[282] At least one other power in the peninsula had, if not exactly capitalized on the preoccupations of the Leonese monarchy, indirectly benefitted from them. While Alfonso VI had been mollifying the Burgundian cousins, Raymond and Henry, and seeking a series of general understandings with the pope, the old alliance with Aragón was being seriously strained. Since his accession in June 1094 the new king, Pedro I, had been planning to pursue the siege of Huesca energetically. Yet this assault on the forward bastion of Zaragoza in the northeast would necessarily endanger Aragón's relationship with León-Castilla which had perdured since 1076. Zaragoza was the sole taifa left to render parias to Alfonso VI, and its lands might one day also furnish a natural southerly extension of the fertile plains of the Rioja on the middle Ebro. Pedro of Aragón might nibble undisturbed at the northern extremities of Zaragoza but the mere suggestion that he was bent on its conquest must provoke a strong reaction from Alfonso.

The approaches of Pedro of Aragón to Urban II in March 1095 and his sweeping renewal of the recognition of papal sovereignty should be seen in this light. The assault on Huesca was to be carried out by a papal vassal and in the presence of a papal legate.⁽¹⁾ Such circumstances might be expected to temper if not prevent a Leonese riposte.

The siege of Huesca began early in 1095 with attacks that overran a series of outlying strong points to the east of the city, isolating it from Barbastro. Then in May Pedro began the construction of a fortified camp just two kilometers west of Huesca. From that time on the city was more or less closely invested but the siege, in the formal sense, was an effort confined to the summer and fall of 1096. It was in all probability then that the south French forces recruited by Pedro appeared on the scene for they could hardly have wintered in Aragón.⁽²⁾ In 1096, as often before and after, the limited forces of the Aragonese had to be supplemented from beyond the Pyrenees if major objectives were to be attained.

[283] By the late fall the situation of the beleaguered city had become desperate and a relief effort was clearly necessary to prevent its capture. Tardily, al-Mustain of Zaragoza took the field in November. With him were the forces of Count García Ordóñez of Nájera and Count Gonzalo Núñez of Lara. The presence of two of the greatest nobles of León-Castilla clearly bespeaks the concern of Alfonso VI; nevertheless, that monarch chose not to involve himself personally.

That was a fortunate decision as events would have it for, on November 18, 1096, the Zaragozan and his allies were decisively defeated at Alcoraz by Pedro I and his allies. Nine days later, on November 27, the Aragonese monarch entered the city which was immediately to become the chief city of his realm.⁽³⁾ The only solace for Alfonso of León was that the prestige of the crown was not immediately involved in the rout and the reverses suffered by two of the greatest of the magnates of the kingdom might temper their ambitions for a bit in a way entirely acceptable to him. Nevertheless, the defeat of Zaragoza, in the long run, would be most significant as a defeat for León-Castilla in the northeast.

Pedro of Aragón was entirely aware that he had transgressed against the canons of the Leonese friendship and would have had no interest in actively pursuing or prolonging the estrangement. For the next few years he would be busy with repopulation of the city of Huesca itself from his more northerly domains and the rounding out of his territorial environs. Yet the resentment would persist in León and Pedro would only be prudent if he took some measures to provide against more active manifestations of it. It is striking that just at this time, at Huesca on December 17, 1096, the doughty former bishop of Santiago de Compostela, Diego Peláez, appears at the Aragonese court and is cited in the royal charters themselves.⁽⁴⁾ That exile and recurring irritant to Alfonso of León will continue to enjoy the hospitality of Pedro I down to the end of his reign.⁽⁵⁾ It is possible as well that the very rapid remarriage of the Aragonese king in 1097 reflected his continuing need for the kind of prestige a wife of foreign extraction could give. His wife Agnes of Poitou was last mentioned in a charter of May 9, and his marriage to a new wife took place on August 16, 1097, in the cathedral of Huesca.⁽⁶⁾[284] Curiously enough, his bride too was of Italian origin and bore the name of Berta.

On the other hand, the renewed alliance of Pedro of Aragón and the Cid and their conduct of a joint campaign against the Murâbit to the south of Valencia during the winter of 1097, described in detail by Menéndez Pidal, simply never happened. If the events always strained one's credulity, the subsequent critique by Huici is thorough and convincing.⁽⁷⁾

Our earliest notices for the year 1097 associate Alfonso VI with the church of Oviedo. It is possible that the court had moved north to that city, which held so many familiar associations for the crown, after celebrating the Christmas festivities around Sahagún. I incline to doubt it nonetheless. Necessity might sometimes demand it, but passage of the Cantabrians at that time of year would have been brutal for a large party and it was a large party that confirmed the donation the king made to Bishop Martín on March 23, 1097.⁽⁸⁾ More probably Bishop Martín and his friends were at court awaiting the Easter festivities two weeks hence. The charter was confirmed by the bishop of León, the royal majordomo and the royal alférez, by four counts, by the king's elderly sisters, and by Count Raymond and the king's daughter, Urraca. Of Count Henry and Infanta Teresa there is no evidence. On April 14, Alfonso was in León when he made a donation to the cathedral of that city.⁽⁹⁾ It was confirmed by five bishops, including Bishop Martín of Oviedo, and by Raymond of Galicia and his wife. Again there is no sign of Henry or Teresa, but the size of the gathering bespeaks important deliberation still going on well after Easter, which fell that year on April 5.

Then on April 23, 1097, in a private document of the Leonese monastery of Gradefes appears the first known confirmation of "Henricus gener adefo. . . ." Unfortunately there is a break in the parchment at precisely this point, but the donation was confirmed as well by Count Raymond and Urraca and a number of other court figures.⁽¹⁰⁾ Two [285] weeks earlier than this a private document of Coimbra dated April 9, 1097, had cited "Comite domno henrico genero supradicti regis dominante a flumine mineo usque in tagum."⁽¹¹⁾ Finally we have the clearest kind of converging evidence which shows Henry with a royal bride and territorial jurisdiction in Portugal. But as late as January 19, 1097, a document of Sahagún could refer to him merely as count in Tordesillas.⁽¹²⁾ I believe we must consider the latter usage as not exclusive.

Sometime early in May the king left León to initiate a military campaign. On May 19, 1097, he granted a charter of immunity to the Castilian monastery of Silos. He was then in the tiny village of La Aguilera a few kilometers northwest of Aranda de Duero.⁽¹³⁾ The confirmations give us a good look at the composition of a royal army actually on campaign. Queen Berta was there as was Infanta Urraca and her husband Count Raymond. Archbishop Bernard of Toledo, the bishops of Burgos, Palencia, and León, and the abbots of the major Castilian monasteries of Oña, Cardeña, Arlanza, and Silos made up the clerical contingent. The royal majordomo and the alférez, Count Pedro Ansúrez, and two other counts, whom we cannot securely identify for the lack of a patronymic although they may be Sancho Pérez and Pedro Peláez respectively, are listed. Then follows what is a muster of almost all the great magnates of the eastern meseta and frontier. Following the royal merino for Castilla are the names of Gonzalo Núñez of Lara and his son Rodrigo González, Alvar Díaz of Oca and his son Pedro Alvarez, and Count García Ordóñez. From the new realms of Toledo appear the names of Alvar Fáñez of Zorita and Fernán Pérez of Hita.

