Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/351

 EXPANSION OF CHRISTENDOM 303 Zalaca in west central Spain. The advent of these barbar- ous tribes of the desert was unfavorable to the civilization which had hitherto flourished in Mohammedan Spain, nor did they build up a strong state. More intolerant than previous Mohammedan rulers, they provoked their Chris- tian subjects the more to revolt. Christian knights from beyond the Pyrenees, especially from southern France, participated in the recovery of the Spanish peninsula from the Moslems and re- Knights ceived lands for their pains. The Cistercian and monks monks, at St. Bernard's suggestion, spread to m pam Spain in the twelfth century. Various military orders — some of them general European organizations like the Templars and Hospitalers, others special Spanish and Por- tuguese Orders — also established themselves in the pen- insula and received vast grants of land. Portugal began its separate history in 1095, when the aforesaid Alfonso VI of Castile gave his natural daughter, together with the Counties of Oporto and Coim- „ , tt r t* rir. Portugal bra, to Henry of Burgundy, one of the foreign feudal nobles who had been aiding him in his struggle against the Almoravides. In the first half of the twelfth century the Count of Portugal became a vassal of the pope and agreed to pay him four ounces of gold a year. When in 11 79 the pope added the royal title, he received a thousand byzants on the spot and the annual payment was increased to a hundred gold pieces. The King of Aragon, too, was a papal vassal and since the eleventh century had paid a handsome yearly tribute. Aragon began to extend its borders early in the twelfth century, and in 1137 it was enlarged by the marriage of its infant queen with Ramon Berengar, Count of Barcelona and Provence. This transformed Ara- gon, hitherto an inland kingdom, into a great maritime power with a long Mediterranean coast-line. Provence passed to a French line in the thirteenth century, but Cata- lonia or the County of Barcelona remained a permanent part of the Kingdom of Aragon henceforth.