Sancho III of Navarre
Encyclopedia
Sancho III Garcés called the Great , succeeded as a minor to the Kingdom of Navarre
in 1004, and through conquest and political maneuvering increased his power, until at the time of his death in 1035 he controlled the majority of Christian Iberia, bearing the title of rex Hispaniarum
. Having gone further than any of his predecessors in uniting the divided kingdoms of Iberia, his life's work was undone when he divided his domains shortly before his death to provide for each of his sons. The Kingdom of Navarre existed for almost six centuries after his death, but was never as powerful again.
on the Galician frontier. He was raised in Leyra. His father last appears in 1000, while Sancho is first found as king in 1004, inheriting the kingdom of Pamplona (later known as Navarre). This gap has led to speculation as to whether there was an interregnum, while one document shows Sancho Ramírez of Viguera
reigning in Pamplona in 1002, perhaps ruling as had Jimeno Garcés during the youth of García Sánchez I three generations earlier. On his succession, Sancho initially ruled under a council of regency led by the bishops, his mother Jimena, and grandmother Urraca Fernández
.
Sancho aspired to unify the Christian principalities in the face of the fragmentation of Muslim Spain into the taifa
kingdoms following the Battle of Calatañazor
. In about 1010 he married Muniadona Mayor
, daughter of Sancho García of Castile, and in 1015 he began a policy of expansion. He displaced Muslim control in the depopulated former county of Sobrarbe
. In Ribagorza, another opportunity arose. The 1010 partition of the county left it divided between William Isarn, illegitimate son of count Isarn, and Raymond III of Pallars Jussà
and his wife, Mayor of Castile, who was both niece of Isarn and aunt of Sancho's wife. In 1018, William Isarn tried to solidify his control over the Arán valley, but was killed, and Sancho jumped on the opportunity to take his portion, presumably based on some loose claim derived from his wife. Raymond and Mayor annulled their marriage, creating a further division finally resolved in 1025 when Mayor retired to a Castilian convent and Sancho received the submission of Raymond as vassal. He also forced Berengar Raymond I of Barcelona to become his vassal, though he was already a vassal of the French king. Berengar met Sancho in Zaragoza
and in Navarre many times to confer on a mutual policy against the counts of Toulouse
.
(Muniadona), daughter of Sancho García of Castile. In 1017, he became the protector of Castile for the young García Sánchez. However, relations between the three Christian entities of León, Castile, and Navarre soured after the assassination of Count García in 1027. He had been bethrothed to Sancha, daughter of Alfonso V, who was set thus to gain from Castile lands between the rivers Cea and Pisuerga (as the price for approving the marital pact). As García arrived in León for his wedding, he was killed by the sons of a noble he had expelled from his lands.
Sancho III had opposed the wedding and the expected expansion of Leonese power to Castile, and used García's death to reverse this. Using the pretext of the protectorship he had exercised over Castile, he immediately occupied the county and named as successor his own younger son Ferdinand, who was nephew of the deceased count, bringing it fully within his sphere of influence.
nature, him being the suzerain. In consequence of his relationship with the monastery of Cluny
, he improved the road from Gascony to León. This road would begin to bring increased traffic down to Iberia as pilgrims flocked to Santiago de Compostela
. Because of this, Sancho ranks as one of the first great patrons of the Saint James Way.
Sancho VI of Gascony was a relative of Sancho of Navarre and he spent a portion of his life at the royal court in Pamplona. He also partook alongside Sancho the Great in the Reconquista
. In 1010, the two Sanchos appeared together with Robert II of France
and William V of Aquitaine
, neither of whom was the Gascon duke's suzerain, at Saint-Jean d'Angély. After Sancho VI's death in 1032, Sancho the Great extended his authority definitively into Gascony, where he began to mention his authority as extending as far as the Garonne
in the documents issued by his chancery.
In southern Gascony, Sancho created a series of viscounties: Labourd
(between 1021 and 1023), Bayonne
(1025), and Baztán
(also 1025).
to León, Sancho negotiated the marriage of his son Ferdinand of Castile to Sancha, the former fiance of García Sánchez and Bermudo's sister, and along with it a dowery that included disputed Leonese lands. Sancho was soon engaged in a full-scale war with León, and combined Castilian and Navarrese armies quickly overran much of Bermudo's kingdom, occupying Astorga. By March 1033, he was king from Zamora to the borders of Barcelona.
