Ermengol III, Count of Urgell
Ermengol III, called el de Barbastro, was the count of Urgell from 1038 to his death. He was the son of Ermengol II, Count of Urgell and his wife Velasquita "Constance" the daughter of Bernard I, Count of Besalú. Allied with his contemporary and second cousin Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, together they shared in the process of erosion of the comital authority to the noblesse, they cooperated in the Reconquista and he received a third part of the conquests, occupying, in 1050, Camarasa and Cubells after taking them from Yusuf of Lleida. In 1039 – 1040, Ermengol and Raymond Berengar signed a pact against Raymond of Cerdanya. In that decade, Raymond Berenger paid 20,000 solidi for Ermengol's support and military aid, he took part in the Barbastro War of 1064 under the banner of his brother-in-law Sancho Ramírez of Aragon. When Barbastro was captured, he was given the lordship of the city, he died before 12 April 1065 defending the city from Moorish reprisals and was buried at the Monastery of San Pedro de Ager.
Ermengol married before 1048, who died before 1055 and whose family is not known if some scholars made her daughter of Guillem I, Count of Besalu. They were the parents of: his heir. Before 7 May 1055, Ermengol took as his second wife Clemencia, hypothesized to have been daughter of Berengar Raymond I and his second wife Guisla, by whom he had: Berenguer Guillem RamonClemencia died after 17 October 1059, when she confirms a charter with her husband, before 6 November 1062. Ermengol was remarried to a lady named Elvira, who died before 1063. In 1063, Ermengol married as daughter of Ramiro I of Aragon. Ermengol III died in battle near Monzón and his body was first taken to Barbastro and to the fortress of Àger where he was buried at the entrance of the Church of San Pedro at the Monastery of San Pedro de Àger
Sancho Ramírez, Count of Ribagorza
Sancho Ramírez was an illegitimate son of King Ramiro I of Aragon and Amuña, the firstborn and brother of his namesake who would inherit the throne and reign as Sancho Ramírez. Though he could not inherit the throne because his father had legitimate issue, he was named count at an early age and was a prominent member of the curia regis first appearing in a charter dated 1049, suspected of being false, as a witness to a donation made by his father to the Monastery of San Victorián. In this charter, he confirms as Sancius Ranimiri regis filius primogenitus followed by his brother and namesake, who confirms as Sancius Ranimiri regis filius prolis Ermmisendis regine. Sancho was entrusted with the governance of several important and strategic tenencias, including: Aibar. Sancho Ramírez participated in the Reconquista as can be inferred from his father's first will executed on 29 July 1059 when the king included him as one of his heirs if he returned from the "land of the Moors". In his second will dated 15 March 1061, his father left him Aibar and Javierrelatre "with all its villas".
In 1092, when he was in his fifties, he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem which at that time was occupied by the Seljuq dynasty. He was a generous patron of several religious establishments such as a church in Lasieso, San Salvador de Javierrelatre, Jaca Cathedral where he commissioned the construction of a chapel for his burial. In his will dated 1105, he left most of his properties to his son García, although he did not ignore his two daughters and Beatriz, who inherited land and other properties with the condition that, upon their deaths, these would be given to his son García or to his legitimate children. Sancho Ramírez died between the date of the last will that he executed, 1105, 24 November 1110 when his wife makes a donation to the Monastery of San Vicente de Roda for the soul of her parents and her husband Count Sancho, with her son García confirming the charter; as of 1111, García appears governing the estates inherited from his father. He married Beatriz, whose patronymic is not recorded in any medieval document, appears with her in an 1100 charter from the town of Uncastillo confirming the sale made by their deceased son Pedro to a certain "don Juan".
