The Kingdom of Asturias was a medieval monarchy in the Iberian Peninsula founded by the nobleman Pelagius. It was the first Christian political entity to be established in the Iberian Peninsula after the Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711–720s. In the summer of 722, Pelagius defeated an Umayyad army at the Battle of Covadonga, in what is retroactively regarded as the beginning of the Christian Reconquista.
The Asturian kings would occasionally make peace with the Muslims, particularly at times when they needed to pursue their other enemies, mainly rebel Basques and Galicians. Thus Fruela I (r. 757–768) fought Muslims but also defeated the Basques and Galicians, and Silo (r. 774–783) made peace with the Muslims but not with the Galicians. Under King Alfonso II (r. 791–842), the kingdom was firmly established with Alfonso's recognition as king of Asturias by Charlemagne and the Pope. He conquered Galicia and the Basques. During his reign, the holy bones of St James the Great were declared to be found in Galicia, in Compostela. Pilgrims from all over Europe opened a way of communication between the isolated Asturias and the Carolingian lands and beyond. Alfonso's policy consisted in depopulating the borders of Bardulia (which would turn into Castile) in order to gain population support north of the mountains. With this growth came a corresponding increase in military forces. The kingdom was now strong enough to sack the Muslim cities of Lisbon, Zamora and Coimbra. However, for centuries to come the focus of these actions was not conquest but pillage and tribute. In the summers of 792, 793 and 794 several Muslim attacks plundered Alava and the heart of the Asturian kingdom, reaching up to the capital, Oviedo. In one of the retreats, Alfonso inflicted a severe defeat on the Muslims in the swampy area of Lutos.
When Alfonso II died, Ramiro I (842–850) staged a coup against the Count of the Palace Nepotian, who had taken the throne. After a battle on a bridge over the river Narcea, Nepotian was captured in flight, blinded and then forced into monastic life. Early in his reign, in 844, Ramiro was faced with a Viking attack at a place called Farum Brecantium, believed to be present-day Corunna. He gathered an army in Galicia and Asturias and defeated the Vikings, killing many of them and burning their ships. In 859, a second Viking fleet set out for Spain. The Vikings were slaughtered off the coast of Galicia by Count Pedro. The considerable territorial expansion of the Asturian kingdom under Alfonso III (866–910) was largely made possible by the collapse of Umayyad control over many parts of Al-Andalus at this time. In 773 the western frontier of the kingdom in Galicia was expanded into the northern part of modern-day Portugal, pushing the border roughly to the Douro valley, and between 868 and 881 it expanded further south reaching all the way to the Mondego. The year 878 saw a Muslim assault on the towns of Astorga and León. The expedition consisted of two detachments, one of which was decisively defeated at Polvoraria on the river Órbigo, with an alleged loss of 13,000 men. In 881, Alfonso took the offensive, leading an army deep into the Lower March, crossing the Tagus River to approach Mérida. Then miles from the city the Asturian army crossed the Guadiana River and defeated the Umayyad army on "Monte Oxifer", allegedly leaving 15,000 Muslim soldiers killed. Returning home, Alfonso devoted himself to building the churches of Oviedo and constructing one or two more palaces for himself.
The Kingdom of Asturias transitioned into the Kingdom of León in 924, when Fruela II of Asturias became king with his royal court in León.
Indigenous background
The kingdom originated in the western and central territory of the Cantabrian Mountains, particularly the Picos de Europa and the central area of Asturias. The main political and military events during the first decades of the kingdom's existence took place in the region. According to the descriptions of Strabo, Cassius Dio and other Graeco-Roman geographers, several peoples of Celtic origin inhabited the lands of Asturias at the beginning of the Christian era, most notably:
- in the Cantabri, the Vadinienses, who inhabited the Picos de Europa region and whose settlement gradually expanded southward during the first centuries of the modern era
- the Orgenomesci, who dwelled along the Asturian eastern coast
- in the Astures, the Saelini, whose settlement extended through the Sella Valley
- the Luggones, who had their capital in Lucus Asturum and whose territories stretched between the Sella and Nalón
- the Astures (in the strictest sense), who dwelled in inner Asturias, between the current councils of Piloña and Cangas del Narcea
- the Paesici, who had settled along the coast of Western Asturias, between the mouth of the Navia river and the modern city of Gijón
Classical geographers give conflicting views of the ethnic description of the above-mentioned peoples. Ptolemy says that the Astures extended along the central area of current Asturias, between the Navia and Sella rivers, fixing the latter river as the boundary with the Cantabrian territory. However, other geographers placed the frontier between the Astures and the Cantabri further to the east: Julius Honorius stated in his Cosmographia that the springs of the river Ebro were located in the land of the Astures (sub asturibus). In any case, ethnic borders in the Cantabrian Mountains were not so important after that time, as the clan divisions that permeated the pre-Roman societies of all the peoples of Northern Iberia faded under similar political administrative culture imposed on them by the Romans.
