Theresia of León

Miniature from the 13th century. In the middle Theresa, on the right her daughter Urraca Enríquez, on the left her lover Fernando Pérez de Traba.

Theresia von León ( Portuguese Teresa de Leão , Spanish Teresa de León ; * 1080 ; † November 11, 1130 ) was a countess and self-appointed Queen of Portugal from the House of Jiménez . In the struggle against her half-sister, Queen Urraca of León-Castile , she tried the then to the Feudalgefüge as mistress Kingdom of León belonging to Portugal to fight for their sovereignty.

Life

family

Theresa was an illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso VI. of León-Castile and his mistress Jimena Muñoz, but was considered a full member of the royal family. In the social conventions of the Christian kingdoms of Spain at the time, no particular relevance was ascribed to the fact of illegitimate parentage. Shortly before or in 1094, Theresa was married to Heinrich von Burgund , a later son of the French ducal house of Burgundy from the Capetian dynasty , with whom the Leonese royal family had already had close ties. A brother-in-law of Heinrich, Raimund von Burgund , was already married to Theresa, who was about the same age as a legitimate half-sister Urraca. In a certificate issued by Raimund, dated February 11, 1095, Theresia and Heinrich are first mentioned as a married couple. In the same year Raimund willingly transferred the county of Portugal, which he owned as a fief of his father-in-law, to Heinrich. At that time, this county comprised the land between the Rio Miño in the north and Santarem in the south. As a border country to the Muslim Al-Andalus , it was regularly exposed to raids by the Moors . The couple was able to quickly consolidate their rule here by stabilizing the border with the Moors and achieving recognition of the archbishopric status of the ecclesiastical province of Braga by Pope Paschalis II .

The Alfonso VI family from León:

Constance of Burgundy

Alfonso VI King of León-Castile

Jimena Muñoz

Raymond of Burgundy Count of Galicia

Urraca Queen of León-Castile

Theresa "King of Portugal"

Henry of Burgundy Count of Portugal

Alfonso VII (Alfonso Raimúndez) King of Léon-Castile

Alfonso I (Alfonso Enríquez) King of Portugal

Early years

The question regarding the succession to the throne of her father Alfons VI. was to prove to be the decisive point in their biographies for both Theresia and her half-sister. As the husband of the older and legitimately born Urraca, Raimund of Burgundy had the best prospects of one day being able to ascend the throne, for which Heinrich's support was promised in a private pact agreed in 1094/95, even before the latter had married Theresa. The birth of the Infante Sancho Alfónsez in 1093 and his installation as heir to the throne in the spring of 1107 ruined this plan, but Raimund's death in the same year immediately moved Heinrich into the position of the designated senior of the royal family with the prospect of a dominant position over the young Infante . In May 1108, Heinrich's position of power seemed to expand again when the young Infante fell against the Moors in the Battle of Uclés and Urraca's son Alfonso Raimúndez was now promoted to potential heir to the throne. Because he was only a few years old, a regency government emerged, and Heinrich, the only male member of the family, seemed predestined to lead. But this prospect was of the aging Alfonso VI. destroyed, who made Urraca his heir to the throne and arranged her marriage to King Alfonso I of Aragón , who was thus chosen as the future regent and protector of Alfonso Raimúndez. Theresia's family was largely excluded from the future distribution of power, which ultimately led to a lifelong break with her sister.

Urraca's accession to the throne and her wedding to the King of Aragón in 1109 showed that Theresa and Heinrich stayed away. Instead, they ignored their feudal subordination to the new queen and set about establishing rule in Portugal as independently as possible. They were able to benefit from the falling rift between Urraca and Alfonso I of Aragón, who did not want to accept the annulment of their marriage, also decreed by the Pope, without a fight. Heinrich first allied himself with the Aragonese and defeated Urraca on October 26, 1111 in the Battle of Candespina, but then went over to their side for the price of significant territorial gifts. When Urraca was finally able to drive her former husband out of the kingdom the following year, Theresia's family had already established itself firmly in the county of Portugal and the neighboring areas and formed a regional counterweight to the crown. Heinrich's unexpected death in the summer of 1112 put Theresa's position in question.

Sister fight

The geopolitical map of the Iberian Peninsula in the 12th century. Lisbon was first conquered for Portugal by Alfonso I.

