Tag: Navarre

Navarre (Spanish: Navarra, IPA: [naˈβara]; Basque: Nafarroa, IPA: [nafaroa]), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre (Spanish: Comunidad Foral de Navarra; Basque: Nafarroako Foru Erkidegoa) is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France. The capital is the city of Pamplona.
During the time of the Roman Empire, the territory of the province was inhabited by the Vascones, a pre-Roman tribe who populated the southern slopes of the Pyrenees. In the northern, mountaineous areas the Vascones escaped large-scale Roman settlement but not so in the flatter areas to the south which were amenable to large-scale Roman farming.
The area was never fully subjugated either by the Visigoths or by the Moors. In AD 778, the Basques defeated a Frankish army in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. Two generations later, in 824, the chieftain Iñigo Arista was chosen King of Pamplona, laying a foundation for the later Kingdom…