I. TIMELINE Medieval
Christian Spain
WESTERN
KINGDOMS
1. The
Kingdom of Asturias (722-914)
722 Pelagius initiates the Reconquest in Asturias
(Battle of Covadonga).
739-757 Alfonso I conquers Galicia
and creates the Desert of the Duero to prevent muslims raids.
791-842 Alfonso II of
Asturias, restores the
principles of the Visigoth monarchy in Oviedo.
866-910 Reign of Alfonso
III of Asturias, the
first Spanish emperor.
2. The Kingdom of León
(914-1037)
914 Garcia I moves his capital to León.
931-951 Ramiro II advance the border of his kingdom
from the Duero to the Tormes.
994-1028 Alfonso V give the first
territorial law to its kingdom (1017)
1037 Bermudo III is killed by the
count of Castile Ferdinand I in the battle of Tamarón.
3. Castile from county to kingdom
(923-1037)
923-970 Fernán González
unifies the County of Castile and reach independence from Leon.
1029 Ferdinand I, the second son of Sancho III of
Navarre becomes Count of Castile.
1037 After defeating and
killing Bermudo III in the battle of Tamarón the count of Castile Ferdinand I
becomes king of Leon. Beginning of the dynasty of Navarre.
1065
After the death of his father Ferdinand I, Sancho
II, his eldest son, becomes the first King of Castile. His second son, Alfonse, comes Alfonse VI of
León
4. The union of Leon and Castile
(1072-1230)
1072-1109 Alfonse VI the second son of Ferdinand I
becomes king of Leon and Castile.
1126-1157 Alfonso VII of Leon and
Castile (first king of dynasty of Burgundy) becomes the last Emperor of All
Spain. After his death Castile and Leon become again separated kingdoms until
1230.
Castile: Sancho III (1157-1158)/Alfonso
VIII (1158-1214)/Henry I (1214-1217)/Berengaria (1217)/Ferdinand III (1217-1230
Leon: Ferdinand II (1157-1188)/Alfonso IX
(1188-1230).
1188 Alfonso IX
convenes the Cortes in León. It is the first time in European
history that a meeting of the curiae is attended by representatives of the
bourgeoisie. It is the first Assembly of
Estates.
1230. Definitive union of Leon and Castile in the
person of Ferdinand III.
1348: Cortes at Alcalá de Henares convened by Alfonso
XI. Royal law becomes the main legal source of the realm.
5. The Kingdom of Castile and
Leon (1230-1474)
1230-1252 Reign of Ferdinand III
1252-1284 Alfonso X the Wise
1284-1295 Sancho IV the Brave (married to Maria de Molina)
1295-1312 Ferdinand IV the Summoned
1312-1350 Alfonso XI
1350-1369 Peter I the Cruel. End of the dynasty of Burgundy (started in
1126)
1369-1379 Henry II, first monarch of the Trastamara
dynasty
1379-1390 John I (Defeat of
Aljubarrota, 1385).
1390-1406 Henry III the Infirm
1406-1454 John II
1454-1474 Henry IV
Isabella and Ferdinand
(Catholic Kings) 1474-1504
6. The kingdom of Portugal
1139-1185 Alfonso Henriques, becomes the first king
of Portugal.
1248-1279 Alfonso III. End of Reconquest (1250). First Portuguese Cortes
(1254)
1279-1325 Denis of Portugal, becomes the most powerful monarch of the
Iberian peninsula.
1367-1383 Ferdinand I. Marries his daughter Beatriz to John II of Castile
1385 Battle of Aljubarrota. John of
Aviz king of Portugal (until 1433).
1394-1460 Life of Henry the Navigator.
Beginning of Portuguese maritime expansion
1475 Alfonso
V marries Juana la Beltraneja and pretends the throne of Castile.
EASTER KINGDOMS
7. The county of Barcelona
(873-1162)
795 Charlemagne creates the “Marca hispanica” as a defensive
barrier of autonomous counties in the south of the Frankish empire.
