Alfonso V of Aragon

“ He renewed his oath in a great assembly at Toledo, at which the ambassadors of the Khan of Tartary and of the King of Armenia were present. We read, in a Spanish dissertation upon the crusades, that Alfonso the Wise, who was not able to go to the East himself, furnished the King of Aragon with a hundred men and a hundred thousand marvedis in gold; the Order of St. James, and other orders of knighthood, who had often accompanied the conqueror of the Moors in his battles, supplied him also with men and money. ”

“ He engaged in a number of campaigns against the Moslems, and made some minor conquests, but these wars were of slight consequence except as they bore on his struggles with the nobles. The same thing may be said for Alfonso’s European policy, which aimed not only at the aggrandizement of Castile but also at his acquisition of the title of Holy Roman Emperor. The kings of Castile had long claimed the throne of Navarre, and Alfonso now attempted to invade that realm, but desisted when it seemed that this might lead to complications with Jaime I of Aragon. ”

“ These estates were held as a fief, subject to tribute and military service. Henry and later Teresa (on the former’s death) profited by the civil strife to increase their holdings and acquire real strength. Urraca died in 1126, and matters were arranged by the recognition of the young Alfonso (Alfonso VII “the Emperor”) as king in his grandfather’s domain, while Alfonso the Battler gained some territories adjoining his kingdom of Aragon. [19]
Alfonso “the Emperor.”
The death of Urraca did not end the internal strife in Christian Spain. ”

“ His reign had not been free from struggles with the nobility, and the latter were in no small degree responsible for the weak result of his foreign policy; only an exceptionally capable monarch, such as Pedro III had been, could handle successfully the grave foreign and domestic problems of the time. The nobles and towns of Aragon proper and Valencia had banded together in a league called the Union, and they used their combined influence to exact new privileges from Alfonso. ”

“ Alfonso was far-seeing enough to know the possibilities ahead, and it is easy to understand and sympathize with his rage at the mere thought of the dapper, silken Candespina. So the rebellious Urraca, with her heart full of love for Count Gomez, was married, and just before her father's death in 1109, to King Alfonso I., called el batallador [the battler] , and known as the Emperor of Aragon. This union of Castile, Leon, and Aragon would have promised much for the future, if the rulers of this united kingdom could have lived in peace and harmony together. ”

“ Then Alfonso determined to retreat. One way alone was open, for the mountains which separated him from his kingdom were already white with snow, and the active Moslems, anticipating a favorable turn of affairs, had long since occupied the passes in his rear. Abandoning his allies, who had sacrificed honor, allegiance, and liberty in obedience to his summons, the King of Aragon marched southward. Threading the perilous defiles of the Alpujarras, the Christians emerged at length upon the tropical coast of Velez-Malaga. ”

“ This alludes to a dispute between the Spanish government and the Aragonese, which had continued from the days of Charles V. The Aragonese claimed either that the king himself should reside among them, or be represented by some person of the royal blood. Charles V. appointed, as viceroy of Aragon, his uncle, the Archbishop of Zaragoza, and then Don Fernando de Aragon, his cousin. Philip II. appointed a Castilian to that dignity. ”

“ Almost equally renowned was Jayme I, [75] the King of Aragon, who took the Balearic Isles from the Moors in 1229, Valencia in 1237, the province of Murcia in 1266, and who, before he died in 1276, had gained thirty pitched battles with the enemy, and had founded, some say, more than two thousand Christian churches. But he has the credit of having introduced into Spain the terrible Inquisition (in 1232) , and that goes far toward counterbalancing his meritorious work for the freedom of his country.
Alfonso X, called “the Wise,” because he was more a scholar than soldier, succeeded St. ”

“ Alfonso VII lived to see the hardly won town of Almeria again wrested from Castile. On his return from a military expedition he died in the pass of Muradal, a prince endowed with strength, intelligence, and the love of justice, full of zeal for the Christian faith and generous to churches and cloisters. With him the series of “emperors of Spain” comes to an end (1157) .
With the death of Alfonso VII of Castile, and that of Raymond of Aragon and Catalonia, which followed five years later, the Christian kingdoms of the Spanish peninsula again entered on evil times. ”

“ It is simply that about Alfonso XI. there happens to be brought together a number of strains from the four different countries, Aragon, Castile, Hungary and Portugal, each containing an average amount of the qualities in question. However, owing to strange jumping about, which so many characteristics show in the course of hereditary transmission, Alfonso himself shows none of them, but is himself the bridge over which they pass to appear in his son whose actions seemed more like that of a demon than a man the incarnation of cruelty itself. ”

“ The sack of Rome in the year 1527 scattered the scholars no less than the artists in every direction, and spread the fame of the great departed Mæcenas to the furthest boundaries of Italy.
Among the secular princes of the fifteenth century, none displayed such enthusiasm for antiquity as Alfonso the Great of Aragon, King of Naples (see p. 35) . It appears that his zeal was thoroughly unaffected, and that the monuments and writings of the ancient world made upon him, from the time of his arrival in Italy, an impression deep and powerful enough to reshape his life. ”

“ As his children were not of age and the Navarrese refused to acknowledge the fratricide as their sovereign, the two kings Alfonso VI of Castile and Sancho Ramirez of Aragon marched into the neighbour kingdom, put Raymond to flight and divided the country between them; the country as far as the Ebro being united to Aragon, and Rioja, with Najera and Calahorra and the Basque provinces of Alava, Guipuzcoa, and Biscay falling to the share of Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon. ”