Assuming that each of the major figures, including the bishops and abbots, leads a squadron of approximately 50 knights, this would be an army of 1,200 knights. If one were to add, as is necessary, another 1,200 squires and a groom for each knight, then Alfonso was leading a force of roughly 3,600 men before the baggage train and the inevitable camp followers are taken into account. Clearly a major campaign was in prospect, but the scribe tells us only that "rege exercitum ad Zaragoza ducente." From what was then his position the king could easily have followed the Duero up to Almazán and then struck south to Medinaceli, from there to follow the Río Jalón down to the Ebro only twenty kilometers above Zaragoza. Or at Almazán he could as well have turned north to Soria and then crossed the Sierra del Moncayo and passing through Tarazona have reached the Ebro another twenty kilometers farther north.

[286] I believe that what the king had in mind was a punitive expedition against Pedro of Aragón and perhaps even the recapture of Huesca in concert with his ally, al-Mustain of Zaragoza. If instead his intent had been an attack on the taifa itself, his strategy would necessarily have been different. Either of the routes just rehearsed would have been costly if not impossible in the face of a determined enemy for cavalry would have been of no use at all in forcing the critical passages. On the contrary, a more northern and longer route across the Sierra de Demanda by the pilgrim road would have been physically easier and lay entirely in friendly hands. At the end of it Alfonso would have found the fortress of Calahorra as an eminently suitable staging area for an attack and a broad plain for the operation of his heavy squadrons. But the king was intent on the short route because he anticipated in Zaragoza an ally with supplies and auxiliaries, not an enemy. We are forced to rely on conjecture for in all likelihood that army never reached Zaragoza and certainly did not reach Huesca. If it had, some notice of even its failure would have found its way into a chronicle. Instead the army was diverted south by the arrival of the news that Yusuf, emir of the Murâbit had returned to the peninsula.

We do not know exactly when the emir arrived in Iberia, presumably at Algeciras. The Muslim source that provides the scant information on the campaign mentions only the year.⁽¹⁴⁾ Given the ordinary conditions of medieval warfare and of sea transport we can assume that Yusuf would have landed at Algeciras no earlier than the beginning of April and accompanied by an army of sufficient size as to make his arrival at Córdoba, which became his base of operations, unlikely before the last week of April. The distance to be covered, after all, was four hundred kilometers, and a consistent rate of march of twenty-five kilometers a day would certainly have constituted the maximum speed. We may also assume that Alfonso VI was taken by surprise for he had been planning to commit his forces in the east. That being the case, his spies in Sevilla or Córdoba itself could hardly have gotten word to him before mid-May and, as we have seen, on May 19 he was still planning on a campaign in the east. If the news reached him the following day at Aranda de Duero, the army could have reached Toledo as early as June 1, 1097.

How soon either of the opposing armies could have been ready to take to the field is problematic. It is clear that in contrast to his behavior in 1086 and not infrequently since that time Alfonso chose to remain on the defensive. He seems to have made no attempt to deny to his enemy passage through the Sierra Morena. Instead he established a rough [287] defensive front running from the mountains of Toledo in the west at Consuegra to the southern edge of the Sierra de Albarracín in the east at Belmonte and Cuenca. Such a line averaged roughly seventy kilometers in depth south of the Tajo as the river swings northeast from Toledo and probably can be taken as the extreme limit of those territories effectively controlled by Christian forces in 1097. The king was to campaign in and defend only friendly territory.

While awaiting the advance of the enemy, Alfonso would have busied himself with making the necessary repairs to the strongpoints of the region and to revictualing them. Both were much facilitated by the extreme slowness of the Murâbit advance. Since there is no mention of that advance even being harassed much less impeded, one must consider that Muslim Andalucía continued at least passively to resist full cooperation with their African coreligionists. That may be the reason as well why Emir Yusuf remained in Córdoba rather than personally taking the field. Meanwhile the Leonese king had also summoned assistance from a variety of quarters. At Valencia the Cid responded by sending his son Diego, who was to perish in the encounter. A request apparently also went to Pedro of Aragón. That monarch, understanding that some gesture was necessary to patch up relations with León-Castilla, did organize an expedition but not until September when the issue was already decided.⁽¹⁵⁾ The date of the main battle at Consuegra was the day before Pedro's marriage as it happened.

Finally the Murâbit forces advanced to the attack and one army, under Muhammed ibn-Alhay, encountered Alfonso near Consuegra on August 15, 1097, and defeated him. The Leonese then retreated to that fortress itself and there was besieged by the Muslim for eight days.⁽¹⁶⁾ At the end of that time the Murâbit force withdrew to the south. About the same time or slightly thereafter, a second army under the command of Yusuf's son, ibn-Aisa, the governor of Murcia, attacked the eastern end of the Christian line in the Cuenca district and there defeated Alvar Fáñez before withdrawing in its turn.

The import of these events has been obscured, it seems to me, by the tendency of subsequent historians to dwell on the defeat of the Christian forces in the field. Certainly they were and we hear of one of them subsequently being besieged. But it is perfectly clear from the behavior of the victors themselves that neither wing of the Alfonsine forces had been nullified as an effective fighting force though each may have been [288] roughly handled. The fact is that we hear of no further advances or of the surrender of no towns but rather of a Muslim general withdrawal and, somewhat later, the return of Yusuf to Morocco. Taken together what these events describe in military terms is an eminently successful defense against a major hostile effort.

