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{{Short description|722 opening battle of the Reconquista of Spain}}
{{Unreferenced|date=October 2007}}
{{Infobox Military Conflict {{Infobox military conflict
|conflict=Battle of Covadonga | conflict = Battle of Covadonga
|partof=the ] and the '']'' | partof = the '']''
| image = Invasionislámicaespaña.svg
|image=]
| image_size =
|caption=Don Pelayo, victor at Covadonga and first King of Asturias.
| caption = Map of the Umayyad invasion, showing Covadonga
|date=Summer of 722
| date = Summer of 722 AD<ref name="Remensnyder23">Amy G. Remensnyder, ''La Conquistadora: The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds'', (Oxford University Press, 2014), 23.</ref>
|place=] near ], present-day ] | place = ] near ], present-day ]
|result=Decisive ] victory, immense long-term implications not clear to contemporaries on either side
| coordinates = {{coord|43|18|32|N|5|03|20|W|type:event_source:kolossus-cawiki|display=title,inline}}
⚫ |combatant1=]
| territory =
⚫ |combatant2=]
| map_type =
⚫ |commander1=]
| result = {{ublist|] victory}}
⚫ |commander2=] †<br>] †
* Beginning of the ]
|strength1=300<ref>Neither army strengths nor casualties are known with certainty. Asturian accounts stated that only 10 men survived with Pelayo.</ref>
⚫ | combatant1 = ]
|strength2=800
⚫ | combatant2 = ]
⚫ |casualties1=289 dead
⚫ | commander1 = ]
|casualties2=600 dead
⚫ | commander2 = ]{{KIA}}<br />]{{KIA}}
⚫ }}
| units1 =
⚫ {{Campaignbox Reconquista}}
| units2 =
| strength1 = 300 (according to ])
| strength2 = {{ublist|Unknown}}
187,000 (according to ])<ref>. Madrid, RAH, Colection of Salazar y Castro</ref>
⚫ | casualties1 = 290
| casualties2 = 184,000 <small>(exaggerated)</small><br>1104 (according to Codex Vigilanus)<ref>. Madrid, RAH, Colection of Salazar y Castro</ref>
| notes =
⚫ | campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Reconquista}}
{{Campaignbox Kingdom of Asturias}} {{Campaignbox Kingdom of Asturias}}
⚫ }}
The '''Battle of Covadonga''' was the first major victory by a ] military ] in ] following the ] ]' conquest of that region in 711. Taking place about a decade later, most likely in the summer of 722,<ref>http://www.123exp-history.com/t/03764078673/</ref> the victory at Covadonga assured the survival of a Christian stronghold in northern Iberia, and today is regarded as the beginning of the '']''.{{Fact|pro-spanish nationalists|date=November 2007}}


The '''Battle of Covadonga''' took place in 722 between the army of ] and the army of the ].<ref>Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio. "The kingdom of Asturias. Origins of the Spanish nation". Collection: Biblioteca Histórica Asturiana. Silverio Cañada, Gijón, 1989</ref><ref>Ruiz de la Peña, Ignacio. "Battle of Covadonga", at "la Gran Enciclopedia Asturiana, Volume 5, pp. 167-172. Publisher Silverio Cañada,Gijón, 1981.</ref><ref name="Remensnyder23" /> Fought near ], in the ], it resulted in a victory for the ] forces of Pelagius. It is traditionally regarded as the foundational event of the ] and thus the initial point of the ] ''{{lang|es|]}}'' ("reconquest") of Spain after the ] of 711.<ref>Ring, Trudy, Robert M. Salkin and Sharon La Boda, ''International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe'', (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1995), 170.</ref>
From the perspective of the following seven centuries, this view of the battle has some validity - since the battle assured the independence of the ], and it is that kingdom which eventually became the nucleus of new Christian rule over the entire peninsula. There is no reason to assume, however, that contemporaries (either Christian or Muslim) regarded it as anything more than part of local rebellion in a marginal area. In evaluating the battle, care must be taken to distinguish the actual historical facts from the meanings read into it and the myths created around it by later Spanish and Portuguese generations.{{Fact|date=December 2007}}
__TOC__


