Continuing and now to close the series of entries on the succession of Alfonso IX of León, we place ourselves in the weeks after his death in 1230 to follow in the footsteps of the candidates for the throne, the infantas Sancha and Dulce on the one hand, and the King Ferdinand III of Castile on the other.
When the death of the king was known, the infantas traveled from Galicia to León accompanied by their mother Teresa of Portugal. Fernando, for his part, was in an attempt to conquer Jaén, which was not proving successful at all. In fact, although some chronicles state that he decided to leave the site when the news of his father's death reached him, it seems clear that it was the impossibility of taking the city that made him return to Castile and that it was on this return trip that his mother Berenguela met him in Orgaz and made him see the need to travel immediately to León. Both set off for the capital along with all the nobles of the entourage of the King of Castile.
The chronicles relate that Fernando was recognized as legitimate king by the councils of Villalpando and Toro and by the bishops of Oviedo, Astorga, León, Lugo, Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo and in the towns of Mayorga and Mansilla, as well as in León itself. Chao highlights that Bishop Ximénez de Rada (a supporter of Fernando III, during whose reign he wrote his chronicle) "silences the resistance and the combats carried out by his opponents, which, however, do appear reflected in other sources."
The chronicles also relate that Sancha and Dulce were not received in the same way on their journey and that they were not allowed to enter either Astorga or León and Benavente where, according to the Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile:«The response of the people and bishops was that they would receive their persons and serve them willingly, but not their soldiers or armed men. They finally arrived in Zamora, with their mother, Queen Teresa, who always accompanied them, and there they were received, since they were addicted to the noble ladies Ruiz Fernández, nicknamed the Ugly, son of Count Froilán, and many others from the land of Lion”.
Chao questions the story of the chronicles:«Things were not so simple. In León there was opposition to Fernando III, and in both Astorga and Benavente the tenente was Rodrigo Fernández de Valduerna, a firm supporter of the infantas, so it is strange that they were not well received in any of the three cities, even in the case the bishops opposed them.”
While Sancha and Dulce settled in the only city that had welcomed them, Zamora, Fernando III, still on his way to the capital, found out about the resistance in the place that was facing the most opposition:León itself. The opponents of the King of Castile, led by the merino mayor, settled in the royal palace and the nobleman Diego Froilaz did the same in the church of San Isidoro. Meanwhile, Fernando's supporters did so in the cathedral, led by the bishop, and groups of bourgeois occupied the towers of the walls and the rest of the city's churches.
The situation changed when Diego Froilaz fell ill and left León and his resistance and Bishop Rodrigo and his supporters regained control of San Isidoro. The prelate sent a message to Fernando, who was surely in Mansilla, asking him to go to the capital. Once there, his supporters proclaimed him king of León.
The older merino continued to take refuge in the royal palace, but it was more a symbolic act of opposition than a properly organized movement against the monarch that would endanger Fernando's future as king. In the following days, tycoons and representatives of the cities arrived to swear in the new Leonese monarch.
However, the most important nobles of the kingdom took some time to pronounce themselves, while they checked how the situation was evolving in the two most likely foci of opposition to Fernando, Galicia and Asturias. This explains why the first two diplomas awarded by the king do not include the names of any of these magnates, although they do include those of the Castilian, Leonese and Galician prelates, including the Archbishop of Santiago.
In October 1230, an embassy sent by Teresa of Portugal arrived in León requesting an interview with the mother of Fernando III, to discuss the future of her daughters. The two wives of the deceased Alfonso IX, Teresa of Portugal and Berenguela of Castile, met in Valencia de don Juan to discuss the issue of the succession and there they reached an agreement, which was later reflected on December 11, 1230 in the well-known as Concordia de Benavente, signed by Fernando III and his stepsisters Sancha and Dulce.
By virtue of the agreement, the two sisters renounced their dynastic rights to the throne of León ("they renounced the right, if any they had in the kingdom, and destroyed the paternal letters on the succession or on the donation of the kingdom to them") to exchange for the allocation of a very generous pension of thirty thousand maravedíes a year corresponding to the income of various manors in Asturias, León and Castile. The path to the throne of León for Fernando III was thus cleared, although not completely cleared.
