Alfonso I of Aragon
Alfonso I of Aragón (c. 1073-Poleñino, September 7, 1134), called the Battler, was king of Aragon and Pamplona between 1104 and 1134. Son of Sancho Ramírez (king of Aragon and Pamplona between 1063 and 1094) and Felicia de Roucy, he ascended the throne after the death of his half-brother Pedro I.
He excelled in the fight against the Muslims and came to double the size of the kingdoms of Aragon and Pamplona after the key conquest of Zaragoza. Temporarily, and thanks to her marriage to Urraca I of León, she ruled over León, Castilla and Toledo and called herself between 1109-1114 "emperor of León and king of all Spain" or "emperor of all Spain", until the noble opposition forced the annulment of the marriage. The echoes of his victories crossed borders; in the Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña, from the XIV century, we can read: «they called for him Don Alfonso a fighter because in Spain he did not see such a good knight who won twenty-nine battles". His campaigns took him to the southern cities of Córdoba, Granada and Valencia and to inflict severe defeats on the Muslims in Valtierra, Cutanda, Arnisol or Cullera.
Beyond his military success, the extent of his conquests involved important civil work. During his reign, he carried out a large number of foundations, donations and concessions with important demographic and economic effects and which influenced the history of the Ebro valley in subsequent centuries. Under his government, numerous key charters were granted, expanded, and evolved for the subsequent Aragonese and Navarrese legal development, as well as for various urban, social, and economic institutions in these territories. Politically, the creation of large holdings granted to his trusted magnates was key in the development of feudalism in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula and the origin of several Aragonese and Navarrese aristocratic families. Its restoration, foundation and consolidation of dioceses and monasteries was equally key in the religious structure of the north of present-day Spain, as well as in the development of the Camino de Santiago, the Hispanic military orders and the expansion of Romanesque art.
Upon his death, and in what is one of the most controversial episodes of his life, he bequeathed his kingdoms to the military orders, which was not accepted by the nobility, who elected his brother Ramiro II the Monk in Aragon and García Ramírez the Restorer in Navarra, thus dividing his kingdom.
Childhood and youth
Alfonso was the son of the King of Aragon and Pamplona, Sancho Ramírez, and Felicia de Roucy. He belonged to the Jimena dynasty, a Navarrese house of Hispano-Roman origin that had replaced the Aristas on the throne of Pamplona and had spread to almost all the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.
Tradition makes him born in Hecho, although it is not explicitly stated in the sources. Some authors do instead born in Biel, owned by his mother in which she used to reside near the then capital, Jaca. His date of birth is not exactly known either, historians assuming that it should be approximately 1073 since the chronicles attribute him to 61 years of age when he died in 1134. It is known that he spent his early years in the monastery of Siresa, (Valle de Hecho, in the Huesca Pyrenees), under the tutelage of his aunt Sancha Ramírez. His eitán was Lope Garcés "Peregrino", who would remain in his trusted circle throughout his reign. Popular legends affect that Chesa upbringing, affirming the tradition that his huntsmen and personal escort were recruited among countrymen from the valley since they saved him in a hunt as a young man.
As the king's third son and distant in the line of succession, he trained in "letters" and military art to be a feudal lord during the future government of his brother Pedro. In his later reign he has been considered sober and politically adept, familiar with the duties expected of a good ruler of his period. Galindo de Arbós, from the monastery of San Salvador del Pueyo already in the neighboring valley of Aragón, is listed as teacher of the infante Alfonso. It is possible that his teacher Esteban was older, canon of Jaca and future bishop of Huesca and Zaragoza, who would also be another of his trusted men throughout his life.
While still a child, Alfonso Sánchez (as recorded in different documents) gained experience in government tasks as a tenente of Biel, Luna, Ardanés and Bailo, towns in the Cinco Villas and Jacetania close to the border with the Muslims. The territory initially belonged to his brother Fernando and Alfonso probably acquired the territory after his death in 1086. It was a border area, which would mark Alfonso's character and would put him in contact with nobles such as the Castán and Pere brothers. Petit. Thus, Alfonso's council and entourage have been described as monastic and military, especially in comparison with the palatial charges that accompanied his predecessors.
When his father Sancho Ramírez reigned first and later his half-brother Pedro, Alfonso lived through the Barbastro crusade in 1089 and personally participated in the capture of Huesca in 1096, commanding the vanguard in the battle of Alcoraz, as well as in the expedition to help El Cid in Valencian lands against the Almoravids, defeating the army of Yusuf ibn Tasufin in 1097 at the Battle of Bairén. El Cid's campaign would be a great influence on Alfonso's strategic ideas, showing Muslim weakness and potential military by a group of determined men, even if not drawn from the feudal elite. The success of the First Crusade (1095-1099) was also a major influence on the young Alfonso, with relatives and acquaintances participating or aspiring to do so, either in the Holy Land or in the Reconquista.
Although the Infante Alfonso Sánchez was not initially destined to reign, a series of events cleared his way to the throne. Before the death of his father, Sancho Ramírez, his second son, Fernando, had died, leaving Alfonso Sánchez second in the order of succession.Sancho Ramírez was succeeded after dying in 1094 during a siege of Huesca by his eldest son Pedro Sanchez. Pedro I was in turn left without heirs in the following years as he lost his two children Inés (1103) and Pedro (1104), making Alfonso heir apparent before dying himself in another military expedition in 1104.
Early reign
Inheritance
Alfonso I ruled as king of Aragón, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza and Pamplona. The kingdom of Aragón was a former county granted as a kingdom to his grandfather Ramiro I during the division of the kingdom of his great-grandfather Sancho el Mayor. Sobrarbe and Ribagorza were two other ancient counties equally elevated to a kingdom for another family branch and which had soon been unified with Aragon by Ramiro I. Pamplona was the main dynastic trunk, which had also been reunified with Aragon after the death of Sancho IV el de Peñalén in the time of Alfonso's father.
The kingdom had begun, after the efforts of his grandfather Ramiro, his father Sancho and his brother Pedro, to develop a primitive state structure. These had promoted two bishoprics linked to the Roman curia, important links to justify the elevation of the status of counties to kingdom: that of Aragon, which after the conquest of Huesca had been established in the new capital and had been in the hands of the old tutor since 1099 Alfonso, Esteban and Roda in the old eastern part of Ribagorza. To them was added the oldest bishopric of Pamplona in the western part. Despite the fact that Roman ties had led to the introduction of the Gregorian reform, Alfonso, like his predecessors, maintained a close relationship (similar to his own churches) with the monasteries and churches that his ancestors had founded to guarantee the population and Christianization of the territory.. San Juan de la Peña and Santa María de Santa Cruz de la Serós functioned as male and female family monasteries of the royal house, with San Pedro de Siresa (where Alfonso had been formed and the Aragonese bishopric had begun), the monastery of Montearagón and the Monastery of San Pedro el Viejo (in the hands of his brother Ramiro) being important centers of power developed by Alfonso's father in Aragon. Sancho Ramírez had also developed to the west the see of San Vicente de Roda as a second bishopric and the monasteries of San Victorián (Sobrarbe) and Santa María de Alaón (Ribagorza). In particular, San Victorian was a focus of attraction for the nobility from the east of the kingdom, more integrated into the Aragonese monarchy such as the Bardají, while Roda was the focal point of the Ribagorzan nobility. The boundaries between the bishoprics were not very well defined, with Huesca and Roda disputing the recently reconquered areas such as Barbastro. Throughout the diocesan conflicts, Alfonso the Battler showed a greater personal closeness to his former teacher, with whom he shared a militant and energetic character, than with Ramón de Roda, originally from beyond the Pyrenees and with a reputation as a saint. The limits of the diocese of Pamplona with the Aragonese diocese of Esteban were also a matter of controversy since the banks of the Onsella river had been disputed by both kingdoms before their unification.
Most of the territory was in royal hands, with a system of tenures and honors where the king shared the secular income of the towns with non-hereditary local governors, often relatives of Alfonso himself. Among the holdings of the great magnates, it is worth mentioning the domains of Berta de Aragón, widow of his brother who maintained the so-called kingdom of the Mallos in the Riglos area as widowed queen, and those of his uncle Sancho Ramírez, who enjoyed various domains such as Aibar, Atarés and Javierrelatre and other holdings by royal concession. In general, these border towns were governed by the Sobrarbe and infanzones fueros, seeking to attract and establish the militarily capable population that needed to defend the kingdom. Thus historians observe in the period the concentration of population in towns with new population such as Angüés, Antillón, Casbas or Berbegal. It was not unusual for members of the minor nobility who stood out in the fight against the Muslims to receive social promotions through tenures. Thus, the chronicles record Afonso's former battle companions as tenants in some towns, especially once the until now infante begins to reign This is how Sancho de Biota (Layana), Barbatuerta (Azara) or Tizón (Buil) appear. Several, such as Fortún Maza (perhaps originally from Biel or Broto), Ortí Ortiz (originally from Bara) or Lope Fortuñones and his family (from Albero Alto) were forming a new military aristocracy in the city of Huesca. Others like Castán (to whom Alfonso donated his former personal possession of Biel once on the throne) together with his brother Pere Petit (Loarre), the family of Galindo Sánchez (Sos, Castiliscar) or that of Lope López de Liédena (Ruesta, Roncal) began to form groups with a territorial power base. This small nobility had fought alongside the now king in Alcoraz and Bairén and were also faithful supporters in his reign, forming a social class well integrated with that of the great lords.
Outside this general feudal regime was the city of Jaca, to which Alfonso's father had given its own jurisdiction to attract population from beyond the Pyrenees and encourage trade through the Camino de Santiago. In addition to the economic impact, the charter of Jaca followed the military evolution of the period by imposing a military service on the city that allowed a projection of key power for the kingdom. The success of this initiative led Sancho Ramírez to extend said charter regime to Sangüesa, Estella, Arguedas and Tafalla and Pedro I to do the same with Barbastro, Caparroso and Santacara. Alfonso continued with the policy of his father and his brother throughout his reign, extending these privileges throughout his kingdom.
There were royal officials, called merinos, who were in charge of collecting the royal portion of taxes and other royal prerogatives in tenures. Some of them appear in the documentation of Alfonso I from the beginning of his reign as Cipriano, Banzo Azones or Banzo Fortuñones. These were complemented by a zalmedina, head of the urban administration in Huesca. Justice, the king's responsibility, was delegated to king's justices appointed among the seniors of the kingdom. As a lieutenant of the king and Alfonso's delegate in military matters, García Jiménez is mentioned at the beginning of his reign. his reign the first mention of a chancellor. At the head of this royal administration was the king's butler, a position that initially fell to Castán de Biel, one of the nobles close to Alfonso since his infant days.
Trade on the Jacobean route and the payment of pariahs or tributes by the Muslims to the south had brought prosperity to the small kingdom that Alfonso inherited, something that he strove to preserve to maintain the means for his campaigns. Notably the kingdom of Aragon had recently begun to mint its own currency during the reign of his brother, in addition to having managed to secure strategic resources such as control of its own salt sources and mines to obtain iron. Control of their own route to France was another geostrategic element of the policy of Alfonso's father that he inherited, relieving his otherwise smaller population compared to León or the Almoravids. On the other hand, Lema Pueyo and Ubieto Arteta see signs of that his kingdom was in the midst of a period of bad harvests and certain famines.
Eastern border
To the east, the kingdom did not have a clear border with other counties that emerged from the Hispanic March, although documentary records attest that between 1108 and the death of Alfonso in 1134, the Battler was "king in Pallás and Aran". This seems to be a result of the recent decomposition of Pallars County into Pallars Jussá and Pallars Sobirá counties and the close relationship developed with the former under the reign of his brother Pedro I of Aragon. The pressure from the strongest rulers of Aragon and Urgell and the fights between cousins usually put the small counties under the protection of their respective neighbors. Pallars Jussá seems to have fallen under the area of influence of Aragón and Pallars Sobirá under that of Urgell. In return, Pedro I and Alfonso I, after their brother, respected the hereditary properties that the counts of Pallars had in Ribagorza since before it was unified with Aragon and rewarded them with new possessions such as Fantova or Benasque.
A small number of lineages from Ribagorza actually accumulated power in Ribagorza and showed their willingness to confront the royal power to try to curtail their autonomy. In addition to the counts of Pallars, it is worth noting the Enteza, the Erill, the Benavent or the Gauzperts. Pedro Mir de Entenza was the tenant in Benabarre while Ramón Pedro de Erill, of Pallars origin, had taken over properties in Barbastro and fiefs from the Bishop of Roda for his participation in the reconquest as well as royal donations such as Zaidín or State. Berenguer Gombaldo de Benavent, originally from the Lierp valley, held the Castro and Capella holdings in the lower basin of the Ésera river. Pedro Gauzpert appears as a tenant in Azanuy. Other important magnates integrated into these networks were Íñigo Sánchez, owner of Calasanz; Ramón Amat, owner of Chía and Perarrúa and Calvet, owner of Torreciudad, Olsón and Abizanda. Alfonso's grandfather, father and brother had devoted significant efforts to developing monasteries and the episcopal seat of Roda as foci to have this nobility integrated, but the Battler reversed that policy, relying instead on the concessions he could make to these nobles in return. of his military participation as a mechanism to reward loyalties or marginalize uncooperative lords. With this, Alfonso managed to maintain the support of the Ribagorza nobility throughout his reign.
