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Spanish March
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Spanish March
The Spanish March or Hispanic March was a march or military buffer zone established c. 795 by Charlemagne in the eastern Pyrenees and nearby areas, to protect the new territories of the Christian Carolingian Empire—the Duchy of Gascony, the Duchy of Aquitaine, and Septimania—from the Muslim Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in al-Andalus.
In its broader meaning, the Spanish March sometimes refers to a group of early Iberian and trans-Pyrenean lordships or counts coming under Frankish rule. As time passed, these lordships merged or gained independence from Frankish imperial rule.
The area of the Spanish March broadly corresponds to the eastern regions between the Pyrenees and the Ebro. The local population of the march was diverse. It included Basques in its northwestern valleys, the Jews of Occitania, and a large Occitano-Romance-speaking population governed by the Visigothic Code, all of them under the influence of al-Andalus since their lords had vowed allegiance to the Umayyad Córdoban rulers in 719, until King Pepin the Short of Francia conquered Septimania in 759. The Pyrenean valleys started to switch loyalties after 785 (Girona, Ribagorza, etc.).
The territory of the Spanish March changed with the fortunes of the empires and the feudal ambitions of those, whether counts or walis, who were appointed to administer the counties. Though owing loyalty to the Carolingian monarch, the counts became largely autonomous. Out of the welter of counties in the march, many would be absorbed by more powerful counties, leading to the predominance of the County of Barcelona, from which, along with its vassal counties, would emerge the Principality of Catalonia centuries later. Other Spanish March counties would later be absorbed into the kingdoms of Aragon or France. Only Andorra, between modern France and Spain, retained its independence.
Counties that at various times formed part of the Spanish March included Ribagorza (initially including Pallars), Urgell, Cerdanya, Peralada, Empúries, Besalú, Osona, Barcelona, and Girona. The Gothic March included Conflent, Roussillon, Vallespir and Fenouillet.
The nominal boundaries attributed to the Spanish and Gothic marches vary in time and not without confusion. Also, Navarre and Aragon have sometimes been depicted as being within the Spanish March, but formally they were not. However, they came under Carolingian overlordship between 794 and 806 as part of the Duchy of Vasconia (Gascony).
By 716, under the pressure of the Umayyad Caliphate from the south, the Kingdom of the Visigoths had been rapidly reduced to the province of Narbonensis (Septimania), a region which corresponds approximately to the modern Languedoc-Roussillon. With the exception of the Visigothic province of Septimania and some territories in the mountains of northern Hispania, the Umayyad conquest of the Visgothic Kingdom of Hispania was largely complete by 718. In 719, the Umayyad forces of al-Samh ibn Malik bypassed the Pyrenees by marching along the Mediterranean coast to conquer Septimania and established a fortified base at the city of Narbonne. Umayyad control of this frontier province was secured by offering the local population generous terms, intermarriage between ruling families, and treaties. Further Umayyad expansion northward was halted by al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlanis defeat at the Battle of Toulouse in 721. Wālis were installed in Girona and Barcelona.
In 725, his successor, Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi, besieged the city of Carcassonne, which had to agree to cede half of its territory, pay tribute, and make an offensive and defensive alliance with Muslim forces. Nîmes and all the other main Septimanian cities fell too under the sway of the Umayyads. In the 720s the savage fighting, the massacres and destruction particularly affecting the Ebro valley and Septimania unleashed a flow of refugees who mainly found shelter in southern Aquitaine across the Pyrenees, and Provence. Peace was signed in 730 between the victor at Toulouse, the Duke of Aquitaine, and Munuza, a Berber rebel Muslim lord based in Cerdanya (in current-day Catalonia), a region that could act as a buffer zone against Umayyad expansionism. The peace treaty was sealed with the marriage of the Duke’s daughter to Munuza. However, Munuza was defeated by an Umayyad military expedition in 731 during another Umayyad expansion.
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Spanish March
The Spanish March or Hispanic March was a march or military buffer zone established c. 795 by Charlemagne in the eastern Pyrenees and nearby areas, to protect the new territories of the Christian Carolingian Empire—the Duchy of Gascony, the Duchy of Aquitaine, and Septimania—from the Muslim Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in al-Andalus.
In its broader meaning, the Spanish March sometimes refers to a group of early Iberian and trans-Pyrenean lordships or counts coming under Frankish rule. As time passed, these lordships merged or gained independence from Frankish imperial rule.
The area of the Spanish March broadly corresponds to the eastern regions between the Pyrenees and the Ebro. The local population of the march was diverse. It included Basques in its northwestern valleys, the Jews of Occitania, and a large Occitano-Romance-speaking population governed by the Visigothic Code, all of them under the influence of al-Andalus since their lords had vowed allegiance to the Umayyad Córdoban rulers in 719, until King Pepin the Short of Francia conquered Septimania in 759. The Pyrenean valleys started to switch loyalties after 785 (Girona, Ribagorza, etc.).
The territory of the Spanish March changed with the fortunes of the empires and the feudal ambitions of those, whether counts or walis, who were appointed to administer the counties. Though owing loyalty to the Carolingian monarch, the counts became largely autonomous. Out of the welter of counties in the march, many would be absorbed by more powerful counties, leading to the predominance of the County of Barcelona, from which, along with its vassal counties, would emerge the Principality of Catalonia centuries later. Other Spanish March counties would later be absorbed into the kingdoms of Aragon or France. Only Andorra, between modern France and Spain, retained its independence.
Counties that at various times formed part of the Spanish March included Ribagorza (initially including Pallars), Urgell, Cerdanya, Peralada, Empúries, Besalú, Osona, Barcelona, and Girona. The Gothic March included Conflent, Roussillon, Vallespir and Fenouillet.
The nominal boundaries attributed to the Spanish and Gothic marches vary in time and not without confusion. Also, Navarre and Aragon have sometimes been depicted as being within the Spanish March, but formally they were not. However, they came under Carolingian overlordship between 794 and 806 as part of the Duchy of Vasconia (Gascony).
By 716, under the pressure of the Umayyad Caliphate from the south, the Kingdom of the Visigoths had been rapidly reduced to the province of Narbonensis (Septimania), a region which corresponds approximately to the modern Languedoc-Roussillon. With the exception of the Visigothic province of Septimania and some territories in the mountains of northern Hispania, the Umayyad conquest of the Visgothic Kingdom of Hispania was largely complete by 718. In 719, the Umayyad forces of al-Samh ibn Malik bypassed the Pyrenees by marching along the Mediterranean coast to conquer Septimania and established a fortified base at the city of Narbonne. Umayyad control of this frontier province was secured by offering the local population generous terms, intermarriage between ruling families, and treaties. Further Umayyad expansion northward was halted by al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlanis defeat at the Battle of Toulouse in 721. Wālis were installed in Girona and Barcelona.
In 725, his successor, Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi, besieged the city of Carcassonne, which had to agree to cede half of its territory, pay tribute, and make an offensive and defensive alliance with Muslim forces. Nîmes and all the other main Septimanian cities fell too under the sway of the Umayyads. In the 720s the savage fighting, the massacres and destruction particularly affecting the Ebro valley and Septimania unleashed a flow of refugees who mainly found shelter in southern Aquitaine across the Pyrenees, and Provence. Peace was signed in 730 between the victor at Toulouse, the Duke of Aquitaine, and Munuza, a Berber rebel Muslim lord based in Cerdanya (in current-day Catalonia), a region that could act as a buffer zone against Umayyad expansionism. The peace treaty was sealed with the marriage of the Duke’s daughter to Munuza. However, Munuza was defeated by an Umayyad military expedition in 731 during another Umayyad expansion.
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