Battle of Covadonga

Part of The commencement of the Reconquista

Pelagius, victor at Covadonga and first King of Asturias.

Date	Summer of 722
Location	Picos de Europa near Covadonga, present-day Spain
Result	Decisive Asturian victory

Belligerents

Kingdom of Asturias

Umayyad Caliphate

Commanders and leaders

Pelagius of Asturias

Munuza †
Al Qama †

Strength

unknown

Casualties and losses

290 dead

1104 (medieval estimates), unknown (modern estimates)

The Battle of Covadonga was the first victory by Christendom military forces in Iberia since the Islamic conquest of Hispania in 711–718. It was fought at Covadonga, most likely in the summer of 722. The battle was followed by the creation of an independent Christian principality in the mountains of the northwestern region of the Iberian peninsula that grew into the Kingdom of Asturias and became a bastion of Christian resistance to the expansion of Muslim rule. As a result, the Battle of Covadonga has been credited by historians with catalyzing the Reconquista or the "reconquest" of Christian rule to the entire peninsula.

According to texts written by Mozarabs in northern Iberia during the ninth century, the Visigoths in AD 718 elected a nobleman named Pelagius (681–737) as their leader. Pelagius was a grandson of a former King of Hispania, Chindasuinth, and son of Favila, who had been a dignitary at the court of the Visigoth King Egica (687–700), established his headquarters at Cangas de Onís, Asturias and incited an uprising against the Umayyad Muslims.

From the beginning of the Muslim invasion of Iberia, refugees and combatants from the south of the peninsula had been moving north to avoid Islamic authority. Some had taken refuge in the remote mountains of Asturias in the northwestern part of the Iberian peninsula. There, from among the dispossessed of the south, Pelagius recruited his band of fighters. His first acts were to refuse to pay the Jizya (tax on non-Muslims) to the Muslims any longer and to assault the small Umayyad garrisons that had been stationed in the area. Eventually, he managed to expel a provincial governor named Munuza from Asturias. He held the territory against a number of attempts to re-establish Muslim control, and soon founded the Kingdom of Asturias, which became a Christian stronghold against further Muslim expansion.

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Wikipedia