<P> The Eastern Roman Empire sent its navy on numerous occasions at the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th centuries to try and instill uprisings in the Jewish and Christian Roman populations in Spain and Gaul against Visigoth and Frankish rule, which was also aimed at halting the expansion of Muslim Arabs in the Roman world . </P> <P> In AD 694, at the council of Toledo, Jews were condemned to slavery by the Visigoths because of a plot to revolt against them encouraged by the Eastern Roman Empire and Romans still residing in Spain . </P> <P> With the victory of Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711, the lives of the Sephardim changed dramatically . For the most part, the invasion of the Moors was welcomed by the Jews of Iberia . </P> <P> Both Muslim and Catholic sources tell us that Jews provided valuable aid to the invaders . Once captured, the defense of Córdoba was left in the hands of Jews, and Granada, Málaga, Seville, and Toledo were left to a mixed army of Jews and Moors . The Chronicle of Lucas de Tuy records that "when the Catholics left Toledo on Sunday before Easter to go to the Church of the Holy Laodicea to listen to the divine sermon, the Jews acted treacherously and informed the Saracens . Then they closed the gates of the city before the Catholics and opened them for the Moors ." (Although, in contradiction to de Tuy's account, Rodrigo of Toledo's Historia de rebus Hispaniae maintains that Toledo was "almost of completely empty from its inhabitants", not because of Jewish treachery, but because "many had fled to Amiara, others to Asturias and some to the mountains", following which the city was fortified by a militia of Arabs and Jews (3.24). Although in the cases of some towns the behavior of the Jews may have been conducive to Muslim success, such was of limited impact overall . The claims of the fall of Iberia as being due in large part to Jewish perfidy are no doubt exaggerated (Assis, pp. 44--45). </P>

The reconquista aimed to remove the moors from spain