King of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 to 1134
Alfonso I
(
c.
1073/1074
[a]
– 7 September 1134), called
the Battler
or
the Warrior
(
Spanish
:
el Batallador
), was
King of Aragon
and
Navarre
from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King
Sancho Ramirez
and successor of his brother
Peter I
. With his marriage to
Urraca
, queen regnant of
Castile
,
Leon
and
Galicia
, in 1109, he began to use, with some justification, the grandiose title
Emperor of Spain
, formerly employed by his father-in-law,
Alfonso VI
. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the
Reconquista
. He won his greatest military successes in the middle
Ebro
, where he conquered
Zaragoza
in 1118 and took
Ejea
,
Tudela
,
Calatayud
,
Borja
,
Tarazona
,
Daroca
, and
Monreal del Campo
. He died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the
Muslims
at the
Battle of Fraga
.
His nickname comes from the
Aragonese
version of the
Chronicle of San Juan de la Pena
(c. 1370), which says that "they called him lord Alfonso the battler because in Spain there wasn't as good a knight who won twenty-nine battles" (
clamabanlo don Alfonso batallador porque en Espayna no ovo tan buen cavallero que veynte nueve batallas vencio
).
[2]
Early life
[
edit
]
His earliest years were passed in the
monastery of Siresa
, learning to read and write and to practice the military arts under the tutelage of Lope Garces the Pilgrim, who was repaid for his services by his former charge with the county of
Pedrola
when Alfonso came to the throne.
During his brother's reign, he participated in the taking of Huesca (the
Battle of Alcoraz
, 1096), which became the largest city in the kingdom and the new capital. He also joined
El Cid
's expeditions in
Valencia
. His father gave him the lordships of
Biel
,
Luna
,
Ardenes
, and
Bailo
.
A series of deaths put Alfonso directly in line for the throne. His brother's children, Isabella and Peter (who married Maria Rodriguez, daughter of
El Cid
), died in 1103 and 1104 respectively.
Matrimonial conflicts
[
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]
A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine battles against Christian or Moor), he was married (when well over 30 years and a habitual bachelor) in 1109 to the ambitious Queen
Urraca of Leon
, a passionate woman unsuited for a subordinate role. The marriage had been arranged by her father
Alfonso VI of Leon
in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the
Almoravids
, and to supply them with a capable military leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as
queen regnant
and had not learnt chastity in the polygamous household of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality of the age and came to open war, even placing Urraca under siege at Astorga in 1112.
Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his opponents he won the
Battle of Candespina
and the
Battle of Viadangos
, but his only trustworthy supporters were his Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep
Castile
and
Leon
subjugated. The marriage of Alfonso and Urraca was declared null by the pope, as they were second cousins, in 1110, but he ignored the papal nuncio and clung to his liaison with Urraca until 1114.
[4]
During his marriage, he had called himself "King and Emperor of Castile, Toledo, Aragon, Pamplona, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza" in recognition of his rights as Urraca's husband; of his inheritance of the lands of his father, including the kingdom of his great-uncle
Gonzalo
; and his prerogative to conquer
Andalusia
from the Muslims. He inserted the title of
imperator
on the basis that he had three kingdoms under his rule.
Alfonso's late marriage and his failure to remarry and produce the essential legitimate heir that should have been a dynastic linchpin of his aggressive territorial policies have been adduced as a lack of interest in women. Ibn al-Athir (1166?1234) describes Alfonso as a tireless soldier who would sleep in his armor without benefit of cover, whom when asked why he did not take his pleasure from women, responded that the man devoted to war needs the companionship of men not women.
Church relations
[
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]
A
denarius
of Alfonso's, minted at
Jaca
, bearing his effigy and the inscription ANFUS-REX ARA-GON (
Anfusus rex Aragonensium
, King Alfonso of Aragon).
The king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the
Cistercians
, almost as violently as with his wife. As he defeated her,
[
citation needed
]
so he drove
Archbishop Bernard
into exile and replaced the abbot of
Sahagun
with his brother.
[
clarification needed
]
[5]
He was finally compelled to give way in Castile and Leon to his stepson,
Alfonso VII of Castile
, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of
Pope Calixtus II
brought about an arrangement between the old man and his young namesake.
[4]
In 1122 in Belchite, he founded
a confraternity of knights
to fight against the
Almoravids
.
It was the start of the military orders in Aragon. Years later, he organised a branch of the
Militia Christi
of the
Holy Land
at
Monreal del Campo
.
Military expansion
[
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]
Alfonso spent his first four years as king in near-constant war with the Muslims. In 1105, he conquered Ejea and Tauste and refortified Castellar and Juslibol. In 1106, he defeated
Ahmad II al-Musta'in
of Zaragoza at Valtierra. In 1107, he took
Tamarite de Litera
and
San Esteban de Litera
.
