gain the personal loyalty of their officers and warriors and their ambitions were probably always watched by certain circles of the distant government with a certain degree of concern and suspicion. Old rivalries and perhaps even full-fledged conspiracies between rival generals may have had influence over this development. In the end, the old successful generals were replaced by a younger generation considered more loyal by the government in Damascus.

A serious weakness amongst the Muslim conquerors was the ethnic tension between Berbers and Arabs.[15] The Berbers were indigenous inhabitants of North Africa who had only recently been converted to Islam; they had provided most of the soldiery of the invading Islamic armies but sensed Arab discrimination against them.[16] This latent internal conflict jeopardized Muslim unity.

After the Islamic Moorish conquest of nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula in 711-718 and the establishment of the emirate of Al-Andalus, an Umayyad expedition suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Toulouse and was halted for a while on its way north. Odo of Aquitaine had married his daughter to Uthman ibn Naissa, a rebel Berber and lord of Cerdanya (maybe of all current Catalonia too), in an attempt to secure his southern borders in order to fend off Charles Martel´s attacks on the north. However, a major punitive expedition led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, the latest emir of Al-Andalus, defeated and killed Uthman, and the Muslim governor mustered an expedition north across the western Pyrenees, looted areas up to Bordeaux, and defeated Odo in the Battle of the River Garonne in 732.

A desperate Odo turned to his archrival Charles Martel for help, who led the Frankish and leftover Aquitanian armies against and defeated the Umayyad armies at the Battle of Tours in 732, killing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi. Moorish rule began to recede, but it would remain in parts of the Iberian peninsula for another 760 years.

Beginning of the Reconquista Edit
Main article: Kingdom of Asturias
The year 722 saw the first Asturian victory against the Muslims. A drastic increase of taxes by the new emir Anbasa ibn Suhaym Al-Kalbi had provoked several rebellions in Al-Andalus, which a series of succeeding weak emirs was unable to suppress. Around 722, a military expedition was sent into the north to suppress Pelayo's rebellion, but his forces prevailed in the Battle of Covadonga. In late summer, a Muslim army overran much of Pelayo's territory, forcing him to retreat deep into the mountains. Pelayo and a few hundred men retired into a narrow valley at Covadonga. There, they could defend against a broad frontal attack. From here, Pelayo's forces routed the Muslim army, inspiring local villagers to take up arms. Despite further attempts, the Muslims were unable to conquer Pelayo's mountain stronghold. Pelayo's victory at Covadonga is hailed as the beginning of the Reconquista.

This battle was considered by the Muslims as little more than a skirmish, since no Muslim source mentions it, while the Battle of Toulouse (721), with a death toll of maybe tens of thousands, was mourned for centuries as a large scale tragedy by the Iberian Muslims. However, for Pelayo, the Christian victory secured his independent rule. The precise date and circumstances of this battle are unclear. Among the possibilities is that Pelayo's rebellion was successful because the greater part of the Muslim forces were gathering for an invasion of the Frankish empire.


Coat of arms of Alcanadre. La Rioja, Spain. Depicting heads of slain Moors
During the first decades, Asturian control over the different areas of the kingdom was still weak, and for this reason it had to be continually strengthened through matrimonial alliances with other powerful families from the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, "Ermesinda, Pelayo's daughter, was married to Alfonso, Peter of Cantabria's son. Alphonse's children, Froila and Adosinda, married Munia, a Basque from Alava, and Silo, a local chief from the area of Pravia, respectively." [17]

After Pelayo's death in 737, his son Favila of Asturias was elected king. Favila, according to the chronicles, was killed by a bear during a trial of courage.

Pelayo's dynasty in Asturias survived and gradually expanded the kingdom's boundaries until all of northwest Iberia was included by roughly 775. However, credit is due not to him but to his successors. Alfonso I (king from 739-757) rallied Galician support when driving the Moorish army out of Galicia and an area of what was to become Leon. The reign of Alfonso II (from 791-842) saw further expansion of the northwest kingdom towards the south and, for a short time, it almost reached Lisbon.

It was not until Alfonso II that the kingdom was firmly established with Alfonso's recognition as king of Asturias by Charlemagne and the Pope. During his reign, the bones of St. James the Great were declared (falsely[18]) to have been found in Galicia, at Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims from all over Europe opened a channel of communication between the isolated Asturias and the Carolingian lands and beyond.

Two northern realms, Basque Navarre[19] and Asturias, despite their small size, demonstrated an ability to maintain their independence. Because the Umayyad rulers based in Córdoba were unable to extend their power over the Pyrenees, they decided to consolidate their power within the Iberian peninsula. Arab-Berber forces made periodic incursions deep into Asturias but failed to make any lasting gains against the strengthened Christian kingdoms.

Franks and Al-Andalus Edit
Main articles: Islamic invasion of Gaul and Marca Hispanica
After the Umayyad conquest of the Iberian heartland of the Visigothic kingdom, the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees and gradually took control of Septimania starting in 719 (Narbonne conquered) up to 725 (Carcassone, Nîmes). From its stronghold of Narbonne, they tried to conquer Aquitaine but suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Toulouse (721).


Northeastern al-Andalus, the Pyrenees and southern Gaul at the time of the Berber rebellion (739-742).
After halting their advance north, ten years later, Odo of Aquitaine married his daughter to Uthman ibn Naissa, a rebel Berber and lord of Cerdanya (maybe of all current Catalonia too), in an attempt to secure his southern borders in order to fend off Charles Martel's attacks on the north. However, a major punitive expedition led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, the latest emir of Al-Andalus, defeated and killed Uthman.