That the enemy would not return to the attack was understood clearly for at least elements of the court had returned to Sahagún as early as September 10, and all of it by October 24, 1097, at the latest.⁽¹⁷⁾ The king was at León on November 4, 1097,⁽¹⁸⁾ but in the late fall he seems to have undertaken a journey to Santiago de Compostela, in all likelihood to give thanks to the apostle for the delivery of the kingdom from its enemies. On November 23 the king, along with Count Raymond and his wife, confirmed a charter of Count Henry to Soeiro Mendes.⁽¹⁹⁾ I do not believe that this latter was issued in Compostela. In any event, Count Henry himself was clearly there on December 9, 1097, when he issued a diploma concerning a possession of Santiago near Braga.⁽²⁰⁾ I do not think that the court, or even just Count Henry, could have traveled from León to Santiago in less than three weeks. On the other hand, the court could have journeyed to Braga after November 4, and from there to Compostela after November 23. A purported charter of Alfonso VI, dated to December 31, 1097, which would locate the king at León is a forgery in a misdated copy.⁽²¹⁾

Quite possibly the court spent the entire Christmas season at Compostela for there is no documentary evidence for its presence in its usual wintering spots at Sahagún or León until late in January 1098. The royal party could have stayed for the celebration of the feast of Saint James there on December 28 and still have been back at Sahagún by January 25. In the eleventh century the Spanish liturgical calendar still included [289] such a feast.⁽²²⁾ The document of León dated January 17, 1098, which purports to be a charter of Alfonso VI to that church is a patent forgery.⁽²³⁾ It lists as majordomo Alfonso Téllez and as alférez García Alvarez, neither of whom appears in his respective office until early 1102. It also lists Sancho Alfónsez in what would otherwise be the first public appearance of Alfonso's heir. In similar fashion a document of the Castilian monastery of Silos, dated January 20, 1075, but redated by Férotin to 1096-1098, must be regarded as a forgery as well.⁽²⁴⁾ The diplomatic is acceptable but the confirmations are identical in person and in order to another royal grant to Silos of September 30, 1098, which will be considered hereafter. The first genuine document that places the court back at Sahagún is that of January 25.⁽²⁵⁾ Count Raymond confirmed that document as he did also the royal diploma of February 18, 1098.⁽²⁶⁾ He did not appear among the members of the court who con-firmed an exchange of property made by the abbot of Sahagún on March 3, 1098, but Archbishop Bernard of Toledo did.⁽²⁷⁾ This document thus calls into question the Council of Vich of March 8, 1098, at which Bernard was supposed to have presided as legate.⁽²⁸⁾ There is simply no possibility that he could have traveled from one to the other in five days. If the Council of Vich, as well as the Council of Gerona of December 13, 1097, is thus demonstrated to be apocryphal, then the actual importance of Bernard's legatine authority in the peninsula at large must be revised downward to a considerable degree.⁽²⁹⁾

The charter issued jointly by infantas Urraca and Elvira on March 11, 1098, does not help in placing any other members of the court for the people who confirm are of lower rank.⁽³⁰⁾ It is of relevance here for the charter issued by Count Raymond to the Compostelan monastery of Antealtares on March 28, 1098.⁽³¹⁾ The great Easter council in Santiago de Compostela which the latter records and in which Diego Gelmírez was probably elected to that see was attended by a swarm of Galician [290] nobility and the bishops of Lugo, Mondoñedo, Túy, Braga, and Coimbra, who confirmed the charter. However, the confirmations of the bishops of León, Astorga, and Oviedo and Infanta Urraca must be subsequent to the issuance of the document for, unlike Count Raymond himself, they could hardly have made the long, hard trip from León to Compostela in little more than two weeks. Moreover, the bishops of León and Astorga were clearly again at court less than a week later.⁽³²⁾

For like reasons, the charter granted by Alfonso VI to the monastery of San Millán de La Cogolla for property in the area about Almazán should be redated from April 7 to October 7, 1098.⁽³³⁾ The minor figures who confirm that diploma make it unlikely that it was granted elsewhere than at Almazán itself. On the other hand, the full court which confirms could not have made the 350 kilometer journey from Sahagún to Almazán in three days nor have returned again to Sahagún by April 14, 1098.⁽³⁴⁾ It was in the fall that the king was campaigning in that region as we shall see.

By April 17, 1098, on which date Alfonso granted a charter of immunity to the bishop and the cathedral clergy of León, counts Raymond of Galicia and Henry of Portugal had rejoined the king.⁽³⁵⁾ The count continued to reside in and around Sahagún until late May and perhaps until late June.⁽³⁶⁾ The major and costly campaign of the previous year may have exacerbated the difficulties of finding resources and recruits for a new effort.

A summer campaign did get underway finally though most of it is lost to us for lack of documents. When the king does come back into sight on September 30, 1098, he is at Guadalajara, 125 kilometers northwest of Toledo and 56 northwest of Madrid. His exchange of property there with the monastery of Silos should be understood as part of the royal effort to consolidate control in this vital area.⁽³⁷⁾ Understandably most of the royal host, as reflected in the document, were from Castilla.

Guadalajara lies along the present National Highway II, which runs [291] from Madrid to Zaragoza following, in its general course, the old Roman road that did the same. The route was in antiquity, then, and is now a main artery of communication and transportation. Until the fall of Toledo to Alfonso only twelve years before it had been the route that bound the taifa of Zaragoza to Andalucía. Therefore it was in the interest of the Murâbit rulers of the south to reopen it and in the interest of León-Castilla to see that it remained firmly shut. Toward the north the road ran past the craggy fastnesses of Atienza, Sigüenza, and Medinaceli, all still firmly in Muslim hands and surrounded by territories largely still populated by Islamic shepherds and small farmers. This area was not fundamentally won and resettled until twenty-four years later in the reign of the king's daughter Urraca, but it had to be isolated from the Murâbit, attempting to reestablish easy contact with Zaragoza as well as the reconquest of Toledo.

Something else happens as the road runs to northwest. It flanks the Guadarramas finally and offers a path northward into the Castilian trans-Duero west of the Sorian highlands. The country is rolling but gently so, and, though it offers some difficulties to the passage of an army, it is infinitely more practicable than were the passes of Somosierra or Navacerrada. For that reason it had been the traditional invasion route north into Castilla in the great days of the caliphate. From Medinaceli it is a mere seventy-five kilometers north to Almazán on the bank of the upper Duero. In the fall of 1098, it is at this last spot that we find Alfonso if my reconstruction of his movements is accurate.⁽³⁸⁾

Between the Muslim strongpoints at Atienza, Sigüenza, and Medinaceli, in a line running generally northward toward San Esteban de Gormaz on the Río Duero, and the foothills of the Guadarrama to the west lay an area of Christian repopulation and infiltration, composed of tiny places like Hita. It was in the larger strategic interest of Alfonso to promote the development and expansion of that movement and so constrict increasingly the freedom of movement on the part of the local Muslim population. That, it seems to me, was what largely occupied his summer in 1098 although punitive measures against the Muslim of the area would have been a natural complement of such activity.

