Kingdom of Asturias - History - Islamic Occupation and Asturian Revolt

Islamic Occupation and Asturian Revolt

The kingdom was established by the Visigothic nobleman Pelayo (Latin: Pelagius), who had returned to his country after the Battle of Guadalete where, in the Gothic tradition of Theias, he was elected by the other nobles as leader of the Astures, and founded the Kingdom of Asturias. However, Pelayo's kingdom was initially little more than a rallying banner for existing guerilla forces.

In the progress of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the main cities and administrative centers fell in the hands of Muslim troops. Control of the central and southern regions, such as the Guadalquivir and Ebro valleys, presented few problems for the newcomers, who used the existing Visigothic administrative structures, ultimately of Roman origin. However, in the northern mountains, urban centers (such as Gigia) were practically nonexistent and the submission of the country had to be achieved valley by valley. Muslim troops often resorted to the taking of hostages to ensure the pacification of the newly conquered territory.

After the first incursion of Tarik, who reached Toledo in 711, the Yemeni viceroy of Ifriqiya, Musa ibn Nusair, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar the following year and carried out a massive operation of conquest that would lead to the capture of Mérida, Toledo, Zaragoza and Lerida, among other cities. During the last phase of his military campaign, he reached the northwest of the Peninsula, where he gained control of the localities of Lugo and Gijon. In the latter city he placed a small Berber detachment under a governor, Munuza, whose mission was to consolidate Muslim control over Asturias. As guarantee of the submission of the region, some nobles – some argue that Pelayo was among them, although his origin is unknown – had to surrender hostages from Asturias to Cordoba. The legend says that his sister was asked for, and a marriage alliance sought with the local Berber leader. Later on, Munuza would try to do the same at another mountain post in the Pyrenees, where he rebelled against his Cordoban Arab superiors. The Berbers had been converted to Islam barely a generation earlier, and were considered second rank to Arabs and Syrians.

But, as is told in the Rotensian Chronicle (chronicle of Alfonso III of Asturias in which Pelayo is considered the successor of the kings of Toledo, with clear goals of political legitimacy) as well as in that of Al-Maqqari (a Moroccan historian of the 16th century who died in Cairo, Egypt, and who could have used the Rotensian Chronicle and rewrite it eight centuries later, making it useless as a historical document), Pelayo escaped from that city during the governorship of Al Hurr (717-718) and his return to Asturias triggered a revolt against the Muslim authorities of Gijon. The identity of Pelayo, however, is still an open subject, and this is only one of the theories. The leader of the Astures, whose origin is debated by historians, had at that time his home in Bres (in the district of Piloña) and Munuza sent his troops there under officer Al-Qama. After receiving word of the arrival of the Muslims, Pelayo and his companions hurriedly crossed the Piloña River and headed toward the narrow, easily defended valley of Auseva mountain, and took refuge in one of its caves, Covadonga. After an attempt at siege was abandoned due to the weather and the exposed position of the deep valley gorge, the troops are said to have taken to exit through the high ports to the south, in order to continue in the search and destroy action against other rebels. There the locals were able to ambush the Muslim detachment, which was annihilated. The rest of its survivors continued south to the plains of Leon, leaving the maritime districts of Asturias exposed and weakened of defenders. The most commonly accepted hypothesis for this battle (epic as described by Christian chronicles, but a mere skirmish in Muslim texts) is that the Moorish column was attacked from the cliffs and then fell back through the valleys towards present day Gijón, but was attacked whilst in retreat by the retinue and nearly destroyed.

The victory - relatively small, as only a few Berber soldiers were involved — resulted in great prestige for Pelayo and provoked a massive insurrection by other nobles in Galicia and Asturias who immediately rallied around Pelayo, electing him King or military Dux.

Under Pelayo's leadership, the attacks on the Berbers increased. Munuza, feeling isolated in a region increasingly hostile, decided to abandon Gijon and headed for the Plateau (Meseta) through the Mesa Trail. However, he was intercepted and killed by Astures at Olalíes (in the current district of Grado). Once he had expelled the Moors from the eastern valleys of Asturias, Pelayo attacked León, the main city in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and secured the mountain passes, isolating the region from Moorish attack. Pelayo continued attacking those Berbers who remained north of the Asturian-Galician Mountains until they withdrew, but mostly deserted their garrisons at the wider rebellion against Arab control from Cordoba. He then married his daughter, Ermesinda to Alfonso, the son of Peter of Cantabria, the leading noble at the still-independent Visigothic dukedom of Cantabria. His son Favila was married to Froiliuba.

Recent archaeological excavations have found fortifications in Mount Homon and La Carisa (near the Huerna and Pajares valleys) dated between the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth centuries. These Berber fortifications included watchtowers and moats of almost two meters, in whose construction and defense many hundreds may have participated. This would have required a high degree of organization and firm leadership, probably by Pelayo himself. For this reason, experts consider that it is probable that the construction of the defensive line was intended to prevent the reentry of Moors into Asturias through the mountain passes of Mesa and Pajares.

After Pelayo's victory over the Moorish detachment at the Battle of Covadonga, a small territorial independent entity was established in the Asturian mountains that was the origin of the kingdom of Asturias. Pelayo's leadership was not comparable to that of the Visigothic kings. The first kings of Asturias referred to themselves as "princeps" (prince) and later as "rex" (king), but the later title was not firmly established until the period of Alphonse II. The title of "princeps" had been used by the indigenous peoples of Northern Spain and its use appears in Galician and Cantabrian inscriptions, in which expressions like "Nícer, Príncipe de los Albiones" (on an inscription found in the district of Coaña) and "princeps cantabrorum" (over a gravestone of the municipality of Cistierna, in Leon). In fact, the Kingdom of Asturias originated as a focus of leadership over other peoples of the Cantabrian Coast that had resisted the Romans as well as the Visigoths and that were not willing to subject themselves to the dictates of the Umayyad Caliphate. Immigrants from the south, fleeing from Al-Andalus, brought a Gothic influence to the Asturian kingdom. However, at the beginning of the 9th century, Alphonse II's will cursed the Visigoths, blaming them for the loss of Hispania. The chronicles on which knowledge of this period is based, written all during the reign of Alphonse III when there was great Gothic ideological influence, are the Sebastianensian Chronicle (Crónica Sebastianense), the Albeldensian Chronicle (Crónica Albeldense) and the Rotensian Chronicle (Crónica Rotense).

During the first decades, the Asturian dominion over the different areas of the kingdom was still lax, 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, Dux Peter of Cantabria's son. Alphonse's son Fruela married Munia, a Basque princess from Alava, while his daughter Adosinda married Silo, a local chief from the area of Flavionavia, Pravia.

After Pelayo's death in 737, his son Favila (or "Fafila") was elected king. Fafila, according to the chronicles, was unexpectedly killed by a bear while hunting in one of the trials of courage normally required of the nobility in that era. But there is no other such incident known from the long history of monarchs and others at the sport, and the case is suspiciously similar to the Roman legend of their first king, Romulus, taken by a sudden storm. The immediate consequence was that the rule of the Asturians passed to his brother-in-law, ruler of the neighboring independent domain, through a marriage alliance to Fafila's sister. The female ties and rights of inheritance were still respected, and in later cases would allow the regency or crown for their husbands too.

Pelayo founded a dynasty in Asturias that survived for decades and gradually expanded the kingdom's boundaries, until all of northwest Iberia was included by ca. 775. The reign of Alfonso II from 791-842 saw further expansion of the kingdom to the south, almost as far as Lisbon, Portugal.