In 1034, even the city of León, the imperiale culmen (imperial capital, as Sancho saw it), fell, and there Sancho had himself crowned again. This was the height of Sancho's rule which now extended from the borders of Galicia in the west to the county of Barcelona in the east. In 1035, he refounded the diocese of Palencia, which had been laid waste by the Moors. He gave the see and its several abbacies to Bernard, of French or Navarrese origin, to whom he also gave the secular lordship (as a feudum), which included many castles in the region. However, he was assassinated at Aguilar de Bureba[dubious – discuss] on 18 October 1035 and was buried in the monastery of San Salvador of Oña, an enclave in Burgos, under the inscription Sancius, gratia Dei, Hispaniarum rex.
Taking residence in Nájera
instead of the traditional capital of Pamplona
, as his realm grew larger, he considered himself a European monarch, establishing relations on the other side of the Pyrenees
.
He introduced French feudal theories and ecclesiastic and intellectual currents into Iberia. Through his close ties with the count of Barcelona and the duke of Gascony and his friendship with the monastic reformer Abbot Oliva, Sancho established relations with several of the leading figures north of the Pyrenees, most notably Robert II of France
, William V of Aquitaine
, William II
and Alduin II of Angoulême, and Odo II of Blois and Champagne
. It was through this circle that the Cluniac reforms first probably influenced his thinking. In 1024 a Navarrese monk, Paterno from Cluny
, returned to Navarre and was made abbot of San Juan de la Peña
, where he instituted the Cluniac custom and founded thus the first Cluniac house in Iberia west of Catalonia, under the patronage of Sancho. The Mozarabic rite
continued to be practiced at San Juan, and the view that Sancho spread the Cluniac usage to other houses in his kingdom has been discredited by Justo Pérez de Urbel. Sancho sowed the seeds of the Cluniac reform and of the adoption of the Roman rite
, but he did not widely enact them.
Sancho also began the Navarrese series of currency by minting what the Encyclopædia Britannica
calls "denier
s of Carolingian
influence." The division of his realm upon his death, the concepts of vassalage and suzerainty, and the use of the phrase "by the grace of God" (Dei gratia) after his title were imported from France, with which he tried to maintain relations. For this he has been called the "first Europeaniser of Iberia."
His most obvious legacy, however, was the temporary union of all Christian Iberia. At least nominally, he ruled over León, the ancient capital of the kingdom won from the Moors
in the eighth century, and Barcelona, the greatest of the Catalan
cities. Though he divided the realm at his death, thus creating the enduring legacy of Castilian and Aragonese kingdoms, he left all his lands in the hands of one dynasty, the Jiménez
, which kept the kingdoms allied by blood until the twelfth century. He made the Navarrese pocket kingdom strong, politically stable, and independent, preserving it for the remainder of the Middle Ages
. It is for this that his seal has been appropriated by Basque nationalism
. Though, by dividing the realm, he isolated the kingdom and inhibited its ability to gain land at the expense of the Moslems. Summed up, his reign defined the political geography of Iberia until its union under the Catholic Monarchs
.
". The use of the first title implied his kingship over all the independently founded Iberian kingdoms and the use of the form Dei gratia, adopted from French practice, stressed that his right to rule was of divine origin and sustenance. The latter, imperial title was only rarely employed, for it is not documented, being found only on coins only probably datable to his reign. It is not unlikely, however, that he desired to usurp the imperial title which the kings of León had thitherto carried.
Despite this, the contemporary ecclesiastic Abbot Oliva
only ever acknowledged Sancho as rex Ibericus or rex Navarrae Hispaniarum, while he called both Alfonso V and Vermudo III emperor. The first title considers Sancho as king of all Iberia, as does the second, though it stresses his kingship over Navarre alone as if it had been extended to authority over the whole Christian portion of the peninsula.
