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To: BarbaricGrandeur
It's hardly propaganda. With the fall of the Umayyad dynasty back home in Mesopotamia, you had a tremendous influx of Moslems into Spain.

That's when the Ladino speaking Jews also arrived.

Conversions were numerous even when not coerced.

We are discussing a VERY LONG period of time in a unique civilization.

The Islamicization of Classical Spain was quite thorough until the Reconquista really got going, and that took several hundred years.

Your reference to "Medieval" is not informative since this history runs from 711AD, which is clearly "Dark Ages", or the earliest part of the Medieval period, and does not end until 1492. That's roughly 781 years ~ a coon's age fur shur. Conditions during the latter part of that period in Spain were far different than conditions during the earlier part.

69 posted on 12/29/2006 1:39:29 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
The term “dark ages” I don't credit. It is a thesis now out of date. Once upon a time the entire period, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, to the 15th century was called “The Dark Ages,” then historians began talking about the “Renaissance of the 14th century.” Then of the 12th, and then the Carolingian Renaissance, and the Merovingian Renaissance. After awhile talking about the “Dark Ages” became passé. So when I refer to something medieval I'm talking about most of the period between the fall of the Western Empire and the breakup of Christendom. Although you know damn well what I was talking about when I referred to “Gothic Spain.”

The fact remains, that the overwhelming majority of the subject population, descendants of the Hispaniae of Roman times, where Catholics ; even though their influence was limited in the Visigothic Arian court (in fact the Suevi, the other Germanic tribe to settle in Spain, had already been converted to Catholicism even before the Goths).

In the late 6th century Visigothic Spain was brought into the Catholic fold, like most of the barbarian kingdoms, by a Catholic princess. Ingunthis, of the Merovingian court, was married to Hermengild, son of Leovigild king of the Goths. It would seem that, as did Clovis over Clotilda, Hermengild fell in love with Ingunthis. His Catholic wife, with the help of St. Leander Bishop of Seville, brought him to the true Church of God. This lead to a quasi civil war between son and father, the latter who wanted Hermengild to recant and come back to Arianism. The Catholic peasants of course favored Hermengild and proclaimed him king though neither he nor his father were willing to move directly against the other at first. Eventually though war did breakout and Hermengild was captured, offered the chance to apostatize, he refused and was martyred in 585 ad. Nevertheless his brother Reccared, who inherited the throne on the death of Leovigild the next year, was also sympathetic to his brothers faith. He had his brother's murderers executed and in 587 convened a synod of both Arian and Catholic Bishops in which he announced his own conversion (he had also been instructed in the faith by St. Leander).

The Council of Toledo in 589 spells it out clearly “We confess, then, that we are converted to the catholic Church from the Arian heresy, with all our hearts, with all our soul and with all our mind.” (García Villada, Historia eclesiástica de Españ, II, p 71.).

So, Spain is Catholic, however you want to cut it, BFORE the Muslims bloody invasion in the 8th century. period. Go find some other thread to post your Muslim lies on.

70 posted on 12/29/2006 11:38:15 PM PST by BarbaricGrandeur
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