The Reconquista

A few years after the Arab conquest of Spain, a small Christian principality forms in the mountains of Asturias, and from it the long movement south is conventionally counted. It runs unevenly: centuries of neighbourliness and alliance alternate with campaigns, and the frontier is held not so much by armies as by settlers and castles. In 1085 Toledo is taken — where translators will open Arabic and Greek books to Europe; in 1212 the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa decides the issue. In 1492 falls Granada, the last Muslim dominion — and in that same year the Jews are expelled from Spain.