To the Moors, he was always only Baskunish, the "lord of the Basques."
over the kingdom's lands given his brothers. Gonzalo
had been placed in control of the counties of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, which he would hold as regulus. Ferdinand
had been given Castile on the death of count García Sánchez in 1127, holding it first under his father and later of Vermudo III of León, before killing that king to take León and the royal title. Ramiro
, the eldest but illegitimate son of Sancho by mistress Sancha of Aybar, was given property in the former county of Aragón with the provision that he should ask for no more lands of García, under whom he first acted as baiulus
but from whom he later achieved de facto independence. Documents report two further sons, a second Ramiro and Bernard, but scholarship is divided on whether they were legitimate sons who died in youth, or if their appearance instead results from either scribal error or forgery. Sancho left two daughters, Mayor and Jimena, the former perhaps the wife of Pons, Count of Toulouse, the latter wife of Vermudo III.
|-
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre , originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, was a European kingdom which occupied lands on either side of the Pyrenees alongside the Atlantic Ocean....
in 1004, and through conquest and political maneuvering increased his power, until at the time of his death in 1035 he controlled the majority of Christian Iberia, bearing the title of rex Hispaniarum
Imperator totius Hispaniae
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...
. Having gone further than any of his predecessors in uniting the divided kingdoms of Iberia, his life's work was undone when he divided his domains shortly before his death to provide for each of his sons. The Kingdom of Navarre existed for almost six centuries after his death, but was never as powerful again.
Regency and early acquisitions
Sancho was born around 992 to García Sánchez II the Tremulous and Jimena Fernández, daughter of the count of CeaCea
-People:* Eusebio Rodolfo Cordón Cea , Salvadoran politician* José Pedro Cea , Uruguayan footballer* José Roberto Cea , Salvadoran novelist and poet-Places:* Cea River, Spain...
on the Galician frontier. He was raised in Leyra. His father last appears in 1000, while Sancho is first found as king in 1004, inheriting the kingdom of Pamplona (later known as Navarre). This gap has led to speculation as to whether there was an interregnum, while one document shows Sancho Ramírez of Viguera
Sancho Ramírez of Viguera
Sancho Ramírez was the second King of Viguera from 991 or earlier until his death. He was the son and successor of Ramiro Garcés. Following the death of his father, he appears in documents with his uncle Sancho II Garcés and his brother García Ramírez...
reigning in Pamplona in 1002, perhaps ruling as had Jimeno Garcés during the youth of García Sánchez I three generations earlier. On his succession, Sancho initially ruled under a council of regency led by the bishops, his mother Jimena, and grandmother Urraca Fernández
Urraca Fernández
Urraca Fernández , infanta of Castile and daughter of Count Fernán González, was the queen consort of two Kings of León and one King of Navarre between 951 and 994...
.
Sancho aspired to unify the Christian principalities in the face of the fragmentation of Muslim Spain into the taifa
Taifa
In the history of the Iberian Peninsula, a taifa was an independent Muslim-ruled principality, usually an emirate or petty kingdom, though there was one oligarchy, of which a number formed in the Al-Andalus after the final collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031.-Rise:The origins of...
kingdoms following the Battle of Calatañazor
Battle of Calatañazor
The Battle of Calatañazor was a legendary battle of the Reconquista that supposedly took place in July 1002 at Calatañazor between an army of invading Saracens under Almanzor and a force of Christian allies led by Alfonso V of León, Sancho III of Navarre, and Sancho García of Castile...
. In about 1010 he married Muniadona Mayor
Mayor of Castile
Mayor of Castile was queen of Navarre. She was originally called Muniadona and is variously called Munia Mayor . In Spanish, she is called Muniadona de Castilla...
, daughter of Sancho García of Castile, and in 1015 he began a policy of expansion. He displaced Muslim control in the depopulated former county of Sobrarbe
Sobrarbe
Sobrarbe is one of the Comarcas of Aragon, Spain. It is located in the northern part of the province of Huesca, part of the autonomous community of Aragon in Spain...
. In Ribagorza, another opportunity arose. The 1010 partition of the county left it divided between William Isarn, illegitimate son of count Isarn, and Raymond III of Pallars Jussà
County of Pallars Jussà
The County of Pallars Jussà or Jusá, meaning Lower Pallars, was a county in the Hispanic March during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, long after the march had ceased to be effectively administered by the Kings of France. It was a division of the County of Pallars, which had been de facto, and...
and his wife, Mayor of Castile, who was both niece of Isarn and aunt of Sancho's wife. In 1018, William Isarn tried to solidify his control over the Arán valley, but was killed, and Sancho jumped on the opportunity to take his portion, presumably based on some loose claim derived from his wife. Raymond and Mayor annulled their marriage, creating a further division finally resolved in 1025 when Mayor retired to a Castilian convent and Sancho received the submission of Raymond as vassal. He also forced Berengar Raymond I of Barcelona to become his vassal, though he was already a vassal of the French king. Berengar met Sancho in Zaragoza
Zaragoza
Zaragoza , also called Saragossa in English, is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain...
and in Navarre many times to confer on a mutual policy against the counts of Toulouse
Counts of Toulouse
The first Counts of Toulouse were the administrators of the city and its environs under the Merovingians. No succession of such royal appointees is known, though a few names survive to the present...
