Pelagius (Spanish: Pelayo; c. 685 – 737) was a Visigothic nobleman who founded the Kingdom of Asturias in 718. Pelagius is credited with initiating the Reconquista, the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, and establishing the Asturian monarchy.
The Battle of Covadonga took place in 722 between the army of Pelagius of Asturias and the army of commanders Alqama and Munuza, as part of the Umayyad Caliphate. Fought near Covadonga, in the Picos de Europa, it resulted in a victory for the Christian forces of Pelagius. It is traditionally regarded as the foundational event of the Kingdom of Asturias and thus the initial point of the Christian Reconquista ("reconquest") of Iberia after the Umayyad conquest of 711.
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The Kingdom of Asturias was a medieval monarchy in the Iberian Peninsula founded by the nobleman Pelagius. It was the first Christian political entity to be established in the Iberian Peninsula after the Umayyad conquest of Visigothic Hispania in 711–720s. In the summer of 722, Pelagius defeated an Umayyad army at the Battle of Covadonga, in what is retroactively regarded as the beginning of the Christian Reconquista.
ʿAlqama or ʿAlḳama (Arabic: علقمة) was a distinguished Umayyad general who served in northern Iberia at the beginning of the 8th century.
By order of Munuza, governor of the Kingdom of Asturias, Al Qama commanded an army tasked to end the riot of Pelagius of Asturias. Al Qama's army arrived and set up camp in the Cantabrian Mountains near the town of Covadonga where Pelagius was hiding. After Pelagius refused to surrender, Al Qama ordered his soldiers to enter the mountain pass where they were ambushed in the ensuing Battle of Covadonga. Al Qama was killed and his army dispersed and retreated from Asturias.
Uthman ibn Naissa (Arabic: عثمان بن نيساء), better known as Munuza, was a Berber governor (wali) who established an independent power base in Cerdanya on the eastern Pyrenees (in modern-day southern France) around 731 CE, breaking away from the Umayyad Caliphate. He was the wali of Narbonne and Cerdagne, in addition to the Spanish territory of Catalonia. To solidify his position, he formed an alliance with the Duke of Aquitaine, Odo the Great, and married his daughter Lampegia. He was eventually defeated by the Umayyad forces of Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah al-Ghafiqi. Munuza's defeat was followed by Umayyad forces turning their attention to Odo, which led to the Umayyad victory at the Battle of the River Garonne.
Munuza is depicted in different contradictory chronicles during the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. He is also possibly the same man as the governor of León and/or Gijón defeated by Pelagius in the late 710s/early 720s. Munuza is also believed to have been a companion of the Berber leader Tariq ibn Ziyad.
The Victory Cross (Asturian and Spanish: Cruz de la Victoria) is an early 10th-century Asturian jewelled cross (crux gemmata) gifted by King Alfonso III of Asturias, who reigned from 866 to 910, to the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo (Asturias, Spain). It was made in 908 in the Castle of Gauzón.
At its core is an oakwood cross, in legend identified with a cross carried by King Pelagius of Asturias when his Christian forces defeated the Umayyad Caliphate troops in the Battle of Covadonga (722), which is regarded as the foundational event of the early medieval Kingdom of Asturias in northern Spain.