[68] Predictably, the news of the assassination of Sancho II before the walls of Zamora reached Alfonso VI in Toledo promptly. According to the earliest source that treats the matter at any length, the Leonese exile persuaded al-Mamun, taifa king of Toledo, not only to allow his return but indeed to facilitate it.⁽¹⁾ A century later, the chronicles will have the matter much embellished from the literary sources, but they will add that al-Mamun insisted that Alfonso swear to support both al-Mamun himself and his successor, even against their Muslim coreligionists if necessary.⁽²⁾ Considerations of elementary prudence on the part of the Muslim king would argue that some such pact was reached before Alfonso was allowed to depart.⁽³⁾

The first documentary evidence for the return of Alfonso VI to power is dated in November 1072. The most sensible route for Alfonso led from Toledo to Zamora, a distance of some 240 kilometers as the crow flies and considerably more in practicable distance. Allowing, as seems reasonable, at least seven days for the news of his brothers death to have reached him over that distance, another week of negotiations with al-Mamun and preparations for departure, and something better than a week for his own journey north, Alfonso is unlikely to have reached Zamora before the last days of October or the first days of November.

There he would have spent some few days of consultation with his sister Urraca, with Count Pedro Ansúrez, and with such of his supporters as had rallied to them. As a result of their conferences, messengers [69] would have been dispatched to the major magnates and prelates of the realms of León, Castilla, and Galicia-Portugal ordering them to assemble in the royal city of León for the formal recognition of their restored king. Then the better than 120-kilometer journey of the royal party itself from Zamora north to León would have begun. A reasonably accurate reckoning, then, makes it probable that Alfonso did not arrive in León until about November l0, 1072. Within a week of that time the notables summoned, or some portion of them, had reached the city, and a great curia produced the documents that make it historically visible.

In two charters of November 17, 1072, and November 19, 1072, Alfonso took steps to establish his popularity by abolishing a toll and reforming a judicial procedure respectively.⁽⁴⁾ From the two confirmation lists we can form a good idea of those who had already rallied to him. León was represented by the faithful bishops of the royal city itself, of Astorga, Palencia, and Oviedo; his majordomo, Telo Gutiérrez; and counts Pedro Ansúrez, Pedro Peláez, and Martín Alfonsez.

The notables of the kingdom of Galicia-Portugal were also much in evidence. The bishops of Lugo, Mondoñedo, Orense, Santiago de Compostela, and Braga were all present. Gonzalo Díaz, who had formerly figured in the charters of García of Galicia, now appears as Alfonso VI's new alférez. The counts Froila Arias and Vermudo Ordóñez confirmed as well.⁽⁵⁾ Presumably Alfonso's brother, García, who had been yet another 325 kilometers south of Toledo at the time of Sancho of Castillas death in early October, could not have heard the news until at best some ten days after Alfonso VI had. He also would have needed at least the same amount of time to cover the distance from Sevilla to Coimbra, the southernmost stronghold of his former realm. Presuming the same time necessary for negotiations at Sevilla before be started as the week we allowed Alfonso at Toledo, García could hardly have reached Coimbra before November l0, 1072, at the earliest.

By then, the magnates and prelates of Garcías realm were already on their way to León. His own summons would have reached them well after they had made their obedience to Alfonso VI, if at all. In addition, García lacked the advantage of a party already in being as Alfonso had had at Zamora and suffered the disadvantage of widespread unpopularity in his own realms. From these multiple handicaps, García was never to recover.

[70] These charters also disclose that Alfonso of León was already the recipient of significant support in the realm of his dead brother, Sancho. Bishop Jimeno of Oca-Burgos confirmed. So did counts Gonzalo Salvadórez and Múño González of the powerful family of the Lara, whose alliance with the crown was to be long and portentous.

Nevertheless, the new king needed to consolidate further his position in Castilla. Not only was there a long history of semi-independence there, but the circumstances of Sanchos death inevitably cast a cloud over Alfonso's succession. Although the name of the regicide is, as I have said, so obscure as to be invisible in the documents of the period, he must have enjoyed powerful patronage to have dared such an act. Later literary opinion unanimously places the blame of inspiring the deed on Infanta Urraca, and indeed desperation in the fall of 1072 may have driven her to that extreme.⁽⁶⁾ On the other hand, an obscure adventurer may simply have anticipated that his own initiative would not go unrewarded in the troubled situation of the time. We cannot be sure.

Contemporaries would have been justifiably suspicious, and their suspicions must have extended to the possible complicity of the new king himself.⁽⁷⁾ His sister, Urraca, moreover, confirmed both of the charters mentioned above as well as the one we are about to consider so that she was prominent in his renewed reign. Infanta Elvira, interestingly enough, seems to have held aloof from the royal curia for some four months.

Some courting of the Castilian nobility was therefore in order, and already on December 8, 1072, we find Alfonso granting a charter to the monastery of Cardeña near Burgos.⁽⁸⁾ There is also a private document, dated December 7, 1072, that records an exchange of properties between the abbots of Cardeña and of San Millán de La Cogolla in the [71] presence of Alfonso and his sister Urraca.⁽⁹⁾ Although the royal charter is confirmed by the bishops of León, Palencia, Astorga, Lugo, and Santiago de Compostela, the two documents, taken together, make it likely that they record a formal progression of the full curia to Burgos rather than a visit of the Castilians to León.

These documents also mark the formal reconciliation of Castilla with its new king. The second of them cites Alfonso as regnant in Castilla, León, and Galicia. Both illustrate the recognition of the Leonese monarch not only by the bishop of Oca-Burgos but by the abbots of two of the most important Castilian monasteries. In addition, the royal diploma is confirmed by Gonzalo Salvadórez, Diego Alvarez, Ordoño Ordóñez, Gonzalo Alvarez, Alvaro González, Fan Fáñez, García Ordóñez, Diego González, Rodrigo Díaz, Vermudo Gutiérrez, and Antonio Núñez. That is, it records the submission of just about every important Castilian magnate and those who had previously figured most prominently in the charters of Fernando I and of Sancho II. In slightly less than a month after his return from exile, Alfonso VI had secured the full adherence of Castilla.

To effect this political reconciliation the new king had doubtless to give assurances of favor of many kinds. After all, his younger brother was still at large and represented an at least minimally credible dynastic alternative. Included among such assurances, we may reasonably infer, were private disavowals of any complicity of either himself or his sister in the murder of his brother, Sancho. His auditors may or may not have believed him, but scruples would have to have been satisfied even in an age as rough as the eleventh century. That such disavowals took the form of a solemn oath, with a dozen oath-helpers, administered by the Cid in the church of Santa Gadea of Burgos, as related by the later literary accounts and historical narratives that borrowed heavily from them, may just as reasonably be doubted.⁽¹⁰⁾ Alfonso VI had already secured the adherence of all León and of much of Galicia as well as some of Castilla. He had no need to submit to public ordeals which would have had the effect of broadcasting the very suspicions they were designed to quiet, and it is doubtful that even those who had their suspicions [72] would have found it either useful or necessary to humiliate and antagonize him in such a fashion.

Alfonso did not, apparently, find it either necessary or politic to remain long in Castilla. By January 6, 1073, the bishops of Lugo and Compostela, who had accompanied him there, were back in Galicia as shown by their confirmation of a private charter there.⁽¹¹⁾ The king, then, had probably been back in time to keep the Christmas season at Sahagún or León.

This same charter was confirmed by four of the five bishops of Galicia, by the bishop of Braga, by Infanta Elvira, and by a host of the abbots of the most influential monasteries of Galicia. One of the occasions of their assembly was likely to have been the reaffirmation of their support for Alfonso of León. In any event, García of Galicia-Portugal was soon to seek negotiations with his surviving, elder brother.