Then followed a period dominated by his relations with
Castile and Leon
through his wife, Urraca. He resumed his conquests in 1117 with
Fitero
,
Corella
,
Cintruenigo
,
Murchante
,
Monteagudo
, and
Cascante
.
In 1118, the Council of Toulouse declared a
crusade
to assist in the conquest of
Zaragoza
. Many Frenchmen consequently joined Alfonso at
Ayerbe
. They took Almudevar, Gurrea de Gallego, and Zuera, besieging Zaragoza itself by the end of May. The city fell on 18 December, and the forces of Alfonso occupied the Azuda, the government tower. The great palace of the city was given to the monks of Bernard. Promptly, the city was made Alfonso's capital. Two years later, in 1120, he defeated a Muslim army intent on reconquering his new capital at the
Battle of Cutanda
. He promulgated the
fuero
of
tortum per tortum
, facilitating taking the law into one's own hands, which among others reassumed the Muslim right to dwell in the city and their right to keep their properties and practice their religion under their own jurisdiction as long as they maintained tax payment and relocated to the suburbs.
Modern statue of Alfonso as a warrior in the Parque Grande Jose Antonio Labordeta, Zaragoza
In 1119, he retook Cervera, Tudejen, Castellon, Tarazona, Agreda, Magallon, Borja, Alagon, Novillas, Mallen, Rueda, Epila and populated the region of
Soria
. He began the siege of
Calatayud
, but left to defeat the army at Cutanda trying to retake Zaragoza. When Calatayud fell, he took Bubierca, Alhama de Aragon, Ariza, and Daroca (1120). In 1123, he besieged and took
Lleida
, which was in the hands of the
count of Barcelona
. From the winter of 1124 to September 1125, he was on a risky expedition to Pena Cadiella deep in
Andalusia
.
In the great raid of 1125, he carried away a large part of the subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of France, he had rights as king of Navarre.
[4]
From 1125 to 1126, he was on
campaign
against
Granada
, where he was trying to install a Christian prince, and
Cordoba
, where he got only as far as Motril. In 1127, he reconquered Longares, but simultaneously lost all his Castilian possessions to
Alfonso VII
. He confirmed a treaty with Castile the next year (1128) with the
Peace of Tamara
, which fixed the boundaries of the two realms.
He conquered Molina de Aragon and populated
Monzon
in 1129, before besieging
Valencia
, which had fallen again upon the Cid's death.
He went north of the Pyrenees in October 1130 to protect the
Val d'Aran
. Early in 1131, he besieged
Bayonne
. It is said he ruled "from Belorado to Pallars and from Bayonne to Monreal."
[
citation needed
]
At the
siege of Bayonne
in October 1131, three years before his death, he published a will leaving his kingdom to three autonomous religious orders based in Palestine and politically largely independent ? the
Knights Templars
, the
Hospitallers
, and the
Knights of the Holy Sepulchre
,
[4]
whose influences might have been expected to cancel one another out. The will has puzzled some historians, who have read it as an unusual gesture of extreme piety, though not out of line with his purported devotion for militant Christianity.
Elena Lourie (1975) suggested instead that it was Alfonso's attempt to neutralize the papacy's interest in a disputed succession ? Aragon had been a fief of the papacy since 1068 ? and to fend off Urraca's son from her first marriage,
Alfonso VII of Castile
, for the papacy would be bound to press the terms of such a pious testament.
[b]
Generous bequests to important churches and abbeys in Castile had the effect of making the noble churchmen there beneficiaries who would be encouraged by the will to act as a brake on Alfonso VII's ambitions to break it ? and yet among the magnates witnessing the will in 1131 there was not a single cleric. In the event it was a will that his nobles refused to carry out ? instead bringing his brother Ramiro from the monastery to assume royal powers ? an eventuality that Lourie suggests was Alfonso's hidden intent.
His final campaigns were against Mequinenza (1133) and Fraga (1134), where
Garcia Ramirez
, the future king of Navarre, and a mere 500 other knights fought with him. It fell on 17 July. He was dead by September. His tomb is in the
monastery of San Pedro
in
Huesca
.
Death
[
edit
]
Succession
[
edit
]
A box (
reliquary
) containing the bones (
relics
) of Alfonso the Battler, with the skull centre, facing the viewer. Photograph by Enrique Capella (May 1920).
