ness shared by most Germanic successor-states; the military élite of Goths tried to maintain the Roman structures and lifestyle which so impressed them, while excluding the Romans from real power and wealth.

Despite the sudden collapse of the Visigothic kingdom and the rapid conversion of many Christian nobles to Islam, the legacy which it left to the medieval west was considerable. The Christians of Muslim Spain evolved a lively 'Mozarabic' culture, small but energetic Christian states were set up in the mountainous north to resist the infidel, and a diaspora of Spanish scholars and Spanish texts supplied much of the raw material for the adolescent culture of the West. At first, however, the remorseless advance of Islam continued across the Pyrenees as Arab raiders dealt a death-blow to the GalloRoman magnates of Aquitaine and Provence who had escaped from direct Merovingian control in the seventh century and reverted to an impoverished form of the autonomy which the region had enjoyed in the fifth century. The Islamic inroads were checked by the famous victory of Charles Martel, the Frankish mayor of the palace, at Poitiers in 732, and the subsequent Frankish reoccupation of southern France formed a potent barrier to further Arab expansion by land.

More important in relieving the pressure on a beleaguered Christian world was a change in the ruling dynasty of Islam. In 750 the Ummayad caliphs were overthrown by the Abbasids who removed their capital to Baghdad and initiated a shift of emphasis towards the east. Much of the original vigour of the Bedouin was lost, and the cultural and political traditions of the conquered areas reasserted themselves, especially in Persia. As these separatist tendencies came into conflict with the increased elaboration and bureaucracy of the court at Baghdad, the immense empire which stretched from the Indus to the Atlantic fragmented into smaller units. Spain was taken over by Ummayad exiles, North Africa came under the vigorous rule of the Aghlabids, and Egypt was taken over by the Tulunids.

More pressing threats to the Byzantines came from the naval power of the emergent Arab states in the west and renewed

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