Peter I of Aragon and Pamplona

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Peter I
King of Aragon and Pamplona
Reign1094 - 1104
PredecessorSancho Ramírez
SuccessorAlfonso the Battler
Bornc. 1068
Died1104
Burial
Spouses
HouseJiménez
FatherSancho Ramírez
MotherIsabella of Urgell

Peter I (

Almoravids.[2] According to the medieval Annales Compostellani Peter was "expert in war and daring in initiative",[3] and one modern historian has remarked that "his grasp of the possibilities inherent in the age seems to have been faultless."[4]

Early life

The

Ermengol IV
, after Ermengol's own son and brothers. He was not destined to inherit it.

In 1085, two years after his father had conquered

Cinca, which he proceeded to conquer as far as Almenar, taken in 1093.[8]

Sole reign

Peter succeeded to the whole of his father's kingdom on the latter's death while besieging

Gallega. In 1095 Peter renewed his father's oaths to Urban II, and Urban renewed his promise of protection, under which Sancho, his sons, and his kingdom had been placed in July 1089. On 16 March 1095 the pope even issued a bull, Cum universis sancte, granting the king and queen of Aragon immunity from excommunication without the permission of the pope.[10] That same year, while he was besieging Huesca, Peter defeated the relief forces of the Taifa of Zaragoza at the Battle of Alcoraz.[11] Peter later rewarded a certain Sancho Crispo for his contribution of three hundred knights and infantry at Alcoraz.[12]
He went on to take Huesca on 27 November of that same year.

Reconquista and war with the Almoravids

St George's Cross. According to legend, George appeared on the field of battle at Alcoraz. The heads of four decapitated Moors found on the battlefield were added to George's familiar emblem, creating the Cross of Alcoraz (the basis for the Sardinian
coat-of-arms).

The next year (1096) Peter travelled south to inspect his fortress at Castellón, though the Historia Roderici claims that he came to help Rodrigo.[13] He met Rodrigo in Valencia and with a large force already assembled they decided to reinforce the southern frontier fort of Benicadell, rebuilt by Rodrigo in 1091. As they were passing by Xàtiva they were met by an Almoravid force under the command of Mohammed, the nephew of Almoravid leader Yusuf ibn Tashfin, and the commander whom Rodrigo had defeated at the Battle of Cuarte in 1095. They decided to hastily restock Benicadell and retreat to Valencia via the coast, but were met at the Battle of Bairén by Muhammad's forces encamped on the high ground that reached almost to the sea. A small Almoravid fleet had been assembled from the southern ports, including Almería, and the Christians were trapped between arrow fire from the ships and the cavalry perched atop the hill. Rodrigo roused the troops with a speech and the next day at midday the Christians charged. The Battle of Xàtiva ended in a rout, with many Almoravids killed or forced into the river or the sea, where many drowned. Peter and Rodrigo returned to Valencia in triumph and thanking God for the victory, as the Historia records.[13]

In 1099, in preparation for the fall of

Diocese of Urgell
in the direction of Lleida. In any case, Barbastro fell in 1100.

According to what is probably a legend, at the urging of the monks of

river Ebro, but the campaign was eventually aborted due to insufficient cavalry.[12] By the end of the year he had expanded Aragon and Navarre in the west almost as far as the walls of Zaragoza and Tudela
, though the cities both remained in Muslim hands.

Administration of the realm and the granting of fueros

Late and fanciful painting of Peter I. The hand on the sword is an accurate pictorial comment on his reign.

During his reign Peter bestowed

infanzones of his realm, retaining his right to require three-day field service.[20]

Succession

Peter's first marriage, to

Bertha, probably from Lombardy, was officiated in Huesca on 16 August 1097. This represented the transferral of the capital of Aragon from Jaca to the larger city of Huesca. Peter's only children, Isabella and Peter (born c. 1086), both from his first marriage, died young in 1103 and on 1 February 1104, respectively. Peter was married to María Rodríguez, a daughter of El Cid, in 1098 - a marriage celebrated in the Cantar de mio Cid and in subsequent literature. Both Isabella and Peter were interred in San Juan de la Peña on 18 August 1104.[22]

When Peter I died in the Val d'Aran his kingdoms passed to his younger half-brother, Alfonso the Battler.[a] Peter was buried in San Juan de la Peña alongside his children. When Alfonso also died without living children, the kingdom of Aragon passed to the youngest brother, Ramiro II.[b] Peter's name was adopted, in a feminised form, for Ramiro's only child, and successor, Petronilla (1137–64). The name "Peter" entered the name-pool of the House of Barcelona into which Petronilla married and appeared commonly thereafter in the ruling family of Aragon.

Notes

  1. Kalends of October, that is, 29 September) in the Crónica de San Juan de la Peña, but as IV Kal Oct (28 September) in the Annales Compostellani. The Corónicas Navarras
    place his death on V Kal Oct (27 September).
  2. ^ Navarre went its separate way at this time (1134). García Ramírez was elected king in Pamplona.

References

  1. ^ Bernard F. Reilly (1988), The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 304, notes of Peter's ecclesiastical and military policy that he "envisioned no retreat."
  2. ^ Bisson, 15, and Henry John Chaytor (1933), A History of Aragon and Catalonia (London: Methuan Publishing), 47–48.
  3. ^ in bellis expertus et audax in principio
  4. ^ Reilly, 304 and n. 1. Despite this, no comprehensive study of his reign has been published and he is usually overshadowed by his brother and successor Alfonso the Battler.
  5. ^ Richard A. Fletcher (1989), The Quest for El Cid (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 82, provides an image. The signature occurs between two crosses.
  6. ^ Chapter XVIII of the Crónica is devoted exclusively to Peter's reign: De rege Petro et suis gestis, et de captione ciuitatis Oscensis ("On King Peter and his deeds, and of the capture of the city of Huesca"). The Crónica errs in making Peter a son of his father's second wife, Felicia of Roucy.
  7. ^ Ángel J. Martín Duque (2002), "Graus: un señorío feudal aragonés en el siglo XII," Príncipe de Viana, 63(227):613, nn. 9–11. Originally published in Hispania, 18 (1958), pp. 159–80.
  8. ^ Thomas N. Bisson (2000), The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 15.
  9. ^ Peter adopted his father's title, Aragonensium et Pampilonensium rex (Aragonese and Pamplonese king), though his father had preferred to name the Pamplonese (Navarrese) kingdom first. Peter also sometimes used the patronymic Sánchez (or Sangiz in contemporary Latinisations), as in a document by which he gave some property in Arguiñáriz to a lord Diego Álvarez (Didaco Albarez) in December 1099.
  10. ^ Smith, 135.
  11. ^ Antonio Ubieto Arteta (1951), "Una narración de la batalla de Alcoraz atribuida al abad pinatense Aimerico," Argensola: Revista de Ciencias Sociales del Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses, 7:245–56.
  12. ^ a b c James F. Powers (1987), A Society Organized for War: The Iberian Municipal Militias in the Central Middle Ages, 1000–1284 (Berkeley: University of California Press), 23–24. The original source has milites et pedones, literally "men-at-arms and foot soldiers".
  13. ^ a b Fletcher, 175.
  14. Bishop of Barcelona
    , in Barbastro on 5 May 1101 to attend the reconsecration of the mosque as a Christian church.
  15. ^ Christopher Tyerman (2006), God's War: A New History of the Crusades (London: Penguin Books), 659.
  16. ^ Reilly, 304: Petrus quoque rex aragonensis eum infinita armorum multitudine Cesaraugustam civitatem cum Christi vexillo preliante.
  17. ^ Tyerman, 662. Today Juslibol is a town three kilometres from Zaragoza.
  18. ^ Damian J. Smith (2004), Innocent III and the Crown of Aragon (Ashgate Publishing), 206. Peter's charters and other diplomata have been collected and edited by Antonio Ubieto Arteta in Colección diplomática de Pedro I de Aragón y Navarra (Zaragoza: 1951).
  19. ^ Reilly, 312.
  20. ^ Alfonso the Battler later extended this fuero to Zaragoza in January 1119.
  21. ^ Dunbabin 1985, p. 384.
  22. ^ Cf. the Crónica, XVIII.

Sources

  • Dunbabin, Jean (1985). France in the Making: 843-1180. Oxford University Press.

Further reading

  • Ubieto Arteta, Antonio, ed. Colección diplomática de Pedro I de Aragón y Navarra. Zaragoza: 1951.
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Sancho (V)
King of Aragon and Navarre

1094–1104
Succeeded by
Alfonso I