<P> The impact of Visigothic rule was not widely felt on society at large, and certainly not compared to the vast bureaucracy of the Roman Empire; they tended to rule as barbarians of a mild sort, uninterested in the events of the nation and economy, working for personal benefit, and little literature remains to us from the period . They did not, until the period of Muslim rule, merge with the Spanish population, preferring to remain separate, and indeed the Visigothic language left only the faintest mark on the modern languages of Iberia . </P> <P> The most visible effect was the depopulation of the cities as they moved to the countryside . Even while the country enjoyed a degree of prosperity when compared to the famines of France and Germany in this period, the Visigoths felt little reason to contribute to the welfare, permanency, and infrastructure of their people and state . This contributed to their downfall, as they could not count on the loyalty of their subjects when the Moors arrived in the 8th century . </P> <P> The Arab Islamic conquest dominated most of North Africa by 710 AD . In 711 an Islamic Berber conquering party, led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, was sent to Iberia to intervene in a civil war in the Visigothic Kingdom . Tariq's army contained about 7,000 Berber horsemen, and Musa bin Nusayr is said to have sent an additional 5,000 reinforcements after the conquest . Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, they won a decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigothic King Roderic was defeated and killed on July 19 at the Battle of Guadalete . </P> <P> Tariq's commander, Musa, quickly crossed with Arab reinforcements, and by 718 the Muslims were in control of nearly the whole Iberian Peninsula . The advance into Western Europe was only stopped in what is now north - central France by the West Germanic Franks under Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732 . </P>

Who conquered the spain peninsula in the 8th century