Say ... what?

Of course, I am not reading a new History book just for this matter, besides all the multiple matters that I have to face these days, but ...

... I never heard anything like that before!

I know the gothic nobility was not precisely a nice master, but after several centuries, they had civilized a lot, except for the fight for the throne, where they kept on being absolutely unreliable to each other.

But there is a difference between isolated low populated willages or even small province capitals not fighting a huge arab army (with iberian renforcements) and welcoming it.

Obviously, the 5.000 peasants, old, children, women and men living usually in not fotified willages or towns could do nothing but escape or surrender to a 12.000 - 17.000 wild nomads army rich in cavalry.

However, some resisted, like Cordoba, Mérida, Cartagena and others, which were besieged for months (that's not exactly receive invaders with open arms). Others (mainly in the power of the traitor noblemen) negotiated surrender in exchange of tribute. I wouldn't consider open arms this either.

The previous paragraph data are obtained from article by Joaquín Vallvé. Catedrático de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Chronoloy of the conquest (in English). ...d the half[/b] , so spain was NOT under muslim arab control for 700 years. Part of it was never, other areas only for a couple of decades, the rest of the northern part a maximum of 300 years (mainly the no man's land south of Burgos and North of Madrid).

Here you have also a drawing of the musl... free. English. About the middle of the page, under 'Spain'.

Here you\'ll see among other matters, h...moors (English) :p , plus the anihilation of the troops of Charles the Great mainly due to them according to the author.

All the net is full of this kind of testimonies.

BTW; the fact that Iberians may or may not have came from Africa does not mean that they were darker, or the Swedish would be black, if we realize where the human stood up for the first time.

The history is much more complex but you can see in that resume
711-713 Conquest of Iberia, in only 2 or 3 years only 50.000 soldiers conquered almost the whole country. This is difficult to explain without the aid of the people living in the country and they find the following aspects:
1.Religious renovation
2.descomposition of the society
3.help of jews minority
you can read a little bit more here (in Spanish)
http://www.satrapa1.archez.com/articulos/media/alandalus/alandalus.htm
It's difficult for me to find information on how many people lived in Spain in that time and how many arabs came.
It's easy to find the reasons why Américo Castro has not been studied in Spain until recent times as he was exiliated in USA during Franco times.

Miguelito:

An army of 50.000 soldiers was by no means a small army at that time. In fact, it was a huge army . A roman legion, some years ago, had about 5/6.000 men, and many times there was one or two legions to hold or conquer a country.

In the middle age, with the scarce farm production, a high percentage of the population had to be working in the fields to feed the rest. This left a minimum amount of population that included artisans, merchants, soldiers, ...

Many times a count did not have more than 100 men-at-arms to control the territory. Armies were composed of the sum of those noblemen soldiers, plus some recruited (usually by pressure or force) peasants.

That's why 50.000 is huge.

However, the arabs themselves were much less. Once the usurper (goth king) was treasoned, the noblemen who fell upon his troops had no chance but to join the arabs. That's why some (or many) counties surrendered or joined the arabs; with the kings party, the traitors could only hope death.

The fact that some counts readily became muslim, ..., doesn't it sound a bit strange to you? I don't think there was a miracle or something. They did it to preserve their priviledges.

Of course, there has been said that there was a religious dispute within spanish christians by then (¿arrian heressy?), but the REAL reason for the 'traitors' was that the king of the country had usurped the throne, and they (in their hatred) preferred the country to be given to the arabs than to the usurper, specially if they were confirmed as noblemen in the new society (just as the romans did when the goths invaded the country). In fact, when you read the "goth kings list" our fathers had to learn at school: “Ataúlfo, Sigerico, Walia, Teodorico, Turismundo, Eurico, Alarico, Gesaleico, Amalarico, Teudis, Teudiselo, Agila, Atanagildo, Liuva, Leovigildo, Recaredo, Witerico, Gundemaro, Sisebuto, Suintila, Sisenando,Chintila, Tulga, Cindasvinto, Recesvinto, Wamba, Ëgica, Witiza y Don Rodrigo”... "

Don Rodrigo. He was given a different treatment because History doesn't consider him a real king. So believed the rebels.

But the arabs were not so few, and they were not so weak as you say. They went up to France, and conquered Bordeaux and had to be stopped in Poitiers, in a battle that a reinforced frank army was about ro lose.

This is a resume of that battle:

Ambos ejércitos se establecieron en las cercanías de Poitiers en el mes de octubre y estuvieron vigilándose hasta que Abd al-Rahman tomó la iniciativa y envió a sus tropas a la lucha. Los francos resistieron la ofensiva durante todo el día. Hacia las cuatro de la tarde el emir envió un nuevo contingente de tropas y los francos continuaron su resistencia. Sin embargo, la llegada de las tropas de Eude de Aquitania por la retaguardia motivó la dispersión de los musulmanes ante el posible saqueo de su campamento. La retirada musulmana provocaría el avance franco, llegando hasta el campamento islámico, en cuyas cercanías pasaron la noche. A la mañana siguiente Carlos dirigió sus tropas hacia el campamento, apreciando que se había producido una estampida del enemigo por la noche. El franco había conseguido la victoria y el sobrenombre de Martel, "martillo de herejes". A pesar de la importante victoria, la presencia musulmana en el sur de Francia se mantendrá hasta que Pipino el Breve consiga su expulsión definitiva y Carlomagno establezca la frontera en la zona del río Ebro.

They won the battle, where the arabs were attaking them , only because they received reinforcements of the Duke of Aquitania that were about to reach the arab camp, where thay kept the spoils of war (they were taking every valueble thing as they moved North) . The arabs were kicked and some died in the retreat, including their general Emir Abd-el-Rahman. However, this was not a decisive victory, and it took the franks decades to push them out of France and extend the French south border up the Ebro river (Mainly Catalonia).

