Kingdom of León
The Kingdom of León was an independent kingdom situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in AD 910 when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their capital from Oviedo to the city of León; the County of Castile separated in 931, the County of Portugal separated to become the independent Kingdom of Portugal in 1139 and the eastern, inland part of León was joined to the Kingdom of Castile in 1230. From 1296 to 1301, the Kingdom of León was again independent and after the re-union with Castile remained a Crown until 1833, but as part of a united Spain from 1479. In the Royal Decree of 30 November 1833, the Kingdom of León was considered one of the Spanish regions and divided into the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca. In 1978, these three provinces of the region of León were included along with six provinces of the historic region of Old Castile to create the autonomous community of Castile and León. However, significant parts of the former kingdom today integrate these three provinces and the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Asturias.
The city of León was founded by the Roman Seventh Legion (usually written as Legio Septima Gemina. It was the headquarters of that legion in the late empire and was a centre for trade in gold, mined at Las Médulas nearby. In 540, the city was conquered by the Arian Visigothic king Liuvigild, who did not harass the well-established Roman Catholic population. In AD 717, León fell again. However, León was one of the first cities retaken during the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, became part of the Kingdom of Asturias in AD 742. León was a small town during this time, but one of the few former Roman cities in the Kingdom of Asturias which still held significance. During Visigothic times, the city had served as a bishopric, incorporating the city into Asturias brought legitimacy to the Asturian monarchs who sought to lead a unified Iberian church, during a time when most of the Iberian Peninsula was governed by Muslim powers. León was created as a separate kingdom when the Asturian king, Alfonso the Great, divided his realm among his three sons.
León was inherited by García I. His successor was Ordoño II of León. Ordoño II of León was a military leader who brought military expeditions from León south to Seville, Córdoba, Guadalajara, in the heart of the Muslim territory. After a few years of civil wars during the reign of Fruela II, Alfonso Fróilaz and Alfonso IV, Ramiro II assumed the throne and brought stability to the kingdom. A brave military chief who defeated the Muslim armies in their own territory, Ramiro's expeditions turned the Valley of the Douro into a no-man's land that separated Christian kingdoms in the north of Iberia from the Muslim states in the south. Ramiro II was nicknamed "The Devil" by Muslims because of his great military skill; as the Leonese troops advanced they were followed by a process of repoblación, which consisted of repopulating the Meseta high plains, with people coming from Galicia and from Asturias and León. This migration of Leonese peoples influenced the Leonese language. During the repoblación period, there arose a distinct form of art known as Mozarabic art.
Mozarabic art is a mixing of Visigoth and Byzantine elements. Notable examples of the Mozarabic style are the Leonese churches of San Miguel de Escalada and Santiago de Peñalba. During the early 10th century, León expanded to the south and east, securing territory that became the County of Burgos. Fortified with numerous castles, Burgos remained within Leon until the 930s, at which time Count Ferdinand II of Castile began a campaign to expand Burgos and make it independent and hereditary, he took for himself the title Count of Castile, in reference to the many castles of the territory, continued expanding his area at the expense of León by allying with the Caliphate of Córdoba, until AD 966, when he was defeated by Sancho I of León. The Kingdom of León continued to be the most important of all those of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Sancho III of Navarre took over Castile in the 1020s, managed León in the last year of his life, leaving Galicia to temporary independence. In the division of lands which followed his death, his son Fernando succeeded to the county of Castile.