Similarly, the historic Aragonese-Urgelitan alliance had sometimes put Urgelitanos as tenants in Aragon (Barbastro under Armengol III of Urgel) in parallel to a complex marriage policy that put Pedro Ansúrez, from Leon and Alfonso's ally, in the Urgell regency to c. 1117, making that border even more diffuse. A minority sector of the Ribagorzan nobility had ties to the county of Urgell. Despite this, Afonso never claimed the title of king beyond Pallars. A balanced foreign policy with ties to Aragon but also to its rivals (kingdom of León and county of Barcelona) allowed Urgell to maintain independent status until 1208. Further east was the county of Barcelona, a rising rival power ruled by Ramón Berenguer III who had integrated other Catalan counties and would later achieve a dynastic union with the county of Provence. Ramón Berenguer's expansion projects to the south and west threatened a race to seize key places from the Muslims.
Border with Muslims
To the south, the inheriting kingdom had a history of wars against Muslims. Although Pedro I had taken the main city of the Pyrenees, Huesca, in 1096, after winning the battle of Alcoraz and had managed to conquer Barbastro, Sariñena and Bolea in 1100, he had failed in the siege of Tamarite de Litera in 1104 and saw these threats threatened. recent conquests. Probably with the death of Pedro I the unconsolidated areas on the southeastern border such as Alcolea de Cinca, Ontiñena, Sariñena or Zaidín were lost, which despite having been taken by his brother appear later to have been conquered again by Alfonso.
Alfonso had participated as a lord under his brother's command in these wars and was familiar with the situation. There were problems facing the siege of fortified cities given the lack of experience in siege machinery, so a war of attrition was resorted to in the open field until the fortified places accepted a negotiated surrender. The lack of international support was also noted. apart from the traditional support of the Urgell County and the Béarnaise and Gascon counties. His father, Sancho Ramírez, had strategically chosen his marriages (with Isabel de Urgel first and with Felicia de Roucy, Alfonso's mother, later) to preserve these alliances. Alfonso's cousin, Talesa de Aragón, had married Gastón de Bearn in 1085 to guarantee the support of the powerful northern neighbor, which would be key in the reign of Alfonso.
The eastern salient of his kingdom after his brother's conquests included the towns of Barbastro, Graus and Alquézar and had the Monzón regnum to the south as a border with the Muslim square of Lleida. This was one of the key possessions of the kingdom, given the disputed border status with the Muslims to the southeast and had belonged to his uncle Sancho Ramírez until he went on a pilgrimage to the holy land. In the rear of that border, the jurisdiction of Barbastro guaranteed the military support of an urban militia and Alfonso soon appointed Calvet, a veteran of his father and brother's campaigns, as his lieutenant in the city. The western flank of that salient It was located to the north of the Monegros, with a series of holdings that included Tramaced, Piracés, Albero Alto and Montearagón as Christian garrisons up to Huesca.
Huesca was in the hands of Alfonso, although the middle valley of the Gállego was still in Muslim hands, which made the Aragonese fortresses of Bolea, Loarre and Ayerbe important. The Sierra de Luna formed another spur with Christian holdings up to the area of their domains with numerous towers and small fortifications. To the south of that mountain range there were several neighboring castles to Zaragoza that were built by Sancho Ramírez and Pedro I such as Juslibol, Miranda and Alfocea (built in 1101 by Pedro I) or the fortress-palace of El Castellar (from 1091, built by Sancho Ramírez). The advanced positions were key in the extraction of pariahs from the Muslim communities on the border and, especially when threatening the supply of salt to Zaragoza, from the rest of the taifa and a of the bases of the economy of the kingdom.
The border with the Muslims ended to the west passing through the castles of Pueyo de Sancho, Santacara, Caparroso, Arguedas, Milagro and Azagra, in front of which were Muslim positions such as Valtierra, Cadreita and Murillo de las Limas as perimeter of Tudela. As on the eastern border, towns such as Caparroso, Arguedas or Santacara had received privileges that guaranteed a locally available force to respond to Muslim threats, although exempt from serving in long-lasting campaigns.
Western Frontier
To the west, the kingdom of the Battler included a Navarra that had lost what is now La Rioja, Álava, Vizcaya and the western part of Guipúzcoa in favor of the Kingdom of León. Although these territories had previously been linked to the kingdom of Pamplona, the strength of León had pushed back Navarrese influence in the area. Alfonso VI had managed to reintegrate Castile in 1072 and after having conquered the taifa of Toledo he had become the main peninsular power just to the west of the possessions inherited by his namesake the Battler. Notably, León had shown interest in a conquest of Zaragoza that would leave the kingdom of the Battler blocked, or in exploiting the collection of tributes from the taifa in exchange for protecting it against Aragon.
The territory that Alfonso I inherited in the area was reduced to the nuclear zone of present-day Navarra, granted as County of Navarra under homage to the Leonese monarch. It included Pamplona, which had historically given its name to the kingdom and was the episcopal seat under Pedro de Roda, a faithful supporter of Alfonso's father and later of Alfonso himself. Other important cities that Alfonso inherited in the area were Monjardín, Tafalla, Artajona and Estella. Having lost Nájera, an important city of the kingdom and site of the monastery of Santa María la Real de Nájera, the Leyre monastery became the other great church in Navarre.
This Navarra probably kept an outlet to the sea through Guipúzcoa given that there are documents from his brother Pedro regarding the monastery of Leire and San Sebastián and he was sovereign to the northeast over the domains of Íñigo Vela, lord of Guevara and Oñate and tenant of Baztán, Echauri, La Borunda and Hernani. The possession of his Jimeno relative Sancho Garcés, which included the area of Sangüesa and Uncastillo, had also fallen under the sovereignty of Alfonso's father. Sancho's son and relative of Alfonso I, Ramiro Sánchez of Pamplona, held an important role at court as tenant of territories in both Navarre and Aragon and was appointed in 1104 by Alfonso as tenant of Monzón. Jimeno Garcés, a tenant of Ujué, and his family had also supported Sancho Ramírez and also appear as his tenants in multiple Navarrese towns such as Salazar, Aoiz, Nagore or Navascués. Jimeno Aznárez and his family (originally from Oteiza and tenants in Tafalla) they also appear in the court of Alfonso I. Other Navarrese magnates such as Sancho Sánchez, tenente of Erro, had shown mixed loyalties between León and Aragón, although Sancho Ramírez was able to suppress their revolts and were still relevant vassals of Alfonso I. At the time of his accession to the throne of Alfonso, Sancho Sánchez continued to be the tenant in a good part of Navarra.
Further west were the Castilian lordships of García Ordóñez (Nájera County and possessions of Grañón and Calahorra), Íñigo Jiménez (Señorío de los Cameros and Viguera), Diego López de Haro (Señorío de Vizcaya, Haro and possessions in Álava, Rioja and Guipúzcoa) and Gómez González (Count of La Bureba) who would later occupy prominent roles in Alfonso's reign as vassals or enemies.
First acts of reign
As soon as he was crowned in 1104, Alfonso began to take the steps that would eventually lead to the conquest of Zaragoza. In 1105 he moved throughout his new kingdom between Berbegal and the Bardenas, organizing forces on the border. That same year Tauste fell and before the end of 1106 he took the madina of Siya (current Ejea de los Caballeros), an important strategic position to secure the south-western border. The conquests completed the capture of the current region of the Cinco Villas, which closed the Ebro valley to the west and interrupted the route between Saraqusta and Tudela (one of the traditional secondary cities of the Zaragoza taifa). Alfonso participated in the front line of the campaign, nearly being captured or killed on at least one occasion. It was a campaign primarily with local forces, although there are indications of traditional support from trans-Pyrenean allies.
Also in 1105-1106 he ordered the reinforcement of several neighboring castles to Zaragoza that threatened the capital of the Muslim king Al-Musta'in II and had been built by Sancho Ramírez and Pedro I such as El Castellar, Pola or Santa Inés. This not only reinforced the newly conquered area, but also placed one of the routes from the Taifa secondary school in Calatayud to the capital of Zaragoza under observation. It was a strategy designed to take advantage of the break in the Zaragoza defensive line that had led to the fall of Huesca. In an open plain like the one to the north of the Ebro, it was possible to go on horseback rides quite deep into Muslim territory. the campaigns on the Cinco Villas.
The capture of Balaguer from the Muslims by the allied Urgel County in mid-1106 opened up new opportunities for Alfonso on his eastern border. Alfonso sent aid in exchange for properties in Balaguer (Cerced, given to the Bishop of Roda). The regent of Urgell, Pedro Ansúrez, would maintain the balance, reaching a similar agreement with the Count of Barcelona that same year, forging alliances with both powers neighbors in exchange for sharing the new conquests. But above all, the capture of Balaguer meant the rupture of the Muslim defensive line north of Lleida, although the Battler could not take advantage of it immediately. Alfonso went through Santa Cruz de la Serós and Huesca to attend government events and the baptism of his doctor of Jewish origin, Pedro Alfonso. By April 1107 Alfonso was in Arguedas, supervising his advanced positions in the west against Tudela and attending to foreign policy with León. For no known reason, in May 1107 Alfonso VI of León assembled his forces near the Aragonese border.
Taking advantage of the Muslim weakness after the loss of Balaguer, Alfonso continued to corner Zaragoza from the east by advancing the conquest of La Hoya de Huesca, the Monegros and reinforcing the area of Barbastro and Monzón. Thus, for example, it is in 1107 when Alfonso ordered the repopulation of Poleñino in the plain between the mountains in Christian hands and the Alcubierre mountain range in Muslim hands. The border mark that was the Monzón regnum became a priority due to its nature as an area vulnerable to Muslim attacks from Lérida. Alfonso conquered Tamarite de Litera and San Esteban de Litera in 1107 thus fulfilling an objective in which his brother Pedro I had failed. It is with this expansion in the east that Pallars is recognized for the first time as part of Alfonso's domain. Thus, in a document from 1108 it is stated that Alfonso reigned in Aragon, Pamplona, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, Pallás and Aran.
Part of the land north of the Ebro remained in Muslim hands, however. Although Alfonso expanded his kingdom to the south, taking its borders towards the Ebro and Cinca rivers, Fraga and Mequinenza were still Muslim and guaranteed the connection between Saraqusta and his suffragan taifa of Lérida. Likewise, the banks of the Gállego river (with squares such as Zuera, Almudévar or Gurrea de Gállego) were still to be conquered to the north of Zaragoza. The monarch's activity in 1108 is largely unknown, beyond a presence in Murillo de Gállego and another in Barbastro. Around 1109 Alfonso probably fortified Velilla de Cinca to serve as an advanced position against Lérida in a similar way to Juslibol and El Castellar with Zaragoza and Arguedas against Tudela. It is also possible that negotiations began with León.
Marriage and Leonese politics
Context
Following his coronation in 1104, the dynastic issue had arisen that the new king was over thirty and unmarried, leading to speculation about his possible homosexuality or misogyny. Contemporary descriptions merely impinge on his preference for militia life against the courtesan. Despite this, a medieval monarch had dynastic continuity as one of his political duties and Afonso does not seem to have had a problem with it. The only remaining member of the royal house was his brother Ramiro, of an ecclesiastical career. Alfonso I's wedding, reason of state, was calculated considering the various Iberian royal houses with marriageable daughters. He was not the only one seeking strategic marriage alliances: the successes against the Muslims of Alfonso VI of León had brought a Muslim counterattack led by the Almoravid movement. In 1109, knowing his end was near, Alfonso VI decided to marry his daughter Urraca with the King of Aragon, interested in the military support that his new son-in-law, a veteran combatant, could provide him. Alfonso VI had lost his only male heir Sancho in the battle of Uclés (1108) and had been unable to secure the land of the current provinces of Soria, Guadalajara and Cuenca, so the alliance seemed necessary to avoid greater evils. The marriage took place at the beginning of October 1109, the year in which Urraca's father would die, in the castle of Monzón de Campos, with the warden of the fortress, Don Pedro Ansúrez, sponsoring the wedding. Pedro Ansúrez recovered for his mediation in marriage the favor of the Leonese court.
Before getting married, it seems, Urraca and Alfonso agreed to the betrothal capitulations by which they designated each other sovereign power in the other's possessions. But it was agreed that if the couple had descendants, this son would become the heir, which relegated the eldest son of Urraca's previous marriage to Raimundo de Borgoña, Alfonso Raimúndez (future Alfonso VII), who had lost his rights to the throne of León in such an eventuality. Among the opponents of this marriage, the Galician nobles stood out, due to the loss of the then five-year-old infant Alfonso Raimúndez (future Alfonso VII) of the rights to the throne of the kingdom of León and Castilla after the marriage pact signed between Urraca and Alfonso I of Aragon, which stipulated that succession rights would pass to the child they might have. However, in the event that the couple did not have children, the lands of the Aragonese king would pass to Alfonso Raimúndez together with those of Urraca.
Another important faction opposed to the election of Alfonso I of Aragon was formed by the French ecclesiastics of Burgundian origin who had established themselves on the road to Santiago during the reign of Alfonso VI under the protection of Urraca's first husband, belonging to to the Count House of Burgundy, a branch of the House of Ivrea. The ecclesiastics were also lords of many territories, which is why they also opposed the pro-bourgeois policies of the Aragonese king, who, if they succeeded, would see their power considerably reduced. It was a dangerous opposition because his contact with Pope Pascual II would eventually allow the annulment of the marriage, which the Castilian chroniclers called "the ill-fated weddings" or "mal-abitas weddings" because they were incestuous since both spouses were great-grandchildren of Sancho Garcés III of Pamplona the Greater. Not only had ecclesiastics come, but Henry of Burgundy, a relative (probably a cousin, cited as "congermannus", but belonging to the ducal house of Burgundy, a branch of the Capetian dynasty) of Urraca's late husband, had married to his half-sister and was Count of Portugal with well-known aspirations to greater power in the kingdom.
