The Reconquista Period

The Reconquista Period, 711 to 1492, spans the nearly eight centuries during which Christian kingdoms in the northern Iberian Peninsula gradually reconquered territory from Muslim rule established after the Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Spain in 711, a slow and uneven process rather than a single continuous campaign, punctuated by long periods of coexistence, alliance and internal Christian warfare alongside conflict with Al-Andalus. Major turning points included the Christian victory at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, which broke Almohad power in Iberia, and the rapid conquests of Ferdinand III of Castile through the thirteenth century that left Granada as the last independent Muslim kingdom. The period ended in January 1492, when the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella accepted the surrender of Granada, completing Christian control of the peninsula in the same year Isabella sponsored Columbus's first voyage.