Portugal in the Middle Ages
The Kingdom of Portugal was established from the county of Portugal in the 1130s, ruled by the Portuguese House of Burgundy. During most of the 12th and 13th centuries, its history is chiefly that of the gradual reconquest of territory from the various Muslim principalities (taifas) of the period.
King Denis I of Portugal
Ferdinand I of Portugal
João I
A depiction of the Battle of Aljubarrota
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