Two years in 1037, he defeated the king of León who died in the battle and because Fernando was married to the king of León sister, he became king of León and Galicia. For nearly 30 years, until his death in 1065, he ruled over the kingdom of León and the county of Castile as Ferdinand I of León. Early in its existence, León lay directly to the north of the powerful Caliphate of Córdoba; when internal dissensions divided Al-Andalus loyalties in the 11th century, leading to an age of smaller Taifa successor states of the Caliphate, the Christian kingdoms, sending tribute to the Caliphate found themselves in a position to demand payments instead, in return for favours to particular factions or as simple extortion. Thus, though scarcely influenced by the culture of the successor territories of the former Caliphate, Ferdinand I followed the example of the counts of Barcelona and the kings of Aragon and became hugely wealthy from the parias of the Taifas; when he died in 1065, his territories and the parias were split among his three sons, of whom Alfonso emerged the victor in the classic fratricidal strife comm
Autonomous communities of Spain
In Spain, an autonomous community is a first-level political and administrative division, created in accordance with the Spanish constitution of 1978, with the aim of guaranteeing limited autonomy of the nationalities and regions that make up Spain. Spain is not a federation, but a decentralized unitary state. While sovereignty is vested in the nation as a whole, represented in the central institutions of government, the nation has, in variable degrees, devolved power to the communities, which, in turn, exercise their right to self-government within the limits set forth in the constitution and their autonomous statutes; each community has its own set of devolved powers. Some scholars have referred to the resulting system as a federal system in all but name, or a "federation without federalism". There are 17 autonomous communities and two autonomous cities that are collectively known as "autonomies"; the two autonomous cities have the right to become autonomous communities, but neither has yet exercised it.
This unique framework of territorial administration is known as the "State of Autonomies". The autonomous communities are governed according to the constitution and their own organic laws known as Statutes of Autonomy, which contain all the competences that they assume. Since devolution was intended to be asymmetrical in nature, the scope of competences vary for each community, but all have the same parliamentary structure. Spain is a diverse country made up of several different regions with varying economic and social structures, as well as different languages and historical and cultural traditions. While the entire Spanish territory was united under one crown in 1479 this was not a process of national homogenization or amalgamation; the constituent territories—be it crowns, principalities or dominions—retained much of their former institutional existence, including limited legislative, judicial or fiscal autonomy. These territories exhibited a variety of local customs, laws and currencies until the mid nineteenth century.
From the 18th century onwards, the Bourbon kings and the government tried to establish a more centralized regime. Leading figures of the Spanish Enlightenment advocated for the building of a Spanish nation beyond the internal territorial boundaries; this culminated in 1833, when Spain was divided into 49 provinces, which served as transmission belts for policies developed in Madrid. However, unlike in other European countries such as France, where regional languages were spoken in rural areas or less developed regions, two important regional languages of Spain were spoken in some of the most industrialized areas, moreover, enjoyed higher levels of prosperity, in addition to having their own cultures and historical consciousness; these were Catalonia. This gave rise to peripheral nationalisms along with Spanish nationalism; therefore and social changes that had produced a national cultural unification in France had the opposite effect in Spain. As such, Spanish history since the late 19th century has been shaped by a dialectical struggle between Spanish nationalism and peripheral nationalisms in Catalonia and the Basque Country, to a lesser degree in Galicia.
In a response to Catalan demands, limited autonomy was granted to Catalonia in 1914, only to be abolished in 1923. It was granted again in 1932 during the Second Spanish Republic, when the Generalitat, Catalonia's mediaeval institution of government, was restored; the constitution of 1931 envisaged a territorial division for all Spain in "autonomous regions", never attained—only Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia had approved "Statutes of Autonomy"—the process being thwarted by the Spanish Civil War that broke out in 1936, the victory of the rebel Nationalist forces under Francisco Franco. During General Franco's dictatorial regime, centralism was most forcefully enforced as a way of preserving the "unity of the Spanish nation". Peripheral nationalism, along with communism and atheism were regarded by his regime as the main threats, his attempts to fight separatism with heavy-handed but sporadic repression, his severe suppression of language and regional identities backfired: the demands for democracy became intertwined with demands for the recognition of a pluralistic vision of the Spanish nationhood.
When Franco died in 1975, Spain entered into a phase of transition towards democracy. The most difficult task of the newly democratically elected Cortes Generales in 1977 acting as a Constituent Assembly was to transition from a unitary centralized state into a decentralized state in a way that would satisfy the demands of the peripheral nationalists; the Prime Minister of Spain, Adolfo Suárez, met with Josep Tarradellas, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in exile. An agreement was made so that the Generalitat would be restored and limited competencies would be transferred while the constitution was still being written. Shortly after, the government allowed the creation of "assemblies of members of parliament" integrated by deputies and senators of the different territories of Spain, so that they could constitute "pre-autonomic regimes" for their regions as well; the Fathers of the Constitution had to strike a balance between the opposing views of Spain—on the one hand, the centralist view inherited from Franco's regime, on the other hand federalism and a pluralistic view of Spain as a "nation of nations".