==Prelude==
According to texts written by ] in northern Iberia during the ninth century, noble ], in 718 AD, elected a man named ] (681-737) as their leader. Pelayo, a son of ], who had been a dignitary at the court of the Visigoth King ], (687-700), established his headquarters at ], ] and incited an uprising against the ] Muslims. According to texts written by ] in northern ] during the late ninth century, the ] in 718 elected a nobleman named ] (c.685–737) as their ''princeps'', or leader. Pelagius, the first monarch of the ], son of Favila, who had been a dignitary at the court of the Visigoth King ] (687–700), established his headquarters at ], ] and incited an uprising against the Umayyad ].


From the beginning of the Muslim invasion of Iberia, refugees and combatants from the south of the peninsula had been moving north to avoid Islamic authority. Some had taken refuge in the remote mountains of ] in the northwestern part of the ]. There, from among the dispossessed of the south, Pelayo recruited his band of fighters. His first acts were to refuse to pay tribute to the Moors any longer and to assault the small ] garrisons that had been stationed in the area. Eventually, he managed to expel a provincial governor named ] from ]. He held the territory against a number of attempts to re-establish Muslim control, and soon founded the ], which became a Christian stronghold against further Muslim expansion. From the beginning of the Muslim invasion of Hispania, refugees and combatants from the south of the peninsula had been moving north to avoid Islamic authority. Some had taken refuge in the remote mountains of ] in the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula. There, from among the dispossessed of the south, Pelagius recruited his band of fighters.


Historian Joseph F. O'Callaghan says the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic ] still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people, the ''gens Gothorum'' or the ''Hispani''. An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native ], ], ], ] and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society.<ref name="O'Callaghan2013">{{cite book|author=Joseph F. O'Callaghan|title=A History of Medieval Spain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cq2dDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA176|date=15 April 2013|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-6872-8|page=176}}</ref>
⚫ For the first few years, this rebellion posed no economic or strategic threat to the new masters of Iberia, whose seat of power had been established at ]. Consequently, there was only a quite perfunctory reaction. Pelayo was not always able to keep the Muslims out of Asturias, but neither could they defeat him, and as soon as the Muslims left, he would always re-establish control. Islamic forces were focused on raiding ] and ], and there was a shortage of manpower for putting down an inconsequential, albeit irritating, insurrection in the mountains. Pelayo never attempted to force the issue, and it was a Moorish defeat elsewhere that probably set the stage for the Battle of Covadonga. On ], ], a Muslim force that had crossed the ] and invaded the Kingdom of the ] was defeated by them in the ], in present-day France. This was the first serious setback in the Muslim campaign in southwestern Europe. Reluctant to return to Cordoba with such unalloyed bad news, the ] ], ], decided that putting down the rebellion in Asturias on his way home would afford his troops an easy victory and raise their flagging morale.


Pelagius's first acts were to refuse to pay the '']'' (tax on non-Muslims) to the Muslims any longer and to assault the small Umayyad garrisons that had been stationed in the area. Eventually, he managed to expel a provincial governor named ] from ]. He held the territory against a number of attempts to re-establish Muslim control, and soon founded the Kingdom of Asturias, which became a Christian stronghold against further Muslim expansion.
In 722, forces commanded by the Berbers ] and ], accompanied by Bishop ]{{Fact|date=August 2007}} of Seville, brother of the former Visigothic King ], were sent to Asturias. As Al-Kama overran much of the region, Oppas attempted to broker the surrender of his fellow Christians, but he failed in the effort. Pelayo and his force retreated deep into the mountains of Asturias, eventually retiring into a narrow valley flanked by mountains, which was easily defensible due to the impossibility of launching a broad-fronted attack. Pelayo may have had as few as three hundred men with him.