Theresa took over the reign of Portugal for her underage son Alfonso Enríquez and continued her husband's policy of largely independence. It was favored by aristocratic revolts and power struggles with the clergy, to which Urraca was almost constantly exposed. Not least because of this, in alliance with the Galician Count Pedro Froilaz de Traba , Theresa was able to repel her sister's first advance into Portugal by besieging her in Sobroso . It was only when Urraca was under severe pressure in the summer of 1117 after an attack by the Muslim Almoravids on Coimbra that Urraca was able to take advantage of this in a new advance, occupy several castles and persuade some Portuguese noble families to change sides. Although this was greatly weakened, Theresa was able to stay in Braga and through a liaison with Fernando Pérez de Traba to bring about an alliance with the opposition in Galicia , since his father, Count Pedro Froilaz de Traba, was the queen's worst rival in this part of the empire . In a letter from Pope Paschal II to the Portuguese clergy and nobility of June 18, 1116, Theresa was addressed for the first time with the royal title (T reginae) . The reasons why she was recognized as queen by the Roman Church are unclear, but apparently she took this as a legitimation of her striving for independence, whereupon from November 1117 she declared herself “Queen of Portugal” (Tarasia regina de Portugal ) called what was once again an affront to her sister. But also Pope Calixtus II , who otherwise had good relations with Urraca, recognized Theresa as Queen (regina Tarasia) and consciously placed her above her deceased husband (comes Henricus) . And the Cardinal Legate Boso, who was staying in Sahagún , described her in a letter to Theresa as the “venerable Queen of Portugal” (T. uenerabili regine Portugalensium) .

Regardless of the papal attitude, Theresa of Urraca continued to be regarded as a rebellious vassaless and when she was able to stabilize her rule until 1120, also thanks to a peace with Aragón in 1117, Theresa's position of power was increasingly endangered. Conflicts within the family also contributed to this, the origin of which probably lay in her extramarital relationship and which led to a break with her son Alfonso Enríquez, who therefore passed on to his aunt Urraca. In the summer of 1120 Urraca finally advanced with army from Galicia from the Miño to Portugal and entered Braga. Theresia, surprised by this train, had to retreat to the castle of Lanhoso, where she was besieged by her sister's troops. Although the siege was lifted a little later without Theresa having to surrender to her sister, her rule as "Queen" of Portugal came to an end. Because in Braga Urraca invested the young Alfonso Enríquez as their new feudal Count of Portugal.

Fight against the son

Theresia's domain was limited to the Miño valley in southern Galicia with the main towns of Tui and Orense , where she could only stay thanks to her connection to the Traba family. In order to consolidate this alliance, she married her daughter from her first marriage to a brother of her lover Fernando Pérez de Traba. With him at her side, she fought with mutual success against her son and Queen Urraca, who stood behind him, to regain power in Portugal. By the summer of 1122 she succeeded in winning the bishops of Coimbra and Porto to her side and capturing the archbishop of Braga, who was holding on to her son. Urraca's reaction came in March 1123, when she arrested Theresia's "father-in-law" Pedro Froilaz de Traba and some of his sons and had their possessions confiscated, with Theresa losing her most important supporters. In September 1125 she was only able to prevent an impending transition of the bishop of Tui to Urraca's side by assuring him that he would leave the ecclesiastical administration of northern Portugal between the Miño and Limia to him. However, on May 17, 1125 in Zamora , her son had given himself the sword and thus attested the age of maturity, with which he had now completely emancipated himself from his mother.

Queen Urraca died in 1126 and her son Alfonso VII (Alfonso Raimúndez) followed her. Theresia and her lover met with him in April of this year in Ricobayo and agreed on a peace. It did not include Alfonso Enríquez, whom Theresa sought to oust from power in favor of her lover. Both factions carried out this conflict militarily, which Alfonso was able to win on June 24, 1128 with a victory in the battle of São Mamede south of Guimarães . Theresia's rule in Portugal was thus finally ended; with her lover she had to retire to his family estates in Galicia, where she died on November 11, 1130. She was buried next to her husband in Braga Cathedral, where a sarcophagus and a reclining figure were designed for her at a later date .

