Ramiro I of Aragon

Ramiro I of Aragon (ca. 1006/May 7-8, 1063) is traditionally considered the first king of Aragon (1035-1063), although it is debated whether he used this title during his lifetime. To his reduced original territory of Aragon he soon added the territories of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza due to the death of his half-brother Gonzalo in 1045 (although de iure they corresponded to his older brother García), naming himself King of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, and thus unifying the three Pyrenean counties that were to make up the new kingdom.

Son of Sancho el Mayor of Pamplona and Sancha de Aibar, he married Ermesinda de Aragón, a daughter of Count Bernardo Roger de Foix, thereby initiating a tradition of alliance between the Aragonese kingdom and the ultra-Pyrenean county of Foix, which would last for several centuries. He also established alliances with the county of Urgel, marrying his eldest son Sancho Ramírez to a daughter of Armengol III of Urgel (whom he also gave his daughter Sancha in marriage) in order to oppose the expansionist desires of the Count of Barcelona Ramón Berenguer I for the zone of the middle Cinca.

In alliance with Arnal Mir de Tost and Armengol III, Count of Urgel, he conquered the castles of Laguarres, Lascuarre, Falces, Viacamp and Benabarre. He tried to take the powerful fortress of Graus from the King of Zaragoza Al-Muqtadir —who had the help of the retinue of the still infant Sancho II of Castile, in whose army was the Cid, still young, around fourteen years old—; but Ramiro died during this war operation, probably at the hands of an expert soldier from Al-Muqtadir.

He instituted a "bishop of Aragon" with headquarters in San Adrián de Sásabe. His son Sancho Ramírez would later convert the then village of Jaca into a city, to be the capital of the kingdom and house the Aragonese episcopal see.

Biography

Natural son of Sancho el Mayor, king of Pamplona, and a young woman named Sancha de Aibar or Aybar, from the nobility of the lands of Aibar.

Heraldic representation of the Cross of Iñigo Arista, a pierced cross pointed in its lower arm when it is of silver and figure on a frank-cuartel, on a sugar field. It appears for the first time in the centuryXIVwhen it is adopted by Peter IV the Ceremony as "old arms of Aragon".

After the death of Sancho el Mayor, the throne was inherited by his legitimate eldest son García Sánchez III el de Nájera, who ruled all of his father's territory. His brother Ramiro had been awarded the honor of the Aragonese space, and a dance was proclaimed in the lands of Aragon that he had received from his father with throne in Jaca.

Ramiro wanted to seize García's lands, which triggered the war between the two, probably in the spring or summer of 1043. He had the collaboration of the emir of the taifa of Zaragoza. Soon the brothers disputed the battle of Tafalla, which Ramiro lost. Ramiro then took refuge in Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, territories that had been occupied when another of his brothers, Gonzalo, died. According to the surviving documents, it seems that Ramiro remained in this region in 1043 and 1044. Between June and November of that year, it is believed that García and Ramiro reconciled, perhaps thanks to the mediation of his other brother, Fernando; the three appear in a document signed in Nájera at the beginning of November. The reconciliation meant the break of the league between Ramiro and the Banu Hud from Zaragoza, and the return by García of the Aragonese lands that had been taken from him after defeating him in Tafalla It seems that in this way he recovered all the territories that his father had given him, since in 1049 he claimed to reign from Vadoluengo (Sangüesa term) to Ribagorza.

Ramiro had been the first male born to Sancho el Mayor but he was a natural son, outside of legitimate marriage, thus he was separated from the primogeniture. However, he was never considered a bastard son, since all the documentation of the time refers to him as regulus, the same treatment that his younger brothers received, and he grew up at court with his mother Sancha, tutor of Sancho III during his minority between 1004 and 1011, the period in which Ramiro was conceived.

In its authentic documentation, the Aragonese monarch called himself Ramiro, son of King Sancho, without using the title of king, but he did not consider himself lacking royal legitimacy and acted at all times exercising all the effects of the potestas regia. In any case, he received the fidelity of the Aragonese counts, barons and lords in whom he supported his authority. Although he himself did not call himself king, his contemporaries did, in both Aragonese and Navarrese and Castilian documents. He appears in them cited as Ranimirus rex , Ranimiri regis or meo regi among other expressions. This was considered by his vassals, contemporary kings of Ramiro I and notaries. The kings of Pamplona García Sánchez III and Sancho Garcés IV of Peñalén will also grant him the title of king. In the same way, he will be considered his son and heir by Sancho Ramírez, by robbing as ego Sancius Raminiro regis filio & # 39; I Sancho son of King Ramiro & # 39;.

He laid the foundations of what would become the Kingdom of Aragon, guaranteeing the succession of his lineage by marrying Ermesinda, daughter of Bernardo Roger, Count of Foix-Bigorra, in 1036, with whom he had Sancho Ramírez, García Ramírez (who would later be bishop of Jaca) and three more daughters, Sancha, Urraca and Teresa. With this the dynastic continuity was guaranteed.

