History of Europe

The succession of Fernando I el Magno de León (II):war between brothers and unification under Alfonso VI

Entry taken from the book "From war to unification".

We finished the first entry of this series dedicated to the succession of Fernando I el Magno de León pointing out that his children were not going to accept willingly the decision of his father to divide the kingdom between them. However, the first years there were no major problems or dissensions between them, probably due to the influence of his mother, Sancha, who survived her husband. Despite this, the First general chronicle, already written in the time of Alfonso X the Wise (that is, two centuries after the events, so it should be taken with caution as a reliable historical source) narrates that Sancho had already expressed his disagreement with the distribution to his father with the following argument:«the Goths formerly held their position among themselves that the empire of Spain was never divided, but that it was always all of one sennor, and that for this reason it should not be divided nor could it be, since God would have it conjoined in it. more of it”.

What did occur was a confrontation between the King of Castile, Sancho II, and his Christian neighbors from Aragon and Pamplona. Due to the name of the monarchs of the kingdoms involved, this conflict became known as the "war of the three Sanchos".

The joint forces of the kings of Pamplona and Aragon defeated their Castilian namesake in the battle of Viana, in the year 1067, and the Aragonese Sancho Ramírez persecuted his cousin (the father of the Aragonese king, Ramiro I, and the father of the Castilian , Fernando I, were brothers), while he and the Pamplona monarch were recovering the possessions they had lost in previous years.

José María Lacarra questions the historical veracity of the war of the three Sanchos, pointing out that the only documentary source that reviews it, the First general chronicle, It is later in two centuries to the narrated facts. For him, that conflict was limited to an expedition of Sancho II on Zaragoza. For his part, the biographer of Sancho Ramírez, Afif Turk, relying on Muslim sources, points out that there is no record of Sancho II's campaign over Zaragoza, although there is evidence of the confrontation between the three Sanchos.

In the year 1067, Sancha, queen of León, sister of Vermudo III, wife of Fernando I and mother of the kings of León, Castile and Galicia, died. It seems that Sancha's ascendancy over her three children acted as a retaining dam that prevented the outbreak of tensions between the brothers, caused by the division between them of her father's kingdom. Sancho was not satisfied with the division because, despite being the eldest son, the former county of Castile had corresponded to him and not the head of his father's domains, the kingdom of León, which held a certain imperial pre-eminence over the other territories.

In a movement that some sources date to the year 1068 and others to 1071, Sancho invaded Galicia. Claiming that they were on their way to pay their respects at the tomb of Santiago in Compostela, Sancho and three hundred knights arrived in the city. King García went out to receive them and was arrested, dethroned and sent as a captive to Burgos. He was later banished to the taifa of Seville. After taking over Galicia, Sancho agreed with Alfonso VI to share the kingdom that had belonged to his brother, García, from him.

Garcia of Galicia.

Other sources point out that the attack was coordinated from the beginning between Alfonso and Sancho with the aim of removing García from his throne and keeping Galicia between them and they identify Santarem as the place where García was arrested. According to the First General Chronicle, Sancho had previously negotiated with Alfonso, who agreed that he would grant him freedom of passage through the kingdom of León in exchange for giving him half of his conquests.

On May 10, 1071, in a document from the Cartulary of Arlanza, Sancho is named king of Castile and Galicia. Very shortly after, a deed dated November 23, 1071 already outlines Sancho reigning in Castile and Galicia and Alfonso doing the same in León and Galicia.

This apparent understanding between the two would not last long. The dissensions between the kings of León and Castile, based on the old question about who belonged to the territory between the Cea and Pisuerga rivers, began in a first confrontation in Llantada, near Melgar de Fernamental, in the year 1068. It is a confusing episode with legendary overtones (the chronicles narrate that both agreed to submit to the "judgment of God" in which the winner would stay with the kingdom of the loser, which suggests a single combat, but then they say that two armies fought ). In fact, possibly neither brother was present. In any case, there was no clear winner of the confrontation. Some sources indicate that the contingent sent by Sancho triumphed, but that Alfonso refused to accept the verdict and to cede the crown to his brother.

Alfonso VI of León.

It would take a few years, specifically until January 1072, for the decisive clash between the two to take place in Golpejera (near Carrión de los Condes), where Sancho took Alfonso prisoner. Again, it is an event in which it is difficult to separate the historical from the legendary and in which the chroniclers offer different interpretations depending on their sympathy for one or the other. Thus, the Crónica najerense narrates that Sancho was taken prisoner after responding to Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, who made him see that they were inferior in number, that «if the Leonese are more, the Castilians are braver». It had to be El Cid, narrates the Chronicle, who, after getting rid of the fourteen Leonese knights who were guarding him, freed him.

For Lucas de Tuy, in his Chronicon Mundi (based for this episode on non-preserved Leonese chronicles), victory had smiled on Alfonso who, driven by his generosity and by the desire to avoid further Christian bloodshed, ordered that the defeated not be persecuted. At the suggestion of Díaz de Vivar, Sancho's forces turned back and the next day they attacked the Leonese camp, surprising Alfonso's army and capturing him.