These initiatives of León-Castilla on its eastern frontier were supplemented by the independent activities of Pedro of Aragón during the year. In March he had begun to lay siege to the Muslim fortress of Calasanz well to the east of Barbastro in a move obviously designed to help isolate the latter stronghold preparatory to a direct attack upon it. In August Pedro was still sitting before Calasanz, and we cannot be [292] sure whether it fell to him in this year or not.⁽³⁹⁾ In the eyes of one contemporary the effort was certainly a major one and would have preoccupied if not paralyzed al-Mustain of Zaragoza.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Not that it was the aim of the Aragonese monarch to constitute himself or his kingdom the handmaid of Leonese purposes. He had wider ambitions as signaled by the marriage in this year of his son and heir to María, daughter of the Cid. Following hard upon the death of the only male heir of the master of the Valencian realm, that marriage alliance bespoke an eye to a possible major expansion of the still tiny realm of Aragón.⁽⁴¹⁾ Political consolidation, or at least the dream of it, was becoming the order of the day in the peninsula. Carried far enough it could threaten the hegemony of León-Castilla among the Christian kingdoms. At the same time, Pedro I secured the approbation of Urban II for the aggrandizement of the cathedral see newly restored in the conquered Huesca, which he clearly intended should be the chief city of his domains until such time as Zaragoza itself should yield to him.⁽⁴²⁾ Finally, to underscore further his independence of action, Pedro settled on the church of Santiago de Compostela some land around Huesca which however should be enjoyed by the exiled and deposed Diego Peláez so long as he should live. The action was taken in March 1098 and may have been the final exasperation which led to the election of Diego Gelmírez to that see in the same month.⁽⁴³⁾

The year 1099 opened altogether routinely with the court gathered around the king in the royal city of León. There on January 17, Alfonso granted two charters: one to the cathedral of the city and the other to the shrine church and royal pantheon of San Isidoro.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Both Count Raymond and Count Henry were in attendance as were most of the bishops aud lay magnates who were habitués of the court. The fuero of [293] Miranda de Ebro, which Alfonso was supposed to have issued in Burgos during this same month, must be disregarded so far as it seems reliably to indicate the whereabouts of the king. Burgos was no more than a reasonable ten-day journey from León so that it is possible that Alfonso had been there early in the month. Still, as a genre, the fueros uniformly exist only as late twelfth-century documents and, in the chancery of Alfonso VI, they did not yet exist as formally distinct from the charter. By the time any text becomes available to us it has been so massively interpolated that conclusions drawn from it about the period of its purported issuance are hazardous in the extreme.⁽⁴⁵⁾

On February 2, 1099, the court was still in the Leonese alfoz at Castrofruela when the king issued a charter to Bishop García of Burgos.⁽⁴⁶⁾ From the language of the diploma itself, "circunstante concilio magnatum," as well as the number of those who confirm it is evident that the great curia of mid-January continued in existence. Its deliberations were still in process on February 13, 1099, when Alfonso granted a diploma to the Toledan monastery of San Servando, which diploma also obliquely reveals some of the concerns of the crown.⁽⁴⁷⁾ The confirmation of the document by some of the minor officials of Toledo is not an indication that it was issued in that city but rather of the court's fears about the future of Toledo. Apparently a new attempt against it on the part of the Murâbit was expected once the campaigning season would open and measures for its defense were being considered. For the first time Alvar Fáñez appears in the documents as alcalde of the city.

Despite the royal apprehensions, the court continued in the León-Sahagún area through mid-March and perhaps into the third week of April.⁽⁴⁸⁾ A considerable number of the documents dated to the later winter and early spring of this year are rendered suspect by, among other things, their confirmation by Archbishop Bernard of Toledo [294] who was in Rome before May 4, 1099, and would have been in transit by early March.⁽⁴⁹⁾ As a result we cannot be sure of Alfonso's movements after early spring.

In all likelihood he had moved south to direct the defense of Toledo for the Murâbit had returned to the attack. Led by the grandson of Emir Yusuf, Yahya ibn-Texufin, they penetrated the Christian defenses south of the Tajo and set up their siege camp directly opposite the city itself, in and around the monastery of San Servando. Their army was composed of Andalucian forces and consequently they had not had to wait on the arrival of aid from North Africa but had been able to strike early in the year, probably in May. Nonetheless they had been balked of their prime purpose for the city held firm. Instead they ended by concentrating on a siege of the castle of Consuegra, which had defied them successfully in 1097. This time they achieved at least that end for the castle fell to them sometime in June.⁽⁵⁰⁾ For Alfonso that loss meant the collapse of even tenuous control of the hands south of the Tajo and therefore of roughly half of the territory of the former taifa which he had conquered in 1085. It also meant that for the foreseeable future Toledo, the greatest city of his realm, would sit at the very southernmost extension of that kingdom, perennially exposed to attack by an enemy that now enjoyed easier access to it than did Alfonso himself. Presumably the Leonese monarch directed the general defense of the city, aud assuredly Alvar Fáñez would have been involved, but no sources survive that mention the names of those who took part.

After the fall of Consuegra in June and the subsequent withdrawal of the Murâbit army the Leonese forces were probably busy for the rest of the summer both repairing and strengthening the defenses of Toledo itself but also of all strongpoints along what was now to become the embattled line of the Tajo. But quite as great a danger was now to materialize suddenly on the east flank of the kingdom. On July 10, 1099, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, died in Valencia.⁽⁵¹⁾ That principality, which had always been a highly personal creation of the great warrior, was bereft of his leadership and devolved upon his wife in the absence of a male heir. Whatever was the real substance of Jimena Díaz, hidden beyond a veil of literary imagination, it is clear that she was no virago. Since the battle of Cuart in 1094 the hopes of the Murâbit to reclaim the great Mediterranean port had been constant, and a major attack had occurred as recently as late 1097.⁽⁵²⁾ Now they could be expected to redouble [295] their efforts. A success for them there would bring them up to the line of the Ebro at least, would threaten the taifa of Zaragoza and the loss of its parias to León-Castilla, and would generally threaten the entire eastern flank of the kingdom.

Surely under these circumstances such initiatives as Pedro I of Aragón might undertake suddenly, from having the color of presumption, took on that of aid and assistance. By February 1099 it is clear that he had taken the castle of Calansanz and perhaps completed the isolation of the Muslim frontier fortress-city of Barbastro.⁽⁵³⁾ His operations around the fringes of Zaragoza may have had the effect of dissuading al-Mustain at this critical season from attempting to realize his own longstanding ambition to annex Valencia himself.

But gratitude is the most evanescent of the virtues so Pedro I cultivated his position at Rome by paying in 1099 two years of the annual tribute which he owed as papal vassal.⁽⁵⁴⁾ He also donated on July 3, 1099, some additional properties to the church of Santiago de Compostela in the presence of Diego Peláez whom the king still cited as bishop.⁽⁵⁵⁾ Despite the support of the king of Aragón for the latter, Paschal II finally ruled definitively against the former bishop on December 29, 1099, and authorized a new election.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Perhaps the news of the Murâbit assaults against Toledo in 1097 and 1098 and of the death of the Cid had persuaded the pope that he must do what he could to simplify the concerns of Alfonso VI.

