THE CHRISTIAN REALMS 225that there may once have existed a continuation of Isidore's work
from the reign of Suinthila up to that of Reccesuinth, no trace of
such a work is otherwise known. The real authors of these chronicles
are unknown, but their writings testity to the interest in history in the
Christian courts of northern Spain in the late ninth and early tenth
centuries. Alfonso III may well have commissioned both the Albelda
Chronicle and the one that bears his name. The Roda version of the
latter was included in an early tenth-century manuscript compiled for
the Navarrese court at Najera.
Inevitably the perspective of these works on the early period of the
history of the Asturian kingdom was coloured by developments which
had taken place closer to the time of their being written. The signifi-
cance of Pelagius' initial victory over the Arabs at Covadonga has
been exaggerated and the event itself possibly misdated; also the
conscious presentation of the Asturian kingdom as the heir and suc-
cessor to that of Toledo was a product of the reign of Alfonso II and
not inherent from the start. Although there is much force to these
and other criticisms and some of these distortions of perspective can
be detected and compensated for, the lack of surviving evidence from
the earlier centuries leaves no alternative to the looking back over
the history of this small kingdom through the eyes of the court
historians of the reigns of Alfonso III and his sons.
Taking either the traditional date of 718, or, as has been recently
argued as being more probable, that of 722, it was only a few years
after the Arab victory over the Visigoths before the Asturias was in
revolt against its new masters. A defeat of the Arab or Berber garrison
and the death in battle of the governor of Gij6n cleared the province
of them once and for all. In retrospect the battle at Covadonga,
which may in reality have been a very small-scale affair, represents the
first stage of the gradual Christian recovery of the peninsula, the
Reconquista; however in the context of the early eighth century it may
perhaps typity the advantage that this, and other related northern
mountain areas, were quick to take over central authority should the
latter seem weak. There may be more continuity here with the kind
of resistance that the Asturians, Cantabrians and Basques presented
to the Romans and the Visigoths than later interpretations of the
victory might have us believe. Before the late ninth century the battle
of Covadonga had taken on quite legendary proportions. The wooden
cross borne before Pelagius in the fray became a sacred treasure for
his descendants, one of whom, Alfonso III, had it encased in gold and