At first, the defeated Leonese monarch suffered a fate similar to that of his brother García de Galicia. After spending a few months captive in Burgos, he later took refuge in the Taifa of Toledo. Al-Mamún ruled there, united with Alfonso not only because it was a tributary kingdom of León, but also because of friendly relations. Some sources indicate that it was the mediation of Hugo de Cluny that allowed this transfer.

Others, however, point to the intervention of their sister, Urraca, who convinced Sancho to accept that Alfonso retire to the Sahagún monastery in exchange for him swearing that he renounced his rights and that he would profess as monk. Once in Sahagún, and with the complicity of Urraca, Alfonso fled to Toledo to prepare the recovery of his throne and learn about the defenses of this city, something that would be very useful years later.

Sancho was crowned King of León around January 12, 1072 and he did so with all the kingdoms and territories that his father Fernando I had governed, although it does not seem that he was very popular in León, since few magnates of this kingdom appear. in the list of nobles and prelates who endorsed his appointment. In addition, the new king caused the anger of the bishop of León by placing the crown himself instead of waiting for the prelate to impose it on him as tradition indicated (other sources indicate that it was the bishop who refused to crown him, forcing the king to do it himself). In any case, he would not enjoy his position for long.

In October 1072, Sancho II was forced to go to Zamora, where a group of Leonese nobles opposed to the new king had taken refuge and rebelled against his authority. Within the city, and on the side of the rebels, was also his sister Urraca, who had been in control of the town and who maintained contact with Alfonso in Toledo through a nobleman named Pedro Ansúrez, a supporter of the deposed king. de León, who had gone into exile shortly after Sancho's coronation.

Zamora was a point of strategic importance for the expansion to the south and for communications between the different parts of the kingdom, so Sancho could not afford to lose control of it. But it was a strongly walled and defended square, so it was not possible to attack frontally, but to take it it was necessary to submit it to a siege and surrender it by hunger and starvation. So Sancho besieged the city.

Representation of the death of Sancho II in Zamora.

And there he died on October 6, 1072, according to the chronicles when Bellido Dolfos managed to reach him with a spear. Again, it is a moment that has been recreated in the chansons de geste and subjected to different historical interpretations. For some Sancho was killed ignominiously and using deception by "the traitor Bellido Dolfos, son of the traitor Dolfos Bellido", who pretended to have deserted the rebel ranks to join the Castilians. For others, Bellido Dolfos was a hero who put an end to the tyrant who had taken over the kingdom of León, deposing his legitimate monarch and starving the inhabitants of Zamora.

The only thing that can be confirmed is that Sancho II, king of Castile by inheritance and of León and Galicia by conquest, died in 1072 in Zamora. The choice of San Salvador de Oña as the resting place of the deceased monarch of Castile and León, pantheon of the counts of Castile and not of San Isidoro de León, where the Leonese monarchs rested, was a clear symbol of the Castilian condition of Sancho , no matter how much the Leonese crown also held.

San Salvador de Oña.

Sancho had married a woman about whom little is known and who, by her name, Alberta, seems to have been of Nordic origin. The marriage had not produced offspring, which brought his brother Alfonso VI, exiled in the Taifa of Toledo, to the fore. A work dedicated to the life of the Cid, the Carmen Campidoctoris, He points out that it was Sancho's will that upon his death, without descendants, his kingdom would be handed over to his brother, Alfonso, of his.

Upon hearing the news of what had happened to his brother in Zamora, Alfonso hurried to travel there from Toledo to be recognized as king by the lay and ecclesiastical magnates present in the city, both Leonese and Asturian, Galician and Portuguese. From there he traveled to Burgos, where he received homage from the Castilian nobles.

In two diplomas granted in León on November 17 and 19, 1072 Alfonso appears as Rex Legionensis and it is detailed that God had restored the kingdom that he had lost, without bloodshed, without disturbances and without opposition from anyone. The diploma is signed by the Infanta Urraca and various nobles and bishops from León, Galicia and Castile, which proves that Alfonso was accepted as king by all the magnates of the three kingdoms that his father had separated.

One of the first significant events of his reign was the return of his brother García, who was exiled in the Taifa of Seville. If García thought that he was going to be reinstated in his Galician kingdom or that he would at least be incorporated into the government circle of his brother, he was very wrong. Alfonso locked him up in the isolated castle of Luna, in León, where he remained until his death in the year 1090, acknowledging him, yes, the honors of his status as king. The Silent Chronicle narrates this fact, not without a certain irony, pointing to the responsibility in the decision of the infanta Urraca:«Alfonso having accepted his advice (that of Urraca) and forced by necessity, to prevent the kingdom from being disintegrated again by a murder , his or his brother's, captured Garcia, his younger brother, and loaded with chains, paid him all kinds of royal honor, except the power to govern.

Luna castle ruins.

The new king thus returned to unify all the kingdoms and territories governed by his father. From very early on Alfonso VI showed that he was inspired by the same political principles that had fed his grandfather Sancho III the Elder, his father Fernando I and his brother Sancho II. Although he initially appears in the documents as Rex Legionensis, from 1076 he began to use the title Totius Hispaniae rex and imperator totius Hispaniae. Alfonso returned to feed the imperialist ambition that his kingdom hold the dominant position over the entire peninsula... but that's another story.

Images| Author archive, Wikimedia Commons.

From war to unification. (Madrid, 2020).