Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations (31 page)

Needless to say, Sancho’s happy scheme did not long survive its author. The four royal sons were soon embroiled in wars against their brothers. In 1050, at the Council of Coyanza, Ferdinand reaffirmed the model charter passed in León thirty years before which now provided the guidelines for all the Christian states of Iberia, including the principle of hereditary kingship. After that, he gave priority to the nascent
Reconquista,
the reconquest of the peninsula from the Moors, through which he forged a reputation that made him ‘emperor of Spain’. The Christian warriors of his generation were destined to reach the gates of Seville and Toledo before being driven back. Ramiro exploited his brothers’ preoccupations. Barely five years passed after their father’s death before he seized Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, joined them to Aragon, and was proclaimed king. The three adjacent territories united by Ramiro formed the cradle of his kingdom’s later expansion.

For the first hundred years, the House of Ramiro ruled Aragon in undisputed succession. It produced four kings, who, following a civil war among their western neighbours, came to reign in Navarre as well as in Aragon. Initially, there was no substantial Aragonese town to act as an administrative or ecclesiastical centre. Ramiro’s subjects’ pastoral needs were served by itinerant priests, and by the remote Benedictine monastery of San Pedro de Siresa. The city of Chaca or Jaca, previously the base for a Carolingian county, was adopted in 1063 as the seat of the first Aragonese bishopric. The larger and older city of Huesca – Roman Osca, and in the eleventh century the Moorish fortress of
Wasquah
– was not conquered until forty years later. Ramiro, now King Sancho Ramírez, built the castle of Monte Aragon beside it to facilitate his attacks, and was killed by a stray arrow when reconnoitring the city’s walls. The final assault was led by the late king’s successor, Pedro I, Ramiro’s eldest grandson, who was buried there after making it his principal residence. Regular disputes occurred with the counts of Toulouse over control of the mountain passes, but the overarching danger lay in the incessant fighting between Christians and Muslims to the south.

From the outset, therefore, the infant Kingdom of Aragon did not possess the best chances of independent long-term survival. It was squeezed between the stronger kingdoms of Castile and Navarre, the powerful Muslim emirate of Zaragoza, and, beyond Ribagorza, the eastern flank of the former March dominated by the counts of Barcelona. In those days, warlords devoured their neighbours or were devoured themselves. Ramiro and his successors could certainly benefit from their mountain retreat, but their dilemma was stark: if they tried to expand, they risked the vengeance of their rivals; if they stayed inactive, they could stagnate and attract the vultures. Their insecurity is mirrored in their repeated attempts to join forces with their neighbours, first with Navarre, then with Castile and eventually with Barcelona.

The initial historical and cultural connections of Aragon were very specific. Starting as the homeland of the pre-Roman Celtiberian tribe of the
Ilergertes
, it had never belonged to the Basque country, and had never been subject either to substantial Moorish settlement or to the heavier Frankish influences evident in Catalonia. In the continuum of the peninsula’s linguistic idioms, its native speech was distinct. Aragon, above all, was small and poor. It could not raise large armies, as Castile could, and, though its society was largely free of feudal impositions, it did not possess Catalonia’s commercial potential or its easy contacts with the outside world. Hence, it could only satisfy its growing circle of clients and partners by granting them wide measures of autonomy. In opposition to the traditions of Castile, ‘Aragonism’ favoured respect for local laws and shunned centralized authority.

The little land of Sobrarbe – one of the three constituent parts of the first Kingdom of Aragon – holds a special place in the evolution of its political traditions. According to a legend which was accepted as historical fact for centuries, the rulers were required to swear an oath embodying a formal contract with their subjects. ‘We who are worth as much as you,’ they were told, ‘take you as our king provided that you preserve our laws.’ They were also obliged to confirm the appointment of an elected justiciar, who was the guardian of those laws. Modern research has shown the ‘Oath of Sobrarbe’ to be an invention of much later times; even so, many commentators take it to reflect the essence of an ancient tradition.
¹⁴

Aragon’s role in the
Reconquista
was considerable. A treacherous game of shifting alliances developed, whereby Aragon would combine with Castile to press the Moors, or with the Moors to restrain the Castilians. Gratuitous violence was rife. In 1064 the first campaigning season of King Sancho Ramírez’s reign had opened with a spectacular international expedition against the Muslim-held town of Barbastro. Blessed by the pope, the Aragonese and Catalan assault force was swollen by an army of knights from Aquitaine, Burgundy and Calabria; a siege was mounted; and the defenders were massacred. