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Son of Sancho I of Aragon, successor of his brother Peter I of Aragon. Conquered many places in the Ebro valley: Egea , Tudela, Zaragoza, Calatayud , Borja, Tarazona , Daroca , and Monreal del Campo . Died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the Moors at the siege of Fraga.
A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine battles against Christian or Moor), he was married in 1109 to Urraca of Castile, widow of Raymond of Burgundy , a very dissolute and passionate woman. The marriage had been arranged by Alfonso VI of Castile in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravides, and to supply them with a capable military leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as proprietary queen and had not learnt chastity in the polygamous household of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality of the age and came to open war. Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his opponents he gained victories at Sepalveda and Fuente de la Culebra, but his only trustworthy supporters were his Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep down Castile and Leon. The marriage of Alfonso and Urraca was declared null by the pope, as they were third cousins.
The king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost as violently as with his wife. As he beat her, so he drove Archbishop Bernard into exile and expelled the monks of Sahagun. He was finally compelled to give way in Castile and Leon to his stepson Alfonso, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II brought about an arrangement between the old man and the young.
Alfonso the Battler won his great successes in the middle Ebro, where he expelled the Moors from Zaragoza; in the great raid of 1125, when he carried away a large part of the subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of France, where he had rights as king of Navarre. Three years before his death he made a will leaving his kingdom to the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Knights of the Sepulchre, which his subjects refused to carry out. He was a fierce, violent man, a soldier and nothing else, whose piety was wholly militant. He has a great place in the reconquest.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica
| Preceded by: Peter I | King of AragonHere is a list of the rulers of Aragon now a region of north-eastern Spain. The Aragonese kingdom included the present-day autonomous community of Aragon. The Aragonese kings of the House of Barcelona ruled as well Catalonia (which included Roussillon, no | Succeeded by: Ramiro IIRamiro II of Aragon 'the Monk' (ca. 1075 August 16, 1154, at Huesca) was a king of Aragon ( 1134- 1137). In 1134, when his brother Alfonso I of Aragon 'the Battler' died heirless, Ramiro was bishop of Barbastro-Roda. He temporarily gave up his monastic vo |
| King of NavarreThis is a list of the kings of Navarre. ca 824- 1234 House of Jimenez ca 824 851 Inigo Iniguez Arista (Inigo Iniguez Arista). In Basque, Eneko Aritza. 851- 880 Garcia Iniguez, son of Inigo Iniguez Arista 880- 905 Fortun Garces the One-Eyed 905- 926 Sancho | Garcia IV |