In November 1110, the now-widowed Beatriz made a donation to the Monastery of San Vicente in Roda de Isábena of some salt mines that she received from her brother-in-law, King Sancho Ramírez. Four children were born of this marriage: García Sánchez, Lord of Aibar, Atarés and Javierrelatre, married to Teresa Cajal, sister of Fortún Garcés Cajal, they were the parents of Pedro de Atarés, a claimant to the throne of Aragon after the death of Alfonso the Battler. Count of Ribagorza Iglesias Costa, Manuel. Historia del Condado de Ribagorza. Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses. Diputación de Huesca. ISBN 84-8127-121-7. Archived from the original on 2014-09-14
Graus
Graus is a village in the Spanish province of Huesca, located in the Pyrenees at the confluence of rivers Esera and Isabena. It is the administrative capital of the region, it is one of the areas of Aragon in, still preserved the Aragonese language. The Battle of Graus took place here, Spanish philosopher Baltasar Gracián y Morales was exiled here. During the Spanish Civil War, the village of Graus served as a important local commercial center with 2,600 inhabitants around 1936, it was a centre of collectivization at that time. The municipality of Graus today includes the towns of: Abenozas, Aguinalíu, Benavente Aragon, Centenera, Eixep, Güel, Panillo, La Puebla de Fantova, La Puebla del Mon, Pueyo de Marguillén, El Soler, Torres de Esera, Torre de Obato, Torres del Obispo and Las Ventas de Santa Lucía. There are uninhabited villages: Bafaluy, Erdao, Grustán, Pano and Torruella de Aragón; the first population in Graus is dated from the Paleolithic as is evidenced by the remains found at the site of "Las Forcas" close to the Morral Rock.
Being one the northernmost points of the Islam in Spain, Graus was reconquered by the Christians in 1083 by Sancho Ramirez in the Battle of Graus, after the death of Ramiro I in 1064 in the siege of Graus. After this battle, Graus was ceded to the monastery of St. Victorian of Asan, being responsible for rebuilding and repopulate the town, giving important privileges to those who populate Graus. In 1223, Peter II of Aragon granted the town with the title of "Very Noble and Very Old Village of Graus", which retains today. In 1415 the Dominican friar St. Vincent Ferrer visited the village being invited by Berenguer de Bardaxi. Both were commissioners three years earlier in Caspe, resolving the problem of succession of the Crown of Aragon; the Valencian saint was preaching here with great success, giving in appreciation of all done by the town a crucifix, preserved and venerated in the local church. The main festivities of the town are dedicated to Vincent Ferrer and the Holy Christ, celebrating that visit and his appreciated donation.
Centuries in 1588, Philip II of Spain set a weekly market every Monday that has lasted until now. In 1681 Charles II of Spain added the Santa Lucia fair every May. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the town enjoyed an economic splendor, that helps the village the construction of great mansions, most of them still compose the awesome Main Square of the town and other places of the village. In these centuries is built the most important monument of the town, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rock. In the 1920s, Graus incorporates the towns of Benavente de Aragón. In the 1960s, Graus incorporates the towns of Aguinalíu, Puebla de Fantova and Torruella de Aragon, and in the 1970s, the village absorbs the towns of Chuseu, Güell and Torres de Chuseu. Baile de las Espadas; this dance has a structure consisting of three different musical fragments, known as "Cardelina", "Taninaná" and "Culebreta". It is danced by five groups with a total of twenty dancers and two "repatanes". Dressed in different outfits, the most striking is that used by the middle frame, whose dancers wears pompous lace, gloves and flowered hats.
The explanation for this costume can be found in trying to incorporate the feminine element in a male dance, in honour of strength and fertility. Baile de las Cintas, it is more modern than the previous one, because his music is a traditional grausina polka introduced in the second half of the 19th century and is played with orchestra. This polka was played on bagpipes before, was known as "the old polka"; the dancers dance holding a ribbons around a large pole decorated with ribbons and flowers, representing an ancestral fertility celebration. It was only danced by men until the 1960s, when mixed pairs were introduced and it was expanded from four to eight pairs, all dressed in the typical costume of Graus. La Mojiganga, it is a satirical and burlesque show performed every September 13, that performs a detailed review of what happened in the town during the year. His transgressor character caused many interruptions of this popular show: from 1809 to 1813 due to the French invasion, from 1834 to 1838 due to poor harvests and famine, the longest, since the government of Primo de Rivera and until its restoration in 1979.
In the parade that precedes the Mojiganga, it still retains some of its medieval origins, as the "estafermo" and the "tarasca", medieval mobile dolls that clear the passage of the Mojiganga court. La Llega, it is used to collect donations for the activities of the Confraternity of the Holy Christ, runs through the village, dancing to the sound of bagpipes and blunderbusses with large wood sticks. During the "Llega" it is shared "el cordoné", a small hallowed ribbon that most of the population wears tied round the wrist. Las Albadas, they are songs that are sung through the streets of the town by night, dating from Moorish times, tell stories of love and glorification of popular characters of the village. El Llibré. In order to have all the information of the popular festivals in Graus, each year is published "el llibré", which reflects the program of the festivals, poems and texts, most of them written in Graus Aragonese. Town Festival, September 12 to 15, in honor of Holly Christ and Saint Vicent Ferrer.