.
Acquisition of Castile
In 1016, Sancho fixed the border between Navarre and Castile, part of the good relationship he established by marrying Muña Mayor SánchezMayor of Castile
Mayor of Castile was queen of Navarre. She was originally called Muniadona and is variously called Munia Mayor . In Spanish, she is called Muniadona de Castilla...
(Muniadona), daughter of Sancho García of Castile. In 1017, he became the protector of Castile for the young García Sánchez. However, relations between the three Christian entities of León, Castile, and Navarre soured after the assassination of Count García in 1027. He had been bethrothed to Sancha, daughter of Alfonso V, who was set thus to gain from Castile lands between the rivers Cea and Pisuerga (as the price for approving the marital pact). As García arrived in León for his wedding, he was killed by the sons of a noble he had expelled from his lands.
Sancho III had opposed the wedding and the expected expansion of Leonese power to Castile, and used García's death to reverse this. Using the pretext of the protectorship he had exercised over Castile, he immediately occupied the county and named as successor his own younger son Ferdinand, who was nephew of the deceased count, bringing it fully within his sphere of influence.
Gascon suzerainty
Sancho established relations with the Duchy of Gascony, probably of a suzerain–vassalVassal
A vassal or feudatory is a person who has entered into a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including the grant of land held...
nature, him being the suzerain. In consequence of his relationship with the monastery of Cluny
Cluny
Cluny or Clungy is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. It is 20 km northwest of Mâcon.The town grew up around the Benedictine Cluny Abbey, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 910...
, he improved the road from Gascony to León. This road would begin to bring increased traffic down to Iberia as pilgrims flocked to Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain.The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James...
. Because of this, Sancho ranks as one of the first great patrons of the Saint James Way.
Sancho VI of Gascony was a relative of Sancho of Navarre and he spent a portion of his life at the royal court in Pamplona. He also partook alongside Sancho the Great in the Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
. In 1010, the two Sanchos appeared together with Robert II of France
Robert II of France
Robert II , called the Pious or the Wise , was King of France from 996 until his death. The second reigning member of the House of Capet, he was born in Orléans to Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine....
and William V of Aquitaine
William V of Aquitaine
William V , called the Great , was Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou from 990 until his death. He was the son and successor of William IV by his wife Emma of Blois, daughter of Theobald I of Blois. He seems to have taken after his formidable mother, who ruled Aquitaine as regent until 1004...
, neither of whom was the Gascon duke's suzerain, at Saint-Jean d'Angély. After Sancho VI's death in 1032, Sancho the Great extended his authority definitively into Gascony, where he began to mention his authority as extending as far as the Garonne
Garonne
The Garonne is a river in southwest France and northern Spain, with a length of .-Source:The Garonne's headwaters are to be found in the Aran Valley in the Pyrenees, though three different locations have been proposed as the true source: the Uelh deth Garona at Plan de Beret , the Ratera-Saboredo...
in the documents issued by his chancery.
In southern Gascony, Sancho created a series of viscounties: Labourd
Labourd
Labourd is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques département. It is historically one of the seven provinces of the traditional Basque Country....
(between 1021 and 1023), Bayonne
Bayonne
Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...
(1025), and Baztán
Baztan
Baztan is a municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. It is located from Pamplona, the capital of Navarre. It is the largest municipality in Navarre, with some 376.8 km2 and just over 8,000 inhabitants....
(also 1025).
Acquisition of León
After the succession of Bermudo IIIBermudo III of León
Bermudo III , king of León , son of Alfonso V of León by his wife Elvira Mendes, was the last scion of Peter of Cantabria to rule in the Leonese kingdom...
to León, Sancho negotiated the marriage of his son Ferdinand of Castile to Sancha, the former fiance of García Sánchez and Bermudo's sister, and along with it a dowery that included disputed Leonese lands. Sancho was soon engaged in a full-scale war with León, and combined Castilian and Navarrese armies quickly overran much of Bermudo's kingdom, occupying Astorga. By March 1033, he was king from Zamora to the borders of Barcelona.
