Kingdom of León

Who rules

Name

Alfonso IX

Title

King of León (rex Legionis); his charters also name Galicia, Asturias and the Extremadura

Since

January 1188, on the death of his father Ferdinand II at Benavente

Born

15 August 1171 at Zamora; 28 years old on 1 January 1200

Family

Only son of Ferdinand II of León and Urraca of Portugal (daughter of Afonso I Henriques), whose marriage was annulled; grandson of Alfonso VII. First cousin of Alfonso VIII of Castile and of Pedro Fernández de Castro. Half-brother of the infante Sancho Fernández (born 1186, son of Ferdinand II and Urraca López de Haro, legitimated by their marriage in 1187), whom his stepmother tried to put on the throne in 1188.

Confidence

high

Birth, accession, marriages and children from the Spanish and English Wikipedia lives, the 1196-97 war article and the Tratado de Cabreros article (which summarises the arras charter of Palencia, 8 December 1199). The court officers of 1199-1200 could not be pinned from the charters reachable online: Julio González, Alfonso IX (1944), vol. II, and Calderón Medina, Cum magnatibus regni mei (2011), hold the confirmation lists.

What the realm holds

• The Leonese heartland: León, Astorga, the mountains of Luna, Gordón and Argüello, the Bierzo, and the Leonese Tierra de Campos (Sahagún, Mayorga, Valencia de Don Juan, Villalpando, Benavente)
• Galicia: the archbishopric of Santiago and the sees of Lugo, Ourense, Tui and Mondoñedo; royal tenancies (tierras) such as Trastámara, Montenegro, Monterroso, Sarria, Lemos, Limia and Toroño
• Asturias de Oviedo and Asturias de Tineo (the Asturias de Santillana, east of the Deva, is Castilian)
• The Leonese Extremadura on both banks of the Duero: Zamora, Toro, Salamanca, Ledesma, Alba de Tormes, Ciudad Rodrigo, and the thinly settled Riba-Côa east of the Côa
• Transierra: Coria and the Alagón lands beyond the Sierra de Gata, a raided frontier facing Almohad Alcántara and Cáceres

How it was acquired

The share of Alfonso VII's empire left to Ferdinand II in 1157 (León with Galicia, Asturias and the Extremadura); held by Alfonso IX since January 1188 against his stepmother's attempt for her son Sancho and against Castilian and Portuguese designs.

Allies and rivals

Castile: at peace since 1197, bound by the marriage and the arras of December 1199; Alfonso VIII still holds Leonese castles as surety. Portugal: at war since 1196, when Sancho I (father of Alfonso IX's first wife) invaded Galicia after the excommunication; Tui and Pontevedra were taken and recovered about 1199; Alfonso IX besieged Bragança in 1199 without success; a Leonese force beat the Portuguese at Ervas Tenras near Pinhel in 1198. Navarre: Sancho VII raided Castile in 1196 in concert with León.

Aragon: Peter II joined Alfonso VIII against León in 1196-97. Almohads: Alfonso IX had a five-year truce in 1191 and took Almohad money and troops in 1195-96; the new caliph is Muhammad al-Nasir (since January 1199). Rome: hostile over the marriage. At court: the Castros (Pedro Fernández, the king's cousin and the hawk against Castile), the Traba of Galicia (Count Gómez González, about to fall from favour), the Castilian Lara (Fernando Núñez de Lara, at court until 6 January 1200 and holding Asturias), Count Froila Ramírez, the Ponce de Cabrera and the Villalobos.

The realm that morning

At first light on 1 January 1200 Alfonso IX rules the whole kingdom except the places pledged to his father-in-law as surety for the queen's arras. The arras castles are held by castellans sworn to Berenguela. The marriage stands, but under Rome's condemnation: the king has been excommunicated (first by Celestine III, 31 October 1196, for the Almohad alliance) and the kingdom has been put under interdict by papal agents over the marriage; Innocent III has refused a dispensation.

Galicia's southern border is still unsettled after three years of Portuguese war. The frontier south of Coria is quiet only in the sense that no campaign is recorded for 1199.