801 The Franks take Barcelona from the Muslims.
The Marca Hispanica is also called Gothia (after the Visigoth population)
or Septimania (old western region of
the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis).
873-898 Wilfred the Hairy,
the first autonomous Count of Barcelona (though he is stil vassal of the Carolingian
king).
947-992 The count of Barcelona Borrell II refuses to recognize Hugh
Capet as the King of the Franks.
1035-1076 Ramon Berenguer I the Old approve the first feudal written law
for his county.
1082-1131 Ramon Berenguer III the Great becomes one
the greatest princes of Medieval Spain.
1131-1162 Ramon Berenguer IV is the last autonomous count of Barcelona.
8. The kingdom of Navarre
(905-1589)
778 The rearguard of Charlemagne's army is
annihilated at Roncesvalles.
790-851 Iñigo Arista becomes the first king of Pamplona rebelling
against the Emirate of Cordoba.
905-925 Sancho I Garcés becomes the first king of
Navarre incorporates the county
of Aragon.
1000-1035 Under Sancho III the Great the kingdom of
Navarre reaches the height of his power. He is the most important Christian
prince of Spain.
1035 In
his will Sancho III divides his territories among his sons. Navarre looses its
importance.
1234-1253 Theobald I (IV of Champagne) become king of Navarre. The kingdom
falls into foreign influence.
1284-1305 Philip the Fait (IV of France) becomes king of Navarre
1425-1441 Blanche I marries the Castilian prince John of Trastamara
1441-1479 After the death of his wife John of Tratamara becomes the only
king of Navarre. (From 1458 he is as well king of Aragon, and father of the
future (Ferdinand the Catholic).
1512 Ferdinand the Catholic conquers Southern
Navarre.
1515 Southern Navarre is incorporated to the
Crown of Castile in the Cortes of Burgos.
1589 Henry IV of France (king of Navarre from
1572) incorporates Northern Navarre (Béarn) to France.
9. Aragon from county to kingdom
809-820 Aznar Galíndez becomes count of Aragon, a small Frankish
marcher county. The counts of Aragon have to accept to be vassals (suzerainty)
of the kings of Pamplona.
922 Andregoto Galíndez gets married
to Sancho I of Navarre. Aragon becomes part of that kingdom.
1035 At the death of Sancho III of Navarre, his
illegitimate son Ramiro I becomes de
facto the first king of Aragon under the fealty of his brother García king
of Navarre.
1063-1094 Sancho Ramirez becomes the first official
king of Aragon. From 1076 he becomes king of Navarre.
1073-1134 Alfonso I the
Battler conquers
Zaragoza and make Aragón the main Eastern Hispanic kingdom. He dies without
heirs.
1134-1137 Ramiro II the Monk, brother of Alfonso I
is crowned king by the aragonesian nobles. He gets married and have a daughter
Petronilla that is betrothed to Ramon Berenguer IV count of Barcelona in 1137
(marriage in 1150).
10. The Crown of Aragon
(1137-1479)
1137 A
personal union is forged between the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (Petronila and Ramón Berenguer
IV).
1162-1196 Alfonso II of Aragon – I of Barcelona – (+
1196), son of Petronila and Ramón Berenguer IV) becomes the King of Aragon, and simultaneously the Count of
Barcelona.
1213-1276 Reign of Jaime I, the Conqueror. By creating the
kingdom of Valencia as an autonomous kingdom and integrating it into the
Union of Catalonia and Aragon, he founds the Crown of Aragon (Catalonia was
never a kingdom but a principality).
1282, 31 March.
Anti-French Rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers.
This would be the pretext for Pedro III of Aragon’s occupation of the
island. Sicily becomes part of the Crown of Aragon.
1349 The kingom of Mallorca becomes part of the
Crown of Aragon
1412 Compromise of Caspe. After
the death without heirs of Martin I,
Ferdinand I of Trastamara is elected the King of the Crown of
Aragon. In Castile and Aragon the same dynasty reigns.
1442 The king of Aragon Alfonso V conquers Naples. The South of Italy
(Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily) becomes part of the Crown of Aragon.
Kings of Aragon (from 1162 to 1479).
