The Kingdom of Asturias was a kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula founded by the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius. It was the first Christian political entity established after the Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711. In 718 or 722, Pelagius defeated an Umayyad army at the Battle of Covadonga, in what is retroactively regarded as the beginning of the Reconquista.
Picture of ḷḷagu del Vaḷḷe (Somiedo), showing typical Asturian cottages (called teitos), as already in use in the time of the Astures
Monument in memory of Pelagius in Covadonga
King Pelagius at the Battle of Covadonga
The Reconquista or the reconquest of al-Andalus was the successful series of military campaigns that European Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms following the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate. The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga, in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. Its culmination came in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs.
Detail of the Cantiga #63 (13th century), which deals with a late 10th-century battle in San Esteban de Gormaz involving the troops of Count García and Almanzor.
One of the arguments challenging the concept of Reconquista is that for the majority of the 781 years of Islamic rule in Iberia, Muslims and Christians coexisted and were not at war with each other.
Saint James the Great depicted as Saint James the Moor-slayer. Legend of the Reconquista
20th century ceramic depiction of the conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI, at the Plaza de España