Peripheral nationalist
Treaty of Alcáçovas
The Treaty of Alcáçovas was signed on 4 September 1479 between the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon on one side and Afonso V and his son, Prince John of Portugal, on the other side. It put an end to the War of the Castilian Succession, which ended with a victory of the Catholic Monarchs on land and a Portuguese victory on the sea; the four peace treaties signed at Alcáçovas reflected that outcome: Isabella was recognized as Queen of Castile while Portugal reached hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean. The treaty intended to regulate: The renunciation of Afonso V and Catholic Monarchs to the Castilian throne and Portuguese throne The division of the Atlantic Ocean and overseas territories into two zones of influence The destiny of Juana de Trastámara The contract of marriage between Isabella, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, with Afonso, heir of Prince John; this was known as Tercerias de Moura, included the payment to Portugal of a war compensation by the Catholic Monarchs in the form of marriage dowry.
The pardon of the Castilian supporters of Juana After Henry’s IV death in 1474, the Castilian crown was disputed between the half-sister of the king, Isabella I of Castile, married to Prince Ferdinand II of Aragon, the king’s daughter, Juana de Trastámara, popularly known as la Beltraneja – because her father was alleged to be Beltrán de la Cueva. In the subsequent civil war, Afonso V of Portugal married Juana and invaded Castile, defending her rights. Parallel to the dynastic struggle, there was a fierce naval war between the fleets of Portugal and Castile to access and control overseas territories − Guinea – whose gold and slaves were the heart of the Portuguese power; the main events of this war were the indecisive battle of Toro, transformed in a strategic victory by the Catholic Monarchs and the battle of Guinea, which granted Portugal the hegemony in the Atlantic Ocean and disputed territories. Historian Stephen R. Bown wrote: When Ferdinand an Isabella secured their rule after the Battle of Toro on 1 March 1476- eliminating the threat of Portuguese invasion but not ending the war- they renewed the twenty-year-old Castilian claim to their "ancient and exclusive" rights to the Canary Islands and the Guinea coast....
They encouraged Spanish merchant ships to take advantage of the political disruption and considered making direct attacks on Portuguese vessels returning from Guinea, with the objective of seizing the monopoly.... In 1478 a Spanish fleet of thirty-five caravels was intercepted by an armed Portuguese squadron. Most of the fleet was taken to Lisbon. N 1479... the two nations concluded terms for peace with the treaty of Alcáçovas, ending the struggle for the succession as well as their battle at sea. Juana de Trastamara and Afonso V waived their rights to the Castilian throne in favour of the Catholic Monarchs, who gave up their claims over the throne of Portugal. There was a sharing of the Atlantic territories between both countries and a delimitation of the respective spheres of influence. With the exception of the Canary Islands, all territories and shores disputed between Portugal and Castile stayed under Portuguese control. Portugal won the exclusive right of conquering the Kingdom of Fez. Castile's rights over the Canary Islands were recognised while Portugal won the exclusive right of navigating and trading in all the Atlantic Ocean south of the Canary Islands.
Thus, Portugal attained hegemony in the Atlantic not only for its known territories but for those discovered in the future. Castile was restricted to the Canaries. Portugal gained a war compensation of 106,676 dobles of gold in the form of Isabella's dowry. Both infants stayed in Portugal under the regiment of Tercerias, at the village of Moura, waiting for the appropriate age; the Catholic Monarchs were responsible for all costs of maintaining the Tercerias. Juana had to choose between staying in Portugal and entering a religious order or marrying Prince Juan, son of the Catholic Monarchs: she chose the former; the Castilian supporters of Juana and Afonso were pardoned. This treaty, ratified by the Papal bull Aeterni regis in 1481 gave the Portuguese free rein to continue their exploration along the African coast while guaranteeing Castilian sovereignty in the Canaries, it prohibited Castilians from sailing to the Portuguese possessions without Portuguese licence. The Treaty of Alcáçovas, establishing Castilian and Portuguese spheres of control in the Atlantic, settled a period of open hostility, but it laid the basis for future claims and conflict.
