[juunpp]

Named by whom? The term did not even show up until the 20th century, so it wasn't the christians who named it like that. Pure Spanish myth. Oh, and the battle that started it all? Never even existed. Pure historical revisionism for nationalistic purposes with no more reality that horned vikings.

There are many things wrong with the term. A "reconquest" also makes it sound like the area was under siege by the Arabs or something. But the fact of the matter is that the peninsula, except for perhaps the Basque country, has been a melting pot of cultures under the succession of rules by larger empires. It's not like those christians, or the "Spanish", held control at some point, lost it, and then got it back; they never had it in the first place or even existed as a nation. So it's just a ridiculous term altogether.

https://www.lavanguardia.com/historiayvida/20191208/47205574...

https://blogs.elpais.com/historias/2015/04/la-batalla-de-cov...

[WorkerBee28474]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4ovuao/la_re...

[juunpp]

This just confirms the point I made above about naming. What's your point exactly?

[jl6]

It seems to directly contradict a lot of what you've said in this thread about the idea of a reconquest being a modern historiographic invention.

[cryptonector]

The point about the naming isn't very interesting. The concept existed since medieval times. In the 18th century it got termed reconquista. Later, in the 19th century it got capitalized. None of that is 20th century Francoist propaganda even if Franco did also push the concept.

[xeromal]

Regardless of the term I'm glad it happened

[juunpp]

Why?

[kyleee]

Red wine and tapas instead of the religion of peace?

[Tainnor]

It wasn't all sunshine and roses back then. When the Reconquista was completed, one of the first thing Spain did was expel all the Jews. Jews could in theory convert to Christianity instead, but then they became the prime targets of the Spanish Inquisition.

We should be careful not mindlessly apply our modern ideas of Islam and Christianity to a completely different time period.

[ywvcbk]

> It's not like those christians

In their view they did, the existence of the “Spanish nation” is tangential. From their perspective they were culturally/politically Christians and whatever exact language they happened to speak was secondary to that. So in that it was obviously a “reconquest” from the perspective of the Christians living in Iberia.

> So it's just a ridiculous term altogether.

Hardly more ridiculous than claiming that the fact that some common Spanish national identity didn’t exist back in the 1100s is somehow relevant.