What was the Reconquista?

Question

Christopher Columbus was given his ships during a celebration of the Reconquista. What was this historical event?

Answer 1

The 'Reconquista' was the Christian Re-Conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (present day Spain and Portugal) in Europe that took place during the Middle Ages.

In the 8th century (700s), during the Early-Middle Ages (roughly from the year 500 to the year 1000), the Christians living on the Iberian Peninsula were conquered by Muslim invaders who came from North Africa (which the Muslims had already conquered). Nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Muslim control, with only a small portion of the north still ruled by Christian kings. The 'Reconquista' ended Muslim control in the Iberian Peninsula.

The 'Reconquista' was not a single event, it was a process that took place over nearly 500 years involving many different events, many different kingdoms, and many different rulers. It was accomplished by the wars waged by the different Medieval Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, including Aragon, Castile, and Portugal. It should be understood, however, that these rival Christian kingdoms spent as much time fighting each other as they did fighting the Muslim kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.

The 'Reconquista' was part of the Crusades, which are best known for the efforts of European Christians to re-conquer the 'Holy Land' (present day Israel / Palestine). But the Crusades also involved the fight against non-Christians wherever they resided, such as the Muslims who lived in the Iberian Peninsula. Knights from kingdoms outside of the Iberian Peninsula took part in the 'Reconquista' so that, by fighting in the cause Christianity, they would earn forgiveness for their sins.

The defeat of the last Muslim Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula - the Kingdom of Granada - coincided with the creation of a unified Kingdom of Spain through the marriage of King Ferdinand of Aragon to Queen Isabel of Castile. It was in that same year, 1492, that Columbus 'discovered' America in the name of Ferdinand and Isabel. Therefore, the end of the 'Reconquista' signaled the beginning of the greatest period in the history of Spain.

Answer 2

The Reconquista was the period during which the Christian kings of northern Spain reconquered the Muslim occupied territories in the south and East of Spain and Portugal. It took these kings almost 800 years to drive the Muslims out. During and after the re conquest, almost all traces of Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula were erased, so the period of Muslim rule there is a mystery. The Muslims had invaded shortly after the fall of the western roman empire and were not driven out completely until 1492. So there is a long missing piece of the history of life in Spain for hundreds of years.

Answer 3

The Reconquista, or Reconquest, is the name given to a series of military campaigns by several Christian kingdoms to drive the Muslims out of the Iberian Peninsula, and re-establish Christian domination in that region after centuries of Muslim rule. Starting with the first Christian victory in 718 and concluding with the conquest of the last Iberian Muslim bastion of Granada in 1492, the two leading kingdoms in these campaigns--the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon--would later unite in the early 16th Century to form the new Kingdom of Spain.