Portugal's rival Castile had been somewhat slower than its neighbour to begin exploring the Atlantic, it was not until late in the fifteenth century that Castilian sailors began to compete with their Iberian neighbours. The first contest was for control of the Canary Islands, it was not until the union of Aragon and Castile and the completion of the Reconquista that the larger country became committed to looking for new trade routes and colonies overseas. In 1492, the joint rulers of the country decided to fund Christopher Columbus' expedition that they hoped would bypass Portugal's lock on Africa and the Indian Ocean, instead, reach Asia by travelling west over the Atlantic; the Treaty of Alcáçovas can be considered a landmark in the history of colonialism. It is one of the first international documents formally outlining the principle that European powers are empowered to divide the rest of the world into "spheres of influence" and colonise the territories loca
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Arab history as the Battle of Al-Uqab, took place on 16 July 1212 and was an important turning point in the Reconquista and in the medieval history of Spain. The Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile were joined by the armies of his rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal, in battle against the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula; the Caliph al-Nasir led the Almohad army, made up of people from the whole Almohad empire. Most of the men in the Almohad army came from the African side of the empire. In 1195, Alfonso VIII of Castile was defeated by the Almohads in the so-called Disaster of Alarcos. After this victory the Almohads took several important cities: Trujillo, Talavera and Uclés. In 1211, Muhammad al-Nasir crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with a powerful army, invaded Christian territory, captured Salvatierra Castle, the stronghold of the knights of the Order of Calatrava.
The threat to the Hispanic Christian kingdoms was so great that Pope Innocent III called European knights to a crusade. There were some disagreements among the members of the Christian coalition: French and other European knights did not agree with Alfonso's merciful treatment of Jews and Muslims who were defeated in the conquest of Malagón and Calatrava la Vieja, they had caused problems in Toledo, with assaults and murders in the Jewish Quarter. Alfonso crossed the mountain range that defended the Almohad camp, sneaking through the Despeñaperros Pass, being led by Martin Alhaja, a local shepherd who knew the area; the Christian coalition caught the Moorish army at camp by surprise, Alhaja was granted the hereditary title Cabeza de Vaca for his assistance to Alfonso VIII. According to legend, the Caliph had his tent surrounded with a bodyguard of slave-warriors who were chained together as a defense; the Navarrese force led by their king. The Caliph escaped; the victorious Christians seized several prizes of war: Miramamolín's tent and standard were delivered to Pope Innocent III.
Christian losses were far fewer. The losses were heavy among the Orders; those killed included Pedro Gómez de Acevedo, Alvaro Fernández de Valladares, Pedro Arias and Gomes Ramires. Ruy Díaz was so grievously wounded; the Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir himself died in Marrakech shortly after the battle, where he had fled after the defeat. The crushing defeat of the Almohads hastened their decline both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Maghreb a decade later; that gave further impulse to the Christian Reconquest and reduced the declining power of the Moors in Iberia. Shortly after the battle, the Castilians took Baeza and Úbeda, major fortified cities near the battlefield and gateways to invade Andalusia. According to Letter from Alfonso VIII of Castile to Pope Innocent III, Baeza was evacuated and its people moved to Úbeda, here the king laid siege and put to death 60,000 muslims and enslaved many more. According to the latin chronicle of kings of Castile the number given is 100,000 Saracens, including children and women, were captured.
