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Birth:          ABT  900 
Death:          1 Jan  951 

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramiro_II_of_Le%C3%B3n
Ramiro II (c. 900 – 1 January 951), son of Ordoño II, was a King of León from 931 until 
his death. Initially titular king only of a lesser part of the kingdom, he gained the 
crown of León (and with it, Galicia) after supplanting his brother Alfonso IV and cousin 
Alfonso Fróilaz in 931. The scant Anales castellanos primeros are a primary source for 
his reign.
Succession[edit]

When, shortly before his death in 910, Alfonso III of Asturias was forced by his sons to 
abdicate, the Kingdom of Asturias descended into a period of successional crises 
among the royal family and their supporters from the regional marcher aristocracies. 
The kingdom was initially partitioned, with García I receiving the León, Ordoño II 
Galicia and Fruela II the Asturian heartland.

With the successive deaths of García I (914) and Ordoño (924), these were re-
consolidated, Fruela ruling the entirety of what would thenceforth be referred to as the 
Kingdom of León. His death the next year, 925, again brought about disputed 
succession and partition. A younger brother, Ramiro, appears to have married Fruela's 
widow and adopted the royal title, but gained no traction. Instead it was the next 
generation that rose to the forefront.

As eldest son of the prior king, Alfonso Fróilaz was crowned but proved unable to 
extend his power to the entire kingdom and was marginalized by his cousins the three 
sons of Ordoño II, who had the backing of the Kingdom of Pamplona. These brothers 
again partitioned the portion of the kingdom they controlled: the eldest, Sancho 
Ordóñez, ruling in Galicia, Alfonso IV in León, and Ramiro II in the newly conquered 
lands to the south (al-Andalus chronicler Ibn Hayyan located his court at Coimbra).

When Sancho died in 929 his kingdom was absorbed by Alfonso IV, but in a quick 
succession of events taking place in Leon and Zamora, Ramiro forced the abdication 
of Alfonso IV, and had him and Fruela II's three sons blinded in order to make them 
incapable of ruling.[1]

Reign[edit]

Ramiro stood out as an excellent military commander, and expanded remarkably his 
territories south (Salamanca, Ledesma,...) as well as founding or repopulating frontier 
strongholds (Osma, Clunia,...). Ramiro masterminded a Pamplona/León coalition that 
defeated a joint Andalusian counter-offensive in the Battle of Simancas (939).[2] This 
victory allowed the advance of the Leonese border of the Duero to the Tormes.

In the last years of his reign, he lost the support of his Pamplona brother-in-law/son-
in-law García Sánchez I, who then helped another brother-in-law, the count Fernán 
González of Castile, to gain brief de facto independence. Still in 950 Ramiro launched 
an expedition to the valley of the Edge and defeated the Cordovan Umayyads at 
Talavera.

Family[edit]

Ramiro II married twice, first to his first cousin Adosinda Gutiérrez, daughter of Gutier 
Osóriz and Ildonzia Menéndez (a sister of Ramiro's mother, queen Elvira Menéndez), 
and second to Urraca Sánchez of Pamplona, daughter of Sancho I of Pamplona and 
Toda. By Adosinda, who was also cousin of San Rosendo, Ramiro had Bermudo and 
Ordoño III, and presumably also daughter Theresa, wife of García Sánchez I of 
Pamplona. García is referred to as Ramiro's son-in-law by chronicler Ibn Hayyan, and 
his eldest son by his documented second wife Theresa was named Ramiro, while 
Theresa would not have been daughter of Ramiro II's second wife, who was her 
husband's sister. By Urraca, Ramiro had two children, Sancho I of León and Elvira 
Ramírez.

He figures prominently in the romantic poem, the Miragaia, which tells the apocryphal 
story of Ramiro bedding Ortega, the daughter of a local Arab lord. By her he is given a 
son Alboazar, the progenitor of the Galician/Portuguese Maia family.[3] This Maia 
tradition was subsequently linked to another legend, that told in the Cantar de los 
Siete Infantes de Lara by giving Ramiro and Ortega a daughter Ortega Ramírez, who 
is made to marry Gustios Gonzalez, grandfather of the legendary infantes and of hero 
Mudarra González. Subsequent elaboration of this legend gave further supposed 
descendants among the Lara family, but these Lara connections are dismissed by 
modern scholars.

Parents
____ Ordono II (ABT  873 - 3 Jan  924)
MENENDEZ Nunja Elvira (ABT  875 -  921)

Siblings
____ Ramiro II (ABT  900 - 1 Jan  951)

Marriage To GUTIERREZ Adosinda (ABT  900 - )
    m.  925 

Notes

Parents
OSORIZ Gutierre (ABT  870 - ABT  941)
GUTIERREZ Ildonca (ABT  870 -  942)

Children by GUTIERREZ Adosinda ABT  900 - 
____ Ordono III (ABT  926 -  955)
OF LEON Teresa (ABT  926 - )

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