Moors
Nation | Defunct
388 CE to 1539 CE
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of Berber, Black African and Arab descent from Northern Africa, some of whom came to conquer and occupy the Iberian Peninsula for nearly eight hundred years, at which time they are Muslim, although earlier the people had followed other religions.
They call the territory Al Andalus, comprising most of what is now Spain and Portugal.
"Moors" are not a distinct or self-defined people.
Medieval and early modern Europeans applied the name primarily to Berbers, but also at various times to Arabs, Muslim Iberians and West Africans from Mali and Niger who had been absorbed into the Almoravid dynasty.
Mainstream scholars observed in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica that "The term 'Moors' has no real ethnological value."
The Andalusian Moors of the late Medieval era inhabit the Iberian Peninsula after the Moorish conquests of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates.
The Moors' rule stretches at times as far as modern-day Mauritania, West African countries, and the Senegal River.
Earlier, the Classical Romans had interacted (and later conquered) parts of Mauretania, a state that covers northern portions of modern Morocco and much of north western and central Algeria during the classical period.
The people of the region are noted in Classical literature as the Mauri.
Through the cultural Arabization of Muladi (Islamicized inhabitants of former Visigothic Spain and their descendants) and their increasing intermarriage with some Berbers and Arabs present in Iberia, the distinctions between the different Muslim groups become increasingly blurred in the eleventth and twelfth centuries.
The populations mix with such rapidity that it is soon impossible to distinguish ethnically the elements of foreign origin from the natives.
Thus they merge into a more homogeneous group of Andalusi Arabs generally also called Moors.
Related Events
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A Vandal fleet and their allies (Alans, Goths and Moors) set out in the winter of 439-440 from Carthage for Sicily, the principal supplier of oil and grain to Italy after the loss of North Africa.
They loot all the coastal towns and besiege Palermo.
Heavily laden ships return to the court of king Genseric.
The Roman fleet is docked at Portus Illicitanus (near Elche) for the African campaign.
Soon after Majorian crosses from Gaul into Spain on May 460, the Vandal navy under their king Genseric makes a sudden strike on the Spanish coast, capturing most of Majorian's fleet of three hundred ships in the Bay of Alicante and subjecting the emperor to a humiliating peace.
The episcopal election of Eugenius as Bishop of Carthage had been deferred until 480, owing to the opposition of the Arian Vandal kings, and had only been permitted by King Huneric at the instance of Emperor Zeno and Placidia, into whose family the Vandals had married.
The bishop's governance, charity, austere lifestyle and courage are said to have won him the admiration of the Arians.
In his uncompromising defense of the Divinity of the word of the Bible, he is imitated by his flock, many of whom are exiled with him.
This occurs after he had admitted Vandals into the Catholic Church, contrary to royal edict, and had engaged in argument against Arian theologians, whom the king had pitted against the Catholics.
Both sides claim the name "Catholic", the Arians calling their opponents "Homoousians".
The conference of Catholic bishops with Arian bishops, held on February 1, 484, ended by the withdrawal of the chief Arian bishop on the plea that he could not speak Latin.
On February 24, the Arians being enraged, Huneric exiles forty-six bishops to Corsica and three hundred and two to the African deserts.
Among the latter is Eugenius, who under the custody of a man named Antonius dwells in the desert of Tripoli.
On setting out, he writes a letter of consolation and exhortation to the faithful of Carthage which is still extant in the works of St. Gregory of Tours (P.L., LVII, 769-71).
Additionally, Huneric murders many members of the Hasdingi dynasty and also persecutes Manichaeans.
He is succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund and because of his cruelty is little mourned by either the Vandals or their subjects.
Huneric had launched the general persecution on the Latin church apparently from genuine religious fanaticism rather than for political reasons, but his successor adopts a milder policy.Gunthamund allows Eugenius to return to Carthage and permits him to reopen the churches.
The Moors in the Aurès Mountains (in modern-day Algeria) successfully rebel from Vandal rule towards the end of Huneric’s reign.
The Vandals remain ardent Arian Christians, and their persecutions of the Latin church in Africa are at times fierce, particularly during the last years of the reign of Generic's successor, Huneric.
Not long after the ordination of Eugenius as the new Catholic bishop of Carthage, Huneric had reversed himself and began to once again persecute Catholics.
Furthermore, he tried to make Catholic property fall to the state, but when this caused too much protest from the Eastern Roman Emperor, he chose to banish a number of Catholics to a faraway province instead.
A few are martyred, including the former proconsul Victorian along with Frumentius and other wealthy merchants, who are killed at Hadrumetum after refusing to become Arians.
