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Birth:          BEF Jun 1040 of Burgos, Castile
Death:          1 Jul 1109 Toledo, Castile

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_VI_of_Le%C3%B3n_and_Castile
Alfonso VI (c.?1040 – 1041[a] – 1 July 1109[2]), nicknamed the Brave (El Bravo) or the 
Valiant, was the son of King Ferdinand I of León and Queen Sancha, daughter of 
Alfonso V and sister of Bermudo III. He became king of León (1065–72)[3] and of 
Galicia (1071 – 1109),[b] and then king of the reunited Castile and León (1072 – 1109).

After the conquest of Toledo in 1085, Alfonso proclaimed himself victoriosissimo rege 
in Toleto, et in Hispania et Gallecia (most victorious king of Toledo, and of Hispania 
and Galicia)[5] The Battle of Sagrajas (1086) and the Battle of Uclés (1108), in which 
his only son and heir, Sancho Alfónsez died, constituted defeats for the Leonese and 
Castilian armies.
Life[edit]

Family and early years[edit]

The son of Ferdinand I, King of León and Count of Castile and his wife, Queen 
Sancha, Alfonso was a "Leonese Infante with Navarrese and Castilian blood".[6] His 
paternal grandparents were Sancho Garcés III, king of Pamplona and his wife 
Muniadona of Castile, and his maternal grandparents were Alfonso V of León (after 
whom he was probably named) and his first wife Elvira Menéndez.[7]

The year of Alfonso's birth is not recorded in medieval documentation. A contemporary 
text of the anonymous Chronicler of Sahagún, who met the monarch and was present 
when he died, relates that he died at age 62 after reigning 44 years, indicating that he 
was born in the second half of 1047[8] or in the first half of 1048.[9] Bernard F. Reilly 
says he died at age 72, which would place his birth in 1037.[10]

According to the Historia silense, the eldest child of Ferdinand I and Sancha, a 
daughter called Urraca was born when her parents were still Counts of Castile, so her 
birth could be placed in 1033 – 34.[11] The second child and eldest son, Sancho, 
would have been born in the second half of 1038 or in 1039.[1] The third child and 
second daughter, Elvira may have been born in 1039 – 40,[1] followed by Alfonso in 
1040 – 41,[1] and finally the youngest of the siblings, García, sometime between 1041 
and 24 April 1043, the date on which King Ferdinand I, in a donation to the Abbey of 
San Andrés de Espinareda, mentions his five children.[1] All of them, except Elvira, 
confirm a document in the monastery of San Juan Bautista de Corias on 26 April 
1046.[1]

All the children of King Ferdinand I, according to the Historia silense, were educated 
in the liberal arts, and the sons were also trained in arms, the "art of running horses in 
the Spanish usage" and hunting.[12] The cleric Raimundo was in charge of Alfonso's 
early education. Already king, Alfonso appointed him Bishop of Palencia and referred 
to him as magistro nostro, viro nobile et Deum timenti.[12] Alfonso probably spent long 
periods in Tierra de Campos, where, along with Pedro Ansúrez, the son of Ansur Díaz 
and nephew of Count Gómez Díaz de Saldaña (both members of the Banu Gómez 
lineage), he learned the art of war and what was expected of a knight.[12]

Ascension to the throne[edit]

As the second son of the king of León and Count of Castile,[1][13] Alfonso would not 
have been entitled to inherit the throne.[6] At the end of 1063, probably on 22 
December, taking advantage of the fact that numerous magnates had gathered in 
León, capital of the kingdom, for the consecration of the Basílica of San Isidoro,[14] 
Ferdinand I summoned a Curia Regia to make known his testamentary dispositions, 
under which he decided to distribute his patrimony among his children, a distribution 
that would not become effective until the death of the monarch[15] in order to prevent 
any disputes arising after his death:[16]
Alfonso inherited the Kingdom of León,[16] "the most extensive, valuable and 
emblematic part: the one that contained the cities of Oviedo and León, cradles of the 
Asturian-Leonese monarchy",[6] which included Asturias, León, Astorga, El Bierzo, 
Zamora with Tierra de Campos as well as the parias of the Taifa of Toledo.[17]
His elder brother, Sancho, was given the Kingdom of Castile, created by his father for 
him, and the parias of the Taifa of Zaragoza.[16][18][c]
His younger brother, García, received the entire region of Galicia, "elevated to the 
rank of kingdom"[19] that extended south to the Mondego River in Portugal with the 
parias of the Taifa of Badajoz[19] and Seville.[20]
Their sisters, Urraca and Elvira, both received the Infantazgo, that is, "the patronage 
and income of all the monasteries belonging to the royal patrimony"[19] on the 
condition that they remained unmarried.[20]


*****

Wives, concubines and issue[edit]

His marriage with Agatha, daughter of William the Conqueror, King of England and 
Duke of Normandy, was negotiated in 1067,[63] but her premature death frustrated the 
project.