This seems to have taken place at León or Sahagún. A private charter of the latter places the royal court there on January 16, 1073.⁽¹²⁾ Our two best sources agree that, on the advice of his sister, Urraca, Alfonso invited García to a conference and then took him prisoner, on February 13, 1073.⁽¹³⁾ He was to remain his brothers captive for the remainder of his life in the castle of Luna in the northern mountains of León.

Better than seven years had passed since the death of Fernando el Magno but his kingdom was now reunited under the rule of his second son. For more than three and a half decades Alfonso VI would continue to rule and enlarge it, leading the realm during one of the periods of its greatest brilliance. He would conquer the Rioja, the southern half of the basin of the Duero, and above all thrust the kingdoms borders across the Guadarrama range up to the northern bank of the Río Tajo with his reconquest of Toledo in 1085. At the same time the Leonese monarch would preside over the alliance of the realms most stable and important institution, the church, with both Cluny and Rome while simultaneously allying his dynasty with the house of the county of Burgundy in the southeast of France. Thus were set in train a series of influences that would profoundly affect the development of the entire Iberian peninsula for the next four centuries. There is absolutely no hyperbole, [73] then, in styling him the most important Spanish monarch between Pelayo and Ferdinand and Isabella.

On his accession to the rule of a reunited León-Castilla, Alfonso VI was approximately thirty-six years of age. Neither the chroniclers nor the documents of the age furnish historians with the materials requisite to a biography in the modern sense. The literary materials of a century or better later already saw him refracted in the concerns of their own period and the subtle demands of their own literary forms. As a result, the history of Alfonso VI is inevitably the history of his public rule of León-Castilla, neither more nor less.

While we can know nothing of the details of his youth or education, we can safely assume that he was educated to the practice of arms. In the eleventh century the essential definition of every king was warrior. At least until 1086, at the age of forty-nine, when he was seriously wounded, Alfonso sometimes led his own armies into battle. In 1108, at age seventy-one, he still accompanied his armies on campaign. Certainly he was one of the great warrior-kings of Europe.

Like many others of his kind, Alfonso also engaged in what is best described as a kind of serial monogamy as the needs of the dynasty dictated. That is, he was married successively to no less than six different women. Whatever satisfaction he may or may not have found in his legitimate spouses, a mixture of political demands and, perbaps, sexual appetite also led him to take two known mistresses as well. Yet he was remarkably less successful as a husband and a lover than as a warrior. As we shall see, he died without a male heir but with four daughters, a granddaughter, and one grandson, with perhaps another grandson born shortly after his own death. Doubtless there had been many more births, but the age was a cruel one even for royal infants. This lack of a surviving son was to threaten and partially undo some of his achievement after his demise.

It is tempting to see Alfonso VI as something of a royal lecher using his power to satisfy personal desire. Indeed, this would not have been surprising as the history of the European monarchy generally so richly illustrates. Yet it is unwise to forget that the history of the European crown was always the history of a dynasty, and therefore the history of politics under the monarchy was always family politics. If Alfonso sometimes enjoyed such necessities it would not be surprising, but we shall be wise to presume that the central quest was always for a male heir or a favorable alliance. Certainly his contemporaries, male or female, secular or religious, would have found none of his behavior in this regard unusual.

It has been asserted with some authority, however, that Alfonso also [74] participated in an incestuous relationship with his sister, Urraca. Certainly their relationship was a close one. Urraca was uniformly credited by the early sources first with persuading Sancho II to allow Alfonso to go into exile, then with raising a rebellion in the latters behalf, and finally with conniving with him in the seizure of the unfortunate García. She appears associated with Alfonso in the charters issued immediately after his return to power. There is nothing innately surprising or sinister in the fact that, when brothers fight, sisters will make a choice nor that the choice will fall on their favorite.

More serious accusations depend on less reliable evidence. Much has been made of a single word of a phrase in a near contemporary chronicle which seems to me not to bear the weight placed on it.⁽¹⁴⁾ A thirteenth-century Muslim source, whose sources in turn have been alleged to be eleventh-century ones, accuses Alfonso of carnal relations with his sister, but Alfonso, as the arch-enemy of Islam, was generally blackened in character by those sources.⁽¹⁵⁾ The thirteenth-century chronicler Gil de Zamora reports the fact, incredible in the strictest sense of that term, that Alfonso actually married Urraca in order to persuade her to surrender Zamora to him in the fall of 1072.⁽¹⁶⁾ I find none of the evidence adduced convincing.

Finally, one is unable to discover the prime motivation that governed Alfonso's political activity. As is already clear, he trenched early on the authority of his younger brother in Galicia and later seized hm during negotiations and imprisoned him for life. Alfonso may well have acquiesced tacitly to the assassination of Sancho. Late in life he would exile and despoil his most faithful supporter, Count Pedro Ansúrez. Of his relations with the Cid, we shall see more later. He would continue the close relationship established by his father with Cluny and display a sturdy independence in dealings with the reformed papacy while taking a Muslim mistress and pursuing the Reconquista against Islam vigorously. We simply do not dispose of the requisite materials, however, to divine in all of this what part may have been played by personal ambition, what by jealousy or fear, what by lust, what by piety or greed. What we can perceive is a consummate politician at work under the conditions imposed by the age and its particular mores. We can clearly see his concern for the integrity of the dynasty and his sense of the traditional [75] privileges and ambitions of the crown of León-Castilla. In these terms, then, the story must be told without resort to modern creations such as nationalism or abstractions such as raison detat.

In the period between his return from exile in November 1072 and the occupation of the Rioja in July 1076 a new curia emerges around the king. Relying solely on the evidence of the dozen, indisputable royal charters of the period, one sees clearly both continuity and innovation in its makeup.

The curias regular ecclesiastical personnel comprises first the bishops of León, Palencia, and Astorga, who confirm eight, eight, and six of the twelve respectively. The bishops of all of these sees had been appointed in the days of Fernando I and had adhered to the cause of Alfonso VI after the formers death. But now they are joined by the bishop of Oca-Burgos, also appointed in the time of Fernando, who represents Castilla and also confirmed eight royal diplomas. The heartland of the realm thus consists of the four major dioceses of the northern half of the meseta of the Duero basin. The bishops of Asturias, Galicia, and Portugal, ringing the meseta but separated from it by substantial mountain barriers, all appear in fewer than half of the royal diplomas.

It is notable that the bishops of Mondoñedo, Compostela, Orense, and Braga, all appointees of the period in which García had ruled Galicia and Portugal, continue in their dignities. Nevertheless it is the bishop of Lugo, again a holdover from the reign of Fernando, who appears most frequently in the Alfonsine charters among the members of this group. Yet there are two changes made in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the west that reflect royal initiatives. One is the suppression of the Portuguese see of Lamego, created by García, and its subjection to the bishop of Braga. The other is the appearance of a new bishop at Túy. Possibly these decisions were made simply on the grounds of geography and of infirmity and death, but just as possibly their incumbents may have supported Garcías abortive attempt to reestablish himself in his old realm in late 1072.

Certainly the appearance of a new abbot at Sahagún is to be related to the acceptance by Abbot Fernando of a grant from Sancho II in January 1072 which meant recognition of the latter as legitimate king. After Alfonso's restoration, such behavior could only have been construed as treason on the part of the most important abbot of the realm. A new abbot, Julián, ruled the monastery by at least the middle of 1073.⁽¹⁷⁾

[76] Only in Oviedo did Alfonso have the opportunity in this period to enjoy the regular prerogative of the monarchy to choose a new bishop. In the province of Asturias de Oviedo, once the heart of the realm but now increasingly a peripheral appendage, he was content to see the promotion of a local man to the see. The new bishop, Arias Crómaz, had been abbot of the important monastery of San Juan de Corias and was well regarded by the local comital family. He became bishop of Oviedo in late 1073.⁽¹⁸⁾

The lay dignitaries of the curia reflect the same sort of balanced distribution between León and Castilla. A new majordomo, Telo Gutiérrez, has appeared already in Alfonso's first charter of November 17, 1072, and he will continue in that office at least until February 20, 1074.⁽¹⁹⁾ On August 15, 1075, he has already become royal merino, that is, the fiscal, administrative, judicial officer, of the city of León.⁽²⁰⁾ The cursus honorum continues to function, but while the royal merino in León enjoyed the prerogatives of a count for practical purposes the title itself seems to have been denied him as prejudicial to the royal dignity in that key city. Tello was Leonese and of a comital house.

His successor in that dignity was Pedro Moréllez, who continued to hold it from at least March 27, 1075, until 1078.⁽²¹⁾ The latter had first appeared in the documents in Alfonso VI's charter to Silos of July 16, 1073, and seems to have been a Castilian from the types of private documents in which he appears.⁽²²⁾

Alfonso had a new alférez as well in November 1072. Gonzalo Díaz seems to have been a Galician from his confirmation of two of the early charters of García. He continued as Alfonso's shieldbearer at least till November l0, 1073.⁽²³⁾ His successor in that post was García Ordóñez, [77] who held it already by February 20, 1074, and continued in it at least till June 24, 1074.⁽²⁴⁾ García Ordóñez was of a famous Castilian house centered on the northeast of that province and active in the courts of both Fernando I and Sancho 11.⁽²⁵⁾ He will eventually become count in Nájera, of course, but there will be a long and curious hiatus in the documents, and he seems to take no part in court life between mid-1074 and 1080.

The Castilian was followed by a Galician noble, Nuño Mítez, for whom we have but a single notice in January 1075 and who later appears as a count, but the final alférez for this period was Fernando Laíñez, a Leonese noble, who had assumed the post by March 1075.⁽²⁶⁾ He had donated land on the River Cea to Sahagún as early as June 26, 1073.⁽²⁷⁾ He is probably not to be identified with the count of the same name who had figured prominently in the court of Fernando I unless he were the latters grandson, as his name may indicate.

Predictably, the lay magnate who figured most prominently at court was the Leonese Count Pedro Ansúrez, who confirmed seven of the twelve royal documents of the period. Another Leonese of noble birth and friend of the king from his youth, Alfonso Martínez, now count, confirmed four of the twelve. Count Pedro Peláez of Asturias confirmed five, but the nobles of Galicia and Portugal were virtually unrepresented at court. In addition, Count Fernando Fernández, who had been unwise enough to confirm two documents recognizing Sancho II as king of León in 1072, does not appear at all and may have been dead or in exile. Castilian nobles who had figured in the court of Sancho II now appear in Alfonsine diplomas but predominantly in those issued in Castilla. The exceptions to this rule are the two counts of the Lara clan. Gonzalo Salvadórez, associated with the Bureba district, confirmed six and Muño González, of Asturias de Santillana, the same number. Finally Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, el Cid, confirmed five. Castilla had clearly accepted the new order of things.

This new configuration of the curia regis had already begun to emerge in November 1072 and was largely complete by the time of the seizure [78] of García of Galicia in mid-February 1073. The latter event seems to have happened in or near León, and the court continued in the same area into early April. A charter of Alfonso VI to the canons of the cathedral of León of March 30, 1073, indicates that Infanta Elvira had rejoined the court so that all the surviving members of the dynastic family now were in accord.⁽²⁸⁾

The court then seems to have spent approximately the next two months in Castilla, perhaps at Burgos. On April 17, 1073, an agnitio executed in the royal presence settled a dispute involving the monastery of Cardeña; the royal judges in the matter were the Cid and the merino of Burgos.⁽²⁹⁾ It may also have been at Burgos that Alfonso donated the monastery of San Isidro de Dueñas to Cluny on May 29, 1073.⁽³⁰⁾ Bishop Jimeno of Oca-Burgos confirmed, and the latter town would have been the easiest place to surrender such a charter to an envoy of the abbot of the Burgundian monastery. It is possible, however, that the court had moved south to Palencia, near Dueñas, in the Campo Góticos.

In any event a private document, confirmed by Alfonso and his curia, puts him back at León on June 26, 1073. Something of importance had evidently called the Galician bishops of Santiago and Orense to make one of their rare appearances as well.⁽³¹⁾ During July Alfonso may have returned yet again to Castilla for be granted a charter to the monastery of Silos, southeast of Burgos, on July 16, 1073. I incline to believe that the charter, if it is to be accepted at all, might rather be dated to the earlier trip.⁽³²⁾

[79] Certainly the court was in the vicinity of León or Sahagún during August. Alfonso himself issued a charter to a supporter there on the seventh of that month.⁽³³⁾ Private documents of August 17 and 18, 1073, are also confirmed by court figures, including the king himself in the latter case.⁽³⁴⁾ We then lose sight of the monarch until he is found presiding over an extraordinarily large court at León on November l0, 1073. The document that records its meeting is a testament of Bishop Pelayo of León issued on the occasion of the rededication of the cathedral of León or some new additions to it.⁽³⁵⁾

This ecclesiastical event may have been the cause of the convening of eight of the eleven bishops of the realm, of the king and his sisters, and a large complement of the nobility. It was certainly seized upon to transact important church business as well, for the confirmation list of the document informs us "Arias tunc factus Eps. Ovetensis conf."⁽³⁶⁾ But is it not possible that all these prelates and magnates were called together primarily to approve the choice of a bride by their new king? It is a long interval but when next we have a surviving Alfonsine charter, that of June 16, 1074, he appears with a wife.⁽³⁷⁾

The first of Alfonso VI's five wives was recorded as "Agnetam" by Bishop Pelayo, the earliest and best narrative source for this matter.⁽³⁸⁾ This Queen Inés was the daughter of Duke William VIII of Aquitaine. The French historian of the duke and of his dynasty dates the time of her betrothal to Alfonso to 1069 but agrees that the marriage itself did not take place until sometime in late 1073 or early 1074 when the bride would have been about fourteen.⁽³⁹⁾ As to the earlier betrothal we cannot [80] be sure, although Sancho of Castilla married sometime in 1071 and marriage diplomacy would inevitably have been a part of the rivalry of the royal brothers in the period 1066-1072.

It seems quite possible that the April trip of Alfonso to Burgos was to meet with an envoy of Cluny about the marriage negotiations as well as to donate to that monastery the Leonese house of San Isidro. Relations between Duke William and Cluny were close, and in 1073 the latters abbot, Hugh the Great, visited the duke.⁽⁴⁰⁾ The house of Aquitaine long had had knowledge of northern Spain, and in 1064 Duke William himself had taken part in the initially triumphant siege and capture of Muslim Barbastro in the northeast of the peninsula.⁽⁴¹⁾

One purpose of the marriage was doubtless that of enhancing the prestige of the new monarch at home by an alliance with one of the great feudal princes of southern France. But while one hesitates to speak of foreign policy in the Europe of the eleventh century, it is entirely likely that the political advantages of such a marriage alliance were quite clear to both of the principals. The viscount of Béarn and the count of Armagnac were, at the one time, enemies of William of Aquitaine and closely related to the king of Aragón.⁽⁴²⁾ On the other hand, the ambitions of Sancho Ramírez of Aragón in regard to the taifa kingdom of Zaragoza had already been clearly displayed. For Alfonso VI, now king of Castilla and so inheritor of its claims to suzerainty over that taifa, such ambitions had to be provided against.

Moreover, the new pope, Gregory VII, had already on April 30, 1073, authorized a new, south French crusade against the Muslim in Spain and had also asserted papal suzerainty over all Spain in a letter to "omnibus principibus in terram Hyspaniae."⁽⁴³⁾ He also notified them that he had conceded that papal right to Count Ebles of Roucy. The latter, of course, was both a cousin of Sancho Ramírez and his brother-in-law. Sancho García IV of Navarra and al-Muqtadir, king of Zaragoza, concluded an alliance on May 25, 1073, to protect themselves against the outcome of this projected crusade.⁽⁴⁴⁾ It is also well to recall that Sancho Ramírez of Aragón had himself been a papal vassal since 1068. Alfonso VI could hardly have received a copy of the papal letter when be was in Burgos, but news of the negotiations which had to have preceded [81] such a major initiative may bave reached him from southern France well in advance of the actual date of the papal bull.