Thereafter, Alfonso VIII's grandson Ferdinand III of Castile took Cordova in 1236, Jaén in 1246, Seville in 1248. In 1252, Ferdinand was preparing his army for invasion of the Almohad lands in Africa, but he died in Seville on 30 May 1252, during an outbreak of plague in southern Hispania. Only Ferdinand's death prevented the Castilians from taking the war to the Almohad on the Mediterranean coast, James I of Aragon conquered the Balearic Islands and Valencia. By 1252 the Almohad empire was finished, at the mercy of another emerging African power. In 1269 a new association of African tribes, the Marinids, took control of the Maghreb, most of the former Almohad empire was under their rule; the Marinids tried to recover the former Almohad territories in Iberia, but they were definitively defeated by Alfonso XI of Castile and Afonso IV of Portugal in the Battle of Río Salado, the last major military encounter between large Christian and Muslim armies in Hispania. In 1292 Sancho IV took Tarifa, key to the control of the Strait of Gibraltar.
Granada, Almería, Málaga were the only major Muslim cities of the time remaining in the Iberian peninsula. These three cities were the core of the Emirate of Granada, ruled by the Nasrid dynasty. Granada was a vassal state of Castile, until taken by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492. Harry Harrison's 1972 alternate history/science fiction novel Tunnel Through the Deeps depicts a history where the Moors won at Las Navas de Tolosa and retained part of Spain into the 20th century. Alvira Cabrer, Martín, Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212: idea, liturgia y memoria de la batalla, Sílex Ediciones, Madrid 2012. García Fitz, Las Navas de Tolosa, Barcelona 2005. García Fitz, Was Las Navas a decisive battle?, in: Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 5–9. Nafziger, George F. and Mark W. Walton, Is
Spain
Spain the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located in Europe. Its continental European territory is situated on the Iberian Peninsula, its territory includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country. Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are part of Spanish territory; the country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar. With an area of 505,990 km2, Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the fifth in the European Union. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Spn or Spania.
At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe, invaded the Iberian peninsula and established independent realms in its western provinces, including the Suebi and Vandals. The Visigoths would forcibly integrate all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces, into the Kingdom of Toledo, which more or less unified politically and all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was documented as Hispania. In the early eighth century the Visigothic Kingdom fell to the Moors of the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate, who arrived to rule most of the peninsula in the year 726, leaving only a handful of small Christian realms in the north and lasting up to seven centuries in the Kingdom of Granada; this led to many wars during a long reconquering period across the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the creation of the Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Navarre as the main Christian kingdoms to face the invasion.
Following the Moorish conquest, Europeans began a gradual process of retaking the region known as the Reconquista, which by the late 15th century culminated in the emergence of Spain as a unified country under the Catholic Monarchs. Until Aragon had been an independent kingdom, which had expanded toward the eastern Mediterranean, incorporating Sicily and Naples, had competed with Genoa and Venice. In the early modern period, Spain became the world's first global empire and the most powerful country in the world, leaving a large cultural and linguistic legacy that includes more than 570 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. During the Golden Age there were many advancements in the arts, with world-famous painters such as Diego Velázquez; the most famous Spanish literary work, Don Quixote, was published during the Golden Age. Spain hosts the world's third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state.
It is a major developed country and a high income country, with the world's fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations, the European Union, the Eurozone, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Schengen Area, the World Trade Organization and many other international organisations. While not an official member, Spain has a "Permanent Invitation" to the G20 summits, participating in every summit, which makes Spain a de facto member of the group; the origins of the Roman name Hispania, from which the modern name España was derived, are uncertain due to inadequate evidence, although it is documented that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians referred to the region as Spania, therefore the most accepted etymology is a Semitic-Phoenician one.
Down the centuries there have been a number of accounts and hypotheses: The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning "city of the western world". Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term span is the Phoenician word spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged", it may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning "island of rabbits", "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean. The word in question means "Hyrax" due to Phoenicians confusing the two animals. Hispania may derive from the poetic use of the term Hesperia, reflecting the Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" (Hesperia
Moors
The term "Moors" refers to the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula and Malta during the Middle Ages. The Moors were the indigenous Maghrebine Berbers; the name was also applied to Arabs. Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that "The term'Moors' has no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, North African Berbers, Muslim Europeans. The term has been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in Spain or North Africa. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names "Ceylon Moors" and "Indian Moors" in South Asia and Sri Lanka, the Bengali Muslims were called Moors. In the Philippines, the longstanding Muslim community, which predates the arrival of the Spanish, now self-identifies as the "Moro people", an exonym introduced by Spanish colonizers due to their Muslim faith.
