List of Galician monarchs

See also: List of Galician consorts

Galicia is an autonomous community and historical nationality in modern-day northwestern Spain, which continues and was a major part of the Roman province known as Gallaecia prior to 409. The medieval and modern Kingdom of Galicia derived of the kingdom of the Suebi, founded by king Hermeric in 409. By the 6th century the kingdom of the Suebi was already known as Kingdom of Galicia, Gregory of Tours being the first chronicler to use this denomination.[1]

Contents

Suebic Kings of Galicia (409–585)

First Royal Dynasty (409–456)

Kings during a Suebic Civil War (457–469) Note: the civil war split the kingdom, multiple kings ruled smaller regions of Gallicia.

Dark Period (469–550)

Final Suevic Period (550–585)

Visigothic Kings of Galicia, Hispania and Septimania

The Visigoth kings took control of Galicia in 585, which became the sixth province of the Kingdom of Toledo. Anyhow, Galicia maintained a distinguishable administrative and legal identity up to the collapse of the Visigothic monarchy:

From the fall of the Visigothic kingdom until the beginning of the 10th century, Galicia was integrated with other Christian kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula (Kingdom of Asturias and Kingdom of León).

Kings of Galicia

In 910, Afonso III the Great was forced to abdicate in favor of his sons, who partitioned the kingdom. This resulted in a briefly independent kingdom of Galicia:

In 914, Ordoño acquired the throne at León, reuniting his father's kingdom. On the death of his brother Fruela II of León in 925, there was a period of competing claimants, being made king in Galicia:

The death of Sancho led to Galicia again becoming part of the Kingdom of León, with which it was joined until 982, when the Galician nobility crowned in Santiago de Compostela an anti-king:

Bermudo routed Ramiro III of León in the battle of Portela de Areas, later becoming undisputed ruler of the Leonese kingdom, and so reunifying the realm.

The Jiménez dynasty (1037–1111)

Upon the death of Ferdinand I of León and Castile in 1065, Castile, León, and Galicia became three separated kingdoms:

Alfonso VI of León reunited the Kingdoms of Castile, León and Galicia.

The House of Burgundy

He was succeeded by his son:

With the accession to the throne of Ferdinand III of Castile in 1230, the Kingdom of Galicia became dinastically united with the kingdoms of León, Castile and Toledo inside the Crown of Castile, but maintaining its personality as a kingdom, and its own legal institutions.

Royal pantheon of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Sepulcher of count Raymond of Burgundy, lord of Galicia, and father of Alfonso VII (d. 1107) 
Sepulcher of king Ferdinand II (d. 1187) 
Sepulcher of king Alfonso IX (d. 1230) 
Sepulcher of count Pedro Fróilaz de Traba, protector of king Alfonso VII (d. 1128) 

Dynasty of Avís

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Quo defuncto, filius eius Eurichus Leuvichildi regis amicitias expetiit, dataque, ut pater fecerat, sacramenta, regnum Galliciensim suscepit. Hoc vero anno cognatus eius Audica, qui sororem illius disponsatam habebat, cum exercitu venit; adpraehensumque clericum facit ac diaconatus sibi praesbiterii ei inponi honorem iobet. Ipse quoque acceptam soceri sui uxorem, Galliciensim regnum obtenuit." Gregory of Tours, Historiarum, VI.43.

Bibliography

See also