Although Aragonese and papal initiatives without a doubt had a strong influence on the decisions made by Alfonso VI in 1073-74, it would be a mistake to imagine that his policy was solely a defensive one. As king of Castilla as well as León he now entered fully into the traditional ambitions of tbat kingdom to an increasing predominance in the taifa of Zaragoza and the valley of the Ebro generally. He would have sought the renewal of the payment of the parias, or tribute, likely suspended during the time of struggle between him and his brother, for the generous revenues they assured.⁽⁴⁵⁾ As seen in an earlier chapter, the interests of the great magnate families of Castilla lay precisely in their aggrandizement in the valley of the middle and upper Ebro. Simply to consolidate his control over them Alfonso VI must have had to acquiesce in their desires to some degree.

After the great curia in November 1073, the king remained in the vicinity of León for the Christmas season. A variety of private documents argue the continuance of his court there during January and February 1074.⁽⁴⁶⁾ The court likely continued there for the Lenten season, and celebrated Easter at León on April 20 and perhaps the royal nuptials shortly after that feast. It is possible, however, that the court did make a brief trip to the province of Lugo in Galicia during this period.

But in the spring Alfonso made a journey again to Castilla both to secure recognition there of his new wife and to further his ambitions in the Ebro valley area. In addition, he may have been anxious about the prospect of the crusade of Count Ebles of Roucy even though that venture failed to materialize for reasons unknown. In February Gregory VII had still been attempting to move at least Sancho Ramírez toward some sort of crusading offensive.⁽⁴⁷⁾ By March the pontiffs attention was turning rather toward a preoccupation with the substitution of the Roman for the Visigothic rite in Spanish Christian worship. He then wrote to both Sancho Ramírez and to Alfonso VI urging such a [82] course.⁽⁴⁸⁾ In addition, Hildebrand opened the way for better relations with the Leonese monarch by recognizing Bishop Jimeno of Oca-Burgos against a counterclaimant. The matter had large implications for political control of the mountainous northeast of Castilla and, hence, designs on the neighboring Rioja district.⁽⁴⁹⁾

Menéndez Pidal believed that Alfonso VI and Sancho García IV fought a border war of an indecisive nature in the late spring of 1074 but the evidence he adduces is not compelling.⁽⁵⁰⁾ So certainly there was a jockeying for position especially about the key border monastery of San Millán de La Cogolla. Sancho García made it a grant on March 24, 1074.⁽⁵¹⁾ Alfonso did the same on June 16, 1074, in a charter that contains the first confirmation by Queen Inés.⁽⁵²⁾ The Leonese king issued this charter in Burgos in all likelihood for it was there on June 18 that he ratified an agnitio settling a dispute that had arisen earlier in Galicia.⁽⁵³⁾ Shortly after this the court must have departed for Sahagún for we find it there as the king and queen confirmed a private document on June 24, 1074.⁽⁵⁴⁾ Sometime during the journey to or from Castilla Alfonso may have swung south to issue a fuero to the men of Palenzuela, near Palencia, which is dated only by the year.⁽⁵⁵⁾

After late June 1074, the documents are silent as to the whereabouts of Alfonso VI and the magnates of his court until January 1075. There are two generally accepted documents of July 1074, which are important enough to merit some consideration here. The first of these is a purported translation of the traditional Castilian episcopal see at Oca to Burgos, dated July 8, 1074. The diploma was issued by Alfonso's sisters, Urraca and Elvira, and although the king himself did not confirm it the Leonese court bishops of León and Palencia did. The lay confirmants are all Castilians. Serrano believed that the charter is an original but he is mistaken.⁽⁵⁶⁾ This diploma may be based on a genuine, more [83] modest charter of this date for we cannot be sure that the royal sisters or the bishop of Palencia returned with the rest of the court to León in June. Bishop Pelayo of Leóns confirmation would have to have been added, however.

The second document is the even more famous marriage contract, or carta de arras, of the Cid himself, dated July 10, 1074. Menéndez Pidal published it as an original and based a substantial number of conclusions on its veracity.⁽⁵⁷⁾ The document, whose photographs may be seen today in the Museo of the cathedral of Burgos, is not an original to say the very least.⁽⁵⁸⁾ García Ordóñez is cited as count, who does not otherwise appear in this dignity until 1080. More important yet, Rodrigo González confirms as royal alférez, and he held that post between January 1078 and June 1081 as will be subsequently seen. In June 1074, García Ordóñez was alférez as noted above.⁽⁵⁹⁾ At best, then, the document cannot be used to place the Leonese king in Castilla in July 1074 but can only be defended as a misdated copy of an original of the period July 1078 to July 1081.

Rather than in the inadmissable evidence of these two documents the whereabouts of Alfonso of León is to be revealed in the Muslim narratives describing the summer and fall of 1074. It was, after all, the campaigning season, and the king was making a show of force in the south to bring the Muslim taifa states to heel and reclaim their parias for the restored kingdom of his father.

Conditions in the south were propitious for such an endeavor, especially in Granada where the king, Abd Allah, had just succeeded to the throne of his grandfather in the face of two other claimants. Alfonso VI moved south in the company of his ally and former host in exile, al-Mamun, the taifa king of Toledo, who had designs of his own on the territories of Córdoba. Alfonso advanced into the realm of Granada itself without serious fighting and sent Count Pedro Ansúrez ahead to the royal city to demand the resumption of tribute payments. Abd Allah refused and was then faced with the construction of a castle at Bellilos by a Muslim renegade with the support of the Leonese king.

[84] When attempts both by Abd Allah himself and by the taifa king al-Mutamid of Sevilla, who was perhaps attempting to relieve the pressure on Córdoba of the allies, to reduce the castle failed, the former was forced to conclude peace with Alfonso VI at the cost of the payment of thirty thousand gold dinars and the pledge of an annual tribute of ten thousand more. At the end of the year the Christian monarch was able to return to León with all expenses of the expedition paid and a handsome profit as well as the guarantee of a substantial future income. His prestige also would have risen at home as a result of a most successful campaign. In addition, in January 1075 the city of Córdoba was betrayed into the hands of al-Mamun of Toledo, his ally.⁽⁶⁰⁾

During the entire year of 1075 and the early part of 1076, as the documents imply, Alfonso VI seems to have occupied himself in a succession of visits to the various regions of his kingdom. Doubtless he was busy further befriending various nobles and prelates and so consolidating his power.

Sometime during the month of January the entire court journeyed to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. There the king issued a charter to the monastery of San Lorenzo de Carboerio in the presence of the entire episcopate of Galicia and the bishop of Braga as well. In addition to a throng of Galician abbots and nobles, the charter was confirmed by his sisters, by the bishops of Palencia and of León, and by magnates of his court.⁽⁶¹⁾ It is altogether likely that the king went there in part to bestow a portion of his spoils of the preceding year on the shrine of the Apostle James. Certainly Bishop Diego was shortly to initiate the building of a major new Romanesque cathedral. But secular concerns were undoubtedly pursued at great length as well. The court may have stayed on at Santiago de Compostela until February 12, when Infanta Elvira [85] confirmed a private donation to the monastery of San Lorenzo, but we cannot be sure that Alfonso's royal sister did not choose simply to remain after its departure.⁽⁶²⁾ Some portion of the court apparently was sent back to León as well.

