mir, on his conversion to orthodoxy in 559, has
been rebuilt in the eleventh or twelfth century.

These Germanic rulers seem never to have been popular with those they
governed, so that when the great Moslem invasion crossed from Morocco in
711 and, defeating King Roderick at Guadalete near Cadiz, swept in an
incredibly short time right up to the northern mountains, the whole
country submitted with scarcely a struggle.

A few only of the Gothic nobles took refuge on the seaward slopes of the
Cantabrian mountains in the Asturias and there made a successful stand,
electing Don Pelayo as their king.

As time went on, Pelayo's descendants crossed the mountains, and taking
Leon gradually extended their small kingdom southwards.

Meanwhile other independent counties or principalities further east were
gradually spreading downwards. The nearest was Castile, so called from
its border castles, then Navarre, then Aragon, and lastly the county of
Barcelona or Cataluna.

Galicia, in the north-west corner, never having been thoroughly
conquered by the invaders, was soon united with the Asturias and then
with Leon. So all these Christian realms, Leon--including Galicia and
Asturias--Castile, and Aragon, which was soon united to Cataluna, spread
southwards, faster when the Moslems were weakened by division, slower
when they had been united and strengthened by a fresh wave of fanaticism
from Africa. Navarre alone was unable to grow, for the lower Ebro valley
was won by the kings of Aragon, while Castile as she grew barred the way
to the south-west.

At last in 1037 Fernando I. united Castile and Leon into one kingdom,
extending from the sea in the north to the lower course of the Douro and
to the mountains dividing the upper Douro from the Tagus valley in the
south. Before Fernando died in 1065 he had extended his frontier on the
west as far south as the Mondego, making Sesnando, a converted Moslem,
count of this important marchland. Then followed a new division, for
Castile went to King Sancho, Leon to Alfonso VI., and Galicia, including
the two counties of Porto and of Coimbra, to Garcia.

Before long, however, Alfonso turned out his brothers and also extended
his borders even to the Tagus by taking Toledo in 1085. But his
successes roused the Moslem powers to fresh fanaticism. A new and
stricter dynasty, the Almoravides,[2] arose in Africa and crossing the
straits inflicted a crushing defeat on the Christians at Zalaca. In
d