⚫ For the first few years, this rebellion posed no threat to the new masters of Hispania, whose seat of power had been established at ]. Consequently, there was only a minor perfunctory reaction. Pelagius was not always able to keep the Muslims out of Asturias but neither could they defeat him, and as soon as the ] left, he would always re-establish control. Islamic forces were focused on raiding ] and ], and there was a shortage of manpower for putting down an inconsequential insurrection in the mountains. Pelagius never attempted to force the issue, and it was an Umayyad defeat elsewhere that probably set the stage for the Battle of ]. On July 9, 721, a Muslim force that had crossed the ] and invaded ] was defeated by them in the ] (now ]). This was the first serious setback in the Muslim campaign in southwestern Europe. Reluctant to return to Córdoba with such unalloyed bad news, the Umayyad ], ], decided that putting down the rebellion in Asturias on his way home would afford his troops an easy victory and raise their flagging morale.
⚫ Alqama eventually arrived at Covadonga, and sent forward an envoy to convince Pelayo to surrender. He refused, so Alqama ordered his best troops into the valley to fight. The Asturians opened fire from the slopes of the mountains, and then, at the climactic moment, Pelayo personally led some of his soldiers out into the valley. They had been hiding in a cave, unseen by the Moors. The Christian accounts of the battle claim that the slaughter among the Moors was horrific, while Moorish accounts describe it as a mere skirmish. Alqama himself fell in the battle, and his soldiers fled from the battlefield.


==Battle==
⚫ In the aftermath of Pelayo's victory, the people of the conquered villages of Asturias now emerged with their weapons, and killed hundreds of Alqama's fleeing troops. Munuza, learning of the defeat, organized another force, and gathered what was left of the survivors of Covadonga. At some later date, he confronted Pelayo and his now greatly-augmented force, near the modern town of Proaza. Again Pelayo won, and Munuza was killed in the fighting. And although the Muslims in their own histories called Pelayo and his men "thirty Infidels left, what can they do", they never again seriously challenged the independence of the ].
In 722, forces commanded by the Umayyad commanders ] and ], and (according to legend) accompanied by Bishop ]<ref>Archer, Thomas Andrew and Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, ''The Story of the Crusades'', (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1895), 25.</ref> of ], were sent to Asturias. As Alqama overran much of the region, folklore<ref>"Spain: The Northern Kingdoms and the Basques, by Roger Collins." The New Cambridge Medieval History. Ed. ]. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.</ref> suggests that Oppas attempted to broker the surrender of his fellow Christians, but he failed in the effort. Pelagius and his force retreated deep into the mountains of Asturias,<ref name="Carlos1857">{{cite book|author=F. Navarro Villoslada|editor=Abelardo de Carlos|title=El Museo Universal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tpo_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA5|volume=1-2|year=1857|publisher=Gaspar y Roig|page=5|quote=No eran ya los visigodos cobardes y afeminados de Witiza; eran los dignos descendientes de aquella raza teutónica que vino á mezclar su sangre con la del Bajo Imperio para salvar la civilizacion europea; eran aquellos hijos del Norte que se apellidaban el azote de Dios English:"They were no longer Witiza's cowardly and effeminate Visigoths; they were the worthy descendants of that Teutonic race that came to mix their blood with that of the Lower Empire to save European civilization; they were those sons of the North who were called the scourge of God...}}</ref> eventually retiring into a narrow valley flanked by mountains, which was easily defensible due to the impossibility of launching a broad-fronted attack. Pelagius may have had as few as three hundred men with him.


⚫ Alqama eventually arrived at Covadonga, and sent forward an envoy to convince Pelagius to surrender. He refused, so Alqama ordered his best troops into the valley to fight. The Asturians shot arrows and stones from the slopes of the mountains, and then, at the climactic moment, Pelagius personally led some of his soldiers out into the valley. They had been hiding in a cave, unseen by the Muslims. The Christian accounts of the battle claim that the slaughter among the Muslims was horrific, while Umayyad accounts describe it as a mere skirmish. Alqama himself fell in the battle, and his soldiers withdrew from the battlefield.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}
Legend claims that Munuza fell in love with Pelayo's sister, Ormesinda, and kidnapped her. Supposedly, on her wedding day with Munuza, she took poison and died.