In addition, Count Gómez González, had been a suitor to marry Urraca before the death of Alfonso VI, and the chronicles affirm that he had a love affair with her. be rather a search for influence over the royal house by Gómez Gónzalez. According to some sources, before the death of the Leonese monarch a group of Castilian nobles had met near Toledo, in Magán, to propose the dying king to Gómez González as a candidate for husband of the future queen although, without daring to formally ask the old monarch, they managed to get the king's personal doctor, a Jew named Cidiello, to do so. Alfonso VI received the news angrily, upon verifying the opposition of a part of the Castilian nobility to the plans that he had designed to marry his daughter to the experienced Aragonese king. Some authors see a deliberate policy of the court of Alfonso VI, who by choosing a foreign husband for the queen prevented the Castilian cabal from gaining power around Urraca, something that could exacerbate the imbalances between factions and accelerate centrifugal tendencies in Galicia, Portugal and Castilla. Other sources, on the other hand, affirm that it was the nobles of Leon who proposed the Battler as a husband, without the intervention of Alfonso VI or the candidacy of Gómez Gonzalez.
First Galician insurrection
A veteran warrior hardened in many battles, Alfonso's response was quick and energetic. Aware of the opposition that the Archbishop of Compostela, Gelmírez, and the Count of Traba, tutor of the Infante Alfonso Raimúndez, offered him, he marched with his Aragonese and Pamplona hosts and inflicted a heavy defeat on them in the castle of Monterroso (present-day province of Lugo), in 1109. The Battler had the support in Galicia of the city of Lugo, which had been the epicenter of revolts among the small Galician nobility and had been handed over a few years ago by Alfonso VI to the bishop to pacify them. It also had Pedro Arias, Lord of Deza and archenemy of the Count of Traba. In general, the bourgeoisie of Lugo and Compostela, the faction of the former Compostela bishop Peláez, who had been protected by the father of the Battler after falling out of favor with Alfonso VI, and the small nobility headed by the Arias, showed great misgivings about the attempts by Gelmírez and Traba to consolidate themselves as great magnates and regents of the young Alfonso Raimúndez. The message conveyed to the malcontents was that the Battler was determined to militarily crush any attempted rebellion against him.
However, the harshness of the military repression in Monterroso deepened Alfonso I's enmity with the Galician nobility and the Gelmírez y Traba party. Alfonso I also maintained his military policy of giving possession of castles and strongholds to his loyalists: Aragonese and Navarrese nobles, and veteran battle companions and faithful knights of his host, which increased the enmity he provoked in León and Castilla. Feeling that they were losing power at court, the great lords of the Leonese court began to conspire against the king.
The military defeat of the Battler's enemies meant that the opposition had to reorganize. Throughout 1110 Alfonso received tributes in Castilian territory and Urraca in Aragonese lands, in compliance with the matrimonial capitulations. However, the military tension was evident. Urraca granted privileges to Diego López de Haro, lord of Vizcaya and Haro and successor to García Ordóñez in the strategic tenure of Nájera, to reinforce his party, which was grouped in Castilla around Count Gómez González. He is also close to the Party of Queen Pedro González de Lara, Count of Lara south of Burgos and tenant in Medina del Campo, Palencia and numerous other places. González de Lara was an important support for the queen, as she was also key to guaranteeing the support of the bishops of Palencia and Osma and that of her brother, Rodrigo, governor of Asturias de Santillana and part of northern Castilla. One last Castilian lord who stood out in the queen's party was Fernando García de Hita, who supposed the support of the lands to the east of Toledo.
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Some authors interpret the donations that Alfonso I made on these dates to monasteries such as Valvanera, Santo Domingo de la Calzada and San Salvador de Oña as an attempt to reinforce their loyalties and counterbalance Urraca's party. Alfonso also recounted in principle with the support of his ally, Pedro Ansúrez, a member of the Banu Gómez family with significant influence in the heart of the Leonese kingdom. He also managed to add to his support Count Enrique de Portugal, who despite his family ties with the Infante Alfonso Raimúndez saw Gelmírez and he as an obstacle to his own expansion.
He was also able to rely on the primitive bourgeoisie of the towns to which he offered charters and privileges similar to those granted in those he repopulated in Aragon. Thus, Alfonso I supported the establishment of free towns and stimulated trade throughout the Camino de Santiago. These guarantees, liberties and exemptions created a frank or free social sector, to the detriment of taxes, which were the source of the power of the feudal aristocracy, which aroused its unpopularity among the nobility. Urraca relied on these last privileged estates when the fight broke out between warring factions and between supporters of one or the other spouse of the royal marriage. On the contrary, the municipalities seem to have shown more support for Alfonso, which notably attracted the service of his council militias when the conflict occurred in their vicinity. Historically linked to the Pamplona monarchy, they were prone to the Battler. It is also worth noting the support that Alfonso had in the city of Toledo.
The Battle of Valtierra
A Muslim attempt that same year to take advantage of Alfonso's dedication to Leonese politics was thwarted with the victory of the Battalion's tenentes over al-Mustain I, king of the taifa of Zaragoza. Al-Munstain had launched a counterattack north of the Ebro, reversing some of Alfonso's advances in previous years on the axis between Tudela and Zaragoza and probably recapturing Tauste. It is possible that the attack would also have endangered Artajona, which however had recently been reinforced. However al-Mustain was repulsed by the Battler's lieutenants as he tried to penetrate further north and threaten Olite at the Battle of Valtierra on January 24, 1110.
The battle saw al-Mustain's death in battle and his succession by his son Abdelmalik. However, the defeat led the taifa to pay pariahs to Urraca to prevent further attacks by Alfonso and to the discredit of the Hudi dynasty, now in decline and caught between two rising powers: Alfonso and the Almoravids. The pariahs paid to the Castilians enervated the most nationalists, who made the city fall into Almoravid hands. The last Hudis took refuge in the Rueda fortress, which was considered impregnable and where they created a small kingdom on the Jalón valley His hatred of the Almoravids would later lead him to ally with Afonso against those who had dethroned him. The Almoravid government in the city of the Ebro was personified by Muhammad ibn al-Hajj, who had retaken Valencia after its capture by El Cid.
The situation in the kingdom of Alfonso was not rosy, however. The Battler had been absent since the previous year attending to Leonese politics. Furthermore, the contributions for the campaigns against the rebels would probably have been an economic burden for the kingdom, which nevertheless saw the commercial route of the Camino de Santiago affected and now the collection of pariahs. In the area near Valtierra it is likely that the recent campaign would have accentuated the existing shortages. Alfonso's authority was maintained thanks to the support of the Bishop of Pamplona, but he had to intervene militarily against unruly nobles in Monjardín that same year. The Almoravid advance towards the Ebro valley was equally a cause for concern.
The Battler was in Galicia in May and June occupied with the remnants of the Traba revolt, but faced with the Almoravid threat against his power base, he moved to the Ebro valley in July to confront them. In addition to the arrival of the A royal host, Alfonso managed to gather Castilian and Frankish reinforcements for an offensive against Zaragoza. On July 5, he defeated an Almoravid force in front of Tudela, although he had to withdraw before the arrival of enemy reinforcements. After passing through Alagón and fighting skirmishes against the Almoravids, he dedicated himself in July to consolidating his possessions on the border. With probable support from Alfonso's troops, the Hudis managed to repulse Almoravid attacks near Calatayud and even tried to counterattack against Zaragoza.
Alfonso granted jurisdiction to Funes, Marcilla and Peñalén, on the border in front of Tudela, and to Ejea and El Frago in 1110 to guarantee the Christian repopulation of the area that had been taken from the Muslims in previous years and to prevent new attacks. Exceptionally, between 1110 and 1111 Alfonso would also displace the traditional local tenants in the area in favor of his merino Banzo Fortuñón. It is noteworthy the border character of the jurisdiction of Ejea, requesting service of arms to the knights who populated the area. town. The fueros date from around the end of July, with Afonso spending the summer in Loarre.
The insurrection of Gómez González
Between 1110 and 1111, Count Gómez González, head of the Urraca party, tried to convince the Queen that Prince Alfonso should become the legitimate King of Castile as the biological son of the Queen of León and Castile, to support the uprising of the nobility against Alfonso. This fact turned the political conflict into an open war between the Aragonese monarch and factions of the Leonese, Castilian and Galician nobility. The strong character of Alfonso I and the clash with the personality of his wife (the Leonese, Castilian and Galician chronicles, always anti-Alfonsíes, put Urraca in the mouth that Alfonso "hit her with hands and feet") led to the failure of the marriage. It is said that Alfonso feared that the proximity between the count and her wife was synonymous with her infidelity, which is why he could have repudiated her. To all this was added the initiative of the Archbishop of Toledo Bernardo de Sedirac, also opposed to the Aragonese, who requested the annulment of the Pope. The papal condemnation of the marriage came during the summer of 1110, while Alfonso was fighting Galician rebels.
Declared civil war between supporters of Urraca and Alfonso, the latter declared her incapable of governing and had her imprisoned in El Castellar, in Aragon, as a result of a conspiracy in which Urraca ordered the fortresses in the kingdoms of León and Castilla that did not obey her husband's orders. The imprisonment caused an irreconcilable political break with the faction of the high prelates Bernardo de Sedirac de Toledo and Diego Gelmírez de Compostela as well as with the aristocratic nobility led by Pedro Froilaz and Gomez Gonzalez. Alfonso carried out a successful invasion of León with Navarrese and Aragonese troops with no more support than the Count of Portugal. His until then ally Pedro Ansúrez was neutral on the other hand. In a few weeks he subdued the cities of Palencia, Burgos, Osma, Sahagún, Astorga and Orense. In the towns along the road to Santiago, Alfonso found pockets of support that shared with him a common enemy in the high Castilian clergy (see the parallel bourgeois revolt of Sahagún against his abbots, the coalition of said bourgeois of Sahagún with the bourgeois of Burgos and Carrión and the support for Alfonso of the bourgeois of Palencia). According to the chronicles, Alfonso I also had the support of the pardos, branded as looters by the ecclesiastical chronicles, but which modern authors have proposed to identify with the militia councilors and villainous knights of the low nobility who supported him against the great lords of the kingdom. He also found the support of the Archbishop of Braga, Mauricio, who, involved in a dispute over primacy with Toledo, aligned himself with the Battler, which put him in control of the diocese of León.
Taking advantage of this distraction and the consequences of Valtierra, Count Gómez González launched a raid on El Castellar, freed Queen Urraca and took her to the monastery of Sahagún. The news of the incursion and the maneuvers of the Archbishop of Toledo to request the annulment of the marriage caused Alfonso to march with his army to the Castilian south on a punitive expedition. He occupied the city of Toledo in April 1111 and Alfonso replaced the hostile Archbishop Bernardo de Sedirac. Toledo would have an Aragonese garrison, under the command of a commander named Oriel until 1113. Alfonso also established a tenure in San Esteban that same year de Gormaz, which would serve as a stronghold against the Almoravids in the Castilian extremadura and which would remain under Aragonese control until his death. According to the mentions in the chronicles, it seems that once Toledo and the south had been secured, he dedicated the summer to once again face the Almoravids in the fortresses surrounding Tudela.
Alfonso finished suppressing the Castilian revolt that same year. In the battle of Candespina on October 26, 1111, located in the current Segovian municipality of Fresno de Cantespino, he won another victory. The Navarrese-Aragonese hosts of Alfonso and Count Enrique de Borgoña faced off against troops loyal to Urraca and Gómez González. According to some sources, Enrique had recruited forces in France on behalf of Alfonso I. Alfonso's side was however weakened by the abandonment of Pedro Ansúrez's faction, which had gone over to Urraca. However, Urraca's side was also not united due to jealousy between his favorites, the counts Gómez González and Pedro González de Lara. The battle was an absolute victory for Alfonso, who not only annihilated the enemy forces but also resulted in death. of the rebellious count, leaving the queen in a very bad situation. Various towns in the south of Castile then fell into the hands of Alfonso's supporters. Urraca chose to agree with Count Enrique, offering him the partition of the kingdom as Alfonso had done; he managed to get the count to change sides and together they besieged the Aragonese sovereign in Peñafiel, although they could not surrender the square. At the same time that they marched north to plot the division of the kingdom, Urraca secretly dealt with Afonso. With the connivance of Urraca, Alfonso advanced rapidly to the west and was about to capture Teresa in Sahagún. Urraca withdrew to the Galician mountains. By the end of the year, there are documents signed jointly by Alfonso and Urraca.
Second Galician insurrection
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The Galician nobility headed by the Bishop of Santiago de Compostela Diego Gelmírez and the tutor of the infante Pedro Froilaz, count of Traba, went on to lead the opposition to Alfonso I after the disappearance of Candespina and the The young prince's tutor proclaimed Alfonso Raimúndez, at the age of seven, "King of Galicia" on September 19, 1111 in the Cathedral of Santiago. establish an independent kingdom or not, but most likely it was simply a matter of granting the category of correinante to Alfonso Raimúndez with a degree equal to that of his mother Urraca. The unskillful policy of Gelmírez by not facilitating the submission of Portugal, closed the way for the triumph of the revolt, which obtained support among the Galician nobility, but also generated opposition among the sectors in favor of Alfonso the Battler, as happened in Lugo. This square was subdued by Alfonso's enemies before they marched against León.
The attitude of Urraca I in the whole conflict is disputed: while the Historia compostelana (which is a partial source, since it is a biography dedicated to exalting the politics of Bishop Gelmírez) points out that Urraca agreed with the coronation of Alfonso Raimúndez (despite the fact that this would have meant accepting a coregency directed by Gelmírez and his collaborators), there is a document that states that on September 2, 1111 (only fifteen days before the act of proclamation of her son as "king of Galicia") Urraca signed in Burgos together with her husband Alfonso the Battler a donation in favor of the monastery of Oña, and in October she did the same in another signed in Briviesca. Both documents were drafted by the canon of Santiago de Compostela, whose position makes him close to Bishop Gelmírez, so the game of political alliances is far from easy.