According to Bishop Pelagius of Oviedo, contemporary of the king, in his Chronicon 
regum Legionensium ("Chronicle of the Kings of León"), Alfonso VI had five wives and 
two concubines nobilissimas (very noble). The wives were, according to the bishop, 
Agnes, Constance, Berta, Isabel, and Beatrice and the concubines Jimena Muñoz and 
Zaida.[d]

Agnes of Aquitaine[edit]

In 1069, the betrothal with Agnes, daughter of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine was 
signed.[34][65] At the time, she was barely 10-years-old and it was necessary to wait 
until she reached age 14 for the official wedding, which took place in late 1073 or 
early 1074. She appears in royal diplomas until 22 May 1077 and from that date, the 
king appears alone in the documentation.[66] Agnes died on 6 June 1078.[66]

Reilly suggests that the marriage had been annulled in the previous year, probably 
because of the lack of children.[48] However, Gambra disagrees and believes that 
there are no reliable sources to support this assertion. The alleged repudiation 
appears only in a volume of L'art de vérifier les dates and, according to Gambra, "it is 
impossible, in the absence of better references, to grant credit to the assertion of 
Agnes' repudiation".[67][e] In addition, he indicates that Lucas de Tuy, in his 
Chronicon mundi, indicates that the Queen was buried in Sahagún. Finally, he points 
out that "If such an important event had taken place, it would not make much sense 
[...] that Alfonso VI immediately married another princess who was a member of Agnes' 
family".[67] Agnes and the king's next wife, Constance, were cousins in the third 
degree, both of them descendants of William III, Duke of Aquitaine.[69]

On the other hand, Orderic Vitalis, an English chronicler of the 12th century, said that 
the marriage of Agnes and Alfonso VI had been annulled in 1080 for reasons of 
consanguinity, and that Agnes was remarried in 1109 to Elias de la Fleche, Count of 
Maine.[70] According to Jaime de Salazar and Acha, it was Beatrice, the last wife of 
Alfonso VI, who married the Count of Maine.[71]
Jimena Muñoz[edit]

After the death of Agnes, the king had an affair with Jimena Muñoz, "most noble" 
(nobilissima) concubine "derived from royalty" (real generacion), according to Bishop 
Pelagius of Oviedo. They had two daughters born between 1078 and 1080:[48][72]
Elvira Alfónsez[48] (c. 1079 – aft. April 1157), who was married first to Raymond IV, 
Count of Toulouse[48] and then to Count Fernando Fernández de Carrión.[73]
Teresa Alfónsez[48][72] (c. 1080 – 11 November 1130), who married Henry, Count of 
Portugal;[48] they received the right to rule the County of Portugal and their eldest 
son, Afonso Henriques, became the first King of Portugal.[72]

Constance of Burgundy[edit]

At the end of 1079 Alfonso VI married Constance of Burgundy,[74] with whom he 
appears for the first time in royal charters on 8 May 1080.[75] She was the childless 
widow of Count Hugues III of Chalon-sur-Saône and daughter of Robert the Old, Duke 
of Burgundy and his first wife Hélie de Semur-en-Brionnais,[76] and great-
granddaughter of Hugh Capet, King of France.[48][75] She was also the niece of 
Abbot Hugh of Cluny[77] and aunt of Henry of Burgundy.[78] From this union, which 
lasted until Constance's death in 1093,[55][f] were born six children, of whom only one 
reached adulthood:[81]
Urraca[48] (c. 1080 – 8 March 1126), successor of her father in the thrones of León 
and Castile, she married firstly Raymond of Burgundy[48] and secondly King Alfonso I 
of Aragon. She also had two illegitimate children from her relationship with Count 
Pedro González de Lara.[82] She was succeeded by her son with Raymond of 
Burgundy, Alfonso VII the Emperor.[74]

Zaida[edit]