⚫ In the aftermath of Pelagius's victory, the people of the conquered villages of Asturias now emerged with their weapons, and killed hundreds of Alqama's retreating troops. Munuza, learning of the defeat, organized another force, and gathered what was left of the survivors of Covadonga. At some later date, he confronted Pelagius and his now greatly augmented force, near the modern town of ]. Again Pelagius won, and Munuza was killed in the fighting. The battle is commemorated at the shrine of ].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Battle of Covadonga {{!}} Summary|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Battle-of-Covadonga|access-date=2021-10-07|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref>
==Notes==
{{reflist}}


==References==
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{{Reflist}}

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Latest revision as of 03:00, 15 January 2025

722 opening battle of the Reconquista of Spain
Battle of Covadonga
Part of the Reconquista

Map of the Umayyad invasion, showing Covadonga
DateSummer of 722 AD
LocationPicos de Europa near Covadonga, present-day Spain43°18′32″N 5°03′20″W / 43.30889°N 5.05556°W / 43.30889; -5.05556
Result
Belligerents
Kingdom of Asturias Umayyad Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Pelagius of Asturias Munuza †
Alqama †
Strength
300 (according to Ahmad al-Maqqari)
  • Unknown
187,000 (according to Codex Vigilanus)
Casualties and losses
290 184,000 (exaggerated)
1104 (according to Codex Vigilanus)
Battles in the Reconquista
8th century
9th century
10th century
11th century
12th century
13th century
14th century
15th century
Post-Reconquista Rebellions
North Africa
Battles of the Kingdom of Asturias

The Battle of Covadonga took place in 722 between the army of Pelagius the Visigoth and the army of the Umayyad Caliphate. Fought near Covadonga, in the Picos de Europa, it resulted in a victory for the Christian forces of Pelagius. It is traditionally regarded as the foundational event of the Kingdom of Asturias and thus the initial point of the Christian Reconquista ("reconquest") of Spain after the Umayyad conquest of 711.

Prelude

According to texts written by Mozarabs in northern Hispania during the late ninth century, the Visigoths in 718 elected a nobleman named Pelagius (c.685–737) as their princeps, or leader. Pelagius, the first monarch of the Asturian Kingdom, son of Favila, who had been a dignitary at the court of the Visigoth King Egica (687–700), established his headquarters at Cangas de Onís, Asturias and incited an uprising against the Umayyad Muslims.

From the beginning of the Muslim invasion of Hispania, refugees and combatants from the south of the peninsula had been moving north to avoid Islamic authority. Some had taken refuge in the remote mountains of Asturias in the northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula. There, from among the dispossessed of the south, Pelagius recruited his band of fighters.

Historian Joseph F. O'Callaghan says the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people, the gens Gothorum or the Hispani. An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native Astures, Galicians, Cantabri, Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society.

Pelagius's first acts were to refuse to pay the jizya (tax on non-Muslims) to the Muslims any longer and to assault the small Umayyad garrisons that had been stationed in the area. Eventually, he managed to expel a provincial governor named Munuza from Asturias. He held the territory against a number of attempts to re-establish Muslim control, and soon founded the Kingdom of Asturias, which became a Christian stronghold against further Muslim expansion.

For the first few years, this rebellion posed no threat to the new masters of Hispania, whose seat of power had been established at Córdoba. Consequently, there was only a minor perfunctory reaction. Pelagius was not always able to keep the Muslims out of Asturias but neither could they defeat him, and as soon as the Moors left, he would always re-establish control. Islamic forces were focused on raiding Narbonne and Gaul, and there was a shortage of manpower for putting down an inconsequential insurrection in the mountains. Pelagius never attempted to force the issue, and it was an Umayyad defeat elsewhere that probably set the stage for the Battle of Covadonga. On July 9, 721, a Muslim force that had crossed the Pyrenees and invaded Francia was defeated by them in the Battle of Toulouse (721) (now France). This was the first serious setback in the Muslim campaign in southwestern Europe. Reluctant to return to Córdoba with such unalloyed bad news, the Umayyad wāli, Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi, decided that putting down the rebellion in Asturias on his way home would afford his troops an easy victory and raise their flagging morale.