The Battler in response operated against the cities that supported the newly crowned Alfonso VII such as Ávila, which had been populated by his father Raimundo and whose council he intimidated. The authors propose that Alfonso I had the support of the inhabitants of Ávila originating from the Cantabrian and Castilian area, who not only came from areas where the Battler was more popular but also made up a disadvantaged group (ruanos) compared to the elite linked to the house of Burgundy that controlled the council.
El Batallador then turned against supporters of Alfonso Raimúndez in Galicia. He defeated them at Villadangos in October or November 1111. With this victory Alfonso I of Aragon thwarted the political attempt of Diego Gelmírez and his supporters, captured Pedro Froilaz (who would be released shortly after) and weakened his opponents. The battler besieged the last remnants of the rebellion in Astorga. However, Gelmírez and Alfonso Raimúndez managed to flee in forti Castello Orzilione (quod Castrum est in Castella) , taking the boy with his mother. The place where Urraca was staying and where Diego Gelmírez took the infante Alfonso Raimundez was probably Orcellón in the diocese of Orense in a district known as Castela.
Nulment of marriage
The absence of the Battler from his kingdom due to his campaign in León, however, continued to provide opportunities for revolt in his kingdom, and in the second half of the year a revolt by García Sánchez de Atarés, the king's cousin as son of the powerful, was put down. Count Sancho Ramírez. For this reason Alfonso returned to Aragon at the beginning of 1112.
In 1112 Alfonso rejected a mediation by the papal legate and Pope Pascual II made the threat of annulment official, excommunicating them if they remained together. Alfonso definitely disowned her. Alfonso, who was probably barren, did not take a wife again and died without issue in 1134. Some authors have suggested that the conviction of his own sterility and the experience with Urraca's complicated character would have made Alfonso consider a new marriage. as politically unnecessary. His brother Ramiro remained for the time being as a potential heir, although his religious career has generated a debate on the extent to which he was seen as a royalist candidate, while other more distant but more viable family branches existed as military leaders.
Pedro Froilaz and Gelmírez undertook a campaign against Alfonso's garrisons, whose forces were weakened by also facing the Almoravids in Zaragoza and in Extremadura Soria. Notably, his loyalists on the Duero border managed to recapture Atienza and neighboring towns to the Muslims. On the Ebro border, on the other hand, an Almoravid incursion from Tortosa took or sacked Ontiñena, Sariñena and Pomar de Cinca. With his forces divided, the Battler was besieged by Urraca in Carrión while others Aragonese contingents were defeated in Atapuerca and Burgos. The townspeople, however, maintained a fierce opposition to Urraca in defense of Alfonso and the Battler managed to launch a counteroffensive that retook Castrojeriz, Burgos and Carrión.
In 1113 Urraca launched another offensive with Galician troops, which Sahagún and Carrión retook and laid siege to Burgos. The situation in La Rioja, on the other hand, seems favorable to Alfonso I. El Batallador spent the year 1113 between towns Navarrese, Álava, Burgos and La Rioja. In April he appears in Los Arcos, from where he unsuccessfully tries to help his supporters surrounded in Burgos. He was able to replace the rebellious Diego López de Haro with the Navarrese nobleman Fortún Garcés Cajal in the strategic possession of Nájera, a city whose bourgeois also favored him. Since then Fortún appears linked to the royal curia and as Alfonso's butler, being one of the main lieutenants of the Battler.
In the south, Álvar Fáñez secured while Toledo for Urraca. The division between the Christians facilitated the Almoravid advances and their general Mazdali seized the castle of Oreja as an advanced point against Toledo and sacked the countryside of Alcalá de Henares and Guadalajara. Burgos would fall into the hands of Urraca in June 1113, although Urraca then diverted his troops against the Almoravids, succoring Toledo and Berlanga. It seems that in this context the Almoravids had managed to take Medinaceli, which Urraca's forces they failed to reconquer.
The division of the kingdom was consolidated in a council held in Palencia in 1114. Even so, the political panorama was complex, as shown by the bourgeois revolts in April in Segovia against supporters of Urraca (where Álvar Fáñez died) or the Burgos attempt to elect Alfonso's brother Ramiro as Bishop of Burgos. In the spring of 1114, Segovia and Toledo recognized Alfonso's authority, probably seeking relief against Almoravid pressure from the south, given the death of Álvar Fáñez and the progress of Mazdali. The Almoravid, who made annual incursions into the Toledo kingdom, had defeated the Christians at Pulgar that year and laid siege to Toledo. The forces of the Battler seem to have achieved some successes against the Almoravids on that front, such as the recovery of Medinaceli and the return of Oriol Aznárez to Toledo, who resisted the Almoravids. Also to the north in 1114 the cities of Sahagún, Carrión and Burgos returned to Alfonso's side, where the bourgeois seized power and expelled Urraca's supporters. Documentation seems to indicate that the Battler spent the end of the year in Palencia, probably busy directing these movements.
In a display of political realism, Afonso abandoned his claims in León and became only King of Aragon and Pamplona. The Almoravid threat made the division of his forces due to the Leonese civil war too risky. Focusing his resources, he was able to resume the reconquest of the Ebro valley as his objective, with the capture of Saraqusta in mind, a project almost abandoned during his five years marriage and Castilian regency (1109-1114). However, he continued to use the title of King of Castile and, intermittently, that of imperator totius Hispaniae , a product of the imperial tradition of León. Nor did he renounce the enclaves repopulated, fortified and governed by his tenants in the current Basque Country, La Rioja, Burgos, Soria, Segovia, Guadalajara and Toledo.
Division of territory
The holdings in the Navarrese-Aragonese hands of Lope López (Calahorra), Lope López Almoravid (Marañón), Íñigo Jiménez (Cameros), and Fortún Garcés Cajal (Nájera), who had remained faithful to Alfonso, are particularly noteworthy. And in the civil war. Alfonso managed in the following years to avoid the concentration of power in the area by placing independent tenants such as Lope Yáñez (Arnedo). It also retains the monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla and its properties, and very probably those of San Prudencio de Monte Laturce and Nuestra Señora de Valvanera.The monastery of Santa María de Nájera was in the hands of abbot Sancho de Funes, also a supporter of Alfonso.
The influential Diego López de Haro, lord of Vizcaya, instead maintained an ambiguous position, confirming around 1114 documents from both Urraca and Alfonso and would attempt a revolt in 1116 put down by the Battler. Despite having been stripped of Nájera in the previous war, kept among the possessions of La Rioja Grañón. Further north was the lord of Bilibio, Buradón and Haro on the banks of the Ebro, which he fortified. His brother-in-law, Lope Íñiguez, in turn controlled the Estíbaliz possession, the main one among those in Álava. Diego López finally maintained his hereditary lordship of Vizcaya. Around the nuclear Vizcaya there were other possessions and minor señoríos, which could be in the hands of cadet branches of his family or have other dependency relationships. This is the case of the lordship of Llodio, in the hands of Íñigo López de Mendoza, or of Ayala, lordship of Lope Sánchez, both cousins of Diego López. The situation of Duranguesado is more doubtful, due to the absence of documents in the period. To the east of his domains were the possessions of the Vela family in eastern Guipúzcoa and Álava, loyal to the Battler.
To the west of these large holdings was the valley of the Oja River. Due to the confirmations of donations issued, the valley and the monastery of Santo Domingo de la Calzada were claimed politically by both Alfonso I and Urraca and ecclesiastically by both the bishops of Burgos and Calahorra. The domain probably belonged to Alfonso. There are around more possessions in Navarrese-Aragonese hands such as Cellorigo, Belorado, Cerezo, Pedroso and Oca.
There were also many possessions in Navarre and Aragonese hands in the upper basin of the Ebro, especially that of Tedeja/Medina de Pomar. In the region of La Bureba there are tenants of Alfonso in Briviesca, Piedralada and Poza. In this last area, unlike the previous ones, many of the documented tenants are of Castilian origin instead of Navarro-Aragonese, probably being local magnates who now exercised their authority in the name of Alfonso. From the donation confirmations they issue, Alfonso continued maintaining its influence over the monasteries of Oña and Santo Domingo de Silos. To the north, the Battler maintained its influence over Bricia, the Cantabrian region of Trasmiera and Las Encartaciones while Asturias de Santillana would already be in the possession of Rodrigo González de Lara in the name of Urraca, defining a border that could have been maintained until the death of Alfonso.
Likewise, many towns on the road to Santiago, which had supported Alfonso I in the recent conflict, retained Alfonso's lieutenants and garrisons even in confrontation with pro-urraca factions. This is the case of Castrojeriz, with a tenure loyal to Alfonso. In addition, Alfonso did not abandon Sahagún's burghers who had supported him, placing a garrison under the rule of a pro-Aragonese Giraldo nicknamed the devil in the chronicles of the rival Sahagún monastery and exercising his power in the area through the missions of his maternal relative Beltrán de Risnel in Sahagún, Carrión (of which he was recognized as count) and Burgos. However, Alfonso did not try to separate these last territories from Castilian jurisdiction. Instead, the subsequent war between Urraca and his son Alfonso Raimúndez (under the control of Gelmírez and Froílaz, who benefited from a minority regency instead of a Urraca government) continued to give the Battler opportunities to preserve his influence in the kingdom of Castile for several years. More years. In general, he had the sympathy of the bourgeois of the Camino de Santiago for his policy favorable to the fueros and trade with the Franks, but he found a strong counterbalance in Bishop Pascual de Burgos and his successor Simón, who sought to reestablish their power in the diocese and the authority of Urraca. The city of Burgos itself changed loyalties on several occasions.
Alfonso also maintained good relations with the Castilian territories on the border with the Muslims, documenting royal acts that affected populations such as Sepúlveda, Pedraza, Sotosalbos or Segovia even years after the annulment of the marriage, the repopulation by Alfonso I of border areas, and assistance to Toledo against Almoravid incursions. Alfonso maintained a loyal tenant in San Esteban de Gormaz since 1111 and his reconquest in 1112 from the Muslims of Soria towns such as Campisábalos and Atienza is recorded., as well as indications of his control over Medinaceli. Cities such as Segovia or Toledo oscillated loyalties until as late as 1122. Some authors have pointed out that the clash between Gelmírez's Burgundian party and Alfonso's Aragonese party showed a deeper conflict in the way of carrying out the Reconquest, where Gelmírez represented the continuity of the feudal policy of Alfonso VI and the Battler the continuity of the vision of frontiersmen of the Cid. In this framework, Alfonso I would have the support of the peasantry who were looking for safe lands, both from Muslim attacks and from the great feudal powers of the kingdom itself. In opposition to Alfonso, in addition to the Almoravid push there was the see of Toledo that had archiepiscopal status and claimed to name bishops for Sigüenza and Osma. Although the Muslim counterattacks had deprived the bishops appointed by Bernardo de Sedirac of effective control over the territories they claimed, another factor contributed to the fact that Alfonso did not finish consolidating his dominance in those areas. The Alfoz de Lara, power base of his enemy Pedro González de Lara, was also near Osma.
The conquest of the Ebro Valley
Back to his kingdom
During his years in Leon politics, Alfonso had intervened in the Reconquista on the defensive. He had repelled attacks in 1110 by al-Mustain in Valtierra, by his Almoravid successors in 1112 in the region of Huesca, sent Bishop Esteban de Huesca to support his Urgelitan allies against a Muslim incursion in 1114, and helping Toledo and Segovia against the Almoravids in 1114 (who appear to have temporarily returned to his side in exchange). With the marriage annulled, Alfonso began a new, more offensive stage focused on the conquest of Zaragoza, which after the defeat at Valtierra had suffered popular discontent and it had fallen into the hands of the Almoravids.
Zaragoza (in Arabic, Saraqusta or sometimes Madînat al-Baida, the white city) was one of the main cities of al-Andalus and, as a result of its de fronteras, one of the main Muslim taifa kingdoms. In its greatest splendor, said taifa had covered from Tudela to Tortosa, Tudela, Huesca, Lérida, Tarragona and Calatayud depended on it and received vassalage from Valencia and Denia. Its strength, facing the vast unpopulated territories on the border of Castilla y León, had been the cause of the least expansion of the Kingdom of Aragon. In 1115 the Almoravid governor had become Ibn Tifilwit, whose government was marked by his disagreements with the philosopher and vizier Avempace (1115-1117). His only advance against Afonso was the taking of the Juslibol fortress.
From 1115 Alfonso resumed the pincer strategy to isolate Zaragoza to the west and east. Alfonso's first movements were aimed at restoring and expanding the western border in front of Tudela, which had been suffered by the Al-Mustain expedition in 1110. The chronicles again record the conquest of Tauste in 1115, which despite having been taken before along with Ejea it seems to be back in Muslim hands. It would probably have been lost during the Valtierra campaign.
Stabilization of the western and eastern borders
The military campaign was later interrupted by domestic and Leonese politics. In 1115 Alfonso also visited Sahagún for negotiations with Urraca, perhaps related to his brother's candidacy for the Burgos miter. At the beginning of 1116, he was in Castile, returning to Aragon in February and moving to the Riojan border in June. Meanwhile, that same June, Bishop Esteban de Huesca expeditiously resolved his boundary conflicts with Ramón de Roda, expelling him from Barbastro by force, with the acquiescence or at least the lack of response from Alfonso. The Battler probably considered the attitude of the Bishop of It was useless in a context of constant wars while Esteban was one of his most useful vassals. Ramón went into exile in France while Esteban once again strained his relationship with the papacy (which he had already faced in the time of Pedro I for his disputes with the bishop of Pamplona and with the monastery of Montearagón).