This festival is declared "National Touristic Interest" for they rich and varied traditions: one of the best preserved bagpipe tune and dance in Aragon, along with the tradition
Sancho of Aragon (archbishop of Toledo)
Sancho of Aragon was an Infante of Aragon and Archbishop of Toledo, killed by the Moors. Sancho was a son of his second wife Yolanda of Hungary, he joined the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy at a young age and had Peter Pascual as a tutor. He became Archbishop of Toledo in 1266. In 1275 he raised some troops to engage Marinid armies. On 21 October 1275 he tried to intercept a numerically superior Marinid army in the battle of Martos but was defeated and taken prisoner, he was beheaded. His body was buried in the Toledo Cathedral; because of his heroic death, he was considered Blessed. Fernández Serrano, Francisco. La muerte y el epitafio de don Sancho de Aragón, hijo de Jaime I, 1275. ISBN 84-00-05009-6. Santi e Beati
Sancho IV of Pamplona
Sancho Garcés IV, nicknamed Sancho of Peñalén was King of Pamplona from 1054 until his death. He was the eldest son of García Sánchez III and his wife and was crowned king of Pamplona after his father was killed during the Battle of Atapuerca. Sancho was heir of García Sánchez III and his wife Stephanie. García was killed at the Battle of Atapuerca on 1 September 1054 during a war with the Kingdom of León. Sancho, fourteen years of age, was proclaimed king by the army in the camp by the field of battle with the consent of the king of León, Ferdinand I his uncle. Sancho's mother served as his regent until her death on 25 May 1058. Remaining faithful to her husband's policies, she continued to support the monastery of Santa María la Real of Nájera. Soon after Sancho's accession, many lords in the west of the kingdom went over to the Leonese. Only Íñigo López, lord of Biscay, Sancho Fortúnez, lord of Pancorbo, remained loyal. On 29 December 1062, Ferdinand signed a treaty defining their shared border.
Ferdinand was recognised as king of all Castile and Sancho's authority was recognised in the Rioja, Álava and implicitly Guipúzcoa. As king, Sancho received support from King Ramiro I of Aragon. Out of gratitude for "his friendship, his fidelity, his help and his council", Sancho gave Ramiro possession of Lerda, Undués and the castle of Sangüesa; these places were to be held as fiefs or in a similar arrangement. Beginning in 1060, Sancho put pressure on al-Muqtadir, king of Zaragoza, exacted from him annual payments of tribute, parias. From 1065, he was in conflict with Castile, raised to a kingdom for Ferdinand's son Sancho the Strong; this culminated in the so-called War of the Three Sanchos. Years before, Sancho's father had managed to retain a series of frontier lands, including Bureba and Alta Rioja, claimed by Ferdinand. Sancho the Strong sought to reconquer these lands for his kingdom. Faced with an invasion by his cousin the Castilian Sancho, The Navarrese Sancho asked for aid from his other cousin, Sancho of Aragón.
But their forces were defeated by Sancho the Strong and his trusted alférez El Cid, Sancho lost Bureba, Alta Rioja, Álava to Sancho of Castile. He was assassinated in Peñalén, whence his nickname, by a conspiracy headed by his brother Ramón Garcés and his sister Ermesinda of Navarre. During a scheduled hunt, Sancho was forced from a cliff by his siblings. Upon his assassination, the kingdom was invaded and partitioned between Sancho of Aragon and a third cousin, Alfonso VI of León and Castile. Alfonso occupied La Sancho was proclaimed king in Pamplona. Sancho Garcés IV married a French woman, Placencia of Normandy in 1068. With whom he had two children: García Sánchez, removed from the line of succession by Sancho Ramírez after the death of Sancho Garcés IV in 1076. García Sánchez died in Toledo around the year 1092. García Sánchez, with the same name as the eldest son, dead after 1092, his existence is confirmed on a diploma from the Monastery of Valvanera dated in 1092, which states Garsea et alter Garsea, filii Sanchii regis Nagerensis.