“ His paternal dominions, Aragon and Sicily, vested in default of legitimate issue in his brother Juan, king of Navarre; but he bequeathed the kingdom of Naples, his conquest, to his natural son Ferdinand.c Whatever may be thought of the claims subsisting in the house of Anjou, there can be no question that the reigning family of Aragon were legitimately excluded from the throne of Naples, though force and treachery enabled them ultimately to obtain it.
Alfonso, surnamed “the magnanimous,” was by far the most accomplished sovereign whom the fifteenth century produced. ”

“ That gallant monarch Alfonso II, the liberal art-loving patron of the troubadours, who was endowed with such brilliant princely qualities, had either by right of inheritance or success in arms extended his sway over a great part of southern France and curbed the might of the Saracens. In 1196 he was succeeded in Aragon, Catalonia, and Roussillon by his first-born son Pedro II, while the county of Provence and the rest of his possessions in France fell to Alfonso the younger brother. ”

“ Indeed, the kings of Aragon, notwithstanding occasional excesses, seem never to have attempted any systematic invasion of the constitutional rights of their subjects. They well knew, that the spirit of liberty was too high among them to endure it. When the queen of Alfonso the Fourth urged her husband, by quoting the example of her brother the king of Castile, to punish certain refractory citizens of Valencia, he prudently replied, "My people are free, and not so submissive as the Castilians. They respect me as their prince, and I hold them for good vassals and comrades." ”

“ During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the neglected fields of Northern Spain formed a humiliating contrast with the flourishing huertas of the Moorish provinces; yet Alfonso IV of Aragon tried to demonstrate the superiority of his countrymen from this very difference. "In our country men handle the sword and clowns the spade," he told the Moorish embassador; "my cavaliers are too proud to meddle with agriculture." ”

“ The Christians had taken advantage of the continual divisions which prevailed among their former conquerors. Alphonso the Chaste, king of Asturia, a valiant and politic monarch, had extended his dominions and refused to pay the tribute of the hundred young maidens. Ramir, the successor of Alphonso, maintained this independence, and several times defeated the Mussulmans. Navarre became a kingdom, and Aragon had its independent sovereigns, and was so fortunate as to possess a government that properly respected the rights of the people. ”

“ It is probable that King Alfonso deemed the time especially propitious for a settlement of the dispute over the proprietorship of Morocco, Guinea, and the Guinea trade. In attempting to establish his claims, he would naturally seek aid from the Pope, for that potentate's independent position made him the arbitrator between nations, while his spiritual authority, in particular his powers of excommunication and interdict, gave weight to his decisions. ”

“ If, however, the severe and impartial historian must perceive blemishes in the character of Alfonso I as a man, justice must, in his favour, throw into the scale the difficulties which beset him in bequeathing to the next generation a well-cemented political existence, and a nationality, as we may say, sufficiently compact to withstand the storms which shook the peninsula. He had to attend to the internal organisation of society and externally to secure it an advantageous position in relation to the various nations of Spain, Christian and Mussulman. ”

“ But the reign of Alfonso V was above all disastrous upon this point, as we have said; it was the best time for the nobles and holders of grants. To remunerate the nobles who fought at his side, the luckless pretender to the throne of Castile considered nothing too much—titles, favours, grants, salaries, pensions, allowances, marriage dowries, education of the children of nobles, gratifications for ordinary and extraordinary services, real or pretended ”

“ At last the house of Aragon carried the day over the house of Anjou, and in the course of the year 1442, Alfonso definitely secured his seat on the throne. Of this sort were the claims of the defeated rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining later on. Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his father, and yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had two rivals, both far superior in merit to him self. The one was his nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle's shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party ”

“ It was the same with their liberties, as illustrated by the imprisonment, without a hearing, of ministers like Cabarrús, Floridablanca, Jovellanos and Urquijo. For awhile the ancient fueros of the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon served as some restraint in those territories, but Philip V, in 1707 and 1714, took advantage of the War of Succession to declare them forfeited. Under such concentration of authority, the fate of the nation depended on the character and capacity of the monarch. ”

“ In the case of Ferdinand and Alfonso it may also have represented a protest against the like pretensions of the Holy Roman Emperors, then reigning principally in Germanic Europe. Alfonso seemed in a fair way to create a peninsula empire, for he was able to make the kings of Aragon and Navarre, the counts of Barcelona and Toulouse, various lesser princes of Spain and southern France, and some rulers of the Moslem taifas swear fealty to him as their feudal sovereign. The imperial confederation had no real strength, however, for the spirit of separatism was as yet too deeply rooted. ”

“ Henceforward history follows the fortunes of the two kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, which rose upon its ruins. Side by side with them Catalonia flourished in the east, blest with culture and prosperity, but exercising no particular influence on the course of events; and towards the end of the century some knightly adventurers laid the foundation of the kingdom of Portugal in the west, the northern part of which Alfonso conferred first on his son-in-law, Raymond of Burgundy, and then on Count Henry, the husband of his natural daughter Theresa, as a fief of the kingdom of Castile. ”

“ In 1332 the Basque province of Álava was added to Castile, although with a recognition of the jurisdiction of the law of Álava. More important, perhaps, was a great conflict with Granada and the Benimerines of Morocco, who once more tried to emulate the successes of their coreligionists of the eighth century. The kings of Aragon and Portugal joined Alfonso to avert this peril, and a great battle was fought in 1340 at the river Salado, near Tarifa, where the Moslem forces were completely defeated. ”

“ At this age, had a private lot been his,--that of a statesman, jurist, man of science, annalist, philosopher, troubadour, mathematician, historian, poet,--he would but have entered his golden prime, rich in promise, fruitful in performance. Yet Alfonso, uniting in himself all these vocations, seemed at his death to have left behind him a wide waste of opportunities, a dreary dearth of accomplishment. Looking back, however, it is seen that the balance swings even. While his kingdom was slipping away, he was conquering a wider domain. ”