Sancho VII (Navarre)

Sancho VII the Strong ( Basque Antso Azkarra , Spanish Sancho el Fuerte ; † April 7, 1234 in Tudela ) was King of Navarre from 1194 to 1234 , the last of the House of Jiménez . He was a son of King Sancho VI. the sage and the Sancha of Castile.

The reclining figure of the grave of Sanchos VII in Santa María de Roncesvalles.

His nickname results from a martial determination ascribed to him combined with his unusual height, which, according to a medical examination of his bones, was 2.23 m.

Life

As a prince, Sancho supported his brother-in-law Richard the Lionheart in the fight against his enemies: 1192 against Count Raimund V of Toulouse and rebellious nobles of Aquitaine , and in 1194 against Philip II of France . He besieged Loches in June 1194 , where he received news of his father's death, whereupon he hurried back to Navarre without having captured the castle, to be crowned in Pamplona on August 15th .

Immediately after he came to power, Sancho began a policy to reclaim the Rioja and thus started a war against his cousin, King Alfonso VIII of Castile . He took advantage of the latter's defeat against the Muslim Almohads in the Battle of Alarcos on July 19, 1195 and plundered the Castilian territory around Soria , Almazán and Logroño . On the initiative of Pope Coelestin III. However, Alfonso VIII brought about an alliance with Aragón , against which Sancho was defeated and therefore had to renounce his conquests in March 1196 in a peace negotiated at Tarazona . The papal policy was aimed at an alliance of all Christian kings of Spain for a crusade against the Almohads; Accordingly, the Pope honored Sancho's relenting towards Castile and recognized his kingship in a letter of April 22, 1196. Since the death of Alfonso "the warrior" of Aragón-Navarre in 1134, the popes had not accepted the omission of his inheritance by the great Navarre and both García IV and Sancho VI. and finally Sancho VII refused recognition as kings. Instead, they had simply given them the dignity of "Dukes of Navarre". By Celestine III. Now that he recognized the realpolitical facts, he counted on the inclusion of Sanchos in the Christian alliance of crusades as a grateful accommodation.

In fact, however, he quickly resumed his anti-Castile policy and formed an alliance with King Alfonso IX. of León , in which the Almohads should also be included. After Sancho had attacked some castles of Alfonso VIII, the papal cardinal legate Gregory of Sant'Angelo, who was present in Spain, was forced on January 8, 1198 to pronounce the excommunication against him and the interdict over his kingdom. With regard to the charge of fraternization with the unbelievers, Pope Innocent III. Open an investigation on April 16, which appears to have worked in Sancho's favor. In any case, on July 15, 1198, the Pope allowed the Bishop of Pamplona to hold the Holy Office , which was only possible after the interdict had been lifted. Regardless of this, Alfonso VIII and Peter II agreed on May 20, 1198 in Calatayud on a division of Navarre among themselves and began the war. With the financial support of the Bishop of Pamplona, ​​Sancho was able to fight off his opponents, but lost some castles such as Aibar, Miranda and Inzura. Finally, Peter II of Aragón expressed his will for peace, provided that Sancho would allow him to marry one of his sisters, through whom the Aragonese apparently sought the inheritance of Navarre. Sancho accepted this offer, whereupon Alfonso VIII, who had been disavowed by his ally, had to withdraw from Navarre after completing a mutual oath of peace.

The Kingdom of Navarre after the Peace of Guadalajara in 1207.

Meanwhile, Sancho received the support of the Pope, who on February 11, 1199 declared the voidness of the marriage vows with the King of Aragón, as the latter, as a third cousin, was too closely related to the desired bride. However, this happened after Sancho had embarked on a highly regarded trip to the court of the Almohad king in Morocco in the summer of 1198 , where he had allegedly pursued a love affair with an oriental princess. He was the first Spanish king to travel to North Africa. In doing so, however, he severely discredited himself against the Pope and his fellow Christian rulers, which was particularly convenient for Alfonso VIII of Castile, who with the papal intervention in spring 1199 declared his oath of peace to be null and void and invaded Navarre again. Because of his absence, Sancho could not do anything about this invasion, especially since with the death of his brother-in-law Richard the Lionheart in the same year his only noteworthy ally died. By 1200, Alfonso VIII conquered the provinces of Álava , Guipúzcoa and the western Vizcaya around Durango , which together make up what is now the autonomous Basque Country . After his return from Africa in 1200, Sancho was able to stop the further advance of his opponents, to whom Peter II of Aragon had again stood. However, he was unable to recapture the lost territory and finally had to do without it entirely on October 29, 1207 in the peace of Guadalajara negotiated with Castile , in which the native Navarrese Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada was also involved. With this, Navarre lost about a third of its territory and was thus restricted to its borders that are still valid today. This was accompanied by considerable economic losses, as Navarre was also deprived of its access to the sea with the port of San Sebastián , which is why the country now had to handle its goods traffic via the Bayonne port in Gascogno. As early as October 1201, Sancho agreed a corresponding agreement with Johann Ohneland in Chinon . In February 1209 he made peace with Peter II of Aragón in Monteagudo , to whom he did not have to make any major concessions.