That Leonese monarch had retired to his ordinary winter quarters at Sahagún as early as October 25, and in all probability he remained there.⁽⁵⁷⁾ It may have been then that the new church of the monastery of Sahagún was consecrated in the midst of a great and surely festive concourse of nobles and bishops.⁽⁵⁸⁾ At least in some quarters the celebrations of the Christmas season would have become somber soon enough for Alfonso's third queen, Berta, died shortly after the new year. She was probably already deceased when Alfonso, in León, issued a charter to the church of Santiago de Compostela on January 16, 1100.⁽⁵⁹⁾ A week later at Castrofruela the charter that Alfonso granted to Sahagún commemorated [296] her memory.⁽⁶⁰⁾ This latter charter reveals the presence of the king's sister, Urraca, and his two daughters, Urraca and Teresa, together with the husbands of the latter two, the counts Raymond and Henry. The first thoughts of all would already have turned to the choice of a new wife for the king. Given the speed with which he was provided with one the choice must have been made then and an embassy dispatched to summon his bride. It also seems obvious that Queen Berta had been seriously ill for some time and that previous, polite inquiries had been made. Otherwise the entire sequence of events is simply incredible.

There is no further evidence of the whereabouts of the court until March 17, 1100, from which source it appears to have remained about Sahagún.⁽⁶¹⁾ Count Henry and Infanta Teresa had left it for some reason for in March they were in Coimbra. There they made a handsome donation to the Cluniac monastery of La Charité-sur-Loire.⁽⁶²⁾ Bishko considered this donation to be the initial attempt by Count Henry to open an indirect attachment to Cluny that would be effective and yet not challenge his father-in-law's influence there and perhaps to underline Portuguese autonomy in the peninsula. As he pointed out, no personal connection to the French monastery can be detected on the part of anyone then in Portugal.⁽⁶³⁾ But Bisbko was unaware of the temporal context of the donation. It is quite as possible that Henry was merely rewarding the prior of that house, Gerald, for a part he had played in arranging a new marriage alliance with the house of Burgundy and the aging king.

Elizabeth, fourth of the wives of Alfonso VI, remains a mysterious person. It has been widely accepted that she was a daughter of Louis VI of France. That tradition is an old one based on her funerary inscription in the royal pantheon of San Isidoro of León. From thence it was picked up by Lucas of Túy in the thirteenth century and through him passed into the mainstream of Spanish historiography.⁽⁶⁴⁾ Bishop Pelayo, however, does not mention such an important relationship even though he was a contemporary court figure and was ordinarily attentive to such [297] matters. Another contemporary, the anonymous author of Sahagún, does not even mention her although he is our best source for the death of her immediate predecessor.⁽⁶⁵⁾

That is suspicious enough, but there is no record of a daughter of Louis the Fat of France named Elizabeth. Furthermore, even if she were illegitimate, Louis was born in 1081. Presuming that he reached puberty at fourteen and sired her immediately, a daughter of his could not have been more than five years old in 1100.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Child marriage is not unknown in the period, of course, but are we then to believe that in the ensuing eight years this child bride bore Alfonso two daughters before she died at age thirteen?

There is every likelihood, it seems to me, that the new queen was drawn from some cadet line of the house of Burgundy. The conditions of the time made such a course of action advisable. The renewed assaults of the Murâbit, the death of the Cid at Valencia, and the very strong positions held by Raymond and Henry at court made a mending convincing. The speed with which the new marriage was arranged argues the return to a practice already familiar to the several parties. The fact is that the prior of a Cluniac monastery and friend of Abbot Hugh was then in the peninsula.⁽⁶⁷⁾ And finally, that the same prior was handsomely rewarded just then by Count Henry, who would have been one of the most interested parties, points in the same direction.

On April 15, 1100, Alfonso VI was still unmarried and in León when he granted a charter to the canons of that cathedral in the midst of a court that included his sister Urraca, his two daughters and their husbands, six bishops, and seven counts of the realm, including the two Burgundians, and a variety of lesser figures.⁽⁶⁸⁾ There he seems to have remained through April 24.⁽⁶⁹⁾ However, on May 3, 1100, Urraca, the king's sister, granted a charter to the cathedral of Pamplona which has ordinarily been assumed to have been given in that city.⁽⁷⁰⁾ If that is the [298] case we can probably assume that she had traveled to the foothills of the Pyrenees to greet the newly arrived fiancée of her brother. Confirming her diploma were the bishops of León, Palencia, Braga, and Burgos together with the royal majordomo, which would make a convincing reception committee. The problem is that the bishops of León and Palencia had confirmed the documents of April 24, placing them at Sahagún.

Now the ordinary rate of travel would have required roughly twice the ten days that had elapsed. We can assume that relays of horses had been furnished for them which would have made the trip possible but would have been taxing for a woman of the infanta's age. Or we can assume rather that the charter to Pamplona was issued in León as a reward to its bishop for having escorted the royal fiancée there. He was himself a Frenchman, Peter of Rodez. If the former, then the royal couple would have to have been married at Burgos for the marriage had been completed already by May 14, 1100. On that date Alfonso issued a charter "una cum voluntate et assensu conjugis meae Elisabeth imperatricis," and it was issued "in via de Valentia quando ibam ducere ipsos christianos."⁽⁷¹⁾ The military situation in the peninsula permitted of no extended nuptials.

During this year a son of Emir Yusuf, Yahya, again crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and conducted yet another siege of Toledo. The city did not fall but some castles did and some spoil was gained.⁽⁷²⁾ That is all we are told. From the fact that some of the forces came from Africa and returned there it is safe to surmise that the campaign could not have gotten under way before the beginning of June or lasted beyond early September. The aim of the Murâbit was probably clear to Alfonso before the middle of May, and he must have been confident that his personal intervention was not needed at Toledo so much as it was at Valencia. He needed to see for himself the state of defenses at that seaport and to arrange who would actually command its forces.

The king could not have tarried long in Valencia for it appears he had returned to Sahagún by July 13, 1100.⁽⁷³⁾ On July 31 the king granted a charter to a faithful retainer, which indicates he continued in that area.⁽⁷⁴⁾ He may have moved south to Palencia for he made a grant to that bishopric [299] on August 18.⁽⁷⁵⁾ Yet only two days later in another diploma, this time at Castrofruela, which is difficult to locate exactly but lies some-where within the vicinity of León, Alfonso made a grant to the cathedral of Burgos.⁽⁷⁶⁾

These latter two charters show Count Henry of Portugal present at court along with his cousin Raymond. From there the former must have journeyed south rapidly to take control of local forces in and around Toledo. He could not have led an army of his own, even if he could have raised one, and have reached Malagón ninety kilometers south of Toledo in the vicinity of modern Ciudad Rodrigo by September 16, 1100, on which date be was defeated by a Muslim force.⁽⁷⁷⁾ Henry must have been specifically commissioned by Alfonso for this action for there is to other way in which local forces would have accepted his leadership. The battle itself, which took place beyond the mountains of Toledo in what was now Muslim territory, would have resulted from a punitive raid into the district after the Murâbit siege of Toledo of that summer was over. Such limited counterstrikes were common in the fluid warfare of the Reconquista, and they were most often carried out by local forces.⁽⁷⁸⁾ Count Henry himself was neither captured nor injured and by November 24 had rejoined the court in the Sahagún area.⁽⁷⁹⁾

By December 5, 1100, Alfonso VI had moved south to Palencia where a great curia assembled, usually referred to as the Council of Palencia for the documents that record it are of ecclesiastical origin. The first of these documents is the endowment made by Bishop Raymond to the canons of his cathedral of that date.⁽⁸⁰⁾ The grant was confirmed by ten of the then fifteen bishops of the realm and by the abbots of Sahagún, Oña, and San Millán. Bishop Pedro of Pamplona confirmed as well, strengthening the suspicion that it was he who had escorted the [300] French Elizabeth to court earlier in the year. From France itself had come Abbot Richard of Saint-Victor of Marseilles and the archbishop of Arles, his traveling companion.

