The Iberian Peninsula had slowly slipped from Christendom control due to numerous invasions by the Moslems, and by the eighth century, an Islamic state existed well inland, with its main city of Cordoba becoming the largest western European city by the tenth century. As the Frankish empire began to lose its power and influence in the middle ninth century, the 'flood-gates' to the Spanish west were opened for Moorish attacks, and following the sack of Barcelona in 852, the Spanish March fractured into numerous counties. …