Wealth

The pilgrim road to Santiago (Sahagún, Mansilla, León, Astorga, Ponferrada, Villafranca, into Galicia) with its tolls, hospices and markets; the Galician ports (Pontevedra, Noia, Padrón) with fish and salt; the wine of the Ribeiro (Ribadavia) and of the Duero (Toro, Zamora); the flocks and herds of the Extremadura; royal tolls, justice, fonsadera (payment instead of service) and the coinage. Silver from the old parias is gone: León takes no tribute from al-Andalus in 1200.

Military

See host. Recent record: defeat in 1196-97 by Castile and Aragon (sieges of León 23-25 July 1196, losses in the Tierra de Campos and around Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo); recovery of Tui and Pontevedra from Portugal about 1199; failed siege of Bragança 1199.

Threats

• Rome: the excommunication and interdict over the marriage; the pope wants the couple parted, which would also trigger the arras clauses and hand Alfonso IX's castles to Castilian control
• Castile: Alfonso VIII holds Leonese castles as surety and claims more; the Tierra de Campos line is a standing quarrel
• Portugal: Sancho I's war on the Miño, in the Limia and around Bragança; the Riba-Côa and the Toroño castles
• The Almohads beyond the Sierra de Gata and the Tagus: Alcántara, Cáceres, Montánchez, Trujillo
• The succession: two sets of children by two condemned marriages; the half-brother Sancho Fernández and his Haro kin
• Magnate faction: the Castros against Castile, the Traba sliding out of favour, Castilian Laras holding Leonese tenancies

Consort

Queen Berenguela of Castile, born 1179 or 1180 (Segovia or Burgos; the sources disagree), about 20; eldest daughter of Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England. Married at Valladolid late in 1197 (October, 17 November and early December are all given). Alfonso IX is her father's first cousin, so they are related in the third degree, within the Church's forbidden degrees.

Children

• By Teresa of Portugal (daughter of Sancho I; married at Guimarães 1191, the marriage dissolved for kinship about 1195-96 under Celestine III): Sancha, born 1191 (about 8); Fernando, born 1192 or 1193 (about 7), the eldest son and so the obvious heir on 1 January 1200, died August 1214; Dulce, born 1193 or 1194 (about 6). Where the three are living on 1 January 1200 is not pinned (their mother returned to Portugal). In 1230 Sancha and Dulce would renounce the crown at Benavente.
• By Berenguela: Leonor, born 1198 or 1199 (about 1), died 11 November 1202.
• Ferdinand, the future Ferdinand III: born at the monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, Zamora), but the year is disputed. Older writers put it in 1198 or 1199; most recent scholarship (Ansón 1998, Emmerson 2013, Ezquerra 2001, cited in the English Wikipedia) puts it in the summer of 1201. The Spanish Wikipedia gives 1199/1201. Against 1199: Leonor (1198/99) and Constanza (1200) would leave almost no room. Recommended ruling: he is NOT yet born on 1 January 1200; his birth is part of the likely course (summer 1201). If the campaign prefers 1199, he is a baby of a few months.
• Constanza: born in 1200 (later a nun at Las Huelgas, died 1242): not yet born on 1 January; see the likely course.
• Later: Alfonso of Molina (1202 or 1203) and Berenguela (1204), who married John of Brienne.
• Illegitimate: Urraca Alfonso, born about 1197, by Inés Íñiguez de Mendoza, a liaison of about two years between the two marriages. Calderón Medina counts at least six noble mistresses and about nineteen natural children over the whole reign; most were born after 1204.

Royal kin

Sancho Fernández, half-brother, born 1186, about 13: the son his stepmother Urraca López de Haro (a sister of Diego López de Haro of Castile) pushed for the throne in 1188. Where he is on 1 January 1200 is not pinned. He later served Alfonso IX as alférez (1213-18) and held León, Zamora, the Extremadura and Transierra in 1217. Pedro Fernández de Castro is the king's first cousin through Alfonso VII's daughter Estefanía.

