Reconquista as part of the Crusades

Why is the "reconquista" of the iberian peninsula not really treated as a proper series of crusades in the modern imaginary?
All the discussion seems to divert towards the middle eastern crusades and to a lesser extent towards the baltic crusades, when in Iberia there was even a pilgrimage point, Santiago de Compostela, that was considered second only to the Holy Land in the christian imaginary.

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Pretty sure the church has to approve it officially or it's not a crusade.

The Reconquista wasn't a single conflict, but a series of conected conflicts. Some of those conflicts were and are considered crusades. Crusaders travelled to Iberia and cavalry orders from outside and from the land were established to fight the moors. Never seen anybody denying it.

Depends on your sources, from the Iberian perspective it was a mission from God, while also functioning as a way to prove that the Iberians belonged in European affairs as an equal.

The church didn't technically start reconquista, but they did advocate it and so I think that might be why the Spanish identify reconquista as a Spanish duty to Christendom as opposed to all Christians needing to serve reconquista.

>Why is the "reconquista" of the iberian peninsula not really treated as a proper series of crusades in the modern imaginary?

because it isnt

its the ''reconquista''

not a series of crusades

Reconquista as a general process in which there were several papal sanctioned crusades.
Crusade is not a term used to only refer to religious conflicts in the Middle East

>God, while also functioning as a way to prove that the Iberians belonged in European affairs as an equal.
they didn't care that much about that, by the fourtheen century both Castille and Aragon were amongst the richest, most militarily powerfull european kingdoms, and traditionally kept to themselves and their areas of influence (the mediterranean and Occitania for Aragon and the Cantabrian and Northern seas for Castille) witouth giving much of a fuck about the res of europe, at least until the Italian Wars

For example, the most famous battle in the Reconquista, Las Navas de Tolosa, was fought in the context of a crusade.

After being defeated by the Almohades, the king of Castille seeked the aid of the Pope for the next battle. Innocent II, who would later call a crusade against the cathars (ironically gaining the enmity of one of the hero's of the Navas) and the infamous 4th Crusade, declared a crusade asking to the christan kingdoms to help the iberians. A lot of crusaders, mostly french, joined the campaign. Also crusaders from iberian kingdoms whose kings didn't want to help Castille directly. Most of the non-iberian crusaders actually deserted before the Navas happened because they judged the castilian king to not be harsh enough with the conquered muslims and jews, but that's another story.

>Navas happened because they judged the castilian king to not be harsh enough with the conquered muslims and jews,
But wasn't Aragón the main iberian kingdom participating in las Navas de Tolosa (in terms of direct involvement at least), rather than Castille?

that same way you can look at the 1200-1300 series of wars betveen croat, hungarian and bosnian kings/nobility, and say it was a series of crusades because the hungarian crown sent a couple of vatican approved crusades against bosna

It should be mentioned that Iberia is fucking hugue for european standards. Spain is the second biggest country in the EU (4th in Europe) and it doesn't even control all of it, there's Portugal too. The iberians had enough "playground" even if they had stayed only in the peninsula.

Because they're completely different things in every way?

The Crusades were armed pilgrimages preached by the Church, the Reconquista was just Spanish Christians taking their land back.

What the fuck, no. It was Castille, Aragon and Navarra. The three kings joined in an alliance and they all participated, but they were defending castillian lands. And let's be fair even if that wasn't the case Castille was the biggest, most populated and most powerful kingdom.

Several wars in the reconquista were crusades.

>armed pilgrimages preached by the Church
those were the initial movements of the reconquista, frankish pilgrims trying to reach Santiago in a path that was constantly being contested between Asturias and the moors
Also, there were several crusades, the term does not only refer to the middle eastern wars, it was a papal sanctioned term that refer to a very wide variety of conflicts, like
or the Baltic conflicts against polytheist pagans that devolved to a merchantile driven conflict between the Teutonic Order and several other regional powers, pagan or not

read some contemporary sources on this like Carole Hillenbrand and Norman Housely.

The idea of "a spanish people" did not exist back then. Spanish as a language did not even exist at the time of the reconquista. These battles were sanctioned by the church in the Vatican in the same way has the crusades launched by Frankish kings on the the Holy Land and Tunis.

The reconquista are actually sometimes considered crusades. And it is more often than you would think.

Yes I know it was a coalition, but I was under the impression that Aragon was the foremost presence in that particular battle, regardless of the individual power of each christian kingdom.
I say this because all the fame the aragonese king gained, enough for him to actually plan to annex occitania during the albigensian crusade, as (If I remember correctly), riding on the fame he had gained from Navas de Tolosa

I remember reading about Iberian exclusion from a couple of books on the italian states, but maybe they played it up to benefit storytelling on the Borgias.

(first of all, sorry for being unable to find a picture in english, hope it's still half comprehensive)

The three of them got pretty famous since, like I said, it was the most important battle in Iberia since Covadonga. What's more, the most decisive moment of the battle happened when the three kings charged uphill against the moors and made them flee.

Indeed Peter of Aragon had a lot to be proud of after that battleand would be well remembered if it wasn't for Muret.

10/10 cross

The siege of Lisbon was the only sucess of the second crusade.
Half the portuguese army was made of crusader travelling to the Holly Land.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Lisbon

Because Spics were also fighting each other at the same time.