Al-Andalus & the Reconquista

Pelagius at Covadonga

In a narrow valley of the Picos de Europa, the Visigothic exile Pelagius defeats a Muslim column under Munuza and is acclaimed king by his followers — the legendary origin of the Christian kingdom of Asturias and of the Reconquista.

The earliest source, the Mozarabic Chronicle of 754, mentions only a 'rebellion of Pelagius' in the northern mountains. By the time of the Chronicle of Alfonso III a century later, Covadonga had become a divine victory: the Virgin turned Muslim arrows back upon the besiegers, and a mountain collapsed upon the fleeing army. Whatever its scale, the skirmish founded a redoubt that Moorish governors could not easily reach — and from which, two centuries later, the kingdoms of Asturias and León would advance south.