1162-1196 Alfonso II
1196-1213 Pedro II
1213-1276 Jaime I
1276-1285 Pedro III
1285-1291 Alfonso III
1291-1327 Jaime II
1327-1336 Alfonso IV
1336-1387 Pedro IV
1387-1395 Juan I
1385-1410 Martin I
1412-1416 Fernando I of Trastamara
1416-1458 Alfonso V
1458-1479 Juan II
UNION OF CASTILE AND ARAGON
1469 Isabella
of Castile and Ferdinand, Prince of Aragon, are married in Valladolid, becoming
the “Catholic Kings.”
1474-1504 Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
II. SOME WORDS
Reconquest
Repopulation
Pressura
Charter of settlement
Fueros
Privileges
Leonese imperium
Capitulary of 877
Subinfeudation
County
Kingdom
Crown
Divin-right monarchy
Sicilian Vespers 1282
Compromise of Caspe 1412
Pactism
Cortes of Alcalá 1348
Composite monarchiesSicilian Vespers 1282
Compromise of Caspe 1412
Pactism
Cortes
Diputation of General (Generalitat)
Justicia Mayor
III. SOME QUESTIONS
1. What is the etymological origin
of the names of Castile and Leon?
2. What is the etymological origin
of the names of Catalonia and Aragon?
3. Why Catalonia was never a
kingdom?
4. Is the same the kingdom of Aragon
and the Crown of Aragon?
5. Who was the founder of the Crown
of Aragon: Ramón Berenguer IV count of Barcelona or James I of Aragón? Explain
why
6. Were there any Iberian kingdoms
that did not integrate either in the Crown of Castile either in the Crown of
Aragon?
7. What was the essential
institutional difference between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon?
Think of the position of the king in both.
8. Was feudalism important in
medieval Spain? Think about the consequences of reconquest and repopulation for
answering.
9. Did the Spanish medieval
sovereigns submitted to the European emperor?
10. Explain the concept “pactism”
and mention the three most important institutions that reflect this
“constitutional” reality in medieval Spain.
IV. A FEW TEXTS
Taken from O’CALLAGHAN,
Joseph F, (1975) A History of Medieval
Spain Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1975.
1. Feudalism in Medieval Spain
“Under
Carolingian influence, feudalism developed early in the Catalonian counties.
[…]. The Catalan counts were vassals of the Frankish king, holding their
offices as benefices, but the heritability of benefices, recognized in a
capitulary of 877, encouraged the foundation of dynasties and a tendency toward
independence in the Spanish Mark. The counts of Barcelona, in the late tenth
century, while acknowledging the titular sovereignty of the Capetian kings […]
refused to become their vassals. Subinfeudation was also characteristic of
Catalan feudalism. Viscounts pledged homage and fealty (hominaticum et difelitatem) to the Catalan counts, receiving
investiture (potestas) of their
offices as benefices held by hereditary right. Other nobles entered into
similar relationships, accepting the typical feudal obligations of military and
court service. In sum, the characteristic customs and institutions of Frankish
feudalism were also found in Catalonia and reached their fullest development in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In the other Christian states feudalism never
reached maturity, though its constitutive elements existed in embryonic and un
coordinated form. Visigothic Spain had reached a prefeudal stage of development
characterized by private oaths of fidelity, the existence of dependent tenures,
the granting of immunities, and the seigneurial regime. But the Muslim invasion
and the peculiar circumstances of the Asturian-Leonese reconquest impeded the natural
evolution toward the linking of vassalage with the granting of benefices, as in
northern Europe. The kings of Asturias-León were surrounded by fideles, vassals bound by private oath
to give faithful service; prelates and magnates enjoyed similar relationships
with the lower nobility (infanzones,
milites).Until the eleventh century when vassalus came into common usage, the term miles ordinarily meant vassal. In return for military service, the
vassal received money (solidata) or a
benefice (prestamum), recoverable by
the lord upon the termination of the vassal’s service. On the other hand,
persons who were not vassals sometimes received monetary compensation or
benefices in exchange for military service. The relationship between lord and
vassal was not hereditary and could be terminated by either party at any
moment. As the relationship was not necessarily bound up with the concession of
benefices, it retained a highly personal character seldom found elsewhere in
Europe.
