Ferdinand I This paper will discuss the life of

This paper will discuss the life of Ferdinand I, also known as Fernando I, ruler of LTon, Castile, Galicia and the Rioja from 1035 to 1065. The first part of the paper will provide some background to Ferdinand's reign, examining the respective situations of the Moorish empire in Spain and the Christian kingdoms in northern Spain. The second part of the paper will look at the career of Ferdinand I and provide some detail of his role in the Christian Reconquest of Spain. The third part of the paper will discuss some of the reasons for the success of the Christians in weakening the Moorish empire in Spain during the Eleventh Century.

Since the beginning of the Tenth Century, the area comprising northern Spain was controlled by Christians. Muslim forays into southern France had ended two centuries earlier as the Merovingian forces proved too powerful to be overcome by the disunited Moors. Between the end of these expeditions and the establishment of the Spanish caliphate by Abd al-Rahman III in 929, the Spanish Muslims attempted to bring the whole of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim control. Civil wars within the Muslim empire in Spain, however, prevented this from becoming reality and until the accession of Abd al-Rahman III to the emirate the Christian kingdoms in the north were able to keep Muslim forces off balance with raids and excursions into al-Andulus (Moorish Spain). Abd al-Rahman, however, proved to be a strong ruler and he brough

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he other in order to prevent the emergence of a single dominant kingdom. The grand scheme behind this policy was to weaken and exhaust the Muslim kingdoms until the Christians could march in and take over the kingdom. In this way, they planned to reconquer Spain. The quarrels and conflicts between the various Christian kingdoms were serious enough, however, to prevent any unification of kingdoms until the Eleventh Century. This state of affairs reflected the long-term policy of the Muslims, which was intended to divide the Christians in order to keep them from gaining too much strength. This policy had been successfully employed by Abd al-Rahman III and al-Mansur during the previous century and it was not until the fall of the caliphate and the employment of the same strategy against the Muslims by the Christians that any unity between the Christian kingdoms could be achieved. Life of Ferdinand I In 1035 a ruler appeared in LTon who was finally able to unite some of the Christian kingdoms. Ferdinand I, also known as Fernando I, was the son of Sancho the Great of Navarre. Sancho had been able to combine the kingdoms of Navarre and Castile and occupy most of LTon. When he died, however, the kingdoms were again split

Category: History - F