Not everyone willingly accepted what was agreed in Benavente. Lucas de Tuy reports that:«There was a great disturbance in the kingdom of León, because many Galician and Asturian knights burned many towns and left them without the walls that King Alfonso had built for them, and they also made an effort to resist King Fernando. […] After appeasing the whole kingdom of him, (Ferdinand) banished all the knights who had burned the palaces of his father ».
Other chronicles narrate the resistance of magnates and townspeople in León and Galicia against the appointment of Fernando III with daily fights between supporters and detractors of the new monarch.
González Jiménez disagrees about the cause of these incidents outlined in the chronicles:«Without denying that in these two areas of the kingdom (Galicia and Asturias) there was a special resistance to recognizing Fernando as king, it is evident that the revolt had no direct relationship with this fact but rather with the existing discontent among the local hidalgos due to the policy of Alfonso IX to recover for the royal lands that until then mainly benefited the local nobility. […] Now, mixing the issue of succession with their own claims could be a way of justifying what was purely and simply a manifestation of that inveterate tendency of the feudals to take advantage of any power vacuum to prey on the weak.[…] As guarantee of the agreement (of Benavente) and following the custom of the time, Fernando III handed over in "fieldad" [...] twelve castles. Twelve Leonese noblemen from among the most outstanding in the lands of León were appointed as tenentes en «fieldad» of the aforementioned fortresses. […] This long list of Leonese noblemen and knights is the best proof of the full acceptance of Fernando III as king by the nobility of the kingdom. In it are all the politically significant tycoons, including even those who had tried to prevent him from accessing the throne, as is the case of Diego Froilaz and García Ruiz Carnota, the eldest merino of León, whom, by the way, the monarch kept in his charge”.
Chao, after highlighting that the resistance in León against Fernando is demonstrated by the fact that the first two documents granted by the new Leonese king are not confirmed by the nobles, thus recounts what happened:«This 'concord' led to the destruction of all that document that could involve a future claim of succession rights. It was the beginning of a campaign of manipulation, rewriting and accommodation of the history of the kingdom of León to taste and under Castilian political needs. Berenguela and Fernando III order new chronicles in which they and their ancestors should be the protagonists. We must even thank the intellectual scruples of the chroniclers —Lucas de Tuy, Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada and Juan de Soria— who left a shadow of that kingdom. Although it was at the cost of turning Alfonso VI and Alfonso VII into "kings of Castile" when they never used such a title, neither on their coins, nor in their inscriptions, nor in their chronicles. Or to falsify History:in the General Chronicle of Spain (1344) it is stated that Alfonso IX and Teresa of Portugal had no offspring. With this documentary destruction, Fernando III and Berenguela concealed the illegality of their actions. The medievalist Inés Calderón Medina suspects that it was part of an authentic campaign of damnatio memoriae in which they would have expurgated the diplomas in which any other heir to the Leonese throne other than Fernando III appeared. This maneuver explains why so few documents from this period are preserved and, above all, so skipped. Julio González, the greatest expert on these reigns, admitted with dismay that "as of 1217, there are no documents to fully understand what happened in León regarding the succession to the throne."
Puente does not seem to share Chao's opinion on Berenguela and her role in relation to the kingdom of León:«From 1197 to the beginning of 1204 Berenguela of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VIII, was queen of León and one of the most endearing figures who has given the Leonese monarchy. The arrival in the capital of León of this exceptional woman, whom the people affectionately called 'la Castellana', must have revolutionized the daily chores of the court. Berengaria had an unlimited capacity for work at the service of her royal tasks; she dispatched matters quickly, organized, ordered the construction of civil and religious buildings and made decisions as if she herself were the private queen of León. All the testimonies that have come down to us speak of this woman as a pious, prudent queen, heir to the wisdom and intelligence of her father and, even, with a certain manly air in her determination. Her enormous capacity for harmony and the fact that she was well regarded by both kingdoms was decisive so that after the death of her father, Alfonso VIII, her brother Enrique and her husband Alfonso IX, she was able to agree with León and Castile to a peaceful solution to the succession problems. […] Upon the death of Alfonso IX, her good will and her diplomatic skills ensured that the problem of succession created in the kingdom of León did not have dramatic consequences».