The failure of feudalism to develop fully and
to transform the character of the state must be attributed to the historical
conditions surrounding the origin and growth of the kingdom of Asturias-León. A
strong monarchy and a large class of freemen were the principal obstacles to
the growth of feudalism. The continuing state of war with the muslims bolstered
the power of the king as the military leader primarily responsible for defense
and for the preservation of Asturian-Leonese independence. Military success not
only enhanced the kings prestige, but also added to his resources. Claiming
ownership of all reconquered territory, the king was able to reserve large
estates for himself and to reward his followers for their loyalty to him. Those
who repopulated the newly conquered lands were for the most part small, free
proprietors, hardy frontiersmen, who gave allegiance to no lord save the king.
The nobility, on the other hand, lacking the military and financial power which
only the possession of large estates could give, were unable to offer serious
challenge to the king’s authority”. Ibidem pages 166-167.
2. Reconquest and repopulation.
“The predominantly agrarian economy of the Christian north was deeply
influenced by the reconquest and its economic and social corollary,
repopulation. In the late ninth and tenth centuries the repopulation of the
Duero valley, deserted since the devastation by Alfonso I in the eighth
century, was begun in earnest. The process was initiated with the occupation of
a series of advanced positions constituting a defensive line; fortifications
were erected around this positions, and communications with the heart of the
kingdom were assured by the erection of a line of castles; finally the settlers
took possession of the land (pressura),
plowed it, and cultivated it (scalio).
The kings of Asturias-León claimed reconquered and deserted land as their own,
and thus controlled its settlement. The king could direct repopulation himself,
or he could authorize a count, a magnate, a
bishop, or an abbot to do so. In such cases a colonizing expedition
advanced to the place of settlement; after building the necessary
fortifications, they took possession of the land, unfurling the royal standard
and sounding a trumpet. Attractive conditions offered to prospective colonist
were often stated in written charters of settlement (cartae populationis). Among the important places colonized in these
early centuries were Astorga (854), León (856), Amaya (860), Coimbra (876),
Zamora (898), Burgos, Simancas (899), Osma (912), Salamanca, Avila and
Sepúlveda (940). In many instances, simple folk, lacking any authorization
whatsoever, squatted on the land and began to cultivate it and only later
obtained royal recognition of their rights. Settlers came from the mountains of
Galicia, Cantabria, and the Basque country, and there were also many
Mozarabs who fled from Al-Andalus. The
pioneers who settled the frontier lands of León and Castile were for the most
part freemen, owning the land on which they were settled and independent of
every lord save the king”. Ibidem, pages 181-182.
3. The Leonese empire
“Until the advent of Sancho el mayor and his
dynasty, the most important of the Christian states, by reason of its size and
the activities and aspirations of its rulers, was the kingdom of Asturias-León.
In recent years scholars have debated whether the kings of León, to whom the
title of imperator was sometimes
applied by their subjects in the tenth century, had developed a concepto of
empire and whether a Leonese imperium
existed in fact. […]. All would agree that the Leonese sovereigns and their
courtiers had a conception of imperial power and an aspiration to predominance
throughout the peninsula. Insofar as their supremacy was acknowledged by the
other Christian rulers, the idea of empire held out the possibility of the
restoration of Hispanic unity in the future”. Ibidem, pages 164-165.
4. Political diversity as a consequence of
reconquest
“As a result of the rapid reconquest in the
thirteenth century all the Christian kingdoms, with the exception of Castile,
reached the frontiers they were to retain until modern times. Territorial
expansion created kingdoms with marked internal differences o language,
customs, laws, religion and race. Each region strove to defend and to preserve
its identity and its peculiar institutions an to resist any royal effort to
achieve uniformity in administration. Regionalism not only complicated and
weakened the internal organization of kingdoms with one another, The Leonese
concept of empire, expressing the unifying aspirations of an earlier epoch, no
longer had any meaning and was largely forgotten. The name Hispania or España
survived, however, as a remembrance of Roman and Visigothic times and as a
symbol of the unity hopefully to be attained in the future”. Ibidem, page 428.