Court and officers

Not pinned for 1 January 1200 from the charters we could reach. Nearest evidence. Mayordomo (steward, the first office): Count Fernando Ponce de Cabrera 1188 to at least September 1189; Count Gómez González de Traba appointed 1193; Pedro Fernández de Castro named again after the talks at Toledo that followed Alarcos (1196) and mayordomo again in 1204. So the likeliest holder in 1199-1200 is Pedro Fernández de Castro, but no charter of 1199-1200 seen here proves it.

Alférez (standard-bearer): Ponce Vela de Cabrera in 1185-86; Fernando Fernandes de Bragança and Rodrigo Fernández (de Valduerna) both held it under Alfonso IX at dates not given in the sources reached; Gómez González de Traba January 1205 to March 1206; Sancho Fernández 1213-18. For 1199-1200: not pinned. Chancellor: Julio González divides Alfonso IX's chancery into three periods (1188-1202, 1202-13, 1213-30); the chancellor and notaries of 1199-1200 are not pinned here.

The archbishop of Santiago, Pedro Suárez de Deza, is the senior churchman at court.

Court in 1200

In December 1199 the court was at Palencia, in Castile, where the arras charter for Berenguela was sealed on 8 December 1199. The Castilian magnate Fernando Núñez de Lara is attested at Alfonso IX's court from 24 June 1199 to 6 January 1200, so the court on 1 January is either still near Palencia or back in the Tierra de Campos or León: the exact place is not pinned.

Arras 1199

Palencia, 8 December 1199: Alfonso IX gave Berenguela as arras the towers of León, Astorga and Valencia de Don Juan (Coyanza) and about thirty other royal castles in León, Galicia and Asturias, each to be held for her by a castellan who did homage to her. The Asturian ones (Aguilar, Gozón, Ventosa, Buanga, Oviedo, Santa Cruz de Tineo and Tudela) were held for her by the Castilian Fernando Núñez de Lara; the Galician names in the online summary (San Pelagio de Barro, Aguiar da Moa, Alba de Búval, Canderrei, Aguiar de Pedraio) are garbled and not pinned. Alfonso VIII gave his daughter as dowry the Leonese towns and castles he had taken in 1196-97.

Alfonso IX also put ten castles into Alfonso VIII's hands as surety. Twelve knights, her vassals but Leonese, were to guard the dowry. If the couple were separated, the dowry stayed with Berenguela and the castles Alfonso IX had given came under Castilian control. The charter also provided for her murder, ill-treatment or imprisonment. The ten surety castles are not named in the summaries reached; the nine castles Alfonso VIII still held in 1206 and promised to his grandson (Monreal, El Carpio, Valderas, Bolaños de Campos, Villafrechós, Castrotierra de Valmadrigal, Almanza, Siero in Asturias and Siero de Riaño) are the likeliest.

See the record Berenguela (arras).

Relations castile

Peace of 1197 sealed by the Valladolid marriage. The arras charter of 8 December 1199 is the governing document. Which of the places Castile took in 1196-97 (Valencia de Don Juan, Mayorga, Castroverde de Campos, Ardón, Alba de Tormes, Barruecopardo, Bolaños de Campos, Paradinas de San Juan, Carpio de Azaba, Monreal, Alpalio) are back under Leonese castellans on 1 January 1200, and which are held by Castilians, is not pinned: Coyanza (Valencia de Don Juan) at least was back, since its tower is in the arras.

The 1206 treaty of Cabreros later settled the rest.

Relations portugal

War since 1196. Sancho I took Tui and Pontevedra, recovered by León about 1199. Alfonso IX besieged Bragança in 1199 and failed. A peace followed in 1200 (month not pinned). The 1194 settlement of Teresa's arras had already made the Toroño and Limia borderland a bargaining ground: four Toroño castles (Sobroso, Entenza, Tebra, Santa Helena) to be held by Gonzalo Pais under homage to Alfonso IX, eight castles of peace to be held by the masters of the Temple and Santiago, Alba de Aliste and Lobarzana released to León.