Alfonso and others next traveled to Oviedo in Asturias where we find him, with certainty, by March 26, 1075. On that date, and the next day, the king subscribed two judicial documents involving the see of Oviedo. On the other hand, the famous document in which the king describes the opening of the venerable reliquary, the Arca Santa of that see, on March 14, is clearly a forgery. The private document, dated February 2, 1075, which Alfonso confirmed was probably a product of this period also. Such confirmations were often done subsequent to the enactment of the document itself.⁽⁶³⁾ At Oviedo in late March the king appeared accompanied by his sister Urraca and by Bishop Arias of Oviedo. That important changes were being effected is clear from the first appearance of both Pedro Moréllez as royal majordomo and of Fernando Laíñez as alférez. This occasion also marks the first appearance of the Mozárab Portuguese noble and governor of the Coimbra frontier district, Sisnando Davídez, in the royal court. But while demonstrating Alfonso's concern over all the regions of his variegated kingdom, the documents tell us little of his policies regarding them.

The confirmation list of a private charter of the church of León indicates that the royal court had returned there by April 19, 1075.⁽⁶⁴⁾ Castilla next became the object of royal attention, and we find the king at Castrojeriz on May 1, 1075, where he made a donation to the see of Oca-Burgos.⁽⁶⁵⁾ Confirmation lists to private documents place the court at Sahagún on May 22 and June 18, 1075.⁽⁶⁶⁾ It seems probable that the [86] court continued there or in León through the summer. There is, however, a late copy of a purported royal charter granted by Alfonso VI to the Cid on July 28, 1075.⁽⁶⁷⁾ But even if the charter is accepted the mere presence of Rodrigo Díaz - he had been at Oviedo in March - and other Castilian nobles at court does not necessarily imply that the court itselfwas in Castilla. On August 15, 1075, a private charter prepared by the royal notary, Lucius Sisnández, makes it very clear that the court was in León.⁽⁶⁸⁾

Sometime before this date Alfonso VI would have heard the ominous news that his ally, al-Mamun of Toledo, had been poisoned in his newly acquired city of Córdoba on June 28, 1075. While Córdoba itself was not immediately lost to his son and successor al-Qadir, the affairs of the taifa kingdom of Toledo began to be troubled almost from that moment.⁽⁶⁹⁾ If the Leonese king had not yet formed an opinion of the abilities of al-Qadir, the events of the next few months would soon reveal to him that he had lost an able ally who could be of real assistance and now had a weak and vacillating one who would require his help almost constantly. In addition, Alfonso's revenues from the parias of Toledo were threatened as were those from the other Muslim realms of the south. Finally, when the news of al-Mamuns death reached the latters dependency in Valencia, that taifa reestablished its autonomy under Abu Bakr at once.⁽⁷⁰⁾ Thus another element of uncertainty was added to the situation.

The presence at court then of at least the bishops of Oviedo and of Mondoñedo, as well as the more usual bishops of León, Astorga, and Palencia, on August 15, 1075, may indicate widespread consultation by the king on possible actions to meet the problem. But, although the documents are scant, there is no evidence that quick action was taken. On October 13, 1075, the court was still at Sahagún.⁽⁷¹⁾ By December 18 the king would seem to have moved into Castilla at Castrojeriz where he confirmed the settlement of a border dispute between the bishops of Braga and Orense.⁽⁷²⁾

[87] Events may have led Alfonso VI to pass the Christmastide in Castilla but by January 19, 1076, the court seems to have returned to León, and the Bishop of Oca-Burgos was with it.⁽⁷³⁾ He was still at court in León when Alfonso VI issued a charter to the monastery of San Isidro de las Dueñas on February 7, 1076.⁽⁷⁴⁾ Burgos would have been a good place from which to negotiate with al-Muqtadir of Zaragoza. That taifa king carried out an extensive raid against Abu Bakr of Valencia in the early spring of 1076. Huici Miranda asserted that al-Muqtadir had both asked the permission of Alfonso VI and indeed had purchased that consent since the Leonese monarch had claims to suzerainty over both parties.⁽⁷⁵⁾ However that may be, it was clearly in the interests of León-Castilla to relieve pressure on al-Qadir of Toledo at this particular time, and promoting an attack on Valencia by Zaragoza was one way to accomplish that end. Alfonso may even have been preparing to take the field himself for he was at the monastery of Cardeña just outside Burgos when a donation was made by the Cid to another monastery on May 12, 1076.⁽⁷⁶⁾ But the affairs of the south would have to wait.

On June 4, 1076, King Sancho García IV of Navarra was pushed off a cliff by his own brother and sister in one of the more spectacular assassinations of the eleventh century. Little but the timing of the murder was unfortunate for the king of León. Suddenly the prospect of the annexation of the greater part of the kingdom of Navarra lay open before him. In particular the Rioja district, stretching north from the frontier outpost at Calahorra for ninety kilometers along both banks of the Ebro River and comprising approximately six thousand square kilometers of farmland, well-watered and very fertile by peninsular standards, lay waiting for a new master. It was traversed by the Camino de Santiago from Haro to Burgos, and the Sierra de la Demanda was [88] breached by a low, broad pass just west of Belorado. The nobles of Castilla had long had designs on the area, the monasteries of the eastern slopes at Oña and San Millán had been cultivated by the kings of León-Castilla, and Alfonso VI was the first cousin of the murdered king. The kingdom of Navarra was about to disappear from Spanish history for almost sixty years, and the Rioja was to be gained by León-Castilla forever.

Since the assassination took place in the extreme south of the kingdom of Navarra, almost on the borders of the taifa of Zaragoza, it must have taken two days for the news to arrive at the usual residence of the royal court in Nájera. Allowing for another two days of confusion and consultation there, a decision to invite the intervention of Alfonso VI could hardly have resulted in the despatch of a messenger before June 10, 1076. If the bearer was alone and had been directed to make all possible speed it is still doubtful whether he could have covered the eighty-one kilometers from Nájera to Burgos before June 12.

Now if the Leonese monarch were in Burgos, and the sequence of events suggests that it is inconceivable that he was not, there still must have been a fair lapse of time before he was ready to act. Even if he had been assembling an army there for a campaign in the south, and so had a striking force in some degree of readiness, the change of plans would have required some consultation and discussion since its implications were so sweeping. At the very best, then, I cannot imagine that the journey could have begun before June 15 or 16. Though there is no record that any fighting subsequently took place, it is certain that the king would have taken a fairly considerable military retinue. He was after all coming to annex a kingdom, and a show of power was essential even if its use proved not to be. In addition, some members of the court must accompany him, and did as we shall see, for grandeur and magnificence would help to avert the need for force by lending a certain legitimacy to what was actually a revolutionary undertaking.

Such a mixed company, departing Burgos on June 16, 1076, would then have been encumbered with oxcarts drawing the baggage of war and of proper ceremony and state. Prudent military precautions and the pace geared to the slowness of transport make it unlikely that Alfonso covered the eighty-odd kilometers from Burgos to Nájera and arrived in the latter town before June 25, some three weeks after the murder of his Navarrese cousin.⁽⁷⁷⁾ In that little town with its back to the [89] cliffs and protected in front by the natural moat of the Río Najerilla, he would have found a place both easily defensible and with adequate room for the encampment of his forces and the lodging of his court. Nájera also offered welcome associations since it had long since become a favorite residence of the kings of Navarra due to its position in the heart of the rich Rioja territory.

There Alfonso would have waited while the abbots of the monasteries of Oña and San Millán and the nobles of the countryside rode in to estimate his chances of success, to strike such bargains as they could, and finally to pledge their fealty. The king himself would have likely been the guest of the abbot of the monastery of Santa María la Real in Nájera unless the later royal castle there had actually been built by the kings of Navarra. In Nájera too Alfonso would have received the news that King Sancho Ramírez of Aragon had occupied Pamplona and the northeastern portion of Navarra.