Vandal king Hilderic, following the death of his predecessor Thrasamund in 523, issues orders for the return of all the Catholic bishops from exile, including Boniface, a strenuous asserter of orthodoxy, bishop of the African Church.
In response, Amalfrida, Thrasamund’s widow, heads a party of revolt; she calls in the assistance of the Moors, and battle is joined at Capsa, about three hundred miles to the south of the capital, on the edge of the Libyan desert.
Amalafrida's party is beaten in 523, and Hilderic has her arrested and imprisoned in a successful bid to overthrow Ostrogothic hegemony; he also has her Gothic troops killed.
She will die in prison, exact date unknown.
Amalafrida had two children, including Theodahad, who will succeed his uncle Theodoric as King of the Ostrogoths, and Amalaberga, who had married Hermanfrid, king of the Thuringii, between 507 and 511.
It is not known who the father of these children was.
Hilderic will escape war with her brother, the Gothic king Theoderic, only by the latter's death in 526.
Constantinople, warring successfully against the Vandal kingdom in present Tunisia, formally restores Africa to imperial rule as the praetorian prefecture of Africa.
The Moorish tribes of the interior prove unwilling to accept imperial rule and soon rise up in rebellion.
Emperor Justinian I issues an edict in 535 that excludes North African Jews from public office, prohibits Jewish practice, and results in the transformation of synagogues into churches.
Many flee inland to the Berber communities of the mountains and in the desert, and eight of the tribes abandon their shamanistic pagan concepts for Judaism.
Catholics in the Vandal kingdom of North Africa have been subject to frequent persecution.
The aged Vandal king Hilderic, who had been in alliance with Constantinople and had ceased persecution of the Catholics, had been deposed in favor of Gelimer in 530, but Hilderic’s faction disputes the succession at the same time the Moorish tribes of Mauretania and southern Numidia threaten the kingdom.
Soon after Gelimer's seizure of power, his domestic position had began to deteriorate, as he has persecuted his political enemies among the Vandal nobility, confiscating their property and executing many of them.
These actions had undermined his already doubtful legitimacy in the eyes of many, and have contributed to the outbreak of two revolts in remote provinces of the Vandal kingdom: in Sardinia, where the local governor, Godas, has declared himself an independent ruler, and shortly after in Tripolitania, where the native population, led by a certain Pudentius, has rebelled against Vandal rule.
Although Procopius' narrative makes both uprisings seem coincidental, Ian Hughes points out the fact that both rebellions broke out shortly before the commencement of the Roman expedition against the Vandals, and that both Godas and Pudentius immediately asked for assistance from Justinian, as evidence of an active diplomatic involvement by the Emperor in their preparation.
(Hughes, Ian (2009).
Belisarius: The Last Roman General.
Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, LLC) In response to Godas' emissaries, Justinian details Cyril, one of the officers of the foederati, with four hundred men, to accompany the invasion fleet and then sail on to Sardinia.
Gelimer reacts to Godas' rebellion by sending the bulk of his fleet, one hundred and twenty of his best vessels, and five thousand men under his own brother Tzazon, to suppress it.
The Vandal king's decision plays a crucial role in the outcome of the war, for it removes from the scene the Vandal navy, the main obstacle to a Roman landing in Africa, as well as a large part of his army.
Gelimer also chooses to ignore the revolt in Tripolitania for the moment, as it is both a lesser threat and more remote, while his lack of manpower constrains him to await Tzazon's return from Sardinia before undertaking further campaigns.
At the same time, both rulers try to win over allies: Gelimer contacts the new Visigoth king Theudis and proposes an alliance, while Justinian secures the benevolent neutrality and support of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy, which has strained relations with the Vandals over the ill treatment of the Ostrogoth princess Amalafrida, the wife of Thrasamund.
The Ostrogoth court readily agrees to allow the Roman invasion fleet to use the harbor of Syracuse in Sicily and establish a market for the provisioning of the Roman troops there.
The Vandal state is unique in many respects among the Germanic kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire: instead of respecting and continuing the established Roman sociopolitical order, they had completely replaced it with their own.
Whereas the kings of Western Europe continue to pay deference to the emperors and mint coinage with their portraits, the Vandal kings portray themselves as fully independent rulers.
In addition, the Vandals—like most Germanics, adherents of Arianism—have persecuted the Chalcedonian majority of the local population, especially in the reigns of Huneric (r. 477–484) and Gunthamund (r. 484–496).