In 711, troops formed by Moors from northern Africa led the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Iberian peninsula came to be known in Classical Arabic as al-Andalus, which at its peak included most of Septimania and modern-day Spain and Portugal. In 827, the Moors occupied Mazara on Sicily, they went on to consolidate the rest of the island. Differences in religion and culture led to a centuries-long conflict with the Christian kingdoms of Europe, which tried to reclaim control of Muslim areas. In 1224 the Muslims were expelled from Sicily to the settlement of Lucera, destroyed by European Christians in 1300; the fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of Muslim rule in Iberia, although a Muslim minority persisted until their expulsion in 1609. During the classical period, the Romans interacted with, conquered, parts of Mauretania, a state that covered modern northern Morocco, western Algeria, the Spanish cities Ceuta and Melilla; the Berber tribes of the region were noted in the Classics as Mauri, subsequently rendered as "Moors" in English and in related variations in other European languages.
Mauri is recorded as the native name by Strabo in the early 1st century. This appellation was adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was Maurusii; the Moors were mentioned by Tacitus as having revolted against the Roman Empire in 24 AD. During the Latin Middle Ages, Mauri was used to refer to Berbers and Arabs in the coastal regions of Northwest Africa; the 16th century scholar Leo Africanus identified the Moors as the native Berber inhabitants of the former Roman Africa Province. He described Moors as one of five main population groups on the continent alongside Egyptians, Abyssinians and Cafri. In medieval Romance languages, variations of the Latin word for the Moors developed different applications and connotations; the term denoted a specific Berber people in western Libya, but the name acquired more general meaning during the medieval period, associated with "Muslim", similar to associations with "Saracens". During the context of the Crusades and the Reconquista, the term Moors included the derogatory suggestion of "infidels".
Apart from these historic associations and context and Moorish designate a specific ethnic group speaking Hassaniya Arabic. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Morocco and Mali. In Niger and Mali, these peoples are known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara; the authoritative dictionary of the Spanish language does not list any derogatory meaning for the word moro, a term referring to people of Maghrebian origin in particular or Muslims in general. Some authors have pointed out that in modern colloquial Spanish use of the term moro is derogatory for Moroccans in particular and Muslims in general. In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many modern Filipinos call the large, local Muslim minority concentrated in Mindanao and other southern islands Moros; the word is a catch-all term, as Moro may come from several distinct ethno-linguistic groups such as the Maranao people. The term was introduced by Spanish colonisers, has since been appropriated by Filipino Muslims as an endonym, with many self-identifying as members of the Bangsamoro "Moro Nation".
Moreno can mean "dark-skinned" in Spain, Portugal and the Philippines. In Spanish, morapio is a humorous name for "wine" that which has not been "baptized" or mixed with water, i.e. pure unadulterated wine. Among Spanish speakers, moro came to have a broader meaning, applied to both Filipino Moros from Mindanao, the moriscos of Granada. Moro refers to all things dark, as in "Moor", etc, it was used as a nickname. In Portugal, mouro may refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted moura, where "Moor" implies "alien" and "non-Christian"; these beings were siren-like fairies with a fair face. They were believed to have magical properties. From this root, the name moor is applied to unbaptized children. In Basque, mairu means moor and refers to a mythical people. Muslims located in South Asia were distinguished by the Portuguese historians into two groups: Mouros da Terra and the Mouros da Arabia/Mouros de Meca ("Moors from Arabia/Mecca" or "Paradesi
Castilla–La Mancha
Castilla–La Mancha is an autonomous community of Spain. Comprised by the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca and Toledo, it was created in 1982, it is bordered by Castile and León, Aragon, Murcia and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's regions. Albacete is the largest and most populous city, its capital city is Toledo, its judicial capital city is Albacete. Castilla–La Mancha was grouped with the province of Madrid into New Castile, but with the advent of the modern Spanish system of autonomous regions, it was separated due to great demographic disparity between the capital and the remaining New-Castilian provinces. Distinct from the former New Castile, Castilla–La Mancha added the province of Albacete, part of Murcia, it is in this region where the story of the famous Spanish novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes is situated, due to which La Mancha is internationally well-known. Although La Mancha is a windswept, battered plateau, it remains a symbol of Spanish culture with its vineyards, mushrooms, olive plantations, Manchego cheese, Don Quixote.