Sancho Garcés had a lover named Jimena with whom he had two illegitimate children: Raimundo Sánchez, lord of Esquiroz. Urraca Sánchez
Kingdom of León
The Kingdom of León was an independent kingdom situated in the northwest region of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded in AD 910 when the Christian princes of Asturias along the northern coast of the peninsula shifted their capital from Oviedo to the city of León; the County of Castile separated in 931, the County of Portugal separated to become the independent Kingdom of Portugal in 1139 and the eastern, inland part of León was joined to the Kingdom of Castile in 1230. From 1296 to 1301, the Kingdom of León was again independent and after the re-union with Castile remained a Crown until 1833, but as part of a united Spain from 1479. In the Royal Decree of 30 November 1833, the Kingdom of León was considered one of the Spanish regions and divided into the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca. In 1978, these three provinces of the region of León were included along with six provinces of the historic region of Old Castile to create the autonomous community of Castile and León. However, significant parts of the former kingdom today integrate these three provinces and the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Asturias.
The city of León was founded by the Roman Seventh Legion (usually written as Legio Septima Gemina. It was the headquarters of that legion in the late empire and was a centre for trade in gold, mined at Las Médulas nearby. In 540, the city was conquered by the Arian Visigothic king Liuvigild, who did not harass the well-established Roman Catholic population. In AD 717, León fell again. However, León was one of the first cities retaken during the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, became part of the Kingdom of Asturias in AD 742. León was a small town during this time, but one of the few former Roman cities in the Kingdom of Asturias which still held significance. During Visigothic times, the city had served as a bishopric, incorporating the city into Asturias brought legitimacy to the Asturian monarchs who sought to lead a unified Iberian church, during a time when most of the Iberian Peninsula was governed by Muslim powers. León was created as a separate kingdom when the Asturian king, Alfonso the Great, divided his realm among his three sons.
León was inherited by García I. His successor was Ordoño II of León. Ordoño II of León was a military leader who brought military expeditions from León south to Seville, Córdoba, Guadalajara, in the heart of the Muslim territory. After a few years of civil wars during the reign of Fruela II, Alfonso Fróilaz and Alfonso IV, Ramiro II assumed the throne and brought stability to the kingdom. A brave military chief who defeated the Muslim armies in their own territory, Ramiro's expeditions turned the Valley of the Douro into a no-man's land that separated Christian kingdoms in the north of Iberia from the Muslim states in the south. Ramiro II was nicknamed "The Devil" by Muslims because of his great military skill; as the Leonese troops advanced they were followed by a process of repoblación, which consisted of repopulating the Meseta high plains, with people coming from Galicia and from Asturias and León. This migration of Leonese peoples influenced the Leonese language. During the repoblación period, there arose a distinct form of art known as Mozarabic art.
Mozarabic art is a mixing of Visigoth and Byzantine elements. Notable examples of the Mozarabic style are the Leonese churches of San Miguel de Escalada and Santiago de Peñalba. During the early 10th century, León expanded to the south and east, securing territory that became the County of Burgos. Fortified with numerous castles, Burgos remained within Leon until the 930s, at which time Count Ferdinand II of Castile began a campaign to expand Burgos and make it independent and hereditary, he took for himself the title Count of Castile, in reference to the many castles of the territory, continued expanding his area at the expense of León by allying with the Caliphate of Córdoba, until AD 966, when he was defeated by Sancho I of León. The Kingdom of León continued to be the most important of all those of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Sancho III of Navarre took over Castile in the 1020s, managed León in the last year of his life, leaving Galicia to temporary independence. In the division of lands which followed his death, his son Fernando succeeded to the county of Castile.
Two years in 1037, he defeated the king of León who died in the battle and because Fernando was married to the king of León sister, he became king of León and Galicia. For nearly 30 years, until his death in 1065, he ruled over the kingdom of León and the county of Castile as Ferdinand I of León. Early in its existence, León lay directly to the north of the powerful Caliphate of Córdoba; when internal dissensions divided Al-Andalus loyalties in the 11th century, leading to an age of smaller Taifa successor states of the Caliphate, the Christian kingdoms, sending tribute to the Caliphate found themselves in a position to demand payments instead, in return for favours to particular factions or as simple extortion. Thus, though scarcely influenced by the culture of the successor territories of the former Caliphate, Ferdinand I followed the example of the counts of Barcelona and the kings of Aragon and became hugely wealthy from the parias of the Taifas; when he died in 1065, his territories and the parias were split among his three sons, of whom Alfonso emerged the victor in the classic fratricidal strife comm
Alfonso VI of León and Castile
Alfonso VI, nicknamed the Brave or the Valiant, was king of León and of Galicia, king of the reunited Castile and León. After the conquest of Toledo in 1085, Alfonso proclaimed himself victoriosissimo rege in Toleto, et in Hispania et Gallecia The Battle of Sagrajas and the Battle of Uclés, in which his only son and heir, Sancho Alfónsez died, constituted defeats for the Leonese and Castilian armies; the son of Ferdinand I, King of León and Count of Castile and his wife, Queen Sancha, Alfonso was a "Leonese infante with Navarrese and Castilian blood". His paternal grandparents were Sancho Garcés III, king of Pamplona and his wife Muniadona of Castile, his maternal grandparents were Alfonso V of León and his first wife Elvira Menéndez; the year of Alfonso's birth is not recorded in the medieval documentation. According to one of the authors of the Anonymous Chronicle of Sahagún, who met the monarch and was present at his death, he died at age 62 after reigning 44 years; this indicates that he was born in the second half of 1047 or in the first half of 1048.
