Navarre beyond the passes

Who he is

Name

Sancho VII the Strong (Sancho el Fuerte)

Title

King of Navarre (rex Navarre)

Since

27 June 1194, on the death of his father Sancho VI; crowned at Pamplona on 15 August 1194

Born

About 1154-1157 (not pinned), so in his mid-forties

Family

Son of Sancho VI and Sancha of Castile. Sisters: Berengaria, widow of Richard I since 6 April 1199, and Blanca, married on 1 July 1199 to Theobald III of Champagne. Brother Fernando. Wife Constance of Toulouse, married about 1195, to be put away during 1200. No legitimate children; his heir is his brother Fernando.

Confidence

high

On 1 January 1200 the king is out of his kingdom, at the Almohad court (most likely Marrakesh) or on his way back through al-Andalus, seeking help against Castile and Aragon. The kingdom itself, with its court, officers, coinage and host, is described in its own record on this map (Navarre); this record covers only the land north of the passes.

Overlord

None. The king of Navarre owes no homage for his kingdom. The lands north of the passes were conceded to Navarre by Richard I as duke of Aquitaine between 1189 and 1196.

How things stand that morning

Navarre holds Cize with San Juan de Pie de Puerto, Baigorri, Osses and Arberoue with Rocabruna. West and north lie Angevin Labourd and the lands of the Gascon viscounts; east lies Soule. Mixe and Ostabarret are not yet Navarrese, and the lords of Agramont and Luxa become the king's men only in the 13th century.

Threats

• Berengaria's dower claim to San Juan and Rocabruna, with papal backing
• An Angevin or Gascon move on the passes now that Richard is dead
• The king's absence, and Castile's grip on the coast, which makes Navarre hang on Bayonne's goodwill

Ruler and family

Sancho VII, about 43 to 46, absent. Consort Constance of Toulouse, daughter of Raymond VI (some say Raymond V), soon to be repudiated. No children. Heir presumptive his brother Fernando (died 1207). Sister Berengaria, Richard's widow, claims San Juan and Rocabruna as her dower.

Officers

Beyond the passes the king rules through a tenente of the castle of San Juan de Pie de Puerto and the land of Cize: Pedro Garcia de Arroniz, said to be in post since May 1199 (low confidence; earlier holders Martin Chipia in 1189 and Rodrigo de Baztan in 1194). The viscount of Baigorri and the valley lords are the king's vassals. The kingdom's great officers are in its own record on this map (Navarre).

Court winter 1199 in 1200

No king's court: Sancho is abroad. The bishop of Pamplona, Garcia Fernandez, has gone to him to ask leave to surrender Vitoria.

Treaties and wars

At war with Castile and Aragon, who agreed at Calatayud (20 May 1198) to share Navarre. No war north of the passes. Richard I's alliance died with him in April 1199, and John has not confirmed the concessions or settled Berengaria's dower.

Rome and the Church

Innocent III ordered Sancho to hand San Juan de Pie de Puerto to Berengaria (letter of 28 May, probably 1198); he did not. Rome also frowns on the Almohad journey. The French interdict does not touch Navarre.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. January to March 1200Eleanor of Aquitaine crosses from Gascony to Castile and back to fetch her granddaughter Blanche for the French marriage; she is at Bordeaux by 9 April. Her road runs west of Navarre, through Bayonne and Castilian-held Guipuzcoa.Depends on: The Angevin and Capetian settlement going ahead. Stopped by: A collapse of the talks that lead to Le Goulet (22 May 1200).
2. 1200, month not pinnedSancho comes home and puts away Constance of Toulouse.Depends on: The king's return and his decision. Stopped by: Death or capture abroad; a papal objection.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1201-1202 (after the year)Sancho and John make a treaty; John settles Berengaria's dower elsewhere and Sancho keeps San Juan and Rocabruna.Depends on: John needing Navarre's help in Gascony. Stopped by: An Angevin attempt to enforce the dower claim.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Navarrese tenentes at San Juan are attested in 1189, 1194 and 1199; the extent of the valleys in 1200 is drawn from the later historic Basse-Navarre and is approximate. Taken over from the Iberia map's Navarre research and kept consistent with it.

On the map: The ground is drawn by the lord record Ultrapuertos.

Primary sources for Navarre

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• Chronicle of Roger of Howden, Roger of Howden (about 1192 to 1201). The fullest single narrative for the year. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Book of Census of the Roman Church, Cencius Camerarius (Cencio Savelli, later Pope Honorius III) (1192, with later additions). The papal rent roll: every church, monastery, town and kingdom that owed a census to Rome in 1192, diocese by diocese, with the sums, followed by lists of papal lands and castles, the ceremonial Ordo and copies of charters. Read online
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
• The Great Book of Fiefs, Various; compiled by Ramon de Caldes for Alfonso II of Aragon (compiled 1192 to 1194). The register of the count-king's feudal rights, finished a few years before 1200 and in use at Peter II's court: some 900 charters of homage, convention, oath, sale and marriage arranged by county and lineage, covering Catalonia, Roussillon, Cerdanya, Pallars, Urgell, the Carcassonne and Beziers lands of the Trencavels, Provence and Aragon.

3 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.