The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought. Alfonso's only brother,
Ramiro
, had been a
Benedictine
monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession. The step-son of the deceased king,
Alfonso VII of Leon
, as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of
Sancho III of Navarre
, put himself forward but garnered no local support. The nobility of Navarre aligned behind
Pedro de Atares
, the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro. A convention was called at
Borja
in order to develop a consensus. Pedro de Atares had so alienated his own partisans there with his perceived arrogance that they had abandoned him, yet at the same time were unwilling to accept Alfonso's younger brother Ramiro. The convention then broke up without ever arriving at a compromise, and the two regional factions proceeded to act independently.
The choice of the Navarrese lords fell on
Garcia Ramirez
, Lord of
Monzon
, descendant of an illegitimate son of
Garcia Sanchez III
and protege of Alfonso VII to be their king. The Aragonese took Ramiro out of a monastery and made him king, marrying him without papal dispensation to Agnes, sister of the
Duke of Aquitaine
, then betrothing their newborn daughter to
Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona
, who was then named Ramiro's heir. "The result of the crisis produced by the result of Alfonso I's will was a major reorientation of the peninsula's kingdoms: the separation of Aragon and Navarre, the union of Aragon and Catalonia and ? a moot point but stressed particularly by some Castilian historians ? the affirmation of 'Castilian hegemony' in Spain"
by the rendering of homage for
Zaragoza
by Alfonso's eventual heir, Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona.
Pseudo-Alfonso the Battler
[
edit
]
Sometime during the reign of
Alfonso II of Aragon
, the Battler's grandnephew, a man came forward claiming to be Alfonso the Battler. The only contemporary references to this event are two letters of Alfonso II addressed to
Louis VII of France
; they were carried to Louis by
Berengar
, the
Bishop of Lleida
, but are not dated.
[9]
According to the second of these, the pretender was then living in Louis's domains, meaning the
Principality of Catalonia
, which was ruled by Alfonso under Louis's suzerainty. This pretender was an old man (appropriately, since the Battler had died some decades earlier) and Alfonso II expressed confidence that Louis would arrest him at the earliest possible moment and bring him to justice. The first letter supplies sufficient information to date it approximately, since the Bishop sojourned at the court of Louis on his way to Rome. It is known from other sources that Berengar attended the
Third Lateran Council
in March 1179. The letters were probably written towards the end of 1178 or in January 1179 at the latest.
[10]
According to an annalist source for the years 1089?1196, the pretender was received with honour and pomp in Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca, which the Battler had conquered, but after it was found out that he was false he was executed before the city of Barcelona in 1181.
[11]
Modern historian
Antonio Ubieto Arteta
has hypothesised that the Aragonese lords of the tenancies of Zaragoza, Calatayud, and Daroca ? Pedro de Luesia, Loferrench de Luna, Pedro de Castillazuelo (lord of Calatayud), Pedro Cornel (lord of Murillo de Gallego), and the majordomo Jimeno de Artusilla, all of whom disappear between 1177 and 1181 in the documentation of their tenancies ? supported, at least initially, the pretender.
[12]
These lords also appear in the later legend of the
Bell of Huesca
, which has no historical basis, as the victims of Ramiro II (1136). Since, historically, they were not active in the 1130s, it is possible that the historically based legend of the pseudo-Alfonso had some influence on the genesis of the Bell of Huesca.
The earliest chronicle source for the imposture is
Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada
, writing in the middle of the thirteenth century, who records that there were several legends then current about the death of Alfonso the Battler: some believed he perished in the
battle of Fraga
, some that his body had never been recovered, others that he was buried in the monastery of
Montearagon
, and still others that he had fled from Fraga in shame after his defeat and became a pilgrim as an act of penance. Some years later, Rodrigo writes, though he does not give a year, an impostor arose and was received by many as the Battler, though Alfonso II had him arrested and hanged. This is the earliest reference to the impostor's end.
[13]
The legend was amplified in later years. According to the fourteenth-century
Cronica de los Estados Peninsulares
, the Battler went on a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem
, where he lived for many years.
[14]
The
Cronica de San Juan de la Pena
also recounts the incident, but it depends entirely on Rodrigo and the
Estados Peninsulares
. It is not until the seventeenth-century historian
Jeronimo Zurita
penned his
Anales de la Corona de Aragon
that new details were added to the legend.
[15]
Zurita dates the impostor's appearance to the death of
Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona
, who had been exercising power in Aragon, and the succession of the child Alfonso II in 1162. The death of the impostor, by hanging, must have occurred in 1163.
Competitors for succession
[
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]
Candidates to succeed Alfonso the Battler
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Candidates for the crowns of Navarre and Aragon in 1134
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Marriage and legitimate descent
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Liaison and illegitimate descent
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Notes
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Carmen Orcastegui Gros (ed.),
"Cronica de San Juan de la Pena (Version aragonesa)"
,
Cuadernos de Historia Jeronimo Zurita
, 51?52 (Zaragoza, Institucion ≪Fernando el Catolico≫, 1985), p. 459.
