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Alfonso V, called the Noble, was King of León from 999 to 1028. Like other kings of León, he used the title emperor to assert his standing among the Christian rulers of Spain. He succeeded his father, Bermudo II, in 999. His mother Elvira García and count Menendo González, who raised him in Galicia, acted as his co-regents. Upon the count's death in 1008, Alfonso ruled on his own.
Alfonso VII, called the Emperor, became the King of Galicia in 1111 and King of León and Castile in 1126. Alfonso, born Alfonso Raimúndez, first used the title Emperor of All Spain, alongside his mother Urraca, once she vested him with the direct rule of Toledo in 1116. Alfonso later held another investiture in 1135 in a grand ceremony reasserting his claims to the imperial title. He was the son of Urraca of León and Raymond of Burgundy, the first of the House of Ivrea to rule in the Iberian peninsula.
Ferdinand I, called the Great, was the count of Castile from his uncle's death in 1029 and the king of León after defeating his brother-in-law in 1037. According to tradition, he was the first to have himself crowned Emperor of Spain (1056), and his heirs carried on the tradition. He was a younger son of Sancho III of Navarre and Muniadona of Castile, and by his father's will recognised the supremacy of his eldest brother, García Sánchez III of Navarre. While Ferdinand inaugurated the rule of the Navarrese Jiménez dynasty over western Spain, his rise to preeminence among the Christian rulers of the peninsula shifted the focus of power and culture westward after more than a century of Leonese decline. Nevertheless, "[t]he internal consolidation of the realm of León–Castilla under Fernando el Magno and [his queen] Sancha (1037–1065) is a history that remains to be researched and written."
Sancho Garcés III, also known as Sancho the Great, was the King of Pamplona from 1004 until his death in 1035. He also ruled the County of Aragon and by marriage the counties of Castile, Álava and Monzón. He later added the counties of Sobrarbe (1015), Ribagorza (1018) and Cea (1030), and would intervene in the Kingdom of León, taking its eponymous capital city in 1034.
García Ramírez, sometimes García IV, V, VI or VII, called the Restorer, was the King of Navarre (Pamplona) from 1134. The election of García Ramírez restored the independence of the Navarrese kingdom after 58 years of political union with the Kingdom of Aragon. After some initial conflict he would align himself with king Alfonso VII of León and Castile, and as his ally take part in the Reconquista.
García Sánchez I, was the king of Pamplona from 925 until his death in 970. He was the second king of the Jiménez dynasty, succeeding his father when he was merely six years old.
Sancho Garcés I, also known as Sancho I, was king of Pamplona from 905 until 925. He was the son of García Jiménez and was the first king of Pamplona of the Jiménez dynasty. Sancho I was the feudal ruler of the Onsella valley, and expanded his power to all the neighboring territories. He was chosen to replace Fortún Garcés by the Pamplonese nobility in 905.
Ramiro II, son of Ordoño II and Elvira Menendez, was a King of León from 931 until his death. Initially titular king only of a lesser part of the kingdom, he gained the crown of León after supplanting his brother Alfonso IV and cousin Alfonso Fróilaz in 931. The scant Anales castellanos primeros are a primary source for his reign.
Fernán González was the first autonomous count of Castile. Fernán González was a colourful character of legendary status in Iberia, and founder of the dynasty that would rule a semi-autonomous Castile, laying the foundations for its status as an independent kingdom. In the year 930, Fernán's name appears with the title of count inside the administrative organization of the eastern Kingdom of León.
Ordoño II was a king of Galicia from 910, and king of Galicia and León from 914 until his death. He was an energetic ruler who submitted the kingdom of Leon to his control and fought successfully against the Muslims, who still dominated most of the Iberian Peninsula. His reign marked the tactical and smooth transition of the regnum Asturum to the regnum Legionis, with the royal headquarters already established in the city of León.
Ordoño IV, called the Wicked or the Bad was the king of León from 958 until 960, interrupting the reign of Sancho the Fat for a two-year period.
