Kingdom of Asturias

The Kingdom of Asturias was the first Christian political entity raised in Iberia after the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic kingdom, founded by the nobleman Pelagius, who in the summer of 722 beat an Umayyad army at Covadonga, the fight later taken as the opening of the Reconquista. The Asturian kings made peace with the Muslims whenever they needed a free hand against Basques and Galicians: Fruela I fought both, Silo kept peace with Cordoba but not with Galicia, and under Alfonso II the kingdom was firmly planted, with the king recognised by Charlemagne and the Pope, Galicia and the Basques conquered, the supposed bones of St James found at Compostela, and pilgrim roads tying the once isolated kingdom to the Carolingian world. Alfonso emptied the Bardulian border to fill the lands north of the mountains, grew strong enough to sack Lisbon, Zamora and Coimbra for plunder and tribute, and beat a Muslim army at Lutos; when he died, Ramiro I seized the throne from the palace count Nepotian in a coup, blinded him and put him in a monastery. Ramiro's men also beat off a Viking raid in 844, and under Alfonso III, when Umayyad rule in al-Andalus broke down, the kingdom pushed its frontier far south, the prelude to the move of the court to León.