Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragon and Navarre
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Sancho Ramírez (c. 1042 – 4 June 1094, Huesca) was king of Aragon (1063-1094, not formally until 1076) and king of Navarre (1076-1094, as Sancho V). He was the son of Ramiro I of Aragon and Ermesinde of Bigorre, and he succeeded his father in 1063.
Between 1067 and 1068, the War of the Three Sanchos involved him in a conflict with his first cousins, both also named Sancho: Sancho IV the king of Navarre and Sancho II the king of Castile, respectively. The Castilian Sancho was trying to retake Bureba and Alta Rioja, which his father had given away to king of Navarre and failed to retake. The Navarrese Sancho begged the aid of the Aragonese Sancho to defend his kingdom. Sancho of Castile defeated the two cousins and retook both Bureba and Alta Rioja, as well as Álava.
Sancho Ramírez followed his father's practice, not using the royal title early in his reign even though his state had become fully independent. This changed in 1076, when Sancho IV of Navarre was murdered by his own siblings, thus prompting a succession crisis in this neighboring kingdom that represented Aragon's nominal overlord. At first, the murdered king's young son, García, who had fled to Castile, was recognized as titular king by Alfonso VI, while Sancho Ramírez recruited to his side noblemen of Navarre who resented their kingdom falling under Alfonso's influence. The crisis was resolved by partition. Sancho Ramírez was elected King of Navarre, while he ceded previously contested western provinces of the kingdom to Alfonso. From this time, Sancho refers to himself as king not only of Navarre but also Aragon.
Sancho conquered Barbastro in 1064, Graus in 1083, and Monzón in 1089.
He married first in c.1065 (divorced 1071), Isabel of Urgel (d. c.1071), daughter of Count Armengol III of Urgel and second in 1076, Felicie of Roucy (d May 3, 1123), daughter of Count Hilduin III of Roucy. A third marriage - to Philippa of Toulouse - is sometimes given [1] but other evidence records him as still married to Felicie at the time of his death.[2]
He perished in 1094 at the Siege of Huesca.
He was father of three sons: by Isabel, he had Peter; by Felicie he had Alfonso and Ramiro. All three succeeded in turn to the throne of Aragon.
| Preceded by Ramiro I |
King of Aragon 1063–1094 |
Succeeded by Peter I |
| Preceded by Sancho IV |
King of Navarre 1076–1094 |
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Richard, Alfred, Histoire de Comtes de Poitou, 778-1204
- ^ Szabolcs de VAJAY, "Ramire II le Moine, roi d'Aragon et Agnes de Poitou dans l'histoire et la légende", in Mélanges offerts à René Crozet, 2 vol, Poitiers, 1966, vol 2, p 727-750; and Ruth E Harvey, "The wives of the first troubadour Duke William IX of Aquitaine", in Journal of Medieval History, vol 19, 1993, p 315. Harvey states that, contrary to prior assumptions, William IX was certainly Philippa of Toulouse's only husband. Vajay states that the marriage to an unnamed king of Aragon reported by a non-contemporary chronicler is imaginary, even though it has appeared broadly in modern histories, and likewise he cites J de Salarrullana de Dios, Documentos correspondientes al reinado de Sancho Ramirez, Saragossa, 1907, vol I, nr 51, p 204-207 to document that Felicie was clearly still married to Sancho months before his death, making the marriage to Philippa several years earlier, as reported in several modern popular biographies of her granddaughter, completely unsupportable.