Manzano Moreno maintains that:«When in 1230 her former husband, Alfonso IX, died, Berengaria again maneuvered with great skill. Although the deceased had not wanted to hear of a possible inheritance from his son, who had become Castilian king, during his lifetime, Berengaria managed to ensure that, in the absence of any other male heir, Fernando III also became king of León, thus uniting both kingdoms of final form. The union, however, encountered serious resistance, especially in Galicia, which had to be subdued by the king himself."
For González Jiménez:«The success of the negotiation (of the Concordia de Benavente) was due to the skill of Doña Berenguela and the realism of Doña Teresa de Portugal. […] The union of the kingdoms of Castile and León not only put an end to an unjustified division; it also reinforced the power of Ferdinand III, who became, from 1230, undisputedly the most powerful monarch in Spain».
And in similar terms Pérez de Tudela y Velasco points out that thanks “to the good judgment of the female sector of the family, some setting an example of political maturity, others of generosity, they reached the final agreement. […] Gone are 80 years of gratuitous confrontations, a trail of useless blood, senseless destruction and causeless pain».
The first two years of his reign, Fernando III dedicated them to touring his domains to make himself known to his Leonese subjects (he had been absent for thirteen years) and win his support. To this end, he confirmed privileges and granted donations, all of them well chosen to achieve the desired objective.
One of the places where this propaganda and political task was most necessary was Galicia, where there were still foci opposed to the king. There he spent several months between the end of 1231 and 1232. In addition to visiting the sepulcher of his father and that of the apostle Santiago in Compostela, he took the opportunity to put out the last embers of rebellion.
According to the Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, the work of Juan de Soria, chancellor of Ferdinand III and privileged witness of his reign:«In the following year (1231), around the Nativity of the Lord, the king entered Galicia, the one that led from turmoil to peace, and, having healed many evils after a profound investigation and promulgated some constitutions against the disturbers and malefactors of the earth, he arrived in the Asturias of Oviedo, where he stayed for a little time, and, restored the damaged and the land pacified, he left there and, passing through León, arrived at Carrión, where his mother met him and where his wife had lived for a long time.”
The fact that in Carrión not only his mother and his wife met him, but also representatives of the Leonese councils and nobles of Asturias and Galicia, suggests that by then those sources of "no small disturbance" to which the Chronicle alluded Latin America had been definitively extinguished and that Fernando III could be sure that his figure was already settled peacefully in all the corners of his kingdom.
Chao points out that, despite the dynamic union between León and Castile, «throughout the 13th century, people from León and Castilian celebrated their respective Courts separately. Sometimes they are convened in the same city, but the representatives of each Crown meet and deliberate in different rooms:for example, this was what happened with those held in Valladolid in 1293. Relations between one and the other should not be be very cordial, since Fernando IV justifies the separation "to avoid fights and brawls that could occur". The topics to be dealt with were sometimes similar in both Courts, but there were also many peculiarities:thus, the Leonese emphasized that the Jurisdiction Law had to continue to be the main guide in their lawsuits, and demanded that the natives of their kingdoms could only be tried in the Leonese courts”.
Prieto, for his part, points out that «the definitive union of 1230 maintained the administrative and fiscal division of both territories for many years. The continuity of the Leonese legislative system was still evident at the beginning of the 13th century, when Ferdinand III retouched and updated the Fuero Juzgo […] At the end of the 13th century, when there was still a distinction between the two kingdoms, the courts were convened separately, as as happened in those of Zamora in 1301, valid for León, Galicia and Asturias, and those of Burgos, on the same date, for Castile and the maritime lands; but when they were made jointly, like those of Valladolid in 1258 or those of Seville in 1261, the laws were different when it came to being applied, whether in the old territories of León or those of Castile".
The history of the reign of Alfonso IX and his succession is one of those that are part of the book De la guerra a la unificación. The history of León and Castile from 1037 to 1252 , which has served as a source for this series of entries and which is available at the link, on paper on the websites todotuslibros.com and libreamos.com and in electronic version on Amazon.
Image| Wikimedia Commons, Author archive.