In August 1116, Alfonso granted a charter to Belorado, key to the control of territory in the western zone, and made donations to the monastery of Valvanera to consolidate his domain over it. From the end of 1116 to the beginning of 1117 he undertook Alfonso the submission of Diego López de Haro. It seems that in January 1117 the Battler was besieging him in Haro, in front of which he built a position on the hill of Santa Lucía, and already in February of that same year Diego López appears in the royal documents of Alfonso I, probably subdued or having changed of faction again. From López de Haro 1116 he is replaced in his La Rioja holdings of Grañón and Viguera by Fortún Garcés Cajal, the main supporter of the Battler in the area. Likewise, Alfonso then placed his relative Beltrán de Risnel as tenant in Logroño. For the seat of the bishopric of the area, disputed between various towns and finally reestablished in Calahorra, the Battler appointed Sancho de Funes, his fervent supporter, in 1117 to the point of being called Sancho de los Aragoneses in the cathedral chronicles. Alfonso also made new donations to the monastery of Valvanera to ensure it in its orbit.
That same year Alfonso reached a truce with his ex-wife, which he would renew in 1120. To resolve the complaints of Sahagún's bourgeois against the monastery, Alfonso recognized Bishop Pascual de Burgos, from the Urraca party, and Urraca recognized Beltrán de Risnel as Count of Carrión. There is no consensus among historians about who was left in possession of the city of Burgos, because while some admit a document that mentions an Íñigo López as a lieutenant of the Battler, others see indications that it is a later forgery. Zaragoza, which in the past it had paid outcasts to León as protection against Aragonese expansionism, it was abandoned to Alfonso. Some authors see the rise of Jimeno López in the court of Urraca as a sign of the power that the partisan sector of a approach to the Battler.
After a brief stay in Tiermas and Sieso, in which he gave jurisdiction to Sangüesa, he resumed his campaigns against the Muslims. Replicating what he had done a decade earlier he later turned his attention to the eastern frontier. In the same 1117 he ran over the lands of Lérida, threatening the city itself. Various Almoravid hosts got together to force the Battler to abandon his attempt to take it. It could have been in that campaign when he took Morella in 1117, although the success of the counterattack Almoravid and the evolution of the border in the following years make it doubtful that this or other advances could be consolidated in the southeastern part.
The conquest of Zaragoza
At the end of 1117, after the death of the governor, the city of Zaragoza was temporarily in the hands of the governor of Murcia, who inspected the square but waited for the appointment of a new authority, creating a power vacuum that Alfonso took advantage of. In preparation for a siege against a fortified square, he resorted to his trans-Pyrenean alliances. Alfonso had maintained important relations with Gastón IV, Viscount of Bearne. Gastón was an Occitan veteran of the Crusades in the Holy Land, with warrior and religious customs similar to the Aragonese and lord of a vizcounty with forces equal to those of Aragon. He was also an expert in siege weapons, as he had demonstrated in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, when he was fighting under Raymond IV of Tolosa, with which he accumulated experience in sieges of cities that could be vital for King Alfonso. Not much is known about how their good relationship came to be, probably based on their similar life experiences forged in the war against the Muslim, but they became close friends. They may have already been collaborating before 1117: the Viscount of Bearne appears as a tenant of Barbastro in 1113, without the reason being known, and he was married to Alfonso's cousin. Between 1117 and 1118, at a council in Bearne, a commitment to collaborate with Aragon was signed.
It is not known whether Gastón de Bearne influenced other Occitan nobles, but with the support of the pope, who granted the bull of the crusade and the associated religious benefits, many joined the campaign against Zaragoza, despite the memory of the defeat in 778 of Charlemagne, present in legends through the Song of Roland. A bull from Gelasius II ratified the Council of Toulouse in February 1118 and reaffirmed the army that was gathering to conquer the white city.
In March 1118, a large number of French and Gascon knights and lords gathered at Ayerbe, under the command of Alfonso. The list includes, in addition to Gaston, his brother Céntulo de Bigorra, Bernard de Comminges, William IX of Aquitaine and Bernard Atón de Beziers, with their hosts and vassals. Forces from the also allied county of Urgel, from Pallars, also attended, since Count Bernardo Ramón was feudatory of Alfonso I of Aragón, as well as from Ribagorza itself, as was the case with the Ribagorzan holdings of Bernardo Ramón or the local tenants Ramón Pedro, Pedro Gauzpert, Berenguer Gombal, Pedro Mir de Entenza or Ramón Amat. Diego López de Haro, Lord of Vizcaya, was also a vassal, and, although the documentary evidence shows gaps, there are indications of the presence of the house of Vela and other Álava nobles such as Íñigo López de Llodio. The ecclesiastical vassals present included Guillermo de Pamplona, Esteban de Huesca and San Ramón de Roda, who with the exception of the latter were themselves from beyond the Pyrenees. Sancho de Funes, abbot of Nájera and shortly after bishop of Calahorra, was also present. Through them the Church strongly collaborated in financing the campaign. On the contrary, there is no mention of the participation of my Lycians of the cities.
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They marched south, conquered Almudévar, Gurrea de Gállego and Zuera, along the river, and Salcey, Robres and Sariñena in the Monegros, and besieged Zaragoza at the end of May. The Arab chronicles mention indications that another front Cristiano attacked Tudela and Tarazona, probably to prevent them from helping Zaragoza.
Little is known for certain how the siege unfolded. There is evidence of the taking of the suburb outside the walls on the opposite bank from the walled city. The people of Zaragoza probably destroyed the bridge over the Ebro to hinder the Christian attack, although some chronicles attribute the burning to the Crusaders. Several historians consider that the supply was cut off of water, which entered through the canal de la Romareda to accelerate the fall of the city. A relief expedition from Valencia was ambushed by the Battler in May in the ravine of Death, in the vicinity of the city. Shortly after, Alfonso took control of the Aljafería, a fortress outside the city walls. The months that the siege lasted also meant a great test for the morale and health of the Christian troops, who would probably make a temporary withdrawal in winter, since the men slept outdoors. For their part, the Almoravids sent forces from Córdoba and Granada to break the siege. Ibn Mazdali, son of the recently deceased Almoravid general, defeated the Christian contingents in front of Tarazona, garrisoned Tudela and sent reinforcements to Zaragoza. In September the besieged received these reinforcements. According to the chronicles, there was then a return of the Franks, because they considered the city impregnable or because of disagreements with the Spanish nobles. In November, however, ibn Mazdali died and Zaragoza finally surrendered on December 18, 1118. It is usually indicated As a landmark of the fall, the capture of the Torreón de la Zuda, seat of the Muslim government and fortification of the walled enclosure.
Alfonso recovered the old episcopal seat, whose occupant seems to have been the cause of disputes. Alfonso seems to have preferred Esteban de Huesca, always close to him and who had collaborated vitally in the campaign. However, the dispute with Ramón de Roda was recent, which had put Esteban in conflict with the Holy See and could have motivated the final election of Pedro de Librana, a Béarn monk preferred by the pope. He ordered the erection of a new church on the old chapel Mozarabic of El Pilar, converting the city's main mosque into a cathedral and granted concessions to the Benedictines to found a monastery in the Aljafería Palace, a building that became the royal residence of the kings of Aragon. Alfonso offered the city a charter to attract Christian settlers.
The capitulations of the city recognized the Muslims the right to stay in Zaragoza, with the condition of living in the suburbs within a year, during which the mosques would continue to fulfill their function; to pay the same taxes as before the conquest, to maintain their rural properties and to practice their religion and be judged by their own laws. The right to march freely was recognized for those who wished to do so. With these advantageous conditions, Alfonso thus tried to avoid the depopulation of the city, especially preserving the artisans and merchants, assimilating the Mudejars, which would mark the art of the city. To organize coexistence, Alfonso I endowed the city with a first charter in January 1119 and established a system of aljamas that guaranteed respect between religious communities as in other cities of his kingdom.
After all this, the medina or old city was repopulated with Christians who had participated in the capture of the city. It is estimated that, of the nearly twenty thousand Muslims, many remained, and with the arrival of new inhabitants the population grew and the city expanded beyond the walls. Gastón IV de Bearne received possession of the city as a reward for his efforts. Pedro Jiménez remained as justice of the king and Sancho Fortuñón as zalmedina of the city.
Conquest of the right bank of the Ebro
Once Zaragoza had been taken, the King of Aragon planned the conquest of the towns to the south of the Ebro river. In 1119 the operations around Zaragoza culminated, conquering nearby towns such as María, Fuentes, Pina or Alfajarín. Probably around those dates Belchite or Cariñena were the southernmost points of Zaragoza under Christian rule, possibly being the mountain pass of Paniza the one that served as a natural border to the south.
After that, Alfonso's attention shifted to Tudela, the next focus of Muslim power in the Ebro. Tudela fell after a brief siege on February 25 of that year. With Tudela fell the fortresses of its defensive perimeter, such as Valtierra and Autol. It was followed by the entire Moncayo pasture and the banks of the Queiles river, including Ágreda, Vozmediano and after another brief siege, Tarazona with its region, and the valley of the Alhama river with Cervera del Río Alhama At the head, the castle of Tudején that controlled the homonymous village and that of Sanchoabarca, the places of Lorcénigo, Cintruénigo, Corella and Alfaro and the passage of the river in Castejón de la Barca. The chronology of that campaign is, however, the focus of debate among scholars.
After the fall of Tarazona Alfonso continued the campaign securing the upper bank of the Ebro, where the river Jalón flows into, and the course of the river Huecha with Novallas, Magallón, Alberite, Mallén, Alagón, Pedrola, Novillas, Épila and Ricla... Local tradition attributes the capture of the castle of Alagón to an apparition of the Virgin, dating from September. Alfonso also subjected the Hudi kingdom of Imad al-Dawla in Rueda de Jalón y Borja, the last stronghold of the local Muslim dynasty that the Almoravids had deposed and was seeking revenge against them.
In 1119 Alfonso also populated Soria and places in its region such as Salas. Alfonso VI of León had come to take Almazán, Gormaz and Medinaceli in 1098-1104 but the counteroffensive of the Almoravids and the catastrophe of Uclés in 1108 they had made those conquests ephemeral and had turned the area into a sparsely populated frontier that now threatened to outflank the new possessions of Alfonso I. Repopulating the area was necessary to avoid Muslim counterattacks from the Duero Valley. To the south, The campaign of 1119 left the border in defensible positions thanks to the mountain passes in places like Ágreda and Lanzas Agudas and the support of the Hudi kingdom in the lower course of the Jalón. To the east, the border with the Almoravids passed through Campo de Belchite, a town to which Alfonso granted a border jurisdiction in December. The Almoravids, however, did not respond to Alfonso's advances, being focused on a reorganization of their command in the peninsula and in minor actions against León such as the taking of Coria.
Alfonso not only sought to consolidate the upper Duero area against the Almoravids, but also against his former rivals Alfonso VII and Bernardo de Sedirac, who, taking advantage of the fact that the Battler was busy with Zaragoza, had seized Alcalá de Henares from the Almoravids. The city of Toledo, now counting on that support against the Muslims, returned to the hands of the Leonese. Historians see Alfonso I's stay in Pedraza in December as an attempt to consolidate his presence in southern Castile. At that time He managed to get his faithful lieutenant Íñigo Jiménez de Asieso to control the area of Sepúlveda and Segovia, in the mountains, although he would not be able to regain control of Toledo. Likewise, the location of Soria dominated a crossing of the Duero, not far from the positions of Osma and the extremadura that Gónzalez de Lara held in the name of Urraca.
The Jalón and Jiloca Valleys and the Battle of Cutanda
In 1120, Afonso undertook a campaign against Calatayud, the next great Muslim center of power, with his forces and those of allies from across the Pyrenees such as William IX of Aquitaine as well as his Hudi vassal. It lasted, with numerous legends and stories in the oral tradition about hard fighting in parallel to reduce the neighboring Muslim castles in Tierga, Bijuesca and Maluenda.
Before the city fell, Alfonso received news that the Almoravids were marching from their bases in Valencia to try to recapture Zaragoza. Modern authors differ, however, on the route they followed: Alfonso and his allies lifted the siege and marched to intercept them. Alfonso found them in Cutanda, in the valley of the Jiloca River. Although primary sources differ on the numbers of each force and probably exaggerate them for propaganda reasons, it seems that in a surprise move Alfonso managed to ambush the Muslims. Despite being outnumbered, the Aragonese forces crushed the Muslims and gained his victory on June 17, 1120, definitively ending the Muslim hopes of recovering Zaragoza. The Battle of Cutanda is remembered as Alfonso's greatest victory: in the XIV century it was still said «Cutanda was worse» for refer to achievements that seem impossible. Accounts of Muslim survivors who managed to reach Valencia show a complete defeat, including the death of important leaders of the Almoravid administration in al-Andalus and a hasty flight. Chroniclers of the Middle East recorded equally the battle as a major Muslim defeat. The battle was followed by the destruction of multiple minor Muslim fortifications, probably collapsing the Islamic structure on the upper Huerva, the Jiloca and the Pancrudo.
After his victory, his army resumed the conquest of Calatayud. Calatayud finally fell on June 24, 1120, being followed by the lands of present-day Bubierca, Alhama de Aragón and Ariza. With this, the currently Aragonese section of the Jalon Valley. By 1121, Alfonso controlled the middle section of the Jalón. The campaign ended with Chodes, the mountains of Albedrano and Viduerna, Berdejo, Carabantes, Albalate, Ariza, Milmarcos, Anchuela, Guisema, Cubel, Villafeliche, Langa and Codos as advanced positions de Alfonso around Calatayud.