In 1034, even the city of León, the imperiale culmen (imperial capital, as Sancho saw it), fell, and there Sancho had himself crowned again. This was the height of Sancho's rule which now extended from the borders of Galicia in the west to the county of Barcelona in the east. In 1035, he refounded the diocese of Palencia, which had been laid waste by the Moors. He gave the see and its several abbacies to Bernard, of French or Navarrese origin, to whom he also gave the secular lordship (as a feudum), which included many castles in the region. However, he was assassinated at Aguilar de Bureba[dubious – discuss] on 18 October 1035 and was buried in the monastery of San Salvador of Oña, an enclave in Burgos, under the inscription Sancius, gratia Dei, Hispaniarum rex.
Legacy
Nájera
Nájera is a small town located in the "Rioja Alta" region of La Rioja, Spain on the river Najerilla. Nájera is a stopping point on the Way of St James.-History:...
instead of the traditional capital of Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
, as his realm grew larger, he considered himself a European monarch, establishing relations on the other side of the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
.
He introduced French feudal theories and ecclesiastic and intellectual currents into Iberia. Through his close ties with the count of Barcelona and the duke of Gascony and his friendship with the monastic reformer Abbot Oliva, Sancho established relations with several of the leading figures north of the Pyrenees, most notably Robert II of France
Robert II of France
Robert II , called the Pious or the Wise , was King of France from 996 until his death. The second reigning member of the House of Capet, he was born in Orléans to Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine....
, William V of Aquitaine
William V of Aquitaine
William V , called the Great , was Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou from 990 until his death. He was the son and successor of William IV by his wife Emma of Blois, daughter of Theobald I of Blois. He seems to have taken after his formidable mother, who ruled Aquitaine as regent until 1004...
, William II
William II of Angoulême
William Taillefer , numbered William II or William IV , was the Count of Angoulême from 987. He stood at the head of the family which controlled not only the Angoumois, but also the Agenais and part of Saintonge...
and Alduin II of Angoulême, and Odo II of Blois and Champagne
Odo II, Count of Blois
Odo II , Count of Blois, Chartres, Châteaudun, Provins, Rheims, and Tours from 1004 and Count of Troyes and Meaux from 1022, was the son of Odo I of Blois and Bertha, daughter of Conrad of Burgundy...
. It was through this circle that the Cluniac reforms first probably influenced his thinking. In 1024 a Navarrese monk, Paterno from Cluny
Cluny
Cluny or Clungy is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France. It is 20 km northwest of Mâcon.The town grew up around the Benedictine Cluny Abbey, founded by Duke William I of Aquitaine in 910...
, returned to Navarre and was made abbot of San Juan de la Peña
San Juan de la Peña
The monastery of San Juan de la Peña is a religious complex in the town of Santa Cruz de la Serós, at the south-west of Jaca, in the province of Huesca, Spain. It was one of the most important monasteries in Aragon in the Middle Ages. Its two-level church is partially carved in the stone of the...
, where he instituted the Cluniac custom and founded thus the first Cluniac house in Iberia west of Catalonia, under the patronage of Sancho. The Mozarabic rite
Mozarabic Rite
The Mozarabic, Visigothic, or Hispanic Rite is a form of Catholic worship within the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and in the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church . Its beginning dates to the 7th century, and is localized in the Iberian Peninsula...
continued to be practiced at San Juan, and the view that Sancho spread the Cluniac usage to other houses in his kingdom has been discredited by Justo Pérez de Urbel. Sancho sowed the seeds of the Cluniac reform and of the adoption of the Roman rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...
, but he did not widely enact them.
Sancho also began the Navarrese series of currency by minting what the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
calls "denier
French denier
The denier was a Frankish coin created by Charlemagne in the Early Middle Ages. It was introduced together with an accounting system in which twelve deniers equaled one sou and twenty sous equalled one livre...
s of Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...
influence." The division of his realm upon his death, the concepts of vassalage and suzerainty, and the use of the phrase "by the grace of God" (Dei gratia) after his title were imported from France, with which he tried to maintain relations. For this he has been called the "first Europeaniser of Iberia."