The presence of Cardinal Richard as papal legate indicates even more strongly the willingness of Alfonso to accept papal mediation in the affairs of the church of León-Castilla when that intervention reinforced his own purposes, even though Archbishop Bernard of Toledo held a resident legateship. The selection of an old friend of the king for the special legateship by Paschal II points to the continuing papal desire to cultivate good relations with that powerful monarch.

Certainly much of the business of the council was properly ecclesiastical in nature. It was there that Gerald of Braga first appeared as an archbishop, and the Vita Geraldi relates that it was in this council that the restoration of the metropolitanate to that see was officially proclaimed and that its suffragans swore their obedience.⁽⁸¹⁾ To be sure, the bishops of Astorga, Lugo, Mondoñedo, and Túy were present but Gerald's other suffragans of Orense and Coimbra seem not to have been. The oaths of obedience taken by Bishop Alfonso of Túy and Bishop Diego of Orense to Gerald were recorded in the church of Braga but they are not dated.⁽⁸²⁾ The plans of the king and the primate for the reorganization of the church of the realm thus moved forward with the papal blessing. It has been asserted that the bishops of León and Oviedo registered their objection to that reorganization, insofar as it had made them suffragans of Toledo, at Palencia but there is no evidence for such an action on their part.⁽⁸³⁾

A reasonable inference suggests that this council saw a further regularization of the affairs of the church of Santiago de Compostela. Diego Gelmírez confirmed the charter of Raymond of Palencia as bishop-elect of Compostela. Paschal II had ordered a new election, to preserve the forms one thinks, in December 1099 but had indicated his willingness to accept Gelmírez, properly elected, by ordaining the latter to the subdiaconate himself. The new subdeacon had then been elected on July l, 1100, according to the "Historia Compostelana." Most probably this took place in the royal presence in the vicinity of Sahagún. The "Historia" then tells us that after his election Gelmírez proceeded to Toledo, where the king was, and formally surrendered the episcopal regalia to [301] Archbishop Bernard and received it back from the primate. This was as amends for having received it from lay hands.⁽⁸⁴⁾ It was probably at the Council of Palencia that Cardinal Richard was satisfied that all these proper forms had been completed and that he ratified their result in the papal name.

Other of the business conducted there just as surely dealt with the pressing, secular concerns of the realm. The Murâbit threat had become increasingly ominous from 1097, if it had as yet to register any major advance. That menace had become even more real with the death of the Cid in the middle of July. In a letter to Alfonso of October 14, 1100, Paschal II had demonstrated his own concern by formally forbidding any of the warriors of Alfonso from undertaking the crusade to Jerusalem when their own kingdom was in such peril.⁽⁸⁵⁾ But it is unlikely that this letter would have reached the peninsula in time to have been promulgated at Palencia. In the same vein it has been asserted that Cardinal Richard employed the council to arrange a league between Alfonso, Pedro I of Aragón, and Count Ramón Berenguer III of Barcelona to protect the endangered principality of Valencia. It would have been strange indeed if the prospects of that city were not discussed, but there is no evidence for such a pact. Even without evidence though, we may be sure that the Leonese king used the council both to appeal for men and money to his prelates and to announce the collection of a campaign tax, a fossataria, for the following year.⁽⁸⁶⁾

As already suggested, Pedro I of Aragón performed a signal service for Alfonso in this critical time simply by immobilizing the taifa king of Zaragoza, al-Mustain, who otherwise might have been tempted himself to add to the woes of Valencia directly or to have broken off the payment of the parias to León. Less than two months before the council at Palencia the Aragonese assistance had been demonstrated in striking fashion. On October 18, 1100, the fortress-town of Barbastro had surrendered to King Pedro after a siege of more than a year.⁽⁸⁷⁾ In less than four years Pedro of Aragón had converted first Huesca and now Barbastro from premier fortresses in the taifa's forward line of defense into [302] ample and secure bases from which the Aragonese were to be able to harry and even threaten the whole east of its territories down to the Ebro and the capital city itself.

That seems to have been the extent and character of the Aragonese contribution to the safety of Valencia even though Pedro had a claim through marriage on that principality. Whatever his ultimate plans might have been, the death of his father-in-law had simply come too soon for that monarch to take advantage of it, and he seems to have had the wisdom to realize that fact from the first. There are some subsequent events, as we shall see, that point to the possibility of some intervention by the count of Barcelona but no firm evidence. By the middle of December Alfonso of León-Castilla had returned to his usual winter quarters about Sahagún, content of necessity with what the year had brought and with what could be provided against another campaigning season.⁽⁸⁸⁾

In the four years just ended the attacks of Islam had been unwearied even though they had been balked each time of their prime objective. There was no reason to expect that they would cease. Instead, with his own control in former Toledan territories rolled back effectively to the line of the Río Tajo itself, the enemy was better positioned than ever before to carry through their assaults. At the same time, in the east, no effective leader had emerged to replace the Cid at Valencia. For the first time since 1081 the power balance there seemed likely to become radically uneven and the fall of the great port of Valencia to the Murâbit must be anticipated. Should that occur the real possibility of the loss of Toledo itself must be faced. The collapse of the whole eastern flank of the Christian position in the peninsula and the resulting threat to the eastern frontier of the kingdom of León-Castilla might well make the defense of the territories between the Tajo and the Guadarramas impossible.

If Alfonso VI had the time or disposition to engage in more long range worries, there was also the matter of Zaragoza. Its loss to the Murâbit was one concern. Another prospect was developing as well. The progressive encroachment of Pedro of Aragón on the former taifa, however useful that might be for the moment, had reached the point where the final conquest of the taifa or some significant portion of it was imaginable at the very least. Such an event would mean the defeat of the Leonese policy of more than thirty-five years that had marked Zaragoza not only as its tributary but ultimately as its own conquest.
 

