Reconquista ideology revived Gothic kingship with biblical typology, ignoring Cordovan martyrs

Evidence

This battle (subsequently known as Covadonga), whether or not it ever took place, would become the cornerstone of the ideology of reconquista: Pelayo provided a genealogical link (real or fictitious) with the Gothic past and the clear sense of a mission to reinstate Gothic hegemony over the entire Iberian peninsula. Knowledge of the religion of the Muslim other was available and at times was used (the Prophetic Chronicle incorporates the Life of Muhammad from Eulogius’s Liber apologeticus martyrum) but was not essential. The Mozarab chroniclers who helped forge this prophetic vision certainly knew of the martyr movement in Córdoba, yet they say nothing about it: the protagonists in this new drama are the Asturian kings, and the martyrs are of no apparent use to Asturian royal ideology. Potentially, Oviedo’s ideologues could have made good use of the martyrs (and of the writings of their apologists) to paint the Cordovan emirs as persecutors of Christians. Surprisingly, neither they nor later Spanish chroniclers exploited the martyrdoms in this way: they are scarcely if ever mentioned by later Iberian authors. What these chroniclers did inherit and adapt from Eulogius and Alvarus was the ability to see their own struggles through the magnifying lens of the Old Testament prophets. The Muslims were the Chaldeans, who ruled from Babylon, and whose oppressive reign was ordained by God to punish the sins of the chosen people. Yet God had not completely abandoned his people, and a renewed Christian monarchy would restore its hegemony over the promised land. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 567