The military operations against the Muslims continued with the fall of Daroca and its district (including the current Torrelacárcel and Singra and the ojos del Jiloca) which meant the conquest of the course of the main tributary of the Jalón, the Jiloca. It also probably took on this date the iqlim (district) of Qutanda (with the Pancrudo river valley) and perhaps that of Sahla, which covered the route from Valencia. The fall of the area was another severe blow to the influence of the Almoravids, whom Alfonso put into sharp retreat. Faced with these conquests, the old taifas of Molina and Albarracín, now both in Almoravid hands, marked the border in the foothills from the mountains of Cuenca. The lands beyond Daroca were, however, sparsely populated and both the Almoravids and Alfonso prioritized the lower section of the Ebro in the following years.
After an interruption in the autumn of 1121 in which he moved to Burgos to put down a revolt in Tardajos (probably as an action against the house of Lara), Alfonso returned to the Ebro valley. At the beginning of 1122 Alfonso received the Borge's surrender. This town had remained in the campaigns of 1119 as a nominal exclave of the Hudi vassal kingdom surrounded by the populations taken by Alfonso. It seems that around 1122, once the military conquests were finished, its peaceful surrender was agreed with favorable conditions for the Muslim population local. In February of that year Alfonso appears in Ainzón, which has been proposed as the place of signing the document of Borja's capitulation.
In order to secure these conquests south of the Ebro militarily, Alfonso founded a military order in Belchite in 1122: the Belchite brotherhood. It was the first of these characteristics in the Iberian Peninsula and founded in the likeness of the Jerusalem Militia and those established in the Crusades. The brothers and their benefactors would receive crusade benefits not only for the conquest of a city as had happened until then. Its probable zone of territorial action was in the south of Zaragoza and the lower course of the Huerva river (Cariñena, Belchite) which had fallen into the hands of Alfonso since 1119 but lacked great natural defenses against possible Islamic counterattacks.
To the west were the Castilian and Leonese lands. At the end of the summer and during the autumn of 1122, he made a broad incursion into Castile, passing through Olmedo and Fresno, through lands then dominated by the infante Alfonso Raimúndez, whom it is believed that he wanted to intimidate into respecting the truce that he had agreed to years ago. before with his mother. The progressive consolidation on the throne of the infant and his regents had led to the creation by Gelmírez of the diocese of Ávila the previous year on the lands of Extremadura. The acts of the Battler in the lands south of the Duero were in general conciliatory towards the Leonese and the campaign was fruitful, since the Aragonese sovereign did not return to these regions during the reign of Urraca. Peace in the Castilian territories suited both parties: it allowed Alfonso to concentrate on the conquest and repopulation of the Ebro and Urraca, trying to subdue his sister Teresa in the west. As for the infante Alfonso, he obtained the acquiescence of the Aragonese monarch to govern the lands south of the Duero and to take over Sigüenza, in exchange for keeping its Castilian squares along the Camino de Santiago. The pact between the Leonese and the Aragonese must have been agreed at the end of 1122 or the beginning of the following year.
Repopulation of conquered territory
The vastness of the newly conquered lands posed challenges in securing its Christian population. According to the archaeological studies of churches and Christian neighborhoods and the references in historical sources, the original Mozarabic population was significant in towns such as Tudela, Tarazona, Calatayud, Daroca, Alagón and Tamarite de Litera. Even so, it was necessary to consolidate and repopulate the area. territory, before the departure of part of the Islamic population. The popular legend, with stories of surviving Christian communities that after the conquest by Alfonso recovered religious images hidden during the Muslim conquest while others had abandoned the towns (Mallén/Novillas or Atea/Saz) affects the demographic challenge faced by the feisty.
The ancient system of presura, by which the king and his lieutenants distributed the lands abandoned after the conquest, gave opportunities to Alto Aragonese, Navarrese and Gascons to settle as seen in place names, numerous studies on names, linguistic and religious. Under Alfonso it was customary for the peons who had participated in the campaign to receive a yugada of irrigated land, allowing the peasantry to participate in the conquest, while the knights received double. They also received houses and buildings in the urban centers as the Muslim population moved to the aljamas outside the walls in compliance with the surrenders. The emigration to the south of part of the Pyrenean population meant, however, that the development of localities in the original core of the kingdom.
Since 1122, the Battler endowed numerous cities such as Burgo Nuevo de Sangüesa (1122), Puente la Reina (1122), Ayerbe (c. 1122) with town charters and charters... thus encouraging repopulation and settlement of the territory. They are often called fueros de francos because they encouraged the creation of Frankish boroughs, with French immigrants, often as new neighborhoods or expansions of cities to settle artisans and merchants. Alfonso began granting privileges to the area of the Camino de Santiago that served as a connection with the other side of the Pyrenees and continued the work of his father Sancho Ramírez. Another initial focus was the lower course of the Aragón river that after having Once a border area between Aragon, Pamplona and the Muslims, it was now in the heart of their domains and open to further economic exploitation. He not only organized the construction of these villages but also promoted the construction of infrastructures such as mills, ovens and baths.
Despite these Mozarabic Christian inhabitants and settlers, the Islamic population remained significant. In addition to Borja and the rest of the Hudi vassal kingdom in Jalón (remaining a significant population in Terrer or Arcos de Jalón), other populations that had surrendered after the capture of Zaragoza and the battle of Cutanda and retained a significant Muslim population (Mudejars).) were Pedrola, Fuentes de Ebro, Pina and Gelsa on the Ebro, Cuarte, Cadrete, María, Mezalocha and Muel along the Huerva river, Letux, Codo and Belchite on the Aguasvivas and the towns along the Queiles and Huecha as Tarazona. Many of the Mudejars and Muladíes continued to work their traditional lands as exáricos, given the economic collapse that their departure would have entailed. Its continuity was key to maintaining the system of rafts and ditches, inherited from the Roman and Caliphate times and necessary for agriculture. The exaricos had to in exchange pay for a part of the agricultural and livestock production of the conquered territories. The exarico status however, it was also used for Christian settlers used to exploit the new properties.
In recently conquered cities like Zaragoza, Alfonso's fueros typically allowed the pre-existing Muslim and Jewish population to stay in the cities in extramural aljamas with their own institutions. This continuity of population meant a more rapid absorption of immigrants Franks compared to the commercial towns on the Camino de Santiago, since the Muslim population continued to be the agrarian and urban economic base. In some exceptional cases such as that of Borja, there are indications that no attempts to repopulate were raised in the short term. localities given the peaceful nature of the surrender.
Planning the conquered territory
Not only was the arrival of immigrants encouraged, but Alfonso granted possessions to nobles, sharing the income and power with them in exchange for them building castles and thus guaranteeing control and population of the territory. With the expansion under Afonso, the number of these skyrocketed compared to his predecessors. Afonso donated old husûn or abandoned Islamic fortresses for their reconstruction and garrison to lords such as the Malavella, who received from the king a castle in Stone, or Fortún Galíndez, which received the castle of Alfajarín next to Zaragoza. Before 1125, castles in Gallur, Borja and Sádaba were completed and an Aragonese possession established in Borobia.
Alfonso distributed the conquests among his lieutenants and trusted men, the extent of the new conquests being of such magnitude that some authors see it as the seed of the transition from the system of tenures to that of hereditary lordships in the Ebro valley. The primitive state system that Alfonso inherited saw the territory to be supervised triple, reducing the control that the monarch could exercise over the tenants. The delivery of Alagón and Pedrola with the district with the mouth of the Jalón to his former tutor, Lope, is significant. Garcés Peregrino, with which he gave rise to the house of Alagón, which would become one of the great noble houses of the kingdom. The middle district of Jalón around Ricla was in the hands of Íñigo Galindez and Ato Orella, son and son-in-law respectively of the influential Galindo Sánchez de Sos. Another concession of historical relevance was that of Urrea to Pedro Jiménez. Pedro Jiménez was justice of Aragon, one of the main officials of the court and would become founder of the house of Urrea, another of the main lineages of Aragon.
Alfonso, unlike his predecessors, was inclined to grant such tenures to lords of French origin. Authors such as Lema Pueyo have defended that this was the result of a deliberate policy of Alfonso, who, by giving possessions and possessions to one side of the Pyrenees, tied Occitan lords to himself who could become his vassals or allies also on the other side of the mountain range., where the Navarrese monarchs had already had aspirations in the past. Thus, in 1122 Alfonso received homage from Céntulo II of Bigorra, a veteran of his campaigns and brother of his ally Gastón who had ascended the throne of Bigorra and had a dependency nominal but ineffective of the duchy of Aquitaine. Céntulo received new possessions in the Ebro valley to repopulate, highlighting the possession of Tarazona. Once Zaragoza was taken, Aragón had become its own center of power with strong ties to Béarn and Bigorra. Among the nobles who arrived at his court at that time is significantly his maternal cousin, Rotrou III de Perche, who would become one of his trusted lieutenants and to whom he would give possession of Tudela. The chronicles are, however, contradictory about his previous role with Alfonso, with whom he could have collaborated during the Zaragoza campaign but having abandoned it prematurely.
The tenants who received such honors in turn carried out a secondary redistribution of property that was transplanted by a low nobility from the Pyrenees and France. This had the multiple effect of forming a network of influences around the large holdings, of guaranteeing the military recruitment of the new holdings and also of assuring the population and production of the new lands of the kingdom. Among the cases studied in historiography is the network of influence of Ato Orella and Lope Garcés Peregrino in the lower section of the Jalón. This is the case of La Almunia de Cabañas, granted to an Íñigo Galindez, as well as other lands in Lumpiaque, Épila and Suñén to Sancho Aznárez. Another case that has been proposed is the donation of land around Magallón and in the Cinco Villas to the Luján lineage, which would fit with the Gascon origin proposed by some authors for the Lope Garcés who appears as a tenant de Estella and that he would have brought with him his vassals from beyond the Pyrenees. Gastón de Béarn also attracted an important Occitan network in Zaragoza and the Pyrenees. Rotrou de Perche was a focus of attraction for French nobles less in number, but politically relevant for its military role and its local strength. Other known distributions in the period include the donation of land around Zaragoza by the city's zalmedina, Sancho Fortuñón, receiving the merino from Al fonso, Banzo Fortuñón, possessions in Gallur, Grisén and Pinseque, on the high bank of the Ebro, or the donation of Monzalbarba to a nobleman from Alava.
Alfonso was also concerned with recovering the old episcopal sees from Roman and Visigothic times, these being the keys to building a Christian administration in cities that had just lost their Islamic institutions. He recreated and donated resources for the bishoprics of Calahorra (recovered from Nájera in 1116), Zaragoza (recreated in 1118), Tarazona (recreated in 1119) and ensured and expanded the bishoprics recreated by Alfonso VI such as Sigüenza (taken from the Muslims and repopulated in 1121 -1124), Segovia (1122-1123) and Osma. The church also had its own repopulation activity together with the localities that received royal privileges. For example, the abbot of San Millán de la Cogolla populated San Martín de Berberana (1121), that of Nájera did the same with Alesón (1123), that of San Juan de la Peña would do so in Luesia (1125) and the bishop of Zaragoza in Longares (1127). In addition to guaranteeing repopulation, the bishoprics were key to justifying control of the territory: the diocese of Tarazona served, for example, to legitimize the repopulation of Soria in the face of the claims of the Castilian bishoprics of Osma and Sigüenza while the latter legitimized the claims Castilian to Soria and Jalón. Despite this, the presence of the bishops of Segovia, Osma and Sigüenza in acts of Alfonso I shows once again the complexity of the political game of the time.
Foreign policy and campaign of Lérida
In 1123 Alfonso clashed with the Count of Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer III, over the city of Lleida, which both wanted to take. In 1120, its governor had agreed with Berenguer Ramón III to cede castles on the Segre border like Corbins and his support against Tortosa. This irritated Alfonso by transferring the pressure from Barcelona to his holdings in the Cinca. Chalamera, Zaidín and Velilla had or had had Aragonese tenants, but their effective control was hindered by the Muslim presence in Alcolea and the alliance between Lérida and Ramón Berenguer, so they could have returned to Muslim hands.
El Batallador, helped in turn by his historical allies from Urgel, took Alcolea de Cinca. At the same time, Alfonso Jordán, claimant to the counties of Tolosa and Provence, waged a campaign against Ramón Berenguer, claiming his rights to Languedoc in what it has been seen by some historians as a continuation of the conflict through chains of traditional trans-Pyrenean alliances. The Battler next besieged Lérida in 1123 and took or erected the Castle of Gardeny on one of the nearby hills. the square in vain during the spring and the first half of the summer. According to Zurita, the intervention of various Catalan and Aragonese prelates and barons put an end to the conflict between Alfonso and the count, by reaching a mutual commitment to refrain from taking any action against Lérida. In any case, shortly after, in 1124, an Almoravid army defeated Ramón Berenguer III at the battle of Corbins, forcing the Barcelona count to resign. Go to the objective of Lerida.
Reorganization of the western border
Also in 1124, he suppressed a revolt by Diego López I de Haro and Ladrón Íñiguez, powerful feudal lords of Vizcaya, Álava and La Rioja, who supported his ex-wife Urraca. Although the exact causes are unknown, it is speculated that Alfonso I could have withdrawn Íñiguez's tenure of Término, making him go over to the side of the lord of Vizcaya.
In March the Battler entered La Rioja and in July he besieged Haro, López's fortress. The campaign continued through Álava, with a diploma in August placing the Battler in Pangua. Alfonso quickly defeated them and proceeded to divide his troops. enemies. The former disappears from the chronicles after the revolt, while Ladrón Íñiguez seems to reconcile with the king.