I don't think that the French had also religious disputes or arab-favourable jew minorities (because of the christian intolerance, in Spain), and so on, but they were about to lose. In fact, the arabs mainly retreated, but were not destroyed by any means.

In fact, they did NOT have an pre-civil war situation like we had in Spain, AND however, they had big problems to stop them, and didn't get rid of them out of their country until Charles the Great (neither Charles Martel nor Pipino the Brief could move them form the south of France.

I have found some numbers.
711: 10.000 berebers with Tarik
712: 18.000 arabs with Muza
7000 syrians with Balch (I don't know the year but in 756 the arabs have to go )
And a continous dropping of arabs and berebers up to 60.000 in the first years...
The population should be around 4 or 5 millions of people in the conquisted area. 90.000 of them jews. Then there have been other big migrations of berebers, almorávides and almohades in s.X, s.XI & s.XII, I haven't found the numbers, but it looks that they are a minority although the native population adopt their culture.
Although the army was important, I think it's a very big space to conquist in only three years without help from inside. It's hard to write all the possible causes, specially in English cause I cannot make copy/paste from things I find and I have to develop all myself. I think there are many stories that we were told in the school that confuse the real history, in fact we study the 700 years period of islamic almost as a whole, and there are many changes in all those years, for example with the religious tolerance, when the arabs arrive they bring a culture with a big tolerance (I've heard that people even drunk wine) but with the later migration of almorávides the religious tolerance is reduced and many mozárabes migrate to the Cristians kingdoms.

Anyway, I don't remember why are we talking about this.

Kudos to all of you! What a great thread...Ignacio, Miguelito, Español along with Eddie, thanks for helping to further my education!

(humbly) Thanks!

Very educational for people like me.

I agree with Chica. You guys are awesome!

Thanks to everyone for making everything clearer. Thanks to Madridman as well for this forum. I have to say that while I was in spain for 11 months, this website was an invaluable source of information, no matter what city I stayed in. As a matter of fact I found a place to live in madrid this past summer due to a website that a member posted here. Hala Madridman!

Well, let me tell you that I wouldn't mind being any other race that the race hat I am. Every races seem the same to me, of course no race is better than another.

Miguelito said: Iberians were a pretty small monority in Spain since the roman settlement took place. Today, the "latin race" (italians, spaniards, many french or even many romanians)is the same "latin race" composed by ancient roman citizens. Roman were dark haired. In fact, when roman legions invaded Germania (germany) and took german slaves to Rome, roman people were surprised by the "sunny colour" of germanic blonde hair. many roman women began to dye their hair blonde, just like the german slave women. The skin of nordic tribes was, also, more pale than the roman skin, but just because they lived in sunless lands. I live in the coast, and I've seen many nordic people that loves to have sunbath and they get their skin tanned.

It's true that common people didn't reject the arabs (but Church and aristocracy did). The middle age Al-Andalus arabs were, at that time, the most cultured, advanced and peaceful people in Europe. German tribes that invaded northern Spain and stayed there were also accepted.

When the arab Grenade kingdom was conquered and the "Reconquista" finished, a new concept was born: the "blood purity". All people suspicious of having a little drop of arab blood were forced to leave. Only a few of them could stay in Spain, but they were forced to abjure the islam religion and become christian. In the same way, most of jewish people were thrown out, too, and those who were lucky and stayed, were also forced to become christians.

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Other questions:

"European Union" doesn't mean "Europe". it is jus a political and economic agreement, but a country that stays out of EU can't be considered as less european.

The origin of european (and western) civilization is the greek-roman culture. All western institutions were created by greek and roman. Spain, as an early part of Roman Empire, was in that origin. In fact, every people who became "romanized", was in that origin. And the whole Europe was romanized earlier or later.

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The "ostracism" of Spain from the rest of Europe was an intermittent process. It began with the fall of Spanish Empire, but the culminating moment was the 1936 Civil War and the subsequent Franco's dictatorship. Those events are not a true reason to consider Spain "less-european". For centuries, Spain was the political center of Europe and the dominant great power, and, for example, the courtly protocols and manners used by every european royal and aristocratic circles, were born in the Spanish royal court.

The true wall between Spain and the rest of Europe are not the Pyrinees (it wasn't for over 2000 years), in fact, the true wall was the impoverishment of the country, the royal misuse of imperial richness, the intransigence of church, etc.
And unfortunately, the 1936 war and the Franco's regime.

Historically, Spain cannot be considered "less european" because Hispania, Spain and the Spanish Empire are in the basis of Europe.

Of course, and in a pejorative way, some people (even some spaniards), used to say "less european" meaning "they're poor" or "they're weird".

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I laughed at the Antonio Banderas and Julio iglesias question, I was surprised by that funny debate.

In fact, banderas is naturally pale-skinned (watch some of his old spanish movies, when he was younger and almost anonymous), like Iglesias is.
hey keep their skin tanned because they're artists and they are trying to respond to the "latin" stereotype. I am not sure, but I think that american audiences expect a "latin" or "spanish" performer to be tanned, and they would dissapointed if a supposed latin artist is a non-exotic and even non-hot paleface lol

Of course, in almost the whole Spain is easy to keep your face or arms skin tanned even without going to the beach for a sunbath. During spring, summer or even autumn, my face and arms are pretty darker than the rest of my body, because I wear t-shirts and I don't use to have almost naked sunbaths.

But, you know, I'm white but I see those black girls and i find them simply beautiful. There is only one true race: the human race.