Even if Theresa's personal struggle for independent rule in Portugal had failed first against her sister and lastly against her own son, the latter adopted her policy in the fight against his cousin Alfonso VII "the emperor" . In the Treaty of Zamora in 1143, the Leonese monarch had to recognize Portugal's independence as an independent kingdom, with Alfonso Enríquez as Alfons I as its first king.

progeny

Theresa had several children from her marriage to Heinrich von Burgund († 1112) in 1094 :

• Alfonso Enríquez (1094–1108)

• Urraca Enríquez (* 1095); ⚭ 1120 with Vermudo Péres de Traba, Count of Trastámara .

• Sancha Enríquez (1097-1163); ⚭ 1. with Sancho Núñes de Celanova; 2. ⚭ (about 1147) with Fernando Mendes, Lord of Bragança .
• Teresa Enríquez (* 1098)
• Henrique Enríquez (1106–1110)
• Alfonso Enríquez (Alfons I) (1109–1185), Count and from 1139 King of Portugal.

From her relationship with Fernando Pérez de Traba († after 1155) she had two daughters, Sancha and Teresa, of whom the latter was married to Count Nuño Pérez de Lara († 1177).

literature

• Luiz Maria de Câmara Pina: A batalha de S. Mamede (24-VI-1128). Subsídios para a sua história militar. In: Revista Portuguesa de História. 17: 199-229 (1977).
• Bernard F. Reilly: Santiago and Saint Denis: The French Presence in Eleventh-Century Spain. In: The Catholic Historical Review. Vol. 54 (1968), pp. 467-483.
• Bernard F. Reilly: The Kingdom of León-Castilla under Queen Urraca 1109-1126. Princeton University Press, 1982 ( online ).

Remarks

1. ↑ See Reilly (1988), §12, p. 254.
2. ↑ The document is only stored as a copy from the early 12th century in the archives of Tui Cathedral . Tuy en la Baja Edad Media, siglos XII-XV, ed. by Pascual Galindo Romeo (1950), pp. iv-vi.
3. ↑ See Reilly (1968), p. 479.
4. ↑ See Reilly (1988), §12, p. 251.
5. ↑ Historia Compostelana, ed. by Enríque Flórez in: España Sagrada. Vol. 20 (1765), pp. 216-217.
6. ^ Carl Erdmann: Papal documents in Portugal. Treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class, New Series 20, Berlin 1927. No. 16, pp. 169–170 ( online ( memento of the original dated November 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check Original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF; 2.2 MB). 
7. ↑ Documentos Medievais Portugueses, Dosumentos regios. Vol. 1, ed. by Rui Pinto de Azevedo (1958), pp. 60-62. See Reilly (1982), §3, p. 117.
8. ^ Carl Erdmann: Papal documents in Portugal. Treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class, New Series 20, Berlin 1927. No. 21, pp. 174–177 ( online ( memento of the original from November 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check Original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF; 2.2 MB). 
9. ^ Carl Erdmann: Papal documents in Portugal. Treatises of the Society of Sciences in Göttingen. Philological-historical class, New Series 20, Berlin 1927. No. 24, pp. 180–181 ( online ( memento of the original from November 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check Original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF; 2.2 MB). 
10. ↑ Historia Compostelana, ed. by Enríque Flórez in: España Sagrada. Vol. 20 (1765), pp. 324-327.
11. ↑ See Reilly (1982), §4, pp. 145-146.
12. ↑ See Reilly (1982), §5, p. 165.
13. ↑ Historia Compostelana, ed. by Enríque Flórez in: España Sagrada. Vol. 20 (1765), pp. 381-385.
14. ↑ Documentos Medievais Portugueses, Dosumentos regios. Vol. 1, ed. by Rui Pinto de Azevedo (1958), pp. 87-89. See Reilly (1982), §6, p. 192.
15. ↑ See Reilly (1982), §6, p. 193.
16. ↑ Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, ed. by Glenn Edward Lipskey in: The Chronicle of Alfonso the Emperor. (1972), Book I, §5, p. 55.
17. ↑ Chronicon Lusitanum, ed. by Enríque Flórez in: España Sagrada. Vol. 14 (1786), p. 409.

Web links

• genealogie.mittelalter.de

See also: History of Portugal , Timeline of Portugal , Portugal under the Burgundian rulers