Bishop Pelagius of Oviedo mentions Zaida as one of the king's two concubines and 
says that she was the daughter of Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, ruler of the Taifa of Seville. 
In fact, she was his daughter-in-law, married to his son Abu Nasr Al-Fath al-Ma'mun, 
ruler of the Taifa of Córdoba.[83][84] In March 1091, the Almoravid army besieged the 
city of Córdoba. Zaida's husband, who died during the siege on 26–27 March, sent his 
wife and children to Almodóvar del Río as a precautionary measure. After becoming a 
widow, Zaida sought protection at the court of the Leonese king and she and her 
children converted to Christianity; she was baptized with the name "Isabel" and 
became the king's concubine.[85] She bore him one son:
Sancho Alfónsez (c. 1094 – 29 May 1108),[86][87] Alfonso VI's only son and heir. His 
premature death in the Battle of Uclés so grieved his father that he too soon died.

In the chronicle De rebus Hispaniae, by the Archbishop of Toledo Rodrigo Jiménez de 
Rada, Zaida is counted among the wives of Alfonso VI. But the Chronica Naierensis 
and the Chronicon mundi indicate that Zaida was a concubine and not the wife of 
Alfonso VI.[88]

According to Jaime de Salazar y Acha, followed by other authors, among them, 
Gonzalo Martínez Diez, they married in 1100, and with this ceremony their son was 
legitimized and declared heir of the Kingdoms of León and Castile.[89][90][91] For 
Salazar y Acha, Zaida and the fourth wife of Alfonso VI, Isabel, are the same person, 
"despite of the impotent efforts of later historians to try to prove that she was not the 
Moor Zaida",[92] and, accordingly, she would also be the mother of Elvira and Sancha 
Alfónsez.[93] Another reason the author mentions to support this hypotheis was that 
shortly after the marriage of the king with Isabel, his son Sancho begins to confirm 
royal charters and, if Isabel and Zaida were not the same person, the new queen 
would not have allowed the new protagonism of Sancho in detriment of her possible 
future sons.[94] He also cites a charter from the cathedral of Astorga dated 14 April 
1107 where Alfonso VI grants some fueros and acts cum uxore mea Elisabet et filio 
nostro Sancio (with my wife Isabel and our son Sancho).[94] This is the only document 
where Sancho is referred to as "our son", since in others he only appears as the 
king's son even though Queen Isabel also confirms the charters.

Reilly accepts that there were two Isabels: the Moor Zaida (baptized Isabel) and the 
other Isabel, but argues that to reinforce the position of Sancho Alfónsez, the king 
annulled his marriage to Isabel in March 1106 and married Zaida.[91][95] The 
hypothesis that Alfonso VI had married Zaida was rejected by Menéndez Pidal and 
Lévi-Provençal.[96]

On 27 March 1106, Alfonso VI confirmed a donation to the monastery of Lorenzana: 
(...) eiusdemque Helisabeth regina sub maritali copula legaliter aderente, an unusual 
formula that confirms a legitimate marriage.[97] Salazar y Acha and Reilly interpret this 
quote as proof that the king had married Zaida, thus legitimizing their son and the 
relationship of concubinage.[98][99] Gambra, however, disagrees and says that it is 
"an extremely weak argument, starting with the documentary reference, which is 
scarcely significant. Its character is rather ornamental and literary".[98] Montaner 
Frutos also says that this hypothesis is "unlikely and problematic" since it was not 
necessary for the king to marry Zaida to legitimize his son and that, furthermore, the 
French Isabel died in 1107 according to her epitaph.[100] Montaner Frutos also 
mentions a donation from Queen Urraca years later, in 1115, when she donated 
properties to Toledo Cathedral and only mentions one Isabel as the king's wife.[g]

Berta[edit]

On 25 November 1093 Alfonso VI contracted a third marriage with Berta,[55][h] 
although in a document dated 13 April 1094 she is not mentioned as would have been 
the custom at that time.[103] For onomastic reasons, the genealogist Szabolcs de 
Vajay suggested that she was a member of the House of Savoy, daughter of Count 
Amadeus II of Savoy, niece of Bertha of Savoy (wife of Henry IV, Holy Roman 
Emperor), great-granddaughter of Bertha of Milan and first-cousin of another Bertha 
(who married King Peter I of Aragon and Navarre).[104] Her presence in court was first 
recorded on 28 April 1095.[103][i] She died between 17 November 1099, when she 
confirms a royal diploma for the last time, and 15 January 1100 when the king appears 
alone in a donation to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.[105][106] There was 
no issue from this marriage.[91][107]

Isabel[edit]

