Why, precisely, did the Muslim invaders triumph over the Visigothic Kingdom of Spain? It is an event steeped in legend and conjecture, so what precisely happened is muddled.
Muslim Tactics and Triumphs
The Muslim general Tariq ibn Ziyad carried out a landing on the Spanish coast in 710, where he made a reconnaissance of the landscape and carried out raiding. Returning with minimal casualties and a respectable amount of plunder, Tariq’s superior, North African governor Musa ibn Nusayr, may have concluded that Spain was poorly defended. In 711, therefore, he launched a full-scale invasion.
It is understood that he chose a battleground near the coast and simply waited for the Visigoths to come to him, perhaps to keep the option of retreat open. Moreover, the Muslims had brought cavalry, and were masters of mounted warfare. Whether the Visigoths had much cavalry or still clung to the Roman infantry legion tradition is not known, but against such nimble riders, they would have been highly challenged.
At all events, in the initial engagements, the Visigothic King was killed. Thus the unifying force of the Visigothic Kingdom was lost, and a unified defense was impossible. The invaders were free to deal with Spain one town or county at a time. They offered terms of surrender: pay certain taxes and otherwise maintain substantial autonomy. This left their armies free to focus on more resistant provinces, of which they were able to make ‘salutory examples.’
Visigothic Vulnerabilities and Defeats
Visigothic Kingship was electoral, not hereditary; the highest nobility in the land voted on a new ruler. However, the last King, Witzia (d. 710) had already named his son. Many nobles objected and backed a pretender, dividing the country. And in any case, the preferred king, Roderic, had been engaged in battle with the Basques when the Muslims invaded, forcing him to rush his already-tired army south.
Self-interested nobles, who did not always heed the commands of their king, were an endemic problem. This meant that many local magnates may have negotiated with the Muslims on their own initiative. Furthermore, men-at-arms were at the direct call of the King, unlike in later feudal Europe where every local lord had to keep and fund a garrison. Without more immediate supervision, many of the rank-and-file may have been relatively untrained.
Poor infrastructure left many cities’ defenses in disrepair. A force of a mere seven hundred was said to have taken Cordoba, one of Spain’s largest centres. The Visigoth’s brutality towards the Jews had embittered that community, and as a result the Jews readily defected to the Muslims, forming garrisons for them and keeping their own armies free.
The Muslim Conquest of Spain was, as all great conquests are, down to luck and circumstance in many ways, and a decisive factor in the formation of Spanish culture and History.
Bibliography:
Abdulwahid Dhanun Taha, The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain, Routledge, 1989.
Anwar G. Chejne, Muslim Spain, University of Minnesota Press, 1974.
Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains, Cambirdge University Press, 1993.
Henry Kamen, A Concise History of Spain, Thames and Hudson, 1973.
Jan Read, the Moors in Spain and Portugal, Faber, 1974.
Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, Cornell University Press, 1975.
Peter Linehan, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain, Clarendon Press, 1993.
Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain, Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1992.
Roger Collins, The Arab Conquest of Spain, Blackwell, 1989.
Roger Collins, Visigothic Spain, Blackwell, 2004.
Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, Princeton University Press, 1979.
W. Montgomery Watt, A History of Islamic Spain, EdinburghUniversity Press, 1965.