The peace between the kings realized the papal wish for a comprehensive coalition of the Spaniards for the fight against the Almohads, which Sancho had now also joined. Sultan Muhammad an-Nasir ("Miramamolín") took this step by Sancho as treason because of the political alliance agreed in Morocco. In the late year 1211 the Almohads began their offensive against Castile, whereupon Alfonso VIII called on the rulers of Spain to join a common campaign in spring 1212, which was endowed by the Pope with all the indulgences of a crusade. The Castilian king was joined by the knighthood of Aragon under their king and a large contingent of crusades from France in Toledo . Sancho himself only joined the army on July 7th in the recently conquered Calatrava La Vieja with 200 Navarres knights. Together with the King of Aragón, he shortly afterwards recaptured the castle of Alarcos from the Moors, before the Castilians had been defeated fifteen years earlier. And shortly before the anniversary of that battle, on July 16, 1212, the Spaniards put the Almohad army to battle on the "Plain of Tolosa" (Las Navas de Tolosa) and defeated it with devastation. As the commander of the right wing of the Christian army, Sancho stormed the camp of his former ally "Miramaolín".

Sancho could not profit from the victory over the Almohads. The remaining years of his life, which were physically marked by increasing obesity, were largely uneventful. In 1219 he founded the city of Viana . In terms of foreign policy, he approached Aragón in order to protect his small kingdom from the attack of Ferdinand III. to protect further expanding Castile. In the absence of a legitimate heir, Sancho appointed King James I of Aragón in Tudela in the spring of 1231 by adopting him as his heir, which ushered in a reunification of the two kingdoms that had separated from each other in 1134. The inheritance contract was negotiated on February 2nd, 1231 and sworn by the Aragonese and Navarre nobles on April 4th. Sancho died on April 7, 1234 in Tudela and, like a hundred years earlier, the Navarres nobility disregarded the last will of their king and called his nephew, the northern French Count Theobald von der Champagne , into the country instead of the king of Aragon , and proclaimed him king. The last Navarres king of the national Basque dynasty was buried by him in the collegial church of Santa María in Roncesvalles , near the place where the Basques allegedly defeated the Franconian rearguard under Margrave Roland 456 years earlier .

Signum and coat of arms

The Sancho VII. Characteristic Signum (Figures 1 and 2), with whom he testified most of his deeds, shows an eagle figure that is often designed black. From a seal of a document from 1214 that has been preserved, it can be inferred that he also had an eagle as a coat of arms, although the color of the coat of arms shown remains unclear. In the 20th century, the "black eagle" ( Arrano Beltza in Basque ) found its way into the symbolism of national Basque movements (Fig. 3). According to legendary tradition, the coat of arms that has stood for Navarre since the 13th century, the so-called Navarra chain (Fig. 4), goes back to Sancho VII and his deeds during the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, who was named after the bodyguards he defeated the sultan's defending his tent were linked with gold chains. The green diamond in the middle of the shield symbolizes the sultan's book of the Koran , which he left behind in his tent when he fled. The Navarra chain is only documented on Theobald I's seals in the document system.

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Familiar

ancestors

Ramiro Sánchez (? –1116)

Cristina Rodríguez de Vivar

Gilbert de l'Aigle (? –1118)

Juliane du Perche

Urraca of León-Castile (1080–1126)

Raymond of Burgundy (? -1107)

Raimund Berengar III. of Barcelona (1082–1131)

Dulcia of Gévaudan (1090–1130)

García IV of Navarre (1112–1150)

Marguerite de l'Aigle (? –1141)

Alfonso VII of León-Castile (1105–1157)

Berenguela of Barcelona (1108–1149)

Sancho VI. of Navarre (1133–1194)

Sancha of Castile (1137–1179)

Sancho VII. (? -1234)

progeny

Sancho VII had been married to Konstanze, a daughter of Count Raimund VI , since around 1195 . from Toulouse . The marriage was divorced around 1200 and had remained childless. However, Sancho's three illegitimate sons are documented and attested from narrative traditions; These were Rodrigo and Ramiro, who officiated as Bishop of Pamplona , and Guilleumes "Soyrot", who was a knight in the service of King James I of Aragon and who accompanied him in the conquest of Mallorca in 1229.