Alfonso VI's penultimate marriage was to Isabel and "the cause of controversy during 
centuries has been whether this Isabel was the same person as Zaida or a different 
individual".[108] Both appear together for the first time on 14 May 1100 although the 
diploma is considered suspicious, and the second time in that same year at an 
unspecified date.[109] Isabel's last mention in royal diplomas was on 8 and 14 May 
1107 and she probably died in the middle of that year.[110] She is, according to 
Salazar y Acha, Zaida, who after her baptism was called Isabel. If not identical to 
Zaida, her origin is uncertain. Bishop Pelagius of Oviedo does not refer to her origin. 
Lucas de Tuy in the 13th century, based on the epitaph of Isabel, makes her daughter 
of King Louis of France, who at that time would have to be Louis VI although this 
seems to be chronologically impossible. Reilly considers that she was probably of 
Burgundian origin,[111] although this does not appear in the documentation.[109] Two 
daughters were born from this union:
Sancha (c. 1102 – before 10 May 1125), first wife of Rodrigo González de Lara,[112] 
Count of Liébana, with whom she had Elvira Rodríguez de Lara, wife of Ermengol VI, 
Count of Urgell.[j]
Elvira (c. 1103 – 8 February 1135), wife of King Roger II of Sicily.[112]

Beatrice[edit]

Alfonso VI married his fifth wife, Beatrice, probably in the first months of 1108.[63]
[113] Both appear together for the first time on 28 May 1108 in Astorga Cathedral and 
then in two other royal charters: on 1 January 1109 in the Cathedral of León and for 
the last time on 25 April of the same year in Oviedo Cathedral,[113] about three 
months before the death of the king. According to Bishop Pelagius of Oviedo, once a 
widow, Beatrice returned to her homeland.[63] Salazar y Acha suggests that she was 
the daughter of William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine and his third wife Hildegarde of 
Burgundy,[114] and that she remarried Elias I, Count of Maine.[71][115]

Succession crisis[edit]

Alfonso VI, already old, had to deal with the problem of his succession.[116] Berta had 
died without giving him an heir at the end of 1099; shortly after Alfonso married Isabel 
who gave him two daughters, but no sons.[91] To further complicate the situation, in 
March 1105 his grandson Alfonso Raimúndez, son of Urraca and Raymond of 
Burgundy, was born,[91] a possible contender to the throne in detriment to Sancho 
Alfónsez, the king's son with Zaida.[91] Montenegro thinks that Alfonso VI legitimized 
Sancho probably coinciding with the meeting of a council in Carrión de los Condes in 
January 1103 because from that date onwards, Sancho began to confirm royal 
charters before his brothers-in-law Raymond and Henry of Burgundy.[117] In May 
1107, Alfonso imposed the recognition of Sancho as heir, despite the probable 
opposition of his daughters and sons-in-law,[91] in the course of a Curia Regia held in 
León.[118] The situation improved for the king with the death of Raymond of Burgundy 
in September and the agreement with Urraca so that she remained as sovereign Lady 
of Galicia,[119] except in the case of remarrying since, in that case, Galicia would 
pass to her son.[120]

The death of Sancho in the Battle of Uclés on 29 May 1108 left Alfonso VI without his 
only male heir. He then chose his eldest legitimate daughter Urraca as his successor, 
but decided to marry her with his rival and famous warrior King Alfonso I of Aragon and 
Navarre in the fall of 1108.[61] Although the marriage was celebrated at the end of 
the following year, it did not lead to the expected stability, but to a long civil war that 
lasted eight years.[10]

Death and burial[edit]

Alfonso VI died in Toledo on 1 July 1109.[2] The king had come to the city to try to 
defend it from an imminent Almoravid attack.[10] His body was taken to the locality of 
Sahagún, and was buried in the Royal Monastery of San Benito, thus fulfilling the 
wishes of the monarch.[2] The mortal remains of the king were deposited in a stone 
sepulcher, which was placed at the feet of the church of the Royal Monastery, until 
the reign of Sancho IV, who deemed it unseemly that his ancestor was buried to the 
feet of the temple and ordered the tomb to be moved inside and placed in the church's 
transept, near the tomb of Beatriz, Dowager Lady of Los Cameros and daughter of 
Infante Frederick of Castile who had been executed by orders of his brother, King 
Alfonso X the Wise in 1277.[121]

The sepulcher that contained the remains of the king, now disappeared, was 
supported on alabaster lions, and was a large ark of white marble, eight feet long and 
four wide and tall, being covered by smooth and black lid. The tomb was usually 
covered by a silk tapestry, woven in Flanders, bearing the image of the king crowned 
and armed, with the representation of the arms of Castile and León on the sides, and a 
crucifix at the head of the tomb.[121]