What the royal assassins of Sancho García had expected to result from their action is impossible to discern. The latter had not been terribly effective against either Aragón in the east or León-Castilla in the west. He had allied himself with the Muslim of Zaragoza. Finally, he had grave difficulties controlling his own unruly nobility. But the treacherous pushing of their royal brother over a cliff would seem to be almost the impulse of a moment with its remote origins in some obscure difficulties within the royal family itself. Since both Alfonso VI and Sancho Ramírez had designs on Navarrese territories and since both in fact realized those designs as a result of the murder, it is hard entirely to exonerate either one of them from complicity in the deed. But contemporaries seem to have voiced no such suspicion, and the assassins themselves could hardly have expected to profit from such a deed even if they had had a powerful supporter.

One of them, the elder brother Ramón, fled into exile at Zaragoza. The other, the elder sister Ermesinda, took refuge with Alfonso VI, who married her off to a Navarrese noble. The Leonese monarch generally disposed of the fortunes of the royal family. A younger sister, Urraca, was married by him to the Castilian noble García Ordóñez, and a younger brother, Ramiro, became Alfonso's ward.⁽⁷⁸⁾ When exactly these arrangements were executed is not clear, but doubtless the general outlines of such a settlement were negotiated at Nájera that June and July.

[90] During this time also Alfonso VI confirmed the fueros of Nájera, which tell us a little of the internal support he enjoyed within the former Navarrese kingdom.⁽⁷⁹⁾ The document lacks confirmations as such, but the text mentions prominently the Castilian noble Diego Alvarez of Oca and his brother-in-law Lop Jiménez of the Navarrese comital house of Alava and Vizcaya, whose father held the tenancy of Nájera itself.⁽⁸⁰⁾ The text also mentions Count Pedro Ansúrez, Count Gonzalo Salvadórez of the Castilian Lara family, the Castilian noble Vermudo Gutiérrez, and the royal merino for Castilla, Martín Sánchez, giving us some idea of the constitution of the royal entourage.

We can form no firm idea of the length of time this settlement took to achieve. It may have been as late as July 5 when Alfonso departed to make an unhurried progress to the southern outpost of his new lands at Calahorra, seventy kilometers south on the Ebro. There he doubtless received the fealty of its bishop, Muño, and there on July 10, 1076, he confirmed its fueros as well.⁽⁸¹⁾ In addition the document was confirmed by Alfonso's queen, Inés, by Bishop Diego Peláez of Compostela, by counts Pedro Ansúrez and Gonzalo Salvadórez, and by the brother of the latter, Alvaro Salvadórez. It is clear that Alfonso had brought a considerable party into the Rioja with him and that it accompanied him on what must have been a triumphal tour. That itinerary certainly included other parts of the realm, but by the beginning of August the king was back in Castilla.

Alfonso's trip through his new domains surely included an interview and pact with King Sancho Ramírez of Aragón, or at least the latters representatives. The Aragonese monarch had occupied Pamplona and the northern portion of Navarra in July. Alfonso, however, had occupied the lands east of the Ebro, pushing his control up to Sangúesa and Puente de la Reina. The latter was but twenty kilometers southwest of Pamplona. Some demarcation of their respective holdings and relationships would thereby have been necessitated.

It appears, on the basis of a document of some sixty years afterward, that Sancho Ramírez settled for the possession of Pamplona and the [91] lands around Estella. To Alfonso went the lions share including the Rioja, the lands east of the Ebro, Alava, Vizcaya, and a portion of Guipúzcoa.⁽⁸²⁾ When Sancho Ramírez decided to establish a royal center for this enlarged kingdom of Aragón later in the same year, he chose Jaca at a safe remove rather than Pamplona.⁽⁸³⁾ His brother, Infante García, came to be bishop of the newly established see of Jaca, indicating the central dignity intended for that foundation.⁽⁸⁴⁾

The events of the summer of 1076 were to have a decisive importance for the history of Iberia in the Middle Ages. The passing of the Rioja district under the control of León-Castilla proved definitive as did the suzerainty of that kingdom over the emerging Basque provinces. These two acquisitions simply added more weight to the already existing preeminence of León-Castilla among the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula and constituted yet one more factor that would contribute to the eventual political consolidation of Christian Spain around its king.

At the same time, not all of the ambitions of Alfonso VI proved realizable. Even under the Navarrese dynasty the main centers of the Rioja had been, as with Nájera, Logroño, and Calahorra, along the west bank of the Ebro as had been the bulk of the repopulation from the north. In 1076 the eastern lands of the river basin were still scantly held and more easily dominated from Aragón, as events were to prove, than from the Rioja. From its acquisitions around Pamplona and Estella and from the commanding positions it held overlooking the eastern half of the Ebro plain, Aragón was to realize in a scant forty years the mastery of that fertile area, and the river itself was to become a boundary along its middle course. This development in turn would position Aragón to become an eventually successful rival of León-Castilla in the contest for the appropriation of the taifa of Zaragoza and so the whole of the lower Ebro River basin.

The events of the summer of 1076 marked a decisive step in the emergence of Aragón as the major rival of León-Castilla in the peninsula. All subsequent attempts of the latter kingdom toward aggrandizement in the Christian east of Spain were to prove ephemeral at best, [92] and the union of Aragón and Catalonia in 1134 was to set the seal on that development.

At the same time the eclipse of the kingdom of Navarra was to prove permanent. Though in the aftermath of the death of Alfonso I of Aragón in 1134 Navarra would regain its independence, it would yet remain pinned against the Pyrenees. León-Castilla never relaxed its grip on the fertile lands of the Rioja. By 1134 Aragón had already consolidated its control over the eastern basin of the middle Ebro with the conquest of Zaragoza. Navarras way south was blocked definitively, and its share in the spoils of the Reconquista had been forfeited forever.

1. Pérez de Urbel and González Ruiz-Zorrilla, eds., Historia Silense, p. 122.

2. Jiménez de Rada, "De rebus Hispaniae," p. 133. Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 2:188-92, follows Jiménez de Rada and the Primera Crónica General because he believed that they drew on a contemporary Toledan source. My own view, that the "De rebus Hispaniae" here follows a lost epic of which Alfonso VI was the central figure, has been set forth in a separate study whose publication may precede that of this book.

3. Although Ubieto Arteta, ed., Crónica Najerense, pp. 115-16, shows Alfonso fleeing by night.

4. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 58r-59r; pub. ES 36:53-55 append. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 62v-63r; pub. ES 36:55-57 append.

5. In the latter case only as "Comes Veremudus," but Vermudo Ordóñez was the only person of that name who held the comital dignity at the time.

6. The assertions are reviewed by Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 1:185-88. One must remember, however, that these accusations are made by partisans and at a time when León is separate from and frequently the enemy of Castilla. The acceptance of the fuero of Castrojeriz as a contemporary text is simply unwarranted, as we shall have occasion to see somewhat later.

7. There may be a near contemporary record of the accusation of the king himself, deriving from the Castilian monastery of Silos. See Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 2:708-709. This use of a blank illumination space in a liturgical book for a historical note is without a parallel to my knowledge. I have not seen the manuscript myself but the script, as it appears in the photograph, could be of the late eleventh century or the early twelfth.

8. Serrano, ed., Becerro gótico de Cardeña, pp. 98-100, who corrects the dating protocol slightly. Berganza, Antiglüedades de España 2:438-39, who publishes as well an obviously false charter of much the same import dated Dec. 3, 1072

9. Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Millán, pp. 215-16.

10. Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 1:193-200, accepts the fact of the oath of Santa Gadea as substantially historical. Given his lifelong partisanship of the historical veracity of the Castilian epic, of the political importance of the Cid, and of the unique "national character" of Castilla, he could hardly have done otherwise. I simply think that he was mistaken on all of these counts despite his outstanding contributions to literary research and, not at all infrequently, to historical research as well.

11. José I. Fernández de Viana, "Los dos primeros documentos del monasterio de San Salvador de Chantada," Compostellanum 13 (1968): 3 48-52.

12. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 69r-v; pub. Hinojosa, Las instituciones de León y de Castilla, p. 29. A private document of Jan. 26, 1073, indicates that García had rallied some support in the west for it cites him as regnant in Galicia. AHN, Códices, 16B, fol. 9r-v.

13. Pérez de Urbel, ed., Historia Silense, pp. 123-24. Unfortunately this source virtually ends with the description of the incident. "Chronicon Compostellanum," ES 20:610.

14. Pérez de Urbel, ed., Historia Silense, p. 122. "A pueritia pre ceteris fratribus fraterno amore medulitus dilexerat."

15. Ibo Idarí, Al-Bayân al-mugrib, trans. Ambrosio Huici Miranda (Valencia, 1963), pp. 120-21.

16. The thesis of incest in its most developed form was set forth by Évariste Lévi-Provençal and Ramón Menéndez Pidal, "Alfonso VI y su hermana la Infanta Urraca," Al-Andalus 13(1948): 157-66.

17. The last appearance of Fernando as abbot is precisely in the charter of Sancho. See chapter 4, n. 63. The first appearance of Julián occurs in a private document of June 26, 1073. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 883, no. 12. Copy in AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 129r-v, dated to July 1, 1073. Vignau, Documentos de Sahagún, p. 251, cited a document of Feb. 20, 1072, that gave Julián as abbot. Romualdo Escalona, Historia del real monasterio de Sahagún, 1782 (reprinted León, 1982), p. 71, accepts this latter document.

18. Francisco Javier Fernández Conde, La Iglesia de Asturias en la Alta Edad Media (Oviedo, 1972), pp. 58-59. Also María Elida García García, San Juan Bautista de Corlas (Oviedo, 1980), pp. 91-92, although her chronology is sometimes confused.

19. AHN, Códices, 989B, vol. 175r. He had appeared as majordomo in Alfonso's charter of Oct. 15, 1071, but that charter also erroneously gave Gonzalo Alfónsez as alférez and is generally of a suspicious nature. See chapter 4, n. 16.

20. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 51r-52v, and repeated on ff. 60v-61r.

21. "Petrus Maurelliz ichonomus regis" Pub. García Larragueta, ed., Documentos de Oviedo, pp. 219-21. "Economus" is an old-fashioned synonym for majordomo.

22. Férotin, Recueil des chartes de lAbbaye de Silos, pp. 18-20. A late copy unknown to this editor exists. BN, Manuscritos, 3.546, ff. 117v-118v, is dated July 26, 1063.

23. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 9v-12r, and repeated on 48v-51r; copy in Acad. Hist., Catedrales de España, 9-25-1-C-4, ff. 62r-69r; pub. ES 36:57-63 append.

24. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 137v, and fol. 175r respectively. The latter pub. Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, p. 473. The copies of the tumbo are dated to July 1, 1074, but I follow Escalonas dating which derived from earlier documentation.

25. See chapter 3, notes 3, 4, 5, and 6.

26. January 1075. Archivo de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Fondo de San Martín de Pinado, Documentos sueltos, no. 8. An original fragment. Pub. Manuel Lucas Alvarez, ed., "La colección diplomática del monasterio de San Lorenzo de Carboeiro," Compostellanum 3 (1958): 78-79. Mar. 14, 1075. Pub. García Larragueta, Colección de Oviedo, pp. 214-19.

27. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 883, no. 12; copy in Códices, 989B, fol. 129r-v, erroneously dated to July 1, 1073.

28. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 56v-57r. The agnitio, dated only to 1073, registering the settlement in the royal presence of a dispute between the monasteries of Sahagún and Eslonza may have been drawn up at this time. Pub. Aurelio Calvo, San Pedro de Eslonza (Madrid, 1957), pp. 260-61, from Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, p. 472; and by Alfonso Prieto Prieto, "Documentos de Sahagún," pp. 523-24, from the becerro. A private document of Apr. 2, 1073, indicates that the court was still in León. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 67v-68r.

29. Pub. Berganza, Antigüedad es de España 2:440, and Serrano, Becerro de Cardeña, pp. 18-20.

30. Pub. Alexandre Bruel, ed., Recueil des chartes de lAbbaye de Cluny, vol. 4 (Paris, 1876-1903), pp. 560-62. Late copies in BN, Manuscritos, 720, ff. 243r-244r; and Acad. Hist., Colección Salazar, 0-17, ff. 774r-75r, both of these latter dated to Dec. 29, 1073. Bishko, "Fernando I," p. 18, prefers the latter reading believing that the grant was made specifically to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Fernando I. This charter may not have heen prepared in the royal chancery or may have heen subsequently interpolated for in the intitulatio Alfonso is styled "rex Ispaniarum atque Leonensis." A French clerk might have so regarded him but it is not a Leonese chancery formula.

31. See note 27.

32. See note 22. The chancery usage of this period is irregular but even so the language and style of this charter is troubling. In addition, Alfonso is styled "rex Adefonsus Legionensis" in the final protocol which is peculiar for the post 1072 period. The list of confirmants also contains a "Simeon, episcopus Sancti Pelagii sedis" who remains a complete mystery. Otherwise, the list would support a Castilian provenance.

33. AHN, Códices, 989B, ff. 91v-92r.

34. Aug. 17, 1073. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 883, no. 13 and a copy in Códices, 989B, fol. 200v. Aug. 18, 1073. AC León Códice 11, ff. 80r-81r.

35. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 9v-12r; repeated on ff. 48v-51r; and a late copy in Acad. Hist., Catedrales de España, 9-25-1-C-4, ff. 62r-69r; pub. ES 36:57-63, append.

36. The documentation relating to the accession of Bishop Arias is confused and sometimes contradictory. Without reviewing every piece of it, suffice it to say that I regard the convergence of the above document; the entry in the "Anales Coriensis, BN, Manuscritos, 1.358, fol. 4r-v, "ordinaverunt illum episcopum in Legione 111 idus Novembris"; and the notice in Antonio C. Floriano, ed., El Libro Registro de Corias, vol. 1 (Oviedo, 1950), p. 200, that Bishop Arias consecrated his own successor as abbot of Corias "in civitate legionensi in ecclesia Beate Marie" convincing.

37. Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Millán, pp. 219-20.

38. Sánchez Alonso, ed., Crónica del Obispo Don Pelayo, p. 86.

39. Alfred Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou, vol. 1 (Paris, 1903), pp. 307-308.

40. Ibid., pp. 283, 303, 309, and 310

41. Ibid., pp. 196 and 289-93

42. Ibid., pp. 270 and 290

43. Erich Caspar, ed., Das Register Gregors VII (Berlin, 1955), pp. 8-11. "Credimus regnum hyspanie ab antiquo proprii iurius sancti Petri fuisse."

44. Turk, El reino de Zaragoza, pp. 108-109.

45. Bishko, "Fernando I and Cluny," pp. 42-46, finds that the paria of Zaragoza usually amounted to an annual payment between 12,000 and 10,000 gold dinars. Control of the disposition of only one such liquid resource could furnish the sinews for a major campaign in itself.

46. Jan. 11, 1074. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 75r. Feb. 5, 1074. Ibid., fol. 143r. February 14, 1074. Cited, Raimundo Rodríguez, ed., Catálogo de documentos de Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas (León, 1948), p. 60. This is a charter of the infantas, Urraca and Elvira, prepared by the royal notary, Domingo. Feb. 17, 1074. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 883, no. 16. Feb. 20, 1074. AHN, Códices, 989B, fol. 175r.

47. Feb. 17, 1074. Antonio Durán Gudiol, ed., Colección diplomática de la catedral de Huesca, vol. 1 (Zaragoza, 1965), p. 53.

48. Caspar, ed., Register Gregors VII, pp. 91-94.

49. Luciano Serrano, El obispado de Burgos y Castilla primitiva desde el siglo V al XIII, vol. 1 (Madrid, 1935), pp. 289-90, believed that Bishop Jimeno had visited Rome in 1074.