literature

• Béatrice Leroy: Sancho VII . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 7, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7608-8907-7 , Sp. 1359.
• Arturo Campión: La jornada a África del rey D. Sancho el Fuerte (Problema histórico). In: Euskariana. Tercera party. Algo de Historia. (1899), pp. 62-91.
• Carlos Marichalar: Colección diplomática del rey don Sancho VIII (El Fuerte) de Navarra. Editorial Aramburú. Pamplona, ​​1934.
• Luis del Campo: La estatura de Sancho el Fuerte de Navarra. In: Príncípe de Viana. Vol. 13 (1952), pp. 481-494.
• Jon Andoni Fernández de Larrea Rojas: La conquista castellana de Álava, Guipúzcoa y el Duranguesado (1199-1200). In: Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos. Vol. 45 (2000), pp. 425-438.
• Javier Martínez de Aguirre y Aldaz: El signo del Águila en los documentos de Sancho VII el Fuerte, rey de Navarra (1194-1234). In: Anales de la Real Academia Matritense de Heráldica y Genealogía. Vol. 8 (2004), pp. 557-574.
• Dieter Berg: Richard the Lionheart. Scientific book society. Darmstadt, 2007.
• Damian J. Smith: The Papacy, the Spanish Kingdoms and Las Navas de Tolosa. In: Anuario de historia de la iglesia. Vol. 20 (2011), pp. 157-178.

Remarks

1. ↑ On the occasion of his meeting with Sancho VII in the spring of 1231, King James I of Aragón, who was 1.82 m tall, was astonished to note his much higher stature. Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery: The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon. A Translation of the medieval catalan Llibre dels Fets. (2010), §138, p. 145, note 32.
2. ↑ Roger von Hoveden , Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene , ed. by William Stubbs, in: Rolls Series , No. 51, Vol. 3 (1870), pp. 194 and pp. 252-253 . See Berg (2007), pp. 181-182.
3. ↑ See Smith (2011), p. 166. Fidel Fita y Colomé: Bulas inéditas - Sancho VIII, Duque y Rey de Navarra en 1196. In: Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia. Vol. 27 (1895), No. 3, pp. 229-230.
4. ↑ See Smith (2011), pp. 159-160.
5. ↑ La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (965-1216), ed. by Demetrio Mansilla (1955), No. 138, p. 169. Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne , in: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 214, Col. 79-81.
6. ↑ La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (965-1216), ed. by Demetrio Mansilla (1955), No. 162, p. 187. Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne, in: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 214, Col. 244-245.
7. ↑ La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III (965-1216), ed. by Demetrio Mansilla (1955), No. 181, pp. 197-198. Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne, in: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 214, Col. 509-510.
8. ↑ Roger of Hoveden, Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene , ed. by William Stubbs, in: Rolls Series , No. 51, Vol. 3 (1870), pp. 90-92 .
9. ↑ See Berg (2007), p. 241.
10. ↑ Roger of Hoveden, Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene , ed. by William Stubbs, in: Rolls Series , No. 51, Vol. 4 (1871), pp. 113-114 . Julio González: El Reino de Castilla en la época de Alfonso VIII. Vol. 3 (1960), pp. 365-374 and 424-429.
11. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón, ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in: Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 3 (1905/06), pp. 441-442.
12. ↑ Ibn 'Idārī al-Marrākušī, al-Bayān al-Mugrib fī ijtisār ajbār mulūk al-Andalus wa-l-Magrib, ed. by Ambrosio Huici Miranda: Estudio sobre la batalla de las Navas de Tolosa. In: Anales del Instituto General y Técnico de Valencia. Vol. 1 (1916), p. 120.
13. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne, in: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 553.
14. ↑ For the reports on the campaign against the Almohads see the letter of King Alfonso VIII of Castile to the Pope (Migne, PL 216, Sp. 699–703) and the letter from the Archbishop of Narbonne, Arnaud Amaury , to the General Chapter of Cistercians: De Francorum expeditione ac victoria adversus Sarracenos in Hispania reportata , in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France . 19 (1880), pp. 250-254.
15. ↑ Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón , Vol. 1, ed. by Ambrosio Huici Miranda and Maria Descamparados Cabanes Pecourt (1976), nos. 147 and 151. Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery: The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon. A Translation of the medieval catalan Llibre dels Fets. (2010), §138-139, pp. 145-146.
16. ^ Joseph de Moret: Investigaciones históricas de las antigùedades del Reino de Navarra. Pamplona 1766. p. 740 .
17. ^ Archivo General de Navarra, Comptos, Caj. 1, núm. 76. Document from the year 1206, in which Sancho VII issued the Fuero for Tafalla . For the text of the document, see Pablo Ilarregui: Del orígen y autoridad legal del Fuero General de Navarra. Pamplona, ​​1869, pp. 41-44. See Martínez de Aguirre y Aldaz (2004), pp. 560 and 569.
18. ↑ Archivo Municipal de Viana, carpeta B. Document from 1219 in the Sancho VII. The Fuero for Viana. See Martínez de Aguirre y Aldaz (2004), p. 572.
19. ↑ Guillaume de Puylaurens : Historia Albigensium. In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France. Vol. 19 (1880), p. 198 .
20. ^ Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery: The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon. A Translation of the medieval catalan Llibre dels Fets. (2010), §41, p. 62; §64, p. 89; §84, p. 107.

Web links

Commons : Sancho VII.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Seal of Sanchos VII.

predecessor	Office	successor
Sancho VI.	King of Navarre 1194–1234	Theobald I.