5. León-Castile
“The kingdom León-Castile held a predominant
position in the peninsula because of its location and extension over the great
central meseta. The union of the two
kingdoms in 1230, after a separation of more than seventy years, placed their
joint resources at the disposal of one sovereign who was able to carry out a
broad expansion along a frontier stretching across the heart of the peninsula.” Ibidem, page 428.
6. The Crown of Aragon
“The most complex of all the Christian states
was the crown of Aragon whose initial constituents were the kingdom of Aragon,
an inland state allocated along the Ebro river with its seat at Zaragoza, and
the principality of Catalonia centered about the port of Barcelona. While
Aragon tended to be dominated by a landed aristocracy jealous of their
privileges, Catalonia, bordering the Mediterranean, had a growing mercantile
population with a more cosmopolitan outlook. Linguistic differences also posed
a difficult barrier to the assimilation of the Catalans and Aragonese. In the
thirteenth century the dominions of the Crown of Aragon were increased by the
conquest of the Balearic islands, the kingdom of Valencia, the kingdom of
Sicily, and, in the fourteenth century, Sardinia, […]. Jaime I partitioned the
realm, creating a separated kingdom of Majorca, including the lordship of
Montpellier and the county of Rousillon, for his second son. […] Jaime II in
1319 formally decreed the indissolubility of the union of Aragon, Catalonia,
and Valencia. This principle was vigorously affirmed by Pedro IV who resisted
attempts to partition the realm for the benefit of his stepbrother”. Ibidem, pages 429-430.
7. The “Generalitat” as the symbol of pactism
“The appointment of commissions by the
Catalan corts in 1289, 1291 and 1299 to supervise the collection of taxes
eventually gave birth to the Generalitat,
one of the fundamental political institutions of Catalonia. In 1323, for
example, the corts granted the king a
subsidy for two years, the money to be collected by persons designated by the
syndics of the towns. Money collected was to be deposited in the Dominican
monasteries of Barcelona and Lérida, under keys held by several persons. The
king and his subordinates were thereby effectively excluded from the collection
and distribution of the sums in question. The corts of 1359 appointed twelve deputies and twelve auditors of
accounts, four from each state, to administer the money collected. The agency which thus came into being,
hesitantly and temporarily at first, began to acquire a permanent character in
the latter half of the fourteenth century. The name given to it was Diputació del General de Catalunya or
simply Generalitat, an agency
representing, as did the corts, the
totally of Catalonia. In the last century of medieval era the Generalitat wielded great power and
influence as a permanent agency of the corts,
capable of exercising a constant supervision and control of the king’s
actions”. Ibidem pages 443-444.
8. The “Justicia Mayor” of Aragon
“In the justicia
of Aragon began to acquire the jurisdiction that eventually gave him a rather
unique position among the judges of the peninsula. […]. The justicia originally was a judge in the
royal court, appointed at will by the king to hear specific cases. The nobility,
however, began to protest the increasing prominence in the royal court of men
trained in roman and canon law, and Jaime I, at the cortes of Egea in 1265, bowed to their insistence that the justicia should be a knight with
jurisdiction over disputes among the nobles or between them and the king; he
was expected to pronounce sentence in accordance with the traditional fueros of the realm rather tah roman or
canon law. Pedro III and Alfonso III in their Privileges granted to the Union in 1283 and 1287 reaffirmed the justicia’s role and functions. Although
Pedro IV crushed the Union, at the cortes
of Zaragoza in 1348, he confirmed the justicia’s
position as chief judge with authority to interpret the fueros of Aragón and to bind royal officials and judges to his
interpretations. He could also hear appeals in which officials were charged
with violation of the fueros. The justicia continued to be appointed by
the king and was removable by him, but the tendency was to allow him to remain
in office for life, and so enhance his independence and judicial authority”. Ibidem
pages 452-453.