Charles Martel Edit
The Umayyad governor mustered an expedition north across the western Pyrenees, looted its way up to Bordeaux and defeated Odo in the Battle of the River Garonne in 732. A desperate Odo turned to his archrival Charles Martel for help, who led the Frankish and remaining Aquitanian armies against the Muslims and beat them at the Battle of Tours in 732, killing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi.

In 737 Charles Martel led an expedition south down the Rhone Valley to assert his authority up to the lands held by the Al-Andalus Umayyads. These had been called in by the regional nobility of Provence in a military capacity, probably fearing Charles' expansionist ambitions. Charles went on to attack the Umayyads in Septimania up to Narbonne, but he had to lift the siege of the city and make his way back to Lyon and Francia (at the time north of the lower Loire) after subduing various Umayyad strongholds, such as Arles, Avignon and Nîmes, not without leaving behind a trail of ruined towns and strongholds.

Pepin the Younger and Charlemagne Edit
After expelling the Muslims from Narbonne in 759 and driving their forces back over the Pyrenees, the Carolingian king Pepin the Short conquered Aquitaine in a ruthless eight-year war. Charlemagne followed his father by subduing Aquitaine by creating counties, taking the Church as his ally and appointing counts of Frankish or Burgundian stock, like his loyal William of Gellone, making Toulouse his base for expeditions against Al-Andalus.

Charlemagne decided to organize a regional subkingdom in order to keep the Aquitanians in check and to secure the southern border of the Carolingian Empire against Muslim incursions. In 781, his three-year-old son Louis was crowned king of Aquitaine, under the supervision of Charlemagne's trustee William of Gellone, and was nominally in charge of the incipient Spanish March.

Meanwhile, the takeover of the southern fringes of Al-Andalus by Abd ar-Rahman I in 756 was opposed by Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman, autonomous governor (wāli) or king (malik) of al-Andalus. Abd ar-Rahman I expelled Yusuf from Cordova, but it took still decades for him to expand to the north-western Andalusian districts. He was also opposed externally by the Abbasids of Damascus who failed in their attempts to overthrow him.

In 778, Abd al-Rahman closed in on the Ebro valley. Regional lords saw the Umayyad emir on the gates and decided to enlist the nearby Christian Franks. According to Ali ibn al-Athir, a Kurdish historian of the 12th century, Charlemagne received the envoys of Sulayman al-Arabi, Husayn, and Abu Taur at the Diet of Paderborn in 777. These rulers of Zaragoza, Girona, Barcelona, and Huesca were enemies of Abd ar-Rahman I, and in return for Frankish military aid against him offered their homage and allegiance.

Charlemagne, seeing an opportunity, agreed upon an expedition and crossed the Pyrenees in 778. Near the city of Zaragoza Charlemagne received the homage of Sulayman al-Arabi. However the city, under the leadership of Husayn, closed its gates and refused to submit. Unable to conquer the city by force, Charlemagne decided to retreat. On the way home the rearguard of the army was ambushed and destroyed by local forces at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. The Song of Roland, a highly romanticized account of this battle, would later become one of the most famous chansons de geste of the Middle Ages.

Around 788 Abd ar-Rahman I died, and was succeeded by Hisham I. In 792 Hisham proclaimed a jihad, advancing in 793 against the Kingdom of Asturias and the Franks. In the end his efforts were turned back by William of Gellone, Count of Toulouse.

Barcelona, a major city, became a potential target for the Franks in 797, as its governor Zeid rebelled against the Umayyad emir of Córdoba. An army of the emir managed to recapture it in 799 but Louis, at the head of an army, crossed the Pyrenees and besieged the city for two years until the city finally capitulated on December 28, 801.

The main passes were Roncesvalles, Somport and Junquera. Charlemagne established across them the vassal regions of Pamplona, Aragon and Catalonia (which was itself formed from a number of small counties, Pallars, Girona, and Urgell being the most prominent) respectively.

Four small realms pledged allegiance to Charlemagne at the start of the 9th century (not for long): Pamplona (to become Navarre) and the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza. Pamplona's first king was Iñigo Arista, who allying with his Muslim kinsmen the Banu Qasi rebelled against Frankish overlordship, and overcame a Frankish expedition in 824 that led to the setup of the Kingdom of Pamplona. It was not until Queen Ximena in the 9th century that Pamplona was officially recognised as an independent kingdom by the Pope. Aragon, founded in 809 by Aznar Galíndez, grew around Jaca and the high valleys of the Aragon River, protecting the old Roman road. By the end of the 10th century, Aragon was annexed by Navarre. Sobrarbe and Ribagorza were small counties and had little significance to the progress of the Reconquista.

The Catalan counties protected the eastern Pyrenees passes and shores. They were under the direct control of the Frankish kings and were the last remains of the Spanish Marches. Catalonia included not only the southern Pyrenees counties of Girona, Pallars, Urgell, Vic and Andorra but also some which were on the northern side of the mountains, such as Perpignan and Foix.

In the late 9th century under Count Wilfred, Barcelona became the de facto capital of the region. It controlled the other counties' policies in a union, which led in 948 to the independence of Barcelona under Count Borrel II, who declared that the new dynasty in France (the Capets) were not the legitimate rulers of France nor, as a result, of his county.

These states were small and, with the exception of Navarre, did not have the capacity for attacking the Muslims in the way that Asturias did, but their mountainous geography rendered them relatively safe from being conquered. Their borde][/b]

Vanquay:
[b]SexistBastard

Vanquay:
What are you talking about?

prettythicksme:
Stoo derailing this thread!!borrow sense naw