Sancho Ramirez of Aragon

Sancho Ramírez (ca. 1043–June 4, 1094), King of Aragon from 1063–1094, and of Aragon and Pamplona from 1076–1094. Known as Sancho I of Aragon and as V of Pamplona.

Biography

Son of Ramiro I and Ermesinda de Foix. He married his first nuptials, possibly in 1062 or 1063, with Isabel de Urgell, from whom the future King Pedro I would be born.

Although Sancho Ramírez did not directly take part in the expedition, an appeal by Pope Alexander II to the crusade, the first known, was able to take Barbastro by assault from the Muslims in 1064. The company was attended by Frenchmen with siege engines. The square was governed by the brother-in-law of Sancho Ramírez Armengol III, Count of Urgell, although he died on the battlefield before April 17, 1065, when Al-Muqtadir, king of the taifa of Zaragoza, reacted by requesting the jihad of all al-Andalus, and returned to recover the capital of the northeastern district of the taifa of Zaragoza and key to the rich vega del Cinca, as well as the seat of an important market.

Before 1067 (probably in 1065) he conquered Alquézar, whose term included the towns of Buera, Colungo and Adahuesca.

On February 14, 1068, Sancho Ramírez traveled to Rome to consolidate the young Kingdom of Aragon, offering himself in vassalage to Pope Alexander II. This link is documented even in the amount of the tribute of five hundred gold mancusos per year that the Kingdom of Aragon had to pay to the Papal State. The census to the Papacy, however, did not begin to pay until 1087; It was possibly for this tribute that a minting of gold coins (mancusos) was issued, since copies have been preserved in Syria and Turkey, but not in Aragon, where it must not have been circulating currency. A possible relationship has been adduced of this feudal-vassal relationship with the lineage arms and the color of the threads of the lemniscus ribbons from which the papal seals hung with the emblem of gold sticks and gules that will constitute, from Alfonso II, the sign of the king of Aragon. Starting in 1071, and as a result of these relations with the Papacy, the Roman rite would gradually be introduced in various Aragonese monasteries under its jurisdiction, replacing the Hispanic one.

Money of Sancho Ramírez de Aragón (c. 1085).
Reverse: Effigy of the king surrounded by the legend SANCIVS.REX.
Reverse: Proceeding cross over stems with branches on the sides or "arbor ad modum Floris", badly called "Encina de Sobrarbe", as interpreted since the centuryXVI.
Legend on both sides of the stem: ARA-GON

The king of Pamplona, Sancho Garcés, cousin of Sancho Ramírez, was assassinated in 1076, thrown in a hunting party from a high rock. The people of Pamplona, not wanting to be governed by their brother Ramón, who was considered the fratricide, chose Sancho Ramírez as their king, who united the kingdom of Pamplona to that of Aragón.

One of the most decisive actions of his reign is the concession of the Jurisdiction of Jaca (1077), by which he granted the rank of city to what had been a town located on the Camino de Santiago, and made it the capital of the kingdom of Aragon and in the episcopal see, ordering the construction of the Jaques cathedral for this purpose. His purpose was to attract bourgeois to this new city who would develop the mercantile and industrial economy, that is, to create the conditions for the first bourgeois to come, who were, for the most part, Franks (like Gascons and Béarnese) who came from the other side of the Pyrenees.

In 1078 he cut down the fields of Zaragoza and began to build the fortress of El Castellar on the banks of the Ebro, just twenty kilometers upstream from the capital of the Taifa of Saraqusta, whose tenants have been documented since 1091. Later he made the king a tributary Muslim from Zaragoza.

In 1083 he seized Graus and Ayerbe, which he ordered to be repopulated. These two populations opened the way to the conquest of the Cinca and Hoya de Huesca lowlands respectively. The threat was such that more than a dozen towns located to the south and southwest of Huesca (regions of La Sotonera and La Violada) paid him outcasts, including Almudévar, Barbués, Sangarrén, Tabernas or Vicién. The following year he conquers Naval, north of Barbastro, the same year of the papal crusade, although it was subsequently lost; and especially Arguedas, taken on April 5, 1084, which was only fifteen kilometers from the city of Tudela.

The conquest of the plain was assured with the construction of castles that served as shuttles and then as protection for the conquered land, as had been done in El Castellar. Sancho Ramírez fortified the castle of Loarre, and built the fortresses of Obanos, Garisa, Montearagón, Artasona (to the south of Ayerbe) or Castiliscar, among others.

In 1087 the king of Aragon added a new conquest in the course of the Cinca: Estada, at the confluence of this river with the Ésera. Following this river course, he took Estadilla and reached Zaidín, twelve kilometers from Fraga, in 1092, thanks to the conquering action of his eldest son, the Infante Pedro, to whom he had handed over the government of the important Monzón square, taken by Sancho Ramírez. in 1089, and handed over as kingdom title to the future Pedro I, who had ruled Ribagorza since 1085, following the Navarrese-Aragonese custom of granting a part of the recently conquered kingdom under royal title so that the infants began to develop tasks of government and to surround himself with a clientele of faithful seniors who would facilitate the succession to the throne.

He fortified the towns of Abiego, Santa Eulalia la Mayor and Labata in order to finish surrounding the Muslim city of Huesca. He also supported Alfonso VI of León in the battle of Sagrajas and the defense of Toledo and signed a defensive agreement with Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar.

He died on June 4, 1094 from a crush he received while besieging Huesca. His body was taken to the monastery of Montearagón, and later transferred to that of San Juan de la Peña.

Family

Marriages and offspring

He married his first nuptials, possibly in 1062/1063, with Isabel de Urgel, daughter of Count Armengol III of Urgel, who disappeared from Aragonese documentation in 1068, possibly repudiated. From this union was born:

• Pedro I Sánchez de Aragón «the Catholic» (ca. 1068–1104), king of Pamplona and Aragon (1094–1104).

He married his second nuptials around 1071 with Felicia de Roucy, daughter of Count Hilduin IV of Montdidier, lord of Ramerupt, count consort of Roucy. From this union were born:

• Fernando Sánchez de Aragón (1071–1086), died before his father;
• Alfonso I Sánchez de Aragón «the Batallador» (1073–1134), king of Pamplona and Aragon (1104–1134);
• Ramiro II Sánchez de Aragón «the Monk» (1086–1157), king of Aragon from 1134 to 1157.

Ancestors

Used bibliography

Additional bibliography