1. Kehr, "El papado y los reinos de Navarra y Aragón," pp. 129-34.

2. Boissonnade, Du nouveau sur la Chanson de Roland, p. 37.

3. Turk, Reino de Zaragoza, pp. 175-79, and Ubieto Arteta, Historia de Aragón, pp. 118-28, review the campaign and the sources for it in detail.

4. Ubieto Arteta, Colección diplomática de Pedro I, pp. 241-45.

5. Ubieto Arteta, "El destierro del Diego Peláez, pp. 48-50.

6. Szabolcs de Vajay, "Ramire le moine et Agnès de Poitou," in Mélanges offerts à René Crozet, ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Riou, vol. 2 (Poitiers, 1966), p. 731. Ubieto Arteta, ed., Cartulario de Santa Cruz, pp. 37-40.

7. España del Cid 1:528-33. Historia musulmana de Valencia 2:222-25.

8. García Larragueta, Documentos de Oviedo, pp. 301-302. Another private document of Feb. 20, 1097, ibid., pp. 298-300, was confirmed by the king's sisters and the royal notary. As a recent, important donation to Oviedo it may have been brought to court br royal confirmation by Bishop Martín, or perhaps it was even executed there. To imagine the elderly sisters of the king trudging through the midwinter snows of the Cantabrians is particularly difficult.

9. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 75v-76v; Acad. Hist., Catedrales de España, 9-25-1-C-4, ff. 73r-75r; pub. ES 36:88-89 append.

10. AHN, Microfilmas, Archivo Diocesano de León, Gradefes, Rollo 6.311, no. 11. Pedro González is cited as alférez instead of Gomez González but I take that to be an error of the copyist.

11. PMH, Diplomata, pp. 504-505.

12. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 889, no. 8. An original.

13. Férotin, ed., Recueil de Silos, pp. 35-32. The editor placed him farther up the Duero at a location unknown at present.

14. Al-Kardabus, "Kitab al-Iqtifa" 2:xlii append., gives the year which began on Dec. 18, 1096, and supplies the bulk of the following account.

15. Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 1:534-37, for the sources here.

16. "Arrancada sobre el rey don Alfonso en término de Consuegra, día de sábado e día de Santa María de Agosto. Entró el rey don Alfonso en Consuegra e cercáronlo y los almorávides VIII días e fueronse." "Anales Toledanos," Las crónicas latinas de la Reconquista, ed. Huici Miranda, 1:343.

17. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 139r, and fol. 81r-v, respectively. The latter pub. Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, pp. 498-99.

18. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 3.427, no. 5.

19. DMP 1-1:6-8, and 1-2:554-55. The editor believed that the eighteenth-century editor of this charter had seen the original even though the latter described it as a copy. I have no reservations about the authenticity of the charter but it must be a copy for, despite Azevado's assertion, there is no genuine instance of a contemporary chancery use of the caroline script. It is therefore impossible strictly to assert that Alfonso's confirmation was coeval with the document itself.

20. Pub. PMH, Diplomata, p. 515, and López Ferreiro, Historia de Santiago de Compostela 3:41-42 append. Peres, Como nasceu Portugal, p. 74, reads the terminology as reflecting a major advance in the growth of Portuguese self-consciousness. I would wonder.

21. Alamo, ed., Colección diplomática de San Salvador de Olla 1:140-41. See chapter 5 note 61. The reality of the Council of Gerona, Dec. 13, 1097, is also thrown into question since it rests on a source that has Archbishop Bernard preside as legate when he was returning from Rome. As we have seen, Bernard was not in Rome unless he traveled there after mid-September. But see Rivera Recio, La Iglesia de Toledo, p. 149.

22. David, Études historiques, p. 201.

23. AC León, 998 and 999.

24. Recueil de Silos, pp. 30-31. Two additional copies unknown to Férotin are used in María Teresa de la Peña Marazuela and Pilar León Tello, eds., Archivo de los Duques de Frías (Madrid, 1955), pp. 301, and 303.

25. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 889, no. 16. A private document.

26. AC León, Códice 11, fol. 97r; Acad. Hist., Catedrales de España, 9-25-1-C-4, fol. 78v. In terms of diplomatic this is a most peculiar document which takes the form rather of an agnitio than a charter.

27. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 71r.

28. Rivera Recio, Iglesia de Toledo, p. 149, accepts the historicity of the council.

29. See note 21.

30. ASI, Reales, no. 133.

31. See chapter 13, note 34.

32. Apr. 3, 1098. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 45V.

33. Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Millán, pp. 293-92. A twelfth-century copy at best. The earlier date was accepted by Julio González, Repoblación de Castilla la Nueva 3:329, but he was not familiar with the king's overall itinerary for the year.

34. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 82v.

35. AC León, Reales, no. 997; and a copy in Códice 11, fol. 1v, with an incomplete date.

36. May 7, 1098. AHN. Códices, 989B, fol. 65r-v. May 21, 1098. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 889, no. 20. May 27, 1098. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 37r. June 17, 1098. AHN, Microfilmas, AD León, Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas, Rollo 18.135, no. 203.

37. Férotin, Recueil de Silos, pp. 33-34 and 35-36, is a sometimes close copy of the former.

38. See notes 33 and 34.

39. Durán Gudiol, Colección diplomática de Huesca 1:94-95 and 101-102, respectively. Ubieto Arteta, Historia de Aragón, pp. 121-22, is unable to reconcile the documentary record.

40. "Quando rex Petrus fuit cum magno exercitu militum depredare sarracenos et Deo cooperante obtinuit victoriam." AGN, Becerro antiguo de Leire, pp. 83-85; Becerro menor, pp. 300-302; AHN, Códices, 73B, ff. 54r-55r, and 93B, p. 256. Dated only to 1098.

41. Ubieto Arteta, El 'Cantar de mio Cid,' pp. 116-21.

42. See the two bulls of May 11, 1098, pub. Durán Gudiol, Colección diplomatica de Huesca 1:95-99. Also Kehr, "El papado y los reinos de Navarra y Aragón," pp. 135-37.

43. Pub. Ubieto Arteta, Colección de Pedro I, p. 280.

44. AC León, Reales, no. 1.001; a copy with the no. 1.376, and others in Códice 11, fol. 75r-v, and Acad. Hist., Catedrales de España, 9-25-1-C-4, ff. 79r-81r; AC León, Reales, no. 1000, is an interpolated copy that enlarges the grant. ASI, Reales, no. 128, a possible original but with the date partially obliterated. The copy in ASI, Códice 81, ff. 11v-14r, gives the correct date as does Acad. Hist., Colección Salazar, 0-22, ff. 41v-42r. BN, Manuscritos, 5.790, fol. 123v, had the date as Jan. 17, 1095.