Pelagius of Oviedo wrote that Alfonso was 79 when he died, but that would place his birth around 1030, before his parents' marriage. According to the Historia silense, the eldest child of Ferdinand I and Sancha, a daughter called Urraca, was born when her parents were still Count and Countess of Castile, so her birth could be placed in 1033–34; the second child and eldest son, must have been born in the second half of 1038 or in 1039. The third child and second daughter, may have been born in 1039–40, followed by Alfonso in 1040–41, the youngest of the siblings, García, sometime between 1041 and 24 April 1043, the date on which King Ferdinand I, in a donation to the Abbey of San Andrés de Espinareda, mentions his five children. All of them except Elvira signed a document in the monastery of San Juan Bautista de Corias on 26 April 1046. All the children of King Ferdinand I, according to the Historia silense, were educated in the liberal arts, the sons were trained in arms, the "art of running horses in the Spanish usage", hunting.
The cleric Raimundo was in charge of Alfonso's early education. Once king, Alfonso appointed him Bishop of Palencia and referred to him as magistro nostro, viro nobile et Deum timenti. Alfonso spent long periods in Tierra de Campos, along with Pedro Ansúrez, the son of Ansur Díaz and nephew of Count Gómez Díaz de Saldaña, he learned the art of war and what was expected of a knight; as the second son of the king of León and Count of Castile, Alfonso would not have been entitled to inherit the throne. At the end of 1063 on 22 December, taking advantage of the fact that numerous magnates had gathered in León, capital of the kingdom, for the consecration of the Basílica of San Isidoro, Ferdinand I summoned a Curia Regia to make known his testamentary dispositions, under which he decided to distribute his patrimony among his children, a distribution that would not become effective until the death of the monarch in order to prevent any disputes arising after his death: Alfonso inherited the Kingdom of León, "the most extensive and emblematic part: the one that contained the cities of Oviedo and León, cradles of the Asturian-Leonese monarchy", which included Asturias, León, Astorga, El Bierzo, Zamora with Tierra de Campos as well as the parias of the Taifa of Toledo.
His elder brother, was given the Kingdom of Castile, created by his father for him, the parias of the Taifa of Zaragoza. His younger brother, García, received the entire region of Galicia, "elevated to the rank of kingdom" that extended south to the Mondego River in Portugal with the parias of the Taifa of Badajoz and Seville, their sisters and Elvira, both received the Infantazgo, that is, "the patronage and income of all the monasteries belonging to the royal patrimony" on the condition that they remained unmarried. The historian Alfonso Sánchez Candeira suggests that, although the reasons that led King Ferdinand I to divide the kingdom are unknown the distribution was made because the king considered it proper that each son should inherit the region where he had been educated and spent his early years. After his coronation in the city of León in January 1066, Alfonso VI had to confront the expansionist desires of his brother Sancho II, who, as the eldest son, considered himself the sole legitimate heir of all the kingdoms of their father.
The conflicts began after the death of their mother Queen Sancha on 7 November 1067, leading to seven years of war between the three brothers. The first skirmish was the Battle of Llantada, a trial by ordeal in which both brothers agreed that the one, victorious would obtain the kingdom of the defeated brother. Although Sancho II was the winner, Alfonso VI did not comply with the agreement; this was the same event where both decided to join forces to divide between themselves the Kingdom of Galicia, assigned to their younger brother García II. With the complicity of Alfonso VI, Sancho II invaded Galicia in 1071, defeating their brother García II, arrested in Santarém and imprisoned in Burgos until he was exiled to the Taifa of Seville under the rule of Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad. After eliminating their broth
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