- ^
a
b
c
d
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911). "
Alphonso s.v. Alphonso I., king of Aragon
".
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 734?735.
- ^
"Biography of King of Aragon y Navarra Alfonso I (1073?1134)"
.
TheBiography
. Retrieved
17 June
2019
.
- ^
They were first published in the
Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France (Correspondance de Louis VII)
, XV (Paris: 1878), 2nd ed., n
o
. 223?4, pp. 71?2, and utitised extensively by Marcelin Defourneaux, "Louis VII et le souverains espagnols. L'enigme du ≪pseudo-Alphonse≫", in
Estudios dedicados a Menendez Pidal
, VI (Madrid: 1956), 647?61. They were published again by Ubieto Arteta (1958), appendices I and II, pp. 37?8.
- ^
Ubieto Arteta (1958), 35, cites the evidence for Aragon's early support for Alexander III against the
Antipope Victor IV
. The earliest possible date at which Berengar could have been travelling to Rome to meet Alexander is after 23 November 1165, when the latter finally took up residence in Rome.
- ^
Antonio C. Floriano, "Fragmentos de unos viejos anales (1089?1196). Transcripcion y analisis paleografico. Critica historica",
Boletin de la Academia de la Historia
, CXIV (1929), 153?4, cited in Ubieto Arteta (1958), 36:
Vino un ferrero e dixo: ≪yo so don Alfonso, el que preso a Caragoca e Cadatayut e Daroqua≫; e recebido es en aquellos lugares con grant honra e con grant ponpa. E dice muchas cosas que semeiavam verdat de lo passado quel havia fecho. E era tenido por senyer e por don Alfonso. E despues fue conoscido que non era aquel, e enforcaronlo muy desonradament devant la ciudad de Barcelona.
- ^
Ubieto Arteta (1958), note 24, who also connects the appearance of the pretender with the economic disasters that befell Aragon in 1174.
- ^
The account in
De rebus Hispaniae
(Madrid: 1793), II, 150?51, quoted in Ubieto Arteta (1958), note 1:
[Alfonsus] nam victus occiditur et si occisus inventus fuerit dubitatur. Ab aliquibus enim dicitur corpus eius in montis Aragonis monasterio tumulatum a mauris tamen ante redemptum. Ab aliis dicitur vivus a proelio evasisse et confusionem proelii nequiens tolerare peregrinum se exhibuit huic mundo effigie et habitu immutatus. Et annis aliquot interpositis, quispiam se ostendit qui se eumdem publice fatebatur et multorum Castellae et Aragoniae id ipsum testimonio affirmabant qui cum eo in utroque regno fuerant familiariter conversati et ad memoriam reducebant secreta plurima que ipse olim cum eis habita recolebat et antiquorum assertio ipsum esse firmiter asserebat. Demum tamen quia cum ex regno plurimi sectabantur et de die in diem eorum numerus augebatur. Aldefonsus rex Aragoniae fecit eum suspendio interire.
- ^
The account in the
Cronica de los Estados Peninsulares: texto del siglo XIV
, ed. Antonio Ubieto Arteta (Granada: 1955), 128, quoted in Ubieto Arteta (1958), note 2:
Otros dicen que de verguenza que era vencido sent passo la mar a Jerusalem, pero nunca lo trobaron ni muerto ni vivo. Otros dicen que a tiempo vino en Aragon e fablo con algunos que sopieran de sus poridades. Otros que alli se perdio e non fue conoscido..
- ^
Zurita's account is found in his second book, twenty-second chapter, and is completely recapitulated by Ubieto Arteta (1958), 29?30.
Sources
[
edit
]
- Constable, Olivia Remie; Zurro, Damian, eds. (2012). "Grants to Military Christian Orders".
Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources
. Translated by Brodman, James W. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 203?208.
- Lacarra, Jose Maria (1978).
Alfonso el Batallador
. Guara Editorial.
- Lourie, Elena (1975). "The Will of Alfonso I,
El Batallador
, King of Aragon and Navarre: A Reassessment".
Speculum
. 50:4 October (4): 635?651.
doi
:
10.2307/2855471
.
JSTOR
2855471
.
S2CID
159659007
.
- Reilly, Bernard F. (1995).
The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031-1157
. Blackwell.
- Ubieto Arteta, Antonio.
"La aparicion del falso Alfonso I el Batallador."
Argensola
,
38
(1958), 29?38.
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- 1
also a prince of Majorca
- 2
also a prince of Sicily
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