Spain, Portugal, and the Invention of Western Power
A Milestone Documents E-text
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Abstract

In the year 700, most of Europe was thoroughly disunited into small principalities, none of them tenable against determined invaders. Especially typical was the Iberian Peninsula, the future home of the nation-states of Spain and Portugal. Expansionist Arab Muslim armies occupied the peninsula throughout the eighth century; by century's end, divisions in the Arab-dominated empires would make Iberia one of three major centers of power in the Muslim Mediterranean. Christians were not persecuted, but Christianity was clearly subordinated to the military power of the Muslims, and such princely powers as there were in Iberia were thoroughly humiliated by their secondary status.

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