Relations almohads

Truce of 1191 (five years). After Alarcos (19 July 1195) Alfonso IX allied with the caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur; in 1196 Leonese, Almohad and Navarrese troops with Pedro Fernández de Castro raided Castile from the Tierra de Campos to Carrión and Villasirga. Celestine III excommunicated him for it on 31 October 1196. Once León made peace with Castile in 1197 the Almohads, who signed a ten-year truce with Castile in June 1197, are not recorded at war with León through 1199.

Al-Mansur died in January 1199; his son Muhammad al-Nasir rules. Whether a formal Leonese-Almohad truce is in force on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Relations rome

Two condemned marriages in a row. The first (Teresa of Portugal, 1191) was dissolved under Celestine III through the legate Cardinal Gregory. The second (Berenguela, 1197) is within the forbidden degrees; Innocent III, from 1198, demands separation, refuses a dispensation and has had the couple excommunicated and the kingdom placed under interdict by his agents (the campaign notes name the Cistercian legate Rainier). One study counts seven years of threat and sanction.

The archbishops of Santiago and the bishops of León (Manrique de Lara, exempt) and Oviedo (exempt) are caught between king and pope.

Cortes 1188

Spring 1188, probably the first half of April, in the cloister of San Isidoro de León: the bishops, the archbishop of Santiago (Pedro Suárez de Deza), the magnates and elected citizens of León, Oviedo, Salamanca, Ciudad Rodrigo, Zamora, Astorga, Toro, Benavente, Ledesma and other towns. The young king, short of money in an economic crisis, promised good justice, to curb the magnates' abuses and to act on war and peace with their counsel. The decrees of 1188 are often called the oldest documented parliament with town representatives in Europe (on UNESCO's Memory of the World register since 2013).

Coinage

The silver-alloy dinero of León, the coin of daily use, struck by the king; the archbishop of Santiago also held minting rights (not pinned for 1200). Gold in circulation is mostly Almohad dinars and the Castilian gold morabetino of Alfonso VIII; whether Alfonso IX struck gold is not pinned. Frequent changes of the coin are a grievance: in 1202 at Benavente the realm will buy a promise not to alter it (the origin of the moneda forera), which is after the date of play.

The host

The king's household knights; the companies of the magnates and royal tenants (each tenant leads the men of his district); the town militias (milicias concejiles) of the Extremadura (Salamanca, Zamora, Toro, Ledesma, Alba, Ciudad Rodrigo, Coria) and of the plain; the military orders: Santiago (founded at Cáceres in 1170 under Ferdinand II; Castrotorafe on the Esla since 1176), the Leonese Order of San Julián del Pereiro (later Alcántara) on the Côa, the Templars (at Ponferrada since 1178; they lost Portezuelo to the Almohads in 1196) and the Hospitallers. No troop figures in the sources.

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. After 6 January 1200Fernando Núñez de Lara, last seen at the Leonese court on 6 January, returns to Castile; he is Alfonso VIII's alférez from 1201. His tenancy of Asturias de Oviedo (attested 1200) probably passes to another holder during the year.Depends on: Lara's choice between the two courts Stopped by: Alfonso IX giving him more to stay, or a breach between the kings
2. During 1200 (month not pinned)Peace between Alfonso IX and Sancho I of Portugal ends the war begun in 1196.Depends on: Both kings exhausted: Tui and Pontevedra back in Leonese hands, Bragança held by Portugal Stopped by: A new Leonese attack on Bragança or a Portuguese raid into Toroño or the Limia
3. About 1200 (not pinned)Count Gómez González de Traba falls from favour; his tenancies of Montenegro, Monterroso and Sarria end in 1200 and he is seen at court only once (1201) before the summer of 1204.Depends on: A breach with the king whose cause is unknown Stopped by: A reconciliation, or the Traba siding with a player
4. During 1200Queen Berenguela bears a daughter, Constanza.Depends on: The marriage continuing and the pregnancy going to term Stopped by: Separation, illness or death
5. By 29 October 1200Count Fernando Ponce de Cabrera is separated from his wife Estefanía López de Haro (a sister of Diego López de Haro); he makes a gift to Zamora cathedral and dies not long after 1200.Depends on: Natural course Stopped by: Play changing his circumstances
6. Through 1200Innocent III keeps up his demand for separation; the couple stay together.Depends on: Both kings wanting the marriage, since their peace rests on it Stopped by: A papal climb-down (Innocent refused) or the king giving way, which would trigger the arras clauses
7. Summer 1201 (outside 1200; disputed)Birth of the infante Ferdinand at Valparaíso.Depends on: The marriage continuing Stopped by: Separation before 1201

