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728) founded Oviedo. He was assassinated, and was succeeded by several insignificant kings (Aurelio, Si- lio, Mauregato, and Bermudo I, tlie Deacon) and at last by Alfonso I, the Chaste, who set up his Court at Oviedo, recommenced the great expeditions against the Arabs, and seems to have invited Charlemagne to come to Asturias, thus occasioning the Prankish monarch's expedition which ended in the disaster of Ronccsvalles.

In this region occurred the discovery of the body of St. James (Santiago) at Compostela. Ramiro I repelled the Northmen who tried to effect a landing in Asturias. To him legend attributes the victory of Clavijo. According to this legend, Mauregato had promised the Moors a tribute of one hundred maidens, which Ramiro refused to pay. In the battle that en- sued, the Apostle St. James, Patron of the Spaniards, was seen fighting, mounted on a white charger — ' ' Es visus in Pra?ho, equoque et ense acerrimus, mauros furentes sternere" as the Spanish Breviary has it. This king is said to have made the "Vow of Santi- ago", bj' which he bound himself to pay a certain tribute to the Chui-ch of Compostela. Modern critics pronounce the document apocryphal, but the national tradition loses none of its force thereby. Ordoiio I emulated the exploits of Ramiro, driving back the Northmen and defeating the Moors at Albelda; he also rebuilt Leon, Tuy, Astorga, and other cities. Al- fonso III, the Great, continued the forays as far as the Sierra Morena, and foimded Burgos, the future capi- tal of Castile. His sons rebelled against him, and he abdicated the Crown, dividing his dominions among them. With him ended the Kingdom of Asturias, the territory of which soon became subject to Leon.

Another raUying-point of the Reconquest was Ara- gon; the other two, Navarre and Catalonia, were placed by the circumstances of their origin in peculiar relations with France. The Basques on either side of the Western Pyrenees, dissatisfied with Prankish rule, rebelled on several occasions. At Roncesvalles they annihilated the armies of Charlemagne, and in 824 another victory secured the independence of the Basques of Pamplona. The names and dates of their kings, or chieftains, are very uncertain until we come to Sancho II, Abarca. He abdicated in favour of his son Garcia III, the Trembler, in whose time the Lco- nese and Navarrese together were routed at Valdejun- quera. Sancho III, the Great, was one of the mon- archs who most influenced Spanish history; he was eventually King of Navarre, Castile, Aragon, and So- brarbe. At his death (1035) he divided his kingdoms, giving Navarre to his eldest .son Garcia, Castile, with the title of King, to Pernando, Aragon to Ramiro, and Sobrarbe to Gonzalo. This fashion of regarding the various states as patrimonial possessions — an idea borrowed from Prench feudalism, and previously unknown in the Spanish kingdoms — was introduced at this time; it resulted in the numerous divisions which led to so many wars and which long formed an obstacle to the unity of the Reconquest in the West. (On the origin of the Countship of Barcelona, the fourth cen- tre of the Reconquest, see Catalonia).

As the Reconquest advanced, the churches de- stroyed by the Mohammedan invasion were restored. The Reconquest went forward in the name of the Holy Paith. Alfonso I of Asturias, surnamed the Catholic, restored a great many churches; Alfonso II. the Chaste, founded the Dioci'so of Oviedo and built its first cathedral and the royal burial-place. The Dio- ceses of Pamplona and Sasave corresponded to the nascent Kingdoms of Navan'e and Aragon, while in Catalonia the Diocese of Urgel seems never to have ceased to exist, and thai of (Icrona was soon restored. Unhappily (listiMgiiishcd iuuong the bishops of Urge! is Pelix, wlio, with Elipaiidd of Toledo, onibra(^ed the Adoptionist heresy, asserting that Christ is the adopt- ive son of God. This heresy was combated by Theo-

dulus, Bishop of Seville, by Etherius of Osma, and by St. Beatus of Licbana, and was condemned by the Council of Ratisbon. In the same period lived el Pacense, Isidore, Bishop of Beja, whose Chronicle, a continuation of St. Isidore's, begins at the year 610 and ends with 754.

As the year 1000 approached, it seemed that the Kingdom of Christ in Spain was about to be anni- hilated by the terrible and victorious expeditions of Almanzor. A second restoration began gloriously with Perdinand (Pernando) I, who assembled the Council of Coyanza (Valencia de Don Juan), obtained from the King of Seville the rehcs of St. Isidore, which were translated to Leon, and fostered the Churches of Coimbra, Leon, Santiago, and Oviedo, and the mon- asteries of Oiia, Arlanza, and Sahagun. Pernando Gonzdlez, Count of Castile, restored the monastery of Silos, which has now been reoccupied by French Bene- dictines. Sancho the Elder restored and reformed many monasteries, and brought the Cluniac monks into "Spain. Alfonso VI transferred to Burgos the an- cient See of Valpuesta. During the same period the Dioceses of Osma, Sigiienza (1102), Segovia (1120), Salamanca, and Zamora were restored. Perdinand II of Leon erected the Diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo, re- storing the old Diocese of Cahabria (1171), Alfonso VII re-established that of Coria, and Alfonso VIII of Castile founded that of Plasencia. St. Olegario pre- pared the way for the restoration of the metropolitan See of Tarragona, which had his successor, Gregorio, for its first archbishop (1137). But eminent above all the other churches of Spain was that of Santiago de Compostela, to which was united the ancient Bishopric of Iria. The famous Don Diego Gelmirez, having been elected bishop (1100), raised the number of canons from twenty-four to seventy-two, ob- tained from Rome the ratification of the Vow of Santiago, as well as the privilege of wearing mitre.s for the canons, and at last made Compostela the archiepis- copal see of the Province of Meiida, or Emerita.

As early as the eiglith iciitury there existed the monasteries of San Millan (or S. Emihano), Sahagtin (S. Facundo), S. Vicente de Oviedo, and Sta. Maria de Obona, and in Catalonia that of Sta. Mai-ia de La- vax. In the ninth century two hundred monks of the monastery of Cardena, near Burgos, suffered martyr- dom. Prom the monastery of Moreruela, on the banks of the River Esla, its two founders, St. Proilan and St. Atilanus, went to occujiy the Sees of Leon and Zamora. St. Eulogius has left us an account of the monasteries which he visited in the ninth century — S. Salvador of Leire, S. Zacarias, LTrdax, S. Martin de CiUas, and S. Vicente de Igal. That of S. Cugat, in Catalonia, seems to date from Gothic times, while the first independent count founded those of Ripoll and Montserrat. In the eleventh century the Cluniac Re- form was introduced into Spain. Bernard, formerly a monk of Saint-Orenee at Aux, planted it at Sahagun, making the monastery there the mother-house of the reformed branch in Spain, as Cluny was in Prance. The migration of Prench monks into Spain made its influence felt in the famous reform of the Mozarabic Rite, for which the Roman was substituted. Known also as the Isidorean, or Spanish, Rite, the former was abolished in Aragon in 1071, through the exertions of the Cluniacs and the queen, who was a Frenchwoman, and the Roman Rite was fii-st introduced in the Clu- niac monastery of S. Juan de la Pena. The same in- novation was made a little later in Catalonia, and in 1076 in Navarre. The Castilians offered a strong resistance to the supplanting of tlicir ancient rite, and Po|)e John X, having sent tlie Legate Zanelo to ex- amine anil rei)ort on it, ap|)roved it. Fifty years later, Alexander II sent Cardinal Hugo Candido, but neither would hi' undertake to make any change. Gregory VII sent Cardinal Ricardo, who, together with Alfonso VI, the conqueror of Toledo, decreed the