High Middle Ages · Europe · Politics

1031

Cordoba Caliphate formally dissolved

1031

Andalusian notables in Cordoba, unable to tolerate any more pretenders, abolished the office of caliph altogether and declared themselves a republic. The taifas were now fully independent, from Seville's poets to Granada's Berber warlords. Political fragmentation paradoxically fed a golden age of literature and philosophy, as rival courts competed to attract the finest scholars, poets, and musicians that al-Andalus could produce.