45. Francisco Cantera Burgos, ed., Fuero de Miranda de Ebro (Madrid, 1945), is the critical edition. For my own conclusions on the fuero as a diplomatic genre see Reilly, "The Chancery of Alfonso VI," pp. 10-11. Attempts to draw conclusions from them as in Jean Gautier Dalché, Historia urbana de León y Castilla en la Edad Media, siglos IX-XIII (Madrid, 1979), pp. 188-95, I regard as methodologically unsound.

46. Pub. Serrano, 3:101-03. An additional copy unknown to Serrano exists in BN, Manuscritos, 720, fol. 226r-v, a fragment dated to Feb. 2, 1096. We can surmise that pant of the business of this count was to resolve the possession of this bit of property which once had been held by the bishop of Astorga, Osmundo, who had granted it to Burgos, which grant was now being challenged by his new successor, Bishop Pelayo of Astorga.

47. See chapter 13, note 4.

48. Mar. 8, 1099. AC León Códice 11, ff. 90v-91r. Mar. 16, 1099. Ibid., fol. 36r-v. Apr. 19, 1099. AHN, Códices, 989B, ff. 89v-90r, pub. Prieto Prieto, "Documentos de Sahagún," pp. 536-37. This last can be accepted only on the conclusion that Archbishop Bernard of Toledo was cited in the original instrument and did not confirm it.

49. See chapter 13, note 43.

50. "Anales Toledanos," Crónicas latinas de la Reconquista, p. 343.

51. Huici Miranda, Historia musulmana de Valencía 2:164.

52. Al-Kardabus, "Kitab al-Iqtifa," p. xlii append.

53. Durán Gudiol, Colección de Huesca 1:102-03.

54. Kehr, "¿Cómo y cuándo se hizo Aragón feudatario de la Santa Sede?" pp. 304-305.

55. Ubieto Arteta, Colección diplomática de Pedro I, p. 306.

56. ES 20:25-26.

57. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 124v; pub. Prieto Prieto, "Documentos de Sahagún," pp. 537-38. November 11, 1099. ASI, Reales, no. 132, Nov. 17, 1099. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 78v; pub. Fita, "El concilio nacional de Burgos," pp. 361-63.

58. Puyol y Alonso, ed., "Las crónicas anónimas," p. 116.

59. López Ferreiro, Historia de Compostela 3:48-49 append.

60. Jan. 25, 1100. See chapter 12, note 68. A very strange document supposedly deriving from a judicial decision of the king in favor of Sahagún has been associated with this same occasion. Pub. Prieto Prieto, "Documentos de Sahagún," pp. 539-40.

61. AHN, Códices, 989B, ff. 131v-132r.

62. DMP 1-1:10-11. Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, p. 89, cites an exchange of Count Henry with Sahagún which would seem to put him back in that area by March 21, 1100.

63. Bishko, "Count Henrique of Portugal," pp. 180-81. Segl, Königtum und Klosterreform in Spanien, p. 141, accepts this interpretation.

64. Ambrosio de Morales, Viaje a los reinos de León, p. 151, "Hic requiescit Helisabeth Regina filia Lodovici Regis Franciae." Lucas de Túy, "Chronicon Mundi" 4:103.

65. Sánchez Alonso, ed., Crónica del obispo Don Pelayo, p. 86. For the anonymous see note 58.

66. Augustin Fliche, Le Règne de Philippe 1er. Roi de France (Geneva, 1975), pp. 39-40, 79, and 323.

67. "Charité-sur-Loire," DHGE 12 (Paris, 1953), cols. 419-21. The site had been given to Cluny in 1059 and Hugh had established a daughter house there with Gerald as its first prior.

68. AC León, Reales, no. 996, an original; copies in Códice 11, ff. 97v-98r, and Códice 25, no. 24. The latter codex lacks pagination. Pub. ES 36:90-91 append.

69. Apr. 22, 1100. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 890, no. 7, an original. Apr. 24, 1100. Ibid., nos. 10 and 11. Apr. 24, 1100. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 132r-v.

70. Goñi Gaztambide, "Los obispos de Pamplona," pp. 330-32.

71. Pub. Loperráez Corvalán, Descripción histórica del obispado de Osma 3:9-10.

72. Al-Kardabus, "Kitab al-Iqtifa," p. xlii append.

73. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 44r.July 27, 1100. Ibid., ff. 97v-98r.

74. AC León, Códice 11, ff 88v-89r. This copy is dated to 1096, but the mention of Elizabeth as queen makes a date before 1100 impossible. Fernando Múñoz confirms as majordomo and to my present knowledge does not serve in that post beyond March 1101.

75. AHN, Microfilmas, Palencia, rollo 1.727. This copy is dated to 1086, but the confirmation of Ordoño Alvarez as alférez establishes a date between 1099 and 1101. The other confirmants make 1100 most probable. A charter of Alfonso to Valladolid, dated only to 1100 but citing Elizabeth as queen, may be of this time. Pub. Mañueco Villalobos and Zurita Nieto, eds., Documentos de Valladolid 1:62-63.

76. Aug. 20, 1100. Pub. Serrano, Obispo de Burgos 3:110-12. The document is dated to 1096 in the copy. Again it is the presence of Ordoño Alvarez as alférez that suggests the redating. The text is also obviously corrupt in part, referring to Bishop García as "venerabilis memorie" even though he confirmed.

77. "Anales Toledanos," Crónicas latinas de la Reconquista, p. 358.

78. One of the few knowledgeable general accounts of Spanish medieval warfare in English is Derek Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (London, 1978), pp. 94-111 especially.

79. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 890, no. 13, and a copy in ibid., Códices, 989B, fol. 88r-v.

80. See chapter 13, note 51.

81. PMH, Scriptores, p. 54.

82. Fita, "El concilio nacional de Palencia," pp. 218-19. They appear in the 'Liber Fidei." Fita, pp. 224-25, also mentions yet another source for the council in the "Codex Emiliense," fol. 396v, which I have nor yet seen. It would appear to add to our knowledge only the fact that the council was still in session on December 8.

83. Rivera Recio, Iglesia de Toledo, p. 253.

84. ES 20:26-28. Fletcher, Saint James' Catapult, p. 111. regards the story of the surrender of the regalia as "tendentious stuff." But why would the author invent such an offensive, even dangerous story and insert it in the biography of his hero unless the facts of the matter left him no choice.

85. ES 20:29-30. A private document of this period identifies one Leonese noble who had perhaps even participated in the First Crusade. "Ego Petro Gutteriz de Iherosolimis reversus. See note 79.

86. Serrano, Obispado de Burgos 1:372.

87. Turk, Reino de Zaragoza, pp. 179-80. Ubieto Arteta, Historia de Aragón, pp. 129-30.

88. Dec. 13, 1100. AHN, Códices, 98913, fol. 72r. Dec. 18, 1100. Ibid.. fol. 107v-108r. Dec. 25, 1100. Ibid., fol. 120v.