The origins of Castilla–La Mancha lay in the Muslim period between the 8th and 14th century. Castilla–La Mancha was the region of many historical battles between Christian crusaders and Muslim forces during the period from 1000 to the 13th century, it was the region where the Crown of Castile and Aragon were unified in 1492 under Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand. Castilla–La Mancha is the successor to New Castile, which in turn traces back to the Muslim Taifa of Toledo, one of the taifas of Al Andalus. Alfonso VI conquered the region from the Muslims, taking Toledo in 1085; the Reconquista took Cuenca in 1177. Other provinces to the south—the Campo de Calatrava, the Valle de Alcudia, the Alfoz de Alcaraz —were consolidated during the reign of Alfonso VIII, whose conquests were completed by the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa; that victory assured Castilian domination of the region and hastened the decline of the Almohad Dynasty. From the time of the Reconquista, Castilla–La Mancha formed part of the Kingdom of Castile.
Four centuries in 1605, Cervantes' Don Quixote gave the world an indelible picture of La Mancha. In 1785, the territorial organization by the reformer Floridablanca divided the region into the provinces of Cuenca, Madrid, La Mancha, Toledo. Albacete, Almansa, Hellín and Yeste, became part of Murcia. In 1833 Javier de Burgos modified the provincial borders. Albacete, in turn incorporated parts of the territories of the old provinces of Cuenca and Murcia. Albacete was administered as part of the Region of Murcia until the 1978 configuration of autonomous regions. Nonetheless, during the First Spanish Republic, Albacete was one of the signatories to the Pacto Federal Castellano and in 1924 its deputation favored the formation of a "Comunidad Manchega" that would have recognized La Mancha as a region; the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha dates from 15 November 1978 as one of the many autonomous regions defined by the Spanish central government.. The new, hyphenated name constituted an effort to bridge two distinct regionalisms: that of the larger Castilla and that of the smaller onetime province of La Mancha.
The Statute of Autonomy of Castilla–La Mancha was approved August 10, 1982 and took effect August 17, 1982. Castilla–La Mancha is divided into 5 provinces named after their capital cities; the following category includes: Albacete Ciudad Real Cuenca Guadalajara ToledoAccording to the official data of the INE, Castilla–La Mancha consists of 919 municipalities, which amount to 11.3 percent of all the municipalities in Spain. 496 of these have less than 500 inhabitants, 231 have between 501 and 2,000 inhabitants, 157 between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, only 35 have more than 10,000 inhabitants. The municipalities in the north are small and numerous, while in the south they are larger and fewer; this reflects different histories of. The 25 most populous municipalities of Castilla–La Mancha as at 2017, according to the INE, are: Although the Statute of Autonomy allows for comarcas of political/juridical significance, this has never been followed through at the level of the entire region, there are no comarcas in Castilla–La Mancha with political or juridical functions.
Individual provinces of Castilla–La Mancha have performed comarcalizations for administrative and touristic purposes. Many Castellano-Manchegan comarcas important traditional significance, with some figuring in history well beyond their respective provinces. Comarcas of Albacete:Campos de Hellín Llanos de Albacete La Mancha del Júcar-Centro Manchuela albaceteña Monte Ibérico–Corredor de Almansa Sierra de Alcaraz y Campo de Montiel Sierra del Segura Comarcas of Ciudad Real:Alcudia Campo de Calatrava Mancha Montes Montiel Sierra Morena Comarcas of Cuenca:La Alcarria conquense La Mancha de Cuenca Manchuela conquense Serranía Alta Serranía Media-Campichuelo Serranía Baja Comarcas o
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