Alfonso replaced López de Haro from numerous possessions in favor of Ladrón Íñiguez (who appears in Estíbaliz, Haro and other territories in Alava) from another of his collaborators in the area, Íñigo López de Llodio (who takes charge of the Término, Tedeja and Mena) and Orti Ortiz (which Pancorbo received). The Battler thus generously rewarded Ladrón for returning to his side, while depriving him of fortresses that would pose a military threat to him. The house of Vela would from then on become defenders of the belonging of Álava, Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa in the kingdom of Pamplona while the house of Haro became their enemies and defenders of the Castilian side.
Alfonso I also sought to strengthen the state structure in the area and gave Marañón privileges. He also developed and fortified Salinas de Añana, in Álava. The area, rich from the salt trade, was the object of desire of the main local powers and experienced a period of fortification during the reign of the Battler, who tried to tie his income to the crown. Since that decade references occasionally appear in Alfonso's documents to his domain in Álava.The mentions of Guipúzcoa and Vizcaya in his documents are, on the other hand, exceptional or suspected of forgery.
Reorganization of the southern and eastern borders
By September 1124 the king was back on the southern border. It seems that in that same year he took over the Muslims Medinaceli. The fall of the lower Jalón valley in 1120-1122 had left the upper course of the river in a situation similar to Soria in 1119, as a bottleneck to prevent attacks from the Tagus valley. In that same campaign he collaborated with Bishop Bernardo de Agén in the capture of the city of Sigüenza, and in the restoration and repopulation of his bishopric in what is another example of the political complexity of the moment. Although Bernardo was almost certainly in favor of Urraca, he needed the military collaboration of an Alfonso who still considered himself King of Castile to wrest his episcopal see from the Muslims. Leopoldo Torres Balbás attributes to Alfonso I the decision to locate the primitive medina of medieval Sigüenza next to the castle.
As he had done in Belchite, Alfonso established in 1124 in Monreal del Campo the Militia Christi of Monreal, Militia Caesaraugustana or Order of Monreal, which was based in the newly founded city of Monreal (located in the eyes of Jiloca), that is, 'mansion of the heavenly king' and received a zone of influence in the area of Jiloca and Teruel, and its term awarded up to Segorbe. Its objective was to direct the reconquest with a view to the capture of Tortosa and with it to give the kingdom an outlet to the Mediterranean. The Jiloca valley, converted into a border area, was repopulated and fortified.
Alfonso also paid attention to the Huerva border between the areas of the orders of Monreal and Belchite, where Alfonso was concerned with establishing Christian populations. In December 1124, the donation to the Fruela and Pelayo brothers of four castles on fords of the river. Although only two of these castles have been identified, the geographical analyzes of historians suggest that with this a route to Zaragoza from the south through the Huerva valley was fortified, which had already been of military importance in the previous decades. December also dates to the granting of a charter to María de Huerva. This last town protected the final stretch to Zaragoza on a route that Abderramán III had already used in the past to attack the city, being of importance the granting land to Christian settlers to guarantee a defensive force. The town of María and the fortification of Almohada (current Almada de Villarreal de Huerva hill) were placed under the control of the zalmedina of Zaragoza.
Expedition through al-Andalus from 1125-1126
The great extent of the new territories incorporated into the Kingdom of Aragon forced the Battler to attract a large amount of population to repopulate fields and towns and maintain the country's economy. Knowing the dissatisfaction of the large Mozarabic population in Muslim territory with the increase in religious fanaticism of the new Almoravid North African religious current, and encouraged by the Mozarabs of Granada, who offered their support to rebel in this city in the south of Al- Andalus, Alfonso undertook a military expedition through Muslim lands. In March 1125 Alfonso organized an assembly in Uncastillo to organize the campaign.
Over fifty years of age, the monarch undertook this risky incursion into the interior of al-Andalus. He left Zaragoza in September leading an army that entered the taifa of Valencia and reached Benicadell (Penya Cadiella in the chronicles), where he had already fought in his youth during the battle of Bairén during his Expedition in support of El Cid. In one year he led his offensive against the Almoravid city of Granada with the aim of creating a Christian principality in the heart of al-Andalus. He surrounded Granada, but the Mozarabic population inside the city did not want or could not open the gates for him. He then decided to undertake a looting operation for the fertile lands of the Guadalquivir valley.
While the King of Aragon was looting the south of the current province of Córdoba, Abu Bakr, son of the emir Ali ibn Yusuf, had left with troops from Seville to meet the Battler, and caught up with him in Arnisol, Arinzol or Aranzuel, according to las fuentes, current Anzur (now the municipality of Puente Genil), near Lucena. There a pitched battle was engaged on March 10, 1126 with the result of a decisive victory for the Aragonese.
He toured important towns in the south of Córdoba and reached the coast in Motril or Vélez-Málaga, where, according to the chronicles, he ordered a fish to be caught for him before returning loaded with booty and accompanied by numerous Mozarabs. It is estimated that more than ten thousand followed him with the intention of settling in the Christian kingdom. Perhaps the figure is exaggerated, but the truth is that the Battler declared these Mozarabs free men upon his return, granting them judicial, fiscal, economic and military privileges and advantages. Pursued by Almoravid forces, Alfonso nevertheless managed to return through Cuenca and Albarracín in 1126 and install many of these Mozarabs in his kingdom.
New repopulation activities
The transfer of the Mozarabs was the main consequence of the long incursion, which lasted more than a year. Alfonso gave them privileges that same year in a document issued in Alfaro. del Alhama, the repopulation by these in the new lands conquered in the Ebro valley, especially in the area of Mallén and the Jalón valley. Some authors have pointed out that the new settlers were also key to avoiding the depopulation of the nucleus original Pyrenean as people emigrated from the mountains to the valley. In 1125 there were new efforts to establish a population in the heart of his kingdom, with the granting of privileges to Carcastillo and the new town of Alquézar as well as the repopulation of Luesia, where it has been proposed that the population of the monastery of San Esteban de Oraste was concentrated and expanded. The charter of Carcastillo is notable for its development of the military services that the city would have to provide to the king.
The eastern border also required his attention. Lleida and Tortosa, to the east, remained the last Muslim strongholds from which to threaten the kingdom of Alfonso. In the same 1126, the Almoravids launched a punitive expedition from there, taking advantage of the absence of the king for his Andalusian campaign, and they could not be stopped until Lascuarre, which evidenced the need to repopulate and consolidate the Ribagorzana area. The absence of the king in the eastern part of his kingdom, the neglect of the ecclesiastical headquarters in the area that acted as administrative headquarters and the rapid expansion of his domains after the capture of Zaragoza had also allowed internal conflict in Ribagorza, including the kidnapping of the abbot of San Victorian that same year and the local rise of his vassal Mir Arnaldo de Pallars. Thus, in the second half of 1126 Alfonso personally visited the eastern zone stating his presence in Calasanz, promulgated new charters, such as those of Aínsa, he donated Chía to the monastery of San Victorián and met with the count of Barcelona, normalizing diplomatic relations.
At the beginning of 1127 Alfonso undertook more repopulations. In February he ordered the population of Tormos and granted its own jurisdiction to Cabanillas together with Tudela. He also paid attention to continue developing connections with France, endowing the Hospital de Santa Cristina de Somport and ordering the Bishop of Pamplona Sancho de Larrosa to create a new hospital in Roncesvalles. In the period he is also credited with efforts to expand Estella with new settlers.
Last years
War with Alfonso VII of León and peace of Támara
During all those years Alfonso had continued to retain part of his former influence in the kingdom of Castile, divided between supporters of Urraca and his son Alfonso Raimúndez. Even so, as he had focused on the Muslim conquests on the Ebro, he had given his ex-wife the opportunity to establish his dominance (for example, expelling him from Toledo in 1118, Burgos in 1120, and probably Segovia after 1123). Alfonso I, however, continued to retain the garrisons along the Camino de Santiago, to which the city of Burgos was added again at some point in the 1120s. On March 8, 1126, Urraca I de León died, leaving his then 21-year-old son as the sole heir to the joint crowns of León and Castilla as Alfonso VII and finally free to act.
The tensions between the two Alfonsos, inherited from the old civil wars, were released with the attempt of the Leonese king to recover the villas that the Aragonese had since his victory in Candespina. Alfonso VII also had the support of Lope Díaz de Haro, son of Diego López de Haro who aspired to recover his father's lands. The Battler lost some of his advanced positions in the interior of Castilla such as Carrión, Frías, Briviesca, Villafranca de Montes de Oca and Burgos, before which he moved to Burgos to face the Leonese. With both forces in the area, a diplomatic peace was reached with the Pact of Támara in June 1127 by which the Battler officially renounced the title of emperor of the Leon tradition. Thus, for example in 1130 Alfonso appears as reigning in «Ribagorza, Aragón, Pamplona and in Aran».
However, populations of Burgos, La Rioja, Vizcaya and Álava such as the left bank of the Bayas River, Pancorbo, Cellorigo, Bilibio, Cerezo, Belorado, Nájera, Haro, Calahorra and Cervera del Río Alhama continued in Aragonese power. With this, the border remained in the traditional limits between Castilla and Navarra, before the Castilian conquests that followed the murder of Sancho el de Peñalén.
According to the Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña:
In order to avoid any dissension between the two kingdoms, it was decided which land was the Kingdom of Navarre, that is, from the river Ebro to near the city of Burgos, that King Sancho of Castile had violently snatched his relative King Sancho of Navarre (Sancho el de Peñalén), the son of King García (García Sánchez de Nájera). From which documents were spread between both kings and kingdoms of Castilla and Navarra and each of them received "cartas suas firmatas et bene vallatas". Then Alfonso de Aragón handed over all the land of Castile to Alfonso de Castilla, and henceforth he did not want to be called emperor, but king of Aragon, Pamplona and Navarra.
The exact situation after the peace is not completely clear, since it seems that both Alfonsos continued to dispute some places on the border even after having agreed to the treaty. It seems that Alfonso I continued to control Castrojeriz despite the fact that according to the peace it was on the Castilian side, as well as Castrellum and Ferrerria in its vicinity. Alfonso I also appointed a tenant for Briviesca and Cerezo in La Bureba, as well as others for Piedralada, Castilla Vieja and Mena. The rich salt pans of Añana, despite being on the western bank of the Bayas, were also under the control of tenants loyal to the Battler.
Alfonso I thus maintained some positions in Castile until his death, backed by a sector of the Castilian nobility, who now showed misgivings about the influence that the Galician faction had over Alfonso VII and were open to an understanding with the Battler. Among them stands out the Count of Lara, an old enemy of Alfonso the Battler in defense of Urraca, who had continued to lead her faction against his son Alfonso VII and waged a revolt against the Leonese monarch in parallel to the conflicts between the Leonese and the Aragonese. Pedro González de Lara had become the father-in-law of Bertrán Risnel, the main agent of the Aragonese king in León and Castilla, thus generating a faction favorable to Alfonso I the Battler in León. His support allowed him to maintain control of positions on the other side of the border as Castrojeriz and Carrión. For his part, Alfonso VII of León married shortly after (late 1127 or early 1128) Berenguela, daughter of the Count of Barcelona and also a rival of the Battler, Ramón Berenguer III.
Consolidation of the western border
In addition, the Aragonese extremadura reached the banks of the Duero thanks to the possessions of Soria and San Esteban de Gormaz, which had strategically remained in their hands. Faced with these, Alfonso VII had the support of the Bishop of Sigüenza, Bernardo de Agén who gained him control of the upper course of the Jalón and who came to claim Calatayud. In turn, both Bernardo de Agén and Beltrán de Osma claimed Soria, something that concessions from Alfonso VII of León encouraged, which motivated them to Miguel de Tarazona reiterated in his degree the city's belonging to his diocese. Alfonso I dedicated himself after Támara to reinforcing this southwestern border.
In the summer there are donations to nobles in Tudela, Tarazona, Borja and the banks of the Ebro as far as Zaragoza in what has been interpreted as a first effort to ensure control of the border with Castile. Since September 1127 He took care of repopulating Cella, on the route to Valencia, in whose operations Rotrou de Perche must have participated, who received the town of Corella (Navarra) as a reward. In November 1127 he began to besiege the Muslim fortress of Molina de Aragón, in whose proximities he raised the fortress of Castilnuevo, completed in February 1128. As of May of that year, while his magnates continued the siege of the important square of Molina de Aragón, Alfonso moved further south and conquered Traíd, in the current Guadalajara province.
While continuing the siege of Molina in 1128, Alfonso's documentation shows the appointment of tenants to fortify and secure the border routes in the Iberian system. In 1128 the mention of a tenant in Yanguas appears for the first time, at the head of the Cidacos valley, controlling one of the passes that connected his domains in the Ebro with the Soria border area. His attention to the Alhama valley is also recorded that year, with Cervera and Tudején as the main fortresses in a joint tenure, probably under one of his lieutenants in Soria, Fortún Garceiz. El Batallador also reinforced his control of the Queiles valley, with the same function, and from that year there is also the first mention of the castle of Los Fayos and the appointment of Jimeno Íñiguez as tenant of Ágreda, which would be fortified. There is also the appointment of a tenant for Almenar de Soria which would also be repopulated and fortified. Further south, he ordered the erection of another Monreal in the vicinity of Ariza, guarding a last access to the Ebro valley through the Jalón.
On the banks of the Duero, the Battler also expanded his positions. The important holdings of Soria and San Esteban passed into the hands of Fortún López, another of Alfonso I's trusted magnates. From August until the end of 1128, the King of Aragón dedicated himself to populating and thus fortifying the town of Almazán —according to the chronicles walling it-, which he decided to rename as "Plasencia", and according to Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada he also repopulated and fortified Berlanga de Duero.
