Sebastian further adds that 375,000 Moors took refuge in France from the divine vengeance. His generosity with his numerals equals his liberality with miracles, but is more confusing. The result of the battle, however, was most definite. Al-Khaman and his colleague Suleiman were both killed.[a]
[718-739 A.D.]
Oppas, too, is said to have been taken prisoner, and justly put to death for his treachery. This was splendid success; but it was almost equalled by the defeat of Manuza. This chief, who was then governor of a northern city, hearing of the disastrous defeat of his countrymen, and apprehensive that the enemy would soon be upon him, ordered his troops to retreat; but he was overtaken, defeated, and slain by the Asturian hero. These memorable events fixed the destiny of the infant kingdom; they were the first of a succession of triumphs which, though sometimes tardy, and often neutralised by accident, ended in the final expulsion of the invaders from the peninsula. The Asturias were now left in the undisturbed possession of the Christians, nor were the Mohammedans for some years in any disposition to assail their formidable neighbours.
The remainder of Pelayo’s reign is unknown: it was probably passed in peace. He died in 737, and was buried in the church of St. Eulalia, at Cangas de Onis. Of Favila, the son and successor of Pelayo, nothing is known beyond his brief reign and tragical death. In 739, he was killed by a boar while hunting near the church of the Holy Cross, which he had founded.
ALFONSO THE CATHOLIC (739-757 A.D.)
[739-757 A.D.]
Alfonso I, surnamed the Catholic, a son-in-law of Pelayo, descended, we are told, from Leuvigild, was the next prince on whom the suffrages of the Asturians fell: not that Favila left no children; but they were doubtless of tender age, and therefore unfitted for bearing so heavy a burden as the duties of monarchy in times so critical.[21] Besides, among these rude mountaineers, hereditary right seems to have been as much unknown as among their Gothic fathers; the crown, however, was always confined to the same family, and the election was generally sure to fall on the next prince in succession, provided he was not disqualified for the dignity either by age, or impotence of body or of mind.
Though no record remains of Alfonso’s battles with the Arabs, it is certain that he must have been victor in several; for he made ample additions to his territories. Lugo, Orense, and Tuy, in Galicia; Braga, Oporto, Viseu, and Chaves, in Lusitania; Leon, Astorga, Simancas, Zamora, Salamanca, and Ledesma, in the kingdom of Leon; Avila, Sepulveda, Segovia, Osma, Corunna del Condé, Lara, and Saldaña, in Castile—these, and many other places of less note, were reduced by him. It appears, however, that he acted with cruelty towards the Mohammedan inhabitants, whom he exterminated to make room for his Christian colonists.[22] Biscay, too, and Navarre, obeyed Alfonso; so that his kingdom extended from the western shores of Galicia into Aragon, and from the Cantabrian Sea to the southern boundary of the Tierra de Campos; that is, over about one-fourth of all Spain. To account for the rapidity and extent of these conquests—conquests, however, which for the most part were frequently lost and regained in succeeding wars,—the reader has only to remember the civil dissensions of Mohammedan Spain some years prior to the accession of the caliph Abd ar-Rahman.
But Alfonso was not merely a conqueror: the colonies which he established, the towns which he founded or restored, the churches which he built or repaired, are justly adduced as signal monuments of his patriotism and religious zeal. Hence the appellation of “Catholic”—an appellation which continues at the present day. His end happened in 757.[h]
In the chronicle of Alfonso the reign of the first Alfonso is treated with great reverence and his death thus described: