![]() But this was the Middle Ages, and of course the reality was much more complicated and confusing. That struggle, and that period in Spain's history, are traditionally called the Reconquista, the "reconquest." The term makes it sound like a single, unified effort by European Christians against an Islamic occupation. Muslim troops in the Battle of the Puig in 1237. George, depicting Jaime I, King of Aragon, fighting It would take European Catholics seven centuries to take the territory back. Muslim forces (mostly Berbers and Arabs) conquered almost the entire peninsula in seven years, stretching across the Pyrenees into what's now Provence. The Visigothic kingdom, weakened by civil war, offered little resistance. In 711, armies of the Umayyad Caliphate invaded Spain from Islamic North Africa through Gibraltar. Reccared I renounced Arianism in 587, becoming the first in a line of Catholic kings. The first Visigoth kings were pagans, but they became Arianists starting in 395. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, it came under the control of various Germanic tribes, especially the Visigoths. Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) was a Roman colony for several hundred years. To understand why, it's necessary to have a little background on the earlier history of Spain, and why the Inquisition was given so much power. In her essay " Potocki's Gothic Arabesque," Ahlam Alaki suggests that much about the strange, nightmarish world Jan Potocki creates in his novel is best understood in the context of the effects the Inquisition had on Spanish life and culture. ![]() Fear of the Inquisition, therefore, plays a key role in Alphonse's adventures in the Sierra Morena. At the end of Day 3, Alphonse is arrested by men claiming to act on behalf of the king and the Holy Inquisition they demand a confession from him, threatening gruesome torture.Ī few days after his escape, Alphonse receives a letter from a government minister, warning him to lay low for three months rather than report for duty in Madrid, because he has displeased the Inquisition (Day 9). The Spanish Inquisition never takes center stage in The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, but it's clearly part of the political landscape that protagonist Alphonse van Worden must navigate.
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