His most obvious legacy, however, was the temporary union of all Christian Iberia. At least nominally, he ruled over León, the ancient capital of the kingdom won from the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
in the eighth century, and Barcelona, the greatest of the Catalan
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
cities. Though he divided the realm at his death, thus creating the enduring legacy of Castilian and Aragonese kingdoms, he left all his lands in the hands of one dynasty, the Jiménez
Jiménez dynasty
The Jiménez or Ximenes were an Iberian ruling family from the 10th century to the 13th century. They were the first Europeanisers of Spain and brought her back within the wider European political scene while also giving her the political character and division that persisted until the end of the...
, which kept the kingdoms allied by blood until the twelfth century. He made the Navarrese pocket kingdom strong, politically stable, and independent, preserving it for the remainder of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
. It is for this that his seal has been appropriated by Basque nationalism
Basque nationalism
Basque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense...
. Though, by dividing the realm, he isolated the kingdom and inhibited its ability to gain land at the expense of the Moslems. Summed up, his reign defined the political geography of Iberia until its union under the Catholic Monarchs
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...
.
Titulature
Throughout his long reign, Sancho used a myriad of titles. After his coronation in León, he styled himself rex Dei gratia Hispaniarum, or "by the grace of God, king of the Spains", and may have minted coins with the legend "NAIARA/IMPERATORImperator totius Hispaniae
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...
". The use of the first title implied his kingship over all the independently founded Iberian kingdoms and the use of the form Dei gratia, adopted from French practice, stressed that his right to rule was of divine origin and sustenance. The latter, imperial title was only rarely employed, for it is not documented, being found only on coins only probably datable to his reign. It is not unlikely, however, that he desired to usurp the imperial title which the kings of León had thitherto carried.
Despite this, the contemporary ecclesiastic Abbot Oliva
Abbot Oliva
Oliva was the count of Berga and Ripoll and later bishop of Vic and abbot of Sant Miquel de Cuixà. He was the son of a noble Catalan house who abdicated his secular possessions to take up the Benedictine habit in the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll...
only ever acknowledged Sancho as rex Ibericus or rex Navarrae Hispaniarum, while he called both Alfonso V and Vermudo III emperor. The first title considers Sancho as king of all Iberia, as does the second, though it stresses his kingship over Navarre alone as if it had been extended to authority over the whole Christian portion of the peninsula.
To the Moors, he was always only Baskunish, the "lord of the Basques."
Succession
Before his death in 1035, Sancho divided his possessions among his sons. Of the three surviving sons by Mayor, the eldest, García, had already appeared as regulus in Navarre, inheriting the kingdom including the Basque country as well as exercising suzeraintySuzerainty
Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...
over the kingdom's lands given his brothers. Gonzalo
Gonzalo of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza
Gonzalo Sánchez was made Count of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, two small Pyrenean counties, before 1035 by his father, Sancho III of Navarre. He succeeded to these domains after his father's death in that year and ruled them as vassal of his brother García Sánchez III until his death...
had been placed in control of the counties of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, which he would hold as regulus. Ferdinand
Ferdinand I of León
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 , and his heirs carried on the tradition...
had been given Castile on the death of count García Sánchez in 1127, holding it first under his father and later of Vermudo III of León, before killing that king to take León and the royal title. Ramiro
Ramiro I of Aragon
Ramiro I was de facto the first King of Aragon from 1035 until his death. Apparently born before 1007, he was the illegitimate son of Sancho III of Navarre by his mistress Sancha de Aybar...
, the eldest but illegitimate son of Sancho by mistress Sancha of Aybar, was given property in the former county of Aragón with the provision that he should ask for no more lands of García, under whom he first acted as baiulus
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
but from whom he later achieved de facto independence. Documents report two further sons, a second Ramiro and Bernard, but scholarship is divided on whether they were legitimate sons who died in youth, or if their appearance instead results from either scribal error or forgery. Sancho left two daughters, Mayor and Jimena, the former perhaps the wife of Pons, Count of Toulouse, the latter wife of Vermudo III.
Sources
- Collins, Roger. The Basques. Blackwell Publishing: London, 1990.
- Higounet, Charles. Bordeaux pendant le haut moyen age. Bordeaux, 1963.
- Menéndez Pidal, RamónRamón Menéndez PidalRamón Menéndez Pidal was a Spanish philologist and historian. He worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore and folk poetry. One of his main topics was the history and legend of The Cid....
. La España del Cid. 1929. - Ubieto Arteta, Antonio. "Estudios en torno a la división del Reino por Sancho el Mayor de Navarra", Príncipe de Viana, vol. 21, pp. 5–56, 163–236.
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