9. Castile the first Absolute monarchy of
Europe
“Two principal theories of royal were
expressed in the late Middle Ages. The one stressed the divine origin of the
king’s authority and his responsibility to God; the other, while admitting that
all power comes from God, emphasized, however, that the king received his power
immediately from the people to whom he was also accountable. The theory of
divin-right monarchy with its implications of royal absolutism was expressed no
more clearly than in the cortes of
Olmedo in 1445 following Juan II’s victory over the rebellious infantes of Aragon. The cortes stated that divine law: expressly commands and forbids anyone to
dare to touch the king and prince a one who is anointed by God, nor even to
comment or to say anything evil about him nor even to think it in spirit;
rather he should be held as God’s vicar… no one should dare to oppose him
because those who resist the king evidently wish to resist the ordinance of God
(CLC, III, 458).
Repeating
phrases already used by Juan II, the cortes
declared that the laws are beneath the king who cannot be judged by men “because
he does not have his power from men, but from God, whose place he holds in
temporal affairs. Some years later Enrique IV made the same arguments,
affirming that “kings rule in the place of God on earth… to resist the earthly
power of kings is to resist God who appointed them to their place”. Ibidem page 580.
10. “Composite monarchies” as a prime example of unions of states in Europe
"The transition from the
feudal stage to the territorial monarchies of the Late Middle Ages was
characterized, as we have seen, by kings' efforts to amass the greatest
possible expanses of land for their kingdoms. In some cases (Castile &
León, for example) the territories were unified into a single political and
legal entity. In others, however, each territory maintained its political and
legal autonomy despite recognizing and respecting the same sovereign: composite
monarchies. Such was the case with the Crown of Aragon, which annexed the
kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca and the Principality of Catalonia, in
addition to a series of Mediterranean territories (Sicily, Sardinia, Naples and
Athens). The origin of the “Crown of Aragón” was the 1137 marriage between the
Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV, and Petronila, the daughter and heiress
of Ramiro II of Aragon. This union enabled their son, Alfonso II of Aragon
(1164 – 1196) to become both the King of Aragon and the Count of
Barcelona. However, the Crown's
definitive structure would be set by Jaime I who, after reconquering the
Kingdom of Valencia in 1238, rather than distributing it between the Aragon and
Catalonia, converted it into an independent Kingdom. This paved the way for the
subsequent incorporation of the Kingdom of Sicily at the end of the 13th
century, the Kingdom of Mallorca in the mid-14th century, and the Kingdom of
Naples in the first half of the 15th century, among other Mediterranean
territories.
The same was true of
Spain's Catholic Monarchy which, in addition to its Iberian kingdoms, held the Crowns of Aragon and
Castile (the latter including Navarre, the Canary Islands, the American
colonies and a series of islands in the Pacific), and, as of 1580, Portugal and
its entire colonial empire, claiming
a number of territories across Europe, such as the Netherlands, the
Franche-Comté, Luxembourg, and much of the Italian peninsula (Naples, Sicily
and Lombardy).
The Crown of Aragon and
the Spanish Catholic monarchy are not, however, exceptional cases. There are
other models of composite monarchies in Europe. Other
composite monarchies include that of Isabella and Ferdinand in Spain, the Holy
Roman Empire, the British Isles under the Tudors and the Stuarts, and the
Polish-Lithuanian Federation, as opposed to other formulas, such as the unitary
system in France under the Valois and the Bourbons, or federal pacts such as
the German Hanseatic League or Scandinavia's Kalmar UnionAs noted by Román Piña
Homs: “far from being an isolated invention, it was the predominant formula of
political organization in modern European history.”
All these kingdoms
conserved their “constitutional” and legal autonomy even while recognizing the
same king. In this way they formed a kind of “confederation of states”
according to which the monarch was to respect the traditional privileges of
each of the kingdoms and to convoke their respective estate-based assemblies,
or cortes. The model was decidedly
flexible and easily allowed for the incorporation of new states. It was,
however, problematic in terms of facilitating effective and efficient
government and administration”.
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