Peter I (Aragon)

Peter I, fantasy painting from the 19th century

Peter I. (* around 1068, † 27 / 28. September 1104 ) was a king of Aragón and Navarra from the Jiménez dynasty . He was the eldest son of King Sancho I./V. from Aragon-Navarre from his first marriage to Isabella von Urgell.

Life

Peter came to the throne of Aragon in 1094 after his father fell in the unsuccessful siege of the Moorish city of Huesca . He continued the fight and was finally able to conquer Huesca after the victory in the Battle of Alcoraz on November 18, 1096 against the Typhoon King of Saragossa and his Castilian allies. To continue the Reconquista , Peter allied himself in 1097 with Rodrigo Díaz "El Cid" de Vivar and married his son to his daughter. After a siege of more than a year, on October 18, 1100, he was finally able to conquer the long-fought Barbastro and thus permanently move the border between Aragon and Muslim Al-Andalus to the Ebro . Allegedly, Peter intended an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1101 to emulate the knights of the first crusade , but this was forbidden by Pope Paschal II , who instead encouraged him to continue the pagan war at home. However, the credibility of this story is rated as low. In the fall of 1102, Peter began the siege of Zaragoza, the most powerful Moorish typhoon kingdom and main rival of Aragon. But a massive counter-offensive by the Moors under the leadership of the Almoravids , in which his cousin Ermengol V von Urgell was killed, forced him to break off the siege.

Peter died on September 27 or 28, 1104, at the age of about 35, shortly after his children had also died; he was buried with them in the monastery of San Juan de la Peña . His policy of expansion against Saragossa was successfully continued by his half-brother Alfonso I "the fighter" , who thus completed the establishment of Aragon as the second Christian power on the Iberian Peninsula next to León - Castile .

Marriages and offspring

In January 1086 Peter married Agnes von Poitou († 1097), daughter of Duke Wilhelm VIII of Aquitaine, in Jaca . He had two children with her:

• Peter († February 1, 1104), ⚭ 1098 María Rodríguez, daughter of El Cid ;
• Isabella († before August 18, 1104).

After Agnes died, he married the Italian noblewoman Bertha (* around 1075, † before 1111) on August 16, 1097 in Huesca, possibly a daughter of Count Peter I of Savoy and Turin .

literature

• Antonio Ubieto Arteta: Colección diplomática de Pedro I de Aragón y Navarra. Zaragoza, 1951.
• Antonio Ubieto Arteta: Historia de Aragón, Volume 1. Saragossa, 1981.
• Bernard F. Reilly: The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI 1065-1109. Princeton University Press, 1988 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Peter I of Aragón  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Infante don Pedro de Aragón at fmg.ac (English)

Remarks

1. ↑ See Ubieto Arteta (1981), pp. 118-128.
2. ↑ See Ubieto Arteta (1981), pp. 129-130.
3. ↑ See Reilly (1988), §15, p. 304.
4. ↑ Historia de la Corona de Aragón: Crónica de San Juan de la Peña: Part aragonesa , ed. by T. Ximénez de Embún y Val (1876), §28, p. 64. Annales Compostellani, ed. by Enríque Flórez in: España Sagrada. Vol. 23 (1765), p. 321.
5. ↑ See Szabolcs de Vajay : Contribution a l'Histoire de l'Attitude des Royaumes Pireneens dans la Querelle des Investitures. De l'Origine de Berthe, Reine d'Aragon et de Navarre. In: Estudios Genealogicos, Heraldicos y Nobilarios en Honor de Vicente Cadenas y Vicent. Volume 2, 1978, p. 389.

predecessor	Office	successor
Sancho I./V.	King of Aragón, King of Navarre 1094–1104	Alfons I.