According to the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris , Alfonso VII of León faced him during that campaign of 1128 when the Battler advanced against Morón de Almazán as a preliminary to be able to go to Medinaceli. According to the chronicle, the population was helped by the Leonese when the Battler tried to besiege it. That city, Medinaceli, Santiuste and Atienza remained in the hands of Alfonso VII in front of the positions fortified by the Aragonese. The lack of collaboration of the Count of Lara, opposed to Alfonso VII, however, prevented him from taking new measures on the Soriano front.. The Chronica, being another source from Proleón, cites the forces of Alfonso VII as inferior in number to those of the Battler and blames the rebellious Castilian and Leonese nobles for the Aragonese advantage. Notably, the Count of Lara's power base was close to the Duero front, which made it difficult for the Leonese to face the Battler without his support. Not only was the Count of Lara a problem for Alfonso VII, but also his cousin Alfonso de Portugal was being a focus of conflicts on the border with Galicia.
While the siege of Molina continued, Alfonso spent several months in Almazán, from where he organized various repopulation activities. On the border of Jiloca he handed over Singra and Torrelacárcel to the Montearagón monastery for its fortification and the appointment of Ato Orella in Cutanda has been attributed to a project to recover the network of Muslim fortifications in Jiloca. Around Tudela Corella donated to the Count Rotrou, granted charter to Araciel and established the distribution of irrigation of the Alhama river. In the heart of his kingdom he ordered the population of Barbués, and Pertusa, in operations in which a weir and a new irrigation system from the Flumen river. Molina was finally in the hands of the Battler in December. After this campaign Soria, Almazán, San Esteban de Gormaz, Molina de Aragón, Traíd and Cella constituted the most advanced positions of Aragón on the border southwestern.
Alfonso spent the turn of the year between Tudején, Fitero and Ocón, showing the importance for his policy of consolidating the passes between the Ebro valley and Soria, before making a comeback in Soria populating and fortifying Ribarroya in 1129. However, he must have reached an understanding with Alfonso VII because according to the Chronica he left for Jaca and did not enter León again. In February he was in Huesca. Soria y Molina they would remain in the hands of the Battler until his death. It is during this period of peace with León that some authors date the "memorial of the three Alfonsos" in which Alfonso VII of León and his cousin Alfonso Henríquez (future Alfonso I of Portugal) submit to the arbitration of the Battler for border disputes, which is seen as an acknowledgment that the Battler maintained a certain supremacy in the Iberian Peninsula.
Return to the eastern border and Occitan politics
In 1129, popular discontent with the Almoravids gave Alfonso an opportunity with the flight of the Sevillian governor Ali ibn Majjuz. He took refuge with Alfonso and with his alliance the Aragonese king tried to conquer Valencia once free of Leonese pressure. In April the king was in Quinto, granting jurisdiction to Pina, and at the beginning of summer he was in front of Valencia. An Almoravid army was summoned for relief, which was defeated without palliatives in the battle of Cullera (or of Alcalá by the nearest castle). The victory was of such magnitude that it is considered by Ibn al-Abbar as the cause of the Almoravid discredit that brought the second taifa kingdoms to Xarq al-Andalus. However, Alfonso returned to the north, perhaps to calm the situation after the death of Céntulo de Bigorra, who had left his domain to his daughter Beatriz in conflict with Bernard de Comminges. According to some sources, Alfonso intervened to reason with Bernard and confirmed to Pedro de Marsan, Beatriz's husband, the possession of Tarazona and the possessions that had belonged to his mother-in-law. After the campaign Alfonso spent time in Sos, convalescing from an eye disease.
In 1130 Alfonso paid a visit to Ribagorza and its eastern domains. He had to reconquer Monzón, which had been lost for treason three years earlier at the hands of the Count of Barcelona Ramón Berenguer III or perhaps in the Almoravid expedition of 1126 against Lascuarre. The first bishop of the reconquered Zaragoza, Pedro de Librana, had died between April and September 1029. The see was still vacant when, at the beginning of February 1130, King Alfonso I repopulated Monzón and appointed Esteban, Bishop of Jaca-Huesca. Before February 15, 1130, Esteban had already been transferred from the bishopric of Jaca-Huesca to that of Zaragoza. Meanwhile, the situation with León continued to be complicated and Alfonso VII had finally gained control of La Bureba thanks to the local tenente. Alfonso I had not shown much closeness with the Castilian nobles who were suspicious of Alfonso VII, so some had aligned themselves with him. the Leonese. In March the presence of Alfonso is recorded at the consecration of the church of Tolva. After that he made an act of presence in the Arán valley from March to June and then returned to Zaidín, probably affirming his dominance in the face of pressure Barcelona or Almoravid. In September there is a visit to Ardanés and back to the old county of Aragón.
Alfonso crossed the Pyrenees between October 1130 and the beginning of 1131 to return to the French South, where the situation seems to have continued to be unstable. The reasons for the campaign are not clear: some authors point out that William X of Aquitaine or Alfonso Jordán de Tolosa could have allied with Alfonso VII of León while other authors point out that they could be succession problems derived from the death of their vassal. Céntulo and others point to internal Aquitaine conflicts, since the Duke of Aquitaine was the theoretical sovereign of Laburdi, Béarn, Bigorra and Tolosa. Given the discontent with William X of Aquitaine, who was also Duke of Vasconia (a title over which the kings of Pamplona had had claims with Sancho III), attacked their lands. With the support of local nobles, such as the Viscount Garcia (Gassion) de Sola, whom he had appointed Tenente de Belorado in 1125, he seized the countryside of the Viscounty of Laburdi. He besieged Bayonne for a year, probably interested in obtaining a reliable exit to the ocean, sources differing as to whether he took it in 1131 or was saved by a Toulouse army. The monarch claimed to reign "from Belorado to Pallars and from Bayonne to Monreal".
During this siege he dictated his will, which bequeathed the kingdom to various religious institutions. The testament, sometimes considered an exaggerated display of fervor, is however seen by historians as a skillful political maneuver to try to neutralize possible papal support for his succession by his enemy Alfonso VII, generating a panorama in which his brother Ramiro had options to seize the throne. For many authors it is significant that the witnesses and executors of the will were all laymen, showing a complex political panorama, which could have included internal factions supporting García Ramírez, from another family branch, and Alfonso organizing a succession that would minimize the risks of a civil war or interference from Leon.
During that campaign, Alfonso continued to worry about the repopulation and organization of his territories. He granted privileges to several cities such as Daroca (1129), Cáseda (1129) and Encisa (1129), Corella (1130) and Calatayud (1131). Those of Cáseda and Encisa seem to correspond to a continuation of the colonization of the Aragon riverbank from Uncastillo. The charters of Daroca and Calatayud are especially relevant, since around these cities and based on the alfoz assigned by Alfonso the first Aragonese community of villages were organized (community of villages of Calatayud and community of villages of Daroca). It is a model imported from the village and land communities of Castile, adapted to the territorial organization that Alfonso had found and which dated from the Islamic period or even earlier. This model included the service of an urban militia in the territory. The model proposed by Alfonso would become the scheme used by his successors to guarantee the security of the border and for the further expansion of the kingdom to the south.
Alfonso also extended the jurisdiction of Zaragoza with the privilege of Tortum per tortum (1129), which entrusted the protection of private interests to secular armed forces that could be formed, guaranteeing self-defense and the grazing rights granted to the city. This would become a key to municipal politics and a vital point of its economy for centuries (see Casa de Ganaderos de Zaragoza). One last relevant concession was the San Cernin charter, which implied the independent recognition of the Frankish settlement next to episcopal Pamplona (La Navarrería), which gave rise to the system of boroughs of Pamplona.
Fraga's last battles and campaign
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In 1131, while the king was fighting in Gascony, Gastón IV of Bearn and the warrior bishop Esteban fought in the southeast of Aragon against the Almoravids, who continued to harass the kingdom from Valencia. In one of the last Muslim attacks, the viscount and the bishop were killed. This is how the historian IbnʿIḏārī narrates it, according to José María Lacarra:
This same year (the 534 of the Hegira) the governor of Valencia Mohamad Yidar died. Yintān ben ventricularAlī ruled it for God's consolation. He beat the Christians [24 May 1130], and the head of his boss, Gaston, was brought to Granada in the month of Yumada II. This returned the smile to the emir of the Muslims, Alī ben Yūsuf, who was in Marrakesh, adds Ibn I beneficiarārī.
Don Gastón's body was rescued by his widow Doña Talesa and buried in the church of El Pilar, today the basilica and co-cathedral of Zaragoza. Esteban, another of Alfonso's historical supporters in his reign, was succeeded by García Guerra de Majones in the Zaragoza miter.
After Gaston's death, the king returned to his kingdom, leaving Occitan politics in the hands of his knights. It could have had some escalation of tension with Alfonso VII of León, because after the rebel Count of Lara had been defeated the previous year, it was in 1131 when both monarchs disputed Castrojeriz again. It is in that year that Alfonso VII finally achieved the control of that fortress and that of Cerezo. Zafadola, successor to Imad al-Dawla in the kingdom of Rueda de Jalón, also switched allegiances and paid homage that same year to the Leonese. However, Alfonso VII used Zafadola against the Almoravids and it was seen occupied by a rebellion in Asturias avoiding further conflicts with the Battler.
In any case, Alfonso I made it a priority to finish the reconquest of the Ebro. He moved to the lands of La Rioja, where he proposed a repopulation of the city of Cantabria or Varia (next to Logroño), probably aimed at consolidating the area in front of León. He planned a fluvial expedition on the banks of the Ebro to finally put an end to the threat posed by the Muslim positions in Lleida and Tortosa, collecting wood for the boats in San Millán. Also in 1132 he consolidated the repopulation of the banks of the Ebro by granting privileges to Mallén and Asín.
His last campaign against the Muslims began in 1133. In January he took Fraga, opening the route before returning to Pamplona to deal with government matters. The Battler returned to the front in June and took over Mequinenza, one of the last Islamic positions north of the Ebro and western bastion of the defensive line of Lérida. Nonaspe and its district also fell on the same date, handed over to Pedro de Biota, Iñigo Fortuñón and Jimén Garcés. The area taken covered the lower course of the Matarraña and Algás rivers, which according to the description of the donation includes Algares, Batea, Badon and Lode, taking the Aragonese borders to Orta according to the location of the documents issued in that year. Before the end of 1133 he conquered Escarpe, in the current province of Lérida. The choice of the route, according to authors such as Pita Mercè, could seek to avoid the fortresses that protected Lérida from the north and that had remained in dispute since past campaigns. Instead, Afonso established reales in the pu eyo de Almanarella, thereby cutting communications between Lleida and the Plaza de Fraga to its west. The plaza had been lost and Afonso began a new siege in August.
However, Alfonso had a dwindling army without Gaston's Béarnese and Gascons, who had returned en masse to their land. In the summer of 1134, the king was still besieging the fortress of Fraga with barely five hundred knights when an attack by the Almoravids under the command of the governor of Valencia, Avengania, with whom the Muslim garrison collaborated, surprised the besiegers and defeated them on the 17th. of July. The veteran monarch received serious injuries. Although he managed to flee and save himself in the first instance, recording his presence in several towns in the east of his kingdom. It is speculated that the defeat could have caused an uprising among the recently conquered Mudejar populations. Thus, a document from 1134 mentions a site in Lizana, of which there is no further information. The complications of the injuries received in Fraga caused his death on September 7 of that year in the Monegrín town of Poleñino (between Sariñena and Grañén). He was buried in the monastery of Montearagón, near of Huesca. According to the Crónica de San Juan de la Peña, he was 61 years old and had reigned for half of them.
Will and succession
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He made a will in favor of God sic (1131) during the siege of Bayonne, and more specifically left the military orders of the Templars, Hospitallers and the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem as heirs and successors of the kingdom. This will he renewed it in Sariñena in 1134:
In the name of the greatest and most incomparable good that is God. I Alfonso, king of Aragon, of Pamplona [...] thinking of my luck and pondering that nature makes all men mortal, I proposed, as long as I had life and health, to distribute the kingdom that God granted me and my possessions and rents in the most convenient way after my existence. Therefore fearing the divine judgment, for the salvation of my soul, and also that of my father and mother, and that of all my family, I testify to God, to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to all his saints. And with good spirit and spontaneous will I offer to God, to the Virgin Mary of Pamplona and to San Salvador de Leyre, the castle of Estella with all the villa [...], dono to Santa Maria de Nájera and San Millán [...], dono also to San Jaime de Galicia [...], dono also to San Juan de la Peña [...] and also for after my death left as heir and successor of mine to the Sepulcher of the Lord that is in Jerusalem [...]
In view of the displeasure of the Aragonese and Navarrese nobles over the result of the will, the Aragonese reached an agreement that his brother Ramiro would succeed him in Aragon, who reigned as Ramiro II the Monk, while in Navarra they chose García Ramírez, the Restorer, son of the infante Don Ramiro, who was married to a daughter of El Cid. Thus, the crowns of Navarra and Aragon were separated after fifty years, thus establishing the definitive borders between Navarra and Aragon.
The king's remains were exhumed twice: in 1920 (during a history conference) and in 1985, for study.
| Predecessor: Pedro I | King of Aragon 1104-1134 | Successor: Ramiro II |
| Predecessor: Pedro I | King of Pamplona 1104-1134 | Successor: García Ramírez |
| Predecessor: Beatriz de Este | King Consort of Lion 1109-1115 | Successor: Berenguela de Barcelona |
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