Battle

In 722, forces commanded by the Umayyad commanders Alqama and Munuza, and (according to legend) accompanied by Bishop Oppas of Seville, were sent to Asturias. As Alqama overran much of the region, folklore suggests that Oppas attempted to broker the surrender of his fellow Christians, but he failed in the effort. Pelagius and his force retreated deep into the mountains of Asturias, eventually retiring into a narrow valley flanked by mountains, which was easily defensible due to the impossibility of launching a broad-fronted attack. Pelagius may have had as few as three hundred men with him.

Alqama eventually arrived at Covadonga, and sent forward an envoy to convince Pelagius to surrender. He refused, so Alqama ordered his best troops into the valley to fight. The Asturians shot arrows and stones from the slopes of the mountains, and then, at the climactic moment, Pelagius personally led some of his soldiers out into the valley. They had been hiding in a cave, unseen by the Muslims. The Christian accounts of the battle claim that the slaughter among the Muslims was horrific, while Umayyad accounts describe it as a mere skirmish. Alqama himself fell in the battle, and his soldiers withdrew from the battlefield.

In the aftermath of Pelagius's victory, the people of the conquered villages of Asturias now emerged with their weapons, and killed hundreds of Alqama's retreating troops. Munuza, learning of the defeat, organized another force, and gathered what was left of the survivors of Covadonga. At some later date, he confronted Pelagius and his now greatly augmented force, near the modern town of Proaza. Again Pelagius won, and Munuza was killed in the fighting. The battle is commemorated at the shrine of Our Lady of Covadonga.

References

  1. ^ Amy G. Remensnyder, La Conquistadora: The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds, (Oxford University Press, 2014), 23.
  2. Crónica Albeldense. Madrid, RAH, Colection of Salazar y Castro
  3. Crónica Albeldense. Madrid, RAH, Colection of Salazar y Castro
  4. Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio. "The kingdom of Asturias. Origins of the Spanish nation". Collection: Biblioteca Histórica Asturiana. Silverio Cañada, Gijón, 1989
  5. Ruiz de la Peña, Ignacio. "Battle of Covadonga", at "la Gran Enciclopedia Asturiana, Volume 5, pp. 167-172. Publisher Silverio Cañada,Gijón, 1981.
  6. Ring, Trudy, Robert M. Salkin and Sharon La Boda, International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe, (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1995), 170.
  7. Joseph F. O'Callaghan (15 April 2013). A History of Medieval Spain. Cornell University Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-8014-6872-8.
  8. Archer, Thomas Andrew and Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, The Story of the Crusades, (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1895), 25.
  9. "Spain: The Northern Kingdoms and the Basques, by Roger Collins." The New Cambridge Medieval History. Ed. Rosamond McKitterick. Vol. II. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print.
  10. F. Navarro Villoslada (1857). Abelardo de Carlos (ed.). El Museo Universal. Vol. 1–2. Gaspar y Roig. p. 5. No eran ya los visigodos cobardes y afeminados de Witiza; eran los dignos descendientes de aquella raza teutónica que vino á mezclar su sangre con la del Bajo Imperio para salvar la civilizacion europea; eran aquellos hijos del Norte que se apellidaban el azote de Dios English:"They were no longer Witiza's cowardly and effeminate Visigoths; they were the worthy descendants of that Teutonic race that came to mix their blood with that of the Lower Empire to save European civilization; they were those sons of the North who were called the scourge of God...
  11. "Battle of Covadonga | Summary". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-10-07.
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