Over time he surrounded himself with trusted nobles, to whom he assigned tenures in strategic castles. He also reaffirmed the figure of the Bishop of Aragon — aragonensis episcopus —, to whom he granted a monastery, San Adrián de Sásabe, and a large patrimony, to win the favor of the prelature in his task of consolidation power.

Signum regis of Ramiro I.

The signum regis it was the signature that identified the king in the documents and referred to the Cross of the armies employed by the Christian troops in the battle until the centuryXI. Later, Peter IV the Ceremony identified him in the centuryXIV like the Cross of Iñigo Arista and attributed the heraldic character of ancient Aragon weapons.

After taking control of the counties of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza from 1043 on the death of his brother Gonzalo, who never lived in those territories, he had to enter into a struggle for the rich Muslim territories that were accessed through the natural route of the Cinca basin. The substantial outcasts that the taifa king of Saraqusta paid to avoid the Christian attack were disputed in addition to Aragon, the count of Urgell, the count of Pallars and the count of Barcelona Ramón Berenguer I.

Between 1056 and 1058, probably in October 1057, he signed an alliance with his nephew Sancho Garcés IV of Pamplona through which he submitted to his vassalage in exchange for receiving the town of Undués de Lerda and the castle of bloody; the league was probably made to counteract the power of Fernando I de León.

To stop the push of Ramón Berenguer from Barcelona, Ramiro I agreed to a double marriage of his daughter Sancha with Armengol III of Urgel, and of Isabel, daughter of the Urgelino count, with her own eldest son Sancho Ramírez, the heir to the throne from Aragon. In this way, the County of Urgell and the Kingdom of Aragon establish a solid alliance, and the union of their forces allowed Ramiro to conquer the castles of Laguarres, Lascuarre, Capella, Caserras, Falces, Luzás, Viacamp and Benabarre, thus preventing to Ramón Berenguer I —who had bought castles in the area, on lands that the Catalan counts recognized as belonging to the county of Ribagorza as part of the kingdom of Aragón— access to Cinca. The tenure of Benabarre was handed over to the Viscount of Tost Arnal Mir, who had also become an ally of the Aragonese king.

These advances made him conceive the idea of assaulting the powerful fortress of Graus, which the King of Zaragoza Al-Muqtadir went to defend in person at the head of an army that included a contingent of Castilian troops under the command of Sancho, the future Sancho II of Castile, who was able to count on the young knight Rodrigo Díaz, later known as "El Cid", in his retinue. -Muqtadir first lost the squares of Torreciudad and Fantova, to the north of Barbastro, and the balance seemed to lean towards the Christian side, but he finally managed to repel the Aragonese who lost their king in this battle, apparently assassinated by an Arab soldier, called Sadaro or Sadada, who spoke Romance and who, approaching Ramiro I's real estate disguised as a Christian, stuck a spear into his forehead. He died before the gates of Graus on May 8, 1063. His remains are buried in the monastery of San Juan de la Peña.

New forensic investigations shed light on his death: analysis of his bones allow us to deduce that the spear went through his abdomen, until it reached the fourth lumbar vertebra.

Despite the death of Ramiro I, his successor Sancho Ramírez and Armengol III of Urgel continued with a project undertaken by the late king and which had the support of the pope, who summoned French troops to undertake the Barbastro crusade that it ended successfully in 1064. The important Muslim city became part of the Kingdom of Aragon and its government was entrusted as possession to Armengol III. But the permanence in Christian power was short-lived, because a year later it would be reconquered by the taifa of Zaragoza. In 1065 the Count of Urgell died in the lands of al-Andalus, probably in Monzón.

Marriages and offspring

Representation of Ramiro I in the first half of the centuryXII.

Ramiro I contracted two successive marriages:

His first marriage was to Gisberga, daughter of Count Bernardo Roger de Foix) to whom he gave a letter of earnest money on August 22, 1036. Gisberga was renamed Ermesinda at her baptism. She died in 1049. From this marriage were born:

• Sancho Ramírez
• Sancha de Aragón (1045-between April 5th and August 16th, 1097), married to Armengol III de Urgel, after enviudar of that marriage, had a relevant role in the service of the politics of his brother King Sancho Ramírez, led the monastery of Siresa and even managed the obispado of Pamplona between 1082 and 1083.
• García Ramírez (July 1046-17, 1086), bishop of Aragon (1076-17 July 1086) and Pamplona (1076-1082).
• Urraca, who was a nun in Santa Cruz de la Serós. It has been speculated that she could be the daughter of King Ramiro's second wife.
• Teresa or Taresa, married to Guillermo Bertrand de Provenza.

With Agnes of Aquitaine, she was the daughter of Duke William V of Aquitaine, she married on an unknown date, although before October 10, 1054, the date on which they appear together for the first time in medieval documentation. No offspring from this marriage is known, although she could have been the mother of the nun Urraca.

Out of wedlock, and before contracting it, he had a natural son by Amuna de Barbenuta:

• Sancho Ramírez tenente de Benabarre, Fantova, Aibar, Javier y Ribagorza entre otros señoríos entre Navarra y Aragón.