The tomb that contained the remains of Alfonso VI was destroyed in 1810, during the 
fire at the Royal Monastery of San Benito. The mortal remains of the king and those of 
several of his wives were collected and preserved in the abbey chamber until 1821, 
when the monks were expelled, and were then deposited by the abbot Ramón Alegrías 
in a box, which was placed in the southern wall of the chapel of the Crucifix until 
January 1835, when the remains were collected again and placed in another box and 
taken to the archive where the remains of the wives of the sovereign were at that 
time. The purpose was to place all the royal remains in a new sanctuary that was 
being built at that time.[121] However, when the Royal Monastery of San Benito was 
dissolved in 1835, the monks delivered the two boxes with the royal remains to a 
relative of one of them, who kept it hidden until in 1902 when these were discovered 
by Rodrigo Fernández Núñez, a professor at the Institute of Zamora Rodrigo.[121]

The mortal remains of Alfonso VI are now in the Monastery of the Benedictine nuns of 
Sahagún, at the foot of the temple, in a smooth stone ark and with a cover of modern 
marble, and in a nearby sepulcher, equally smooth, lies the remains of several of the 
king's wives.[2]

Legacy[edit]

In the cultural field, Alfonso VI promoted the safety of the Camino de Santiago and 
promoted the Cluniac Reforms in the monasteries of Galicia, León and Castile. In the 
spring of 1073, he made the first concession of a Leonese monastery to the Order of 
Cluny.[34]

The monarch replaced the Mozarabic or Toledan rite for the Roman one. In this 
respect it is a common legend that Alfonso VI took Mozarabic and Roman breviaries 
and threw them into the fire. When only the Roman breviary burned, the king threw 
the Mozarabic one into the fire, imposing thus the Roman rite.

Alfonso VI, the conqueror of Toledo, the great Europeanizing monarch, saw in the last 
years of his reign how the great political work that he had carried started to be 
dismantled due to the Almoravid attacks and internal weaknesses. Alfonso VI had fully 
assumed the imperial idea of León and his openness to European influence had made 
him aware of the feudal political practices which, in the France of his time, reached 
their most complete expression. In the conjunction of these two elements, Claudio 
Sánchez-Albornoz sees the explanation of the grant of the iure hereditario (sharing 
between the two daughters and the son the kingdom instead of bequeathing all to the 
only son) —more typical of the Navarrese-Aragonese tradition— of the Counties of 
Galicia and Portugal to her two Burgundian sons-in-law, Raymond (Urraca's first 
husband) and Enrique (Teresa's spouse). After a few years, that decision led to the 
independence of Portugal and the possibility of an independent Galicia under Alfonso 
Raimúndez, which finally did not materialize when the infante became King Alfonso VII 
of León.

Parents
____ Fernando I "the Great" (ABT 1016 - 27 Dec 1065)
OF LEON Sancha (ABT 1016 - 27 Nov 1067)

Siblings
____ Alfonso VI "The Valiant" (BEF Jun 1040 - 1 Jul 1109)

Marriage To NUNEZ DE GUZMAN Ximena (ABT 1048 - 1128)
    m.  

Notes

Parents
NUNO DE GUZMAN Rodriquez (ABT 1026 - )
ORDONEZ Ximena (ABT 1030 - )

Children by NUNEZ DE GUZMAN Ximena ABT 1048 - 1128
DE CASTILE AND LEON Teresa Alfonso (ABT 1080 - 1 Nov 1130)

Marriage To OF BURGUNDY Constance (8 May 1046 - 1093)
    m. 1079 

Notes
his 2d

Parents
____ Robert I "the Old" (ABT 1011 - 21 Mar 1076)
DE SEMUR Helie (Edwige) (Ella) (Ermengarde) (1016 - 22 Apr 1055)

Children by OF BURGUNDY Constance 8 May 1046 - 1093
ALFONSEZ OF CASTILE AND LEON Urraca (ABT 1082 - 8 Mar 1126)

Marriage To ____ Zaida (Isabel) (1075 - ABT 1110)
    m.  

Notes

Parents
AL-MU'TAMID Muhammed III be Abbad (Abdul-Kasim) (1040 - 1095)
____ I'tamid ()

Children by ____ Zaida (Isabel) 1075 - ABT 1110
ALFONSEZ Sancha (ABT 1101 - )

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