As we all know, the Visigoths where able to push the Moors out of Spain after epic and bitter fighting from 711 AD to 741 AD. We also know that the Visigoths where also the first Europeans to adopt Islamic ideas of science and medicine, and in 1501, the first Eurasian power since the Vikings to discover the New World. How would history have been different if the Muslim "Moors" where successful in the Early 8th century?
DBWI: The Visigoths conquered by the Moors?
- Thread starter ArKhan
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Francia or Aquitaine would probably take the role of the Visigoths, as the main interlocutors between the Islamic world and Christiandom. This would certainly be bad for Aquitaine, though, with a friendly Visigoth Kingdom replaced by hostile Moors. With that extra pressure added, I doubt they'd survive to the modern era.
Perhaps the Cathars could survive, with the attentions of the Francian kings and the Pope firmly focused on the Muslims in Iberia? I've always had a soft spot for the Cathars. In addition, the Muslims were relatively religiously tolerant for the time period. With the Moors just over the Pyrenees, you could see large populations of Cathars fleeing the Crusade into Iberia and safety, where they might carve out a niche similar to the Jews. Cathar/Moorish fusion Iberia? Sounds interesting to me...
Perhaps the Cathars could survive, with the attentions of the Francian kings and the Pope firmly focused on the Muslims in Iberia? I've always had a soft spot for the Cathars. In addition, the Muslims were relatively religiously tolerant for the time period. With the Moors just over the Pyrenees, you could see large populations of Cathars fleeing the Crusade into Iberia and safety, where they might carve out a niche similar to the Jews. Cathar/Moorish fusion Iberia? Sounds interesting to me...
Well, for a start, they'd probably stop at the Pyrenees. There's a good reasons the Visigoths never really expanded into Franciua or vice-versa; they make the perfect boundary between two nations.
The Cathars would probably escape to Muslim Iberia, but I doubt there's enough of them to make a big cultural impact, and I suspect they'd simply convert to Islam anyway; even if they aren't actively forced to convert, there'll still be substantial pressure to do so.
The barrier of the Pyrenees means that once the Muslims have conquered Spain and held it for a generation or two, it'll remain theirs. We'll probably see the New World discovered by Spanish Muslims, and today Arabic would be the world's most spoken language.
What kind of effect would a unified, Muslim Spain have on Francia? Would we see it centrallise much more than OTL? Would there be Muslim raids into the southern reaches of Francia?
Linguistics would be interesting; I'm imagining a fusion of Gothic, Latin and Arabic. It'd be one very interesting language
The Cathars would probably escape to Muslim Iberia, but I doubt there's enough of them to make a big cultural impact, and I suspect they'd simply convert to Islam anyway; even if they aren't actively forced to convert, there'll still be substantial pressure to do so.
The barrier of the Pyrenees means that once the Muslims have conquered Spain and held it for a generation or two, it'll remain theirs. We'll probably see the New World discovered by Spanish Muslims, and today Arabic would be the world's most spoken language.
What kind of effect would a unified, Muslim Spain have on Francia? Would we see it centrallise much more than OTL? Would there be Muslim raids into the southern reaches of Francia?
Linguistics would be interesting; I'm imagining a fusion of Gothic, Latin and Arabic. It'd be one very interesting language
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This would depend on how entrenched the Muslim state in Iberia becomes. Visigothia had the resources to fund these expeditions because it had a secure position in the Iberian peninsula.
If this theoretical Muslim state manages to extend dominion over the entire peninsula and remain a cohesive power like the Visigoths did it's hard to imagine their position being shifted, and they might well take up the role the Visigoths did OTL. However if the Muslim state fractures, or if there are significant Visigoth successor states left unconquered (perhaps in the far north? Galicia, Vasconia?) their position would be very weak and perhaps untenable.
Given how by the time anyones discovering the New World (and keeping that knowledge without it being lost or forgotten for being useless) it would have been hundreds of years since their conquest of Hispania, by then I'm pretty sure they can be called European.
How would Galicia and Vasconia remain independent? Any kingdoms based out of there would be poor and weak, barely capable of securing their own borders from raids, how on earth could they manage to retake the peninsula even if the Muslim state fractures?
Well, the northern region of Iberia does have a long history of having an independent streak agianst the Visigoths. The Basque wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries are only the most recent examples.
Considering that the Moors would rule in Iberia for hundreds of years longer than the Turks ruled the Balkans, I suspect it would be substantially more Islamicized.
Well, if they control areas that are worth little so that the Moors focus elsewhere, and take it step by step, they might do it, although I grant you that's not too likely.
I doubt very much that they'd try to take ALL of Visigothia. More likly the Moors would find themselves in the same possition Visigothia found itself in our timeline, with the north finding themselves locked in the same repeating cycle of "Independent, Invassion, Occupation, Revolution, Independent" with the Moors that they where in with the Visigoths.
Honestly I could see them happier under the Muslims, they would probably just leave them loosely controlled tributaries rather than trying to go through the headache of conquering and ruling them. Though if and when industrialization sets in then things get interesting, the only coal in Spain is in the far north and it will almost certainly want direct control of it.
Yes, but until the Revolution the north of Spain is not really worth it, so they would just take it step by step. And, after all, they might get some help from the Frankmen and the Italians.
Wasn't the Visigothic original kingdom in southern Francia, their capital in Tolosa?
I'd put my money in Venice. Not the muslims, after all, it was the muslims who was blocking the trade routes with the far East.
They could be sustained with Crusades. And some crusader-like kingdom would be much easier to sustain in the northern coast of the peninsule than in the Mediterranean levant.
In the Bishopric of Iria Flavia there is a chapel in a nearby mountain where it's claimed that the burial site of the apostle St. James was found. That happened around the IX-X century, but it's mostly a local legend. The Pope could easily use that event, and magnify it, to carve a kingdom in the NW of a muslim Iberia.
Al-Shmal (the North), maybe? or Dem Shmal (North Coast). Or even Al-Garve (the West).
Historically, they seemed to have enough problems with the large Arian Christian, Jewish, and Muslim minorities in Visigothia. I doubt they'd accept being rulled outright by Muslims, if they hated the Visigoths so much just for having non-catholic minorities.