The emperors at Constantinople had protested at this, but the peace has held for almost sixty years, and relations have often been friendly, especially between Emperor Anastasius I (r. 491–518) and Thrasamund (r. 496–523), who had largely ceased the persecutions.
Hilderic (r. 523–530), the son of Huneric, had ascended the throne at Carthage in 523.
Himself a descendant of Valentinian III, Hilderic had realigned his kingdom and brought it closer to the Roman Empire: according to the account of Procopius (The Vandalic War, I.9) he was an unwarlike, amiable person, who ceased the persecution of the Chalcedonians, exchanged gifts and embassies with Justinian I even before the latter's rise to the throne, and even replaced his image in his coins with that of the emperor.
Justinian had evidently hoped that this rapprochement would lead to the peaceful subordination of the Vandal state to his empire.
However, Hilderic's pro-Roman policies, coupled with a defeat suffered against the Moors in Byzacena, had led to opposition among the Vandal nobility, which resulted in his overthrow and imprisonment in 530 by his cousin, Gelimer.
Justinian had seized the opportunity, demanding Hilderic's restoration, with Gelimer predictably refusing to do so.
Justinian had then demanded Hilderic's release to Constantinople, threatening war otherwise.
Geiseric was unwilling to surrender a rival claimant to Justinian, who could use him to stir up trouble in his kingdom, and probably expected war to come either way, according to J. B. Bury.
He had consequently refused Justinian's demand on the grounds that this was an internal matter among the Vandals. (Bury, John Bagnell (1923). History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian. London: MacMillan & Co.)
Justinian now had his pretext, and with peace restored on his eastern frontier with Sassanid Persia in 532, he started assembling an invasion force.
According to Procopius (The Vandalic War, I.10), the news of Justinian's decision to go to war with the Vandals caused great consternation among the capital's elites, in whose minds the disaster of 468 was still fresh.
The financial officials resent the expenditure involved, while the military is weary from the Persian war and fears the Vandals' sea-power.
The emperor's scheme receives support mostly from the Church, reinforced by the arrival of victims of renewed persecutions from Africa.
Only the powerful minister John the Cappadocian dares to openly voice his opposition to the expedition, however, and Justinian disregards it and presses on with his preparations.
Justinian selects one of his most trusted and talented generals, Belisarius, who had recently distinguished himself against the Persians and in the suppression of the Nika riots, to lead the expedition against the Vandals.
As Ian Hughes points out, Belisarius is also eminently suited for this appointment for two other reasons: he is a native Latin-speaker, and is solicitous of the welfare of the local population, keeping a tight leash on his troops.
Both these qualities will be crucial in winning support from the Latin-speaking African population.
Belisarius is accompanied by his wife, Antonina, and by Procopius, his secretary, who writes the history of the war.
(Hughes, Ian (2009).
Belisarius: The Last Roman General.
Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, LLC) According to Procopius (The Vandalic War, I.11), the army consists of ten thousand infantry, partly drawn from the field army (comitatenses) and partly from among the foederati, as well as five thousand cavalry.
There are also some fifteen hundred to two thousand of Belisarius' own retainers (bucellarii), an elite corps (it is unclear if their number is included in the five thousand cavalry mentioned as a total figure by Procopius).
In addition, there are two additional bodies of allied troops, both mounted archers, six hundred Huns and four hundrd Heruls.
The army is led by an array of experienced officers, among whom the eunuch Solomon is chosen as Belisarius' chief of staff (domesticus) and the former praetorian prefect Archelaus is placed in charge of the army's provisioning.
The whole force is transported on five hundred vessels manned by thirty thousand sailors under admiral Calonymus of Alexandria, guarded by ninety-two dromon warships.
The traditional view, as expressed by J.B.
Bury, is that the expeditionary force was remarkably small for the task, especially given the military reputation of the Vandals, and that perhaps it reflects the limit of the fleet's carrying capacity, or perhaps it was an intentional move to limit the impact of any defeat.
(Bury, John Bagnell (1923).
History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian.
London: MacMillan & Co.) Ian Hughes however comments that even in comparison with the armies of the early Roman Empire, Belisarius' army was a "large, well-balanced force capable of overcoming the Vandals and may have contained a higher proportion of high quality, reliable troops than the armies stationed in the east".
(Hughes (2009), p. 76) Amid much pomp and ceremony, with Justinian and the Patriarch of Constantinople in attendance, the Roman fleet sets sail around June 21, 533.
The initial progress is slow, as …
…the fleet spends five days at Heraclea Perinthus waiting for horses and a further four days at Abydos due to lack of wind.