Imperator totius Hispaniae is a Latin title meaning "Emperor of All Spain". In Spain in the Middle Ages, the title "emperor" was used under a variety of circumstances from the ninth century onwards, but its usage peaked, as a formal and practical title, between 1086 and 1157. It was primarily used by the kings of León and Castile, but it also found currency in the Kingdom of Navarre and was employed by the counts of Castile and at least one duke of Galicia. It signalled at various points the king's equality with the rulers of the Byzantine Empire and Holy Roman Empire, his rule by conquest or military superiority, his rule over several ethnic or religious groups, and his claim to suzerainty over the other kings of the peninsula, both Christian and Muslim. The use of the imperial title received scant recognition outside of Spain and it had become largely forgotten by the thirteenth century.
The Jiménez dynasty, alternatively called the Jimena, the Sancha, the Banu Sancho, the Abarca or the Banu Abarca, was a medieval ruling family which, beginning in the 9th century, eventually grew to control the royal houses of several kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula during the 11th and 12th centuries, namely the Kingdoms of Navarre, Aragon, Castile, León and Galicia as well as of other territories in the South of France. The family played a major role in the Reconquista, expanding the territory under the direct control of the Christian states as well as subjecting neighboring Muslim taifas to vassalage. Each of the Jiménez royal lines ultimately went extinct in the male line in the 12th or 13th century.
Urraca Fernández was queen of León and Navarre as the wife of two kings of León and one king of Navarre between 951 and 994. She acted as regent for her son Gonzalo in the County of Aragon in circa 996–997, and served as co-regent of the Kingdom of Navarre, along with her daughter-in-law Jimena Fernández and the bishops of Navarre, during the minor regency of her grandson Sancho III c. 1004–1010.
García Ordóñez, called de Nájera or de Cabra and Crispus or el Crespo de Grañón in the epic literature, was a Castilian magnate who ruled the Rioja, with his seat at Nájera, from 1080 until his death. He is famous in literature as the rival of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, whose high position at court he took over after the Cid's exile in 1080. He was one of the most important military leaders and territorial governors under Alfonso VI, and was entrusted with military tutorship of the king's heir, Sancho Alfónsez, with whom he died on the field of battle at Uclés.
Ordoño Ramírez, called "the Blind" was the son of King Ramiro III of León and Sancha Gómez, grandson of Sancho I of León and Queen Teresa Ansúrez and, on the maternal side, of Gómez Díaz, Count of Saldaña and Countess Muniadona Fernández.
Gutierre Fernández de Castro was a nobleman and military commander from the Kingdom of Castile. His career in royal service corresponds exactly with the reigns of Alfonso VII (1126–57) and his son Sancho III (1157–58). He served Alfonso as a courtier after 1134 and as majordomo (1135–38). He was the guardian and tutor the young Sancho III from 1145. Before his death he was also briefly the guardian of Sancho's infant son, Alfonso VIII.
Fernando Pérez de Lara, also called Fernando Furtado or Hurtado, was the illegitimate son of Urraca, queen regnant of León and Castile, and her lover, Count Pedro González de Lara.
The Castilian House of Ivrea, also known as the House of Burgundy, is a cadet branch of the House of Ivrea descended from Raymond of Burgundy. Raymond married Urraca, the eldest legitimate daughter of Alfonso VI of León and Castile of the House of Jiménez. Two years after Raymond's death, Urraca succeeded her father and became queen of Castile and León; Urraca's and Raymond's offspring in the legitimate line ruled the kingdom from 1126 until the death of Peter of Castile in 1369, while their descendants in an illegitimate line, the House of Trastámara, would rule Castile and Aragón into the 16th century.
References
- Jaime de Salazar y Acha. 2006. "Urraca: un nombre egregio en la onomástica altomedieval". En la España medieval, 29 (Extra 1), 29–48. Also published in Estudios de genealogía, heráldica y nobiliaria, ed. Miguel Angel Laredo Quesada, 29–48 ( ISBN 84-95215-29-2 ).