50. España del Cid 1:206-209.

51. Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Millán, pp. 217-18.

52. Ibid., pp. 219-20.

53. García Alvarez, "Catálogo de documentos reales," pp. 307-308.

54. See note 24.

55. The text exists only in a copy of a thirteenth-century confirmation. See Muñoz y Romero, ed., Colección de fueros municipales y canas pueblas, pp. 273-78.

56. Obispado de Burgos 3:36-38. The charter bound as folio 297 of vol. 29, AC Burgos, is not an original for it lacks a notarial confirmation which would be incredible in an original royal diploma. There has been a good attempt at imitating the visigothic script but the capitals, ligatures, and the types of a, d, and g that creep in suggest to me a date somewhere in the first three decades of the twelfth century when the see of Burgos was involved in jurisdictional disputes with Toledo. The charter also refers to Fernando I as "emperor," which title he never used.

57. España del Cid 2:835-40.

58. When I last visited Burgos in the summer of 1983 the document itself was not available. As with the preceding document a valiant attempt has been made to reproduce the visigothic script. Again, however, later caroline features have crept in, but above all the orthography is that of the late twelfth century, e.g., "aldefonsus" for "adefonsus," "fredinandus" for "fernandus," and "hurracka" for "urraka."

59. See notes 24, 25, and 26.

60. All of these events are narrated in the memoirs of one of the principals. Abd Allah, El Siglo XI en la persona: Las "Memorias" de Abd Allah, último Rey Zirí de Granada destronado por los Almorávides (1090), trans. Évariste Lévi-Porvençal and Emilio García Gomez (Madrid, 1980), pp. 153-62. García Gomez dates the accession of Abd Allah to 1075 rather than 1073, but it is manifestly impossible that all the events narrated should have happened within a month, and the date of the fall of Córdoba to al-Mamun is beyond question.

Contemporary Christian chroniclers do not record the campaign, and a century and a half later Lucas of Túy, "Chronicon Mundi ab Origine Mundi usque ad Eram MCCLXXIV," in Hispaniae Illustratae, vol. 4, ed. Andreas Schottus (Frankfurt, 1608), p. 100, is brief and confused about it. Subsequent chroniclers built on his confusions.

61. The charter is an original but is in poor condition. It is now in the archive of the University of Santiago. See note 26. Another royal charter, which would place Alfonso VI in León during January or February 1075, has been published by Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 2:840-46. It has long been recognized as a forgery.

62. Lucas Alvarez, ed., "Colección de San Lorenzo," pp. 77-78.

63. For a critique of all of these documents see Reilly, "The Chancery of Alfonso VI," especially notes 36, 40, and 46.

64. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 180v-181r.

65. There are not extant originals and the documents are troublesome. That which Serrano, Obispado de Burgos 3:41-44, called an original obviously cannot be for the copyist gives the day of the week but missed the day of the month. Moreover, the names of both the majordomo and the alférez are incorrect. Another copy, ibid., pp. 38-41, has substantial alterations in the text and lacks the confirmation list but at least gives us the date of May 1. Muños y Romero, ed., Fueros, pp. 259-62, published the text from ES 26:458-63, which is yet another version with its own complement of errors. That there was a donation of this date which fathered all these divergent copies seems to be about as much as can be safely said. A distinct document published in Julián García Sáinz de Baranda, La ciudad de Burgos y su concejo en la Edad Media, vol. 2 (Burgos, 1967), pp. 410-12, and given as of this date is simply misdated by some ten years and will be discussed later.

66. May 22, 1075. AHN, Códices, 989B, ff. 146v-147r. June 18, 1075. Ibid., fol. 96r-v, and Clero, Carpeta 883, no. 18.

67. Menéndez Pidal, España del Cid 2:852-53, from a vidimus of 1255. The diplomatic is rough and, in particular, Alfonso is styled "rex Castelle," which is otherwise unknown in his charters. Menéndez Pidal, ibid. 1:219-20, conjectured that it commemorated the birth of the Cids first child, Diego. No wife or children are specifically mentioned in the document.

68. AC León, Códice 11, ff. 51r-52v, and repeated on ff. 60v-61r.

69. Juan Francisco Rivera Recio, La Iglesia de Toledo en el siglo XII (Rome, 1966), pp. 20 and 26.

70. Huici Miranda, Historia musulmana de Valencia 1:190.

71. Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, pp. 473-74.

72. Avelino dejesus da Costa, O Bispo D. Pedro 2:379, published it under the date of Dec. 18, 1078, as he also did in his edition of the thirteenth-century Liber Fidei Sanctae Bracarensis Ecclesiae, pp. 42-43. But the confirmation by Fernando Laiñez as alférez indicates a scribal error since the latter only held that post from 1075 through 1077. I redate it to 1075 since that is the only one of these three years in which Sisnando Davidez, who also confirmed, is known to be at court. The purported confirmation of a charter to Burgos on Christmas day of 1075 by Alfonso is a forgery however, although it may correctly place the king at Dueñas. Pub. Serrano, Obispado de Burgos 3:44-50, and by García Saínz de Baranda, Ciudad de Burgos 2:406-10.

73. AC León, Códice 11, fol. 68r.

74. BN, Manuscritos, 720, fol. 245r-v, and another late copy in the Acad. Hist., Colección Salazar, 0-17, fol. 776r-v.

75. Huici Miranda, Historia de Valencia 1:255, and 195, n. 3.

76. AHN, Clero, Carpeta 375, no. 1. Its only editor called it an original, but I would make it a copy on the basis of strong caroline characteristics in the script. Pub. Ferotín, ed., Recueil des chartes, pp. 21-23. This is the first reliable document in which the wife of the Cid is mentioned.

77. In reconstructing this and other itineraries in this book, I rely on the estimates of possible speed set out recently by Bernard S. Bachrach, "The Angevin Strategy of Castle Building in the Reign of Fulk Nerra, 987-1040," AHR 88 (1983): 542 and n. 27, and my own personal knowledge of the terrain to be traversed.

78. For the most detailed study of the entire settlement see Antonio Ubieto Arteta, "Homenaje de Aragón a Castilla por el condado de Navarra," EEMCA 3 (1947-48): 1-22.

79. This document has its problems, which will be discussed later. It comes to us in late copies and is dated only to 1076. AHN, Códices, 105B, fol. 77r-v, and ff. 79r-90v. The former was published by Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Millán, pp. 233-34, and the latter has been edited by Ildefonso Rodríguez de Lama, ed., Colección diplomática medieval de la Rioja: Documentos, 923-1168, vol. 2 (Logroño, 1976), pp. 79-85.

80. Balparda y las Herrarias, Historía crítica de Vizcaya 2:258-59, and more recently Augustín Ubieto Arteta, "Aproximación al estudio del nacimiento de la nobleza aragonesa" 2:18 and 44.

81. BN, Manuscritos, 9.194, ff. 147r-149v, and another late copy in Acad. Hist., Colección Salazar, 0-8, fol. 83v.

82. I here follow the conclusions of Ubieto Arieta, "Homenaje de Aragón," pp. 26-27. Gregorio Monreal, "El señorio de Vizcaya," AHDE 44 (1973): 113-206, is a survey that adds nothing new for this period. Antonio Ubieto Arteta, "La división de Navarra en 1076," in Homenaje a Don José Esteban Uranga (Pamplona, 1971), pp. 17-28, refines the holdings in some respects.

83. José María Lacarra and Angel Martín Duque, eds., Fueros de Navarra, vol. 1 (Pamplona, 1975), pp. 105-109.

84. Domingo J. Buesa Conde, El Rey Sancho Ramírez (Zaragoza, 1978), pp. 50-54. Unfortunately the study of Buesa Conde is little more than an extended essay and lacks any scholarly apparatus. We still need a critical study of this most important monarch.