Later, on the likely course

1. 1202 (later)Assembly at Benavente (the coin bargain, origin of the moneda forera); Ponce Vela de Cabrera dies 24 September; Leonor dies 11 November; Froila Ramírez last seen 18 December.Depends on: Natural course Stopped by: Play
2. May 1204 and 26 March 1206 (later)Berenguela leaves León in May 1204; the treaty of Cabreros (1206) settles the arras and dowry castles on their son Ferdinand.Depends on: Rome's pressure succeeding Stopped by: A dispensation or a papal change of course

Where the sources disagree

• campaign notes (Part 8) say excommunication and interdict 'hang over' the king and queen. The sources reached say they were actually pronounced: Celestine III ordered Alfonso IX's excommunication on 31 October 1196 for the Almohad alliance, and over the Berenguela marriage the couple were placed under interdict by papal representatives (en Wikipedia; Innocent III from 1198). One summary has Innocent declaring the marriage invalid in 1198. The GM should rule whether on 1 January 1200 the interdict is in force (possibly eased in 1199, a point we could not check) or only threatened.
• The Spanish Wikipedia says Celestine III granted a dispensation for the 1197 marriage; the English war article says an Innocent III letter suggests Celestine never knew of it. The campaign notes ('married without dispensation') follow the second view.
• campaign notes call the couple 'cousins': precisely, Alfonso IX is the first cousin of Berenguela's father (third degree). No conflict.
• The online summary of the arras charter dates it Palencia, 8 December 1199; the English Fernando Núñez de Lara article gives the same day without the place.

Evidence: The king, the marriages, the war of 1196-97 and the arras of 1199 are well attested; the court officers of 1199-1200, the names of the surety castles and the state of the papal sentences on 1 January 1200 are not pinned in the sources reached.

On the map: No map parts for the realm record: its ground is defined by the lord, town and belt records and the anchors.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• Chronicle of the World (Lucas of Tuy), Lucas de Tuy (1236, for Queen Berenguela). The Leonese counterpart to Rodrigo, written at San Isidoro for Berenguela. Read online
• Historical Monuments of Portugal: Writers (Annals of King Afonso, Chronicon Conimbricense, Chronica Gothorum and others) (12th to 15th centuries). The Portuguese annals in one volume. 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
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. 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 Gift of the Imamate, Ibn Sahib al-Sala (Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad al-Baji) (late twelfth century; the surviving part covers 1159 to 1173). The only Almohad court chronicle written from inside the administration, by a chancery secretary who travelled with the caliphs Abd al-Mu'min and Abu Yaqub Yusuf.
• The Pleasant Book: a Summary of the History of the Maghreb, Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi (completed in 1224, in the East, after the author left the Maghreb in 1217). Abd al-Wahid was a boy of fifteen at Fez and Marrakesh in 1200 and later moved in Almohad court circles, so his account of Yaqub al-Mansur (died January 1199) and of the first years of Muhammad al-Nasir is partly from memory and from men he knew: the character of the new caliph, the weakness that let the Banu Ghaniya overrun Ifriqiya, the Majorca expedition of 1203 and the Ifriqiya campaign of 1205 to 1206. Read online
• Official Letters of the Almohad Chancery (1140s to 1260s; the letters nearest 1200 are of the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Nasir). Circular letters from the caliphs to governors, tribes and towns announcing victories, appointments and policy, preserved in later manuscript collections.
• 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

1 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.