The Spanish March or Hispanic March[1] was a military buffer zone established c. 795 by Charlemagne in the eastern Pyrenees and nearby areas, to protect the new territories of the Christian Carolingian Empire—the Duchy of Gascony, the Duchy of Aquitaine, and Septimania—from the Muslim Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in al-Andalus.
In its broader meaning, the Spanish March sometimes refers to a group of early Iberian and trans-Pyrenean lordships or counts coming under Frankish rule. As time passed, these lordships merged or gained independence from Frankish imperial rule.[2]
- ^ (Spanish: Marca Hispánica, Catalan: Marca Hispànica, Aragonese and Occitan: Marca Hispanica, Basque: Hispaniako Marka, French: Marche d'Espagne)
- ^ Chandler, Cullen J. (2013). "Carolingian Catalonia: The Spanish March and the Franks, c.750-c.1050: Carolingian Catalonia". History Compass. 11 (9): 739–750. doi:10.1111/hic3.12078.