The situation started to change during the Late Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages, when an Asturian identity gradually started to develop: the centuries-old fight between Visigothic and Suebian nobles may have helped to forge a distinct identity among the peoples of the Cantabrian districts. Several archaeological digs in the castro of La Carisa (municipality of Lena) have found remnants of a defensive line whose main purpose was to protect the valleys of central Asturias from invaders who came from the Meseta through the Pajares pass: the construction of these fortifications reveals a high degree of organization and cooperation among the several Asturian communities, in order to defend themselves from the southern invaders. Carbon-14 tests have found that the wall dates from the period 675–725 AD, when two armed expeditions against the Asturians took place: one of them headed by Visigothic king Wamba (reigned 672–680); the other by Muslim governor Musa bin Nusayr during the Umayyad conquest, who settled garrisons over its territory.
The gradual formation of Asturian identity led to the creation of the Kingdom of Asturias after Pelagius' coronation and the victory over the Muslim garrisons in Covadonga in the early 8th century. The Chronica Albeldense, in narrating the happenings of Covadonga, stated that "Divine providence brings forth the King of Asturias".
Umayyad occupation and Asturian revolt
The kingdom was established by the nobleman Pelayo (Latin: Pelagius), possibly an Asturian noble. No substantial movement of refugees from central Iberia could have taken place before the Battle of Covadonga, and in 714 Asturias was overrun by Musa bin Nusayr with no effective or known opposition. It has also been claimed that he may have retired to the Asturian mountains after the Battle of Guadalete, where in the Gothic tradition of Theias he was elected by the other nobles as leader of the Astures. Pelayo's kingdom was initially 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 into 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 Gijón) were practically nonexistent and the submission of the mountainous 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 bin Nusayr, 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 Astorga and Gijón. In the latter city, he placed a small Berber detachment under a governor, Munuza, whose mission was to consolidate Muslim control over Asturias. As a guarantee of the submission of the region, some nobles – some argue that Pelayo was among them – 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.
The most commonly accepted hypothesis for the battle (epic as described by later Christian Asturian sources, 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 it was attacked in retreat by the retinue and nearly destroyed. However, the only near-contemporary account of the events of the time, the Christian Chronicle of 754, makes no mention of the incident.
However, as is told in the Rotensian Chronicle as well as in that of Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari, Pelayo escaped from Cordoba during the governorship of al-Hurr (717–718) and his return to Asturias triggered a revolt against the Muslim authorities of Gijón. The identity of Pelayo, however, is still an open subject, and that is only one of the theories. The leader of the Astures, whose origin is debated by historians, lived at that time in Bres, in the district of Piloña, and Munuza sent his troops there under al-Qama. After receiving word of the arrival of the Muslims, Pelayo and his companions hurriedly crossed the Piloña and headed toward the narrow, easily defended valley of Mt. Auseva, taking refuge in one of its caves, Covadonga. After an attempted siege was abandoned due to the weather and the exposed position of the deep valley gorge, the troops are said to have exited through the high ports to the south, in order to continue their search-and-destroy mission against other rebels. There, the locals were able to ambush the Muslim detachment, which was nearly annihilated. The few survivors continued south to the plains of Leon, leaving the maritime districts of Asturias exposed.
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 him, 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 Gijón 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, insulating the region from Moorish attack. Pelayo continued attacking those Berbers who remained north of the Asturian Mountains until they withdrew, but the latter mostly deserted their garrisons in response to 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 duchy 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. The Berber fortifications included watchtowers and moats of almost two meters, in whose construction and defense many hundreds may have participated. That would have required a high degree of organization and firm leadership, probably by Pelayo himself. Therefore, experts consider it 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 Alfonso 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, Alfonso II's will cursed the Visigoths, blaming them for the loss of Hispania. The later chronicles on which knowledge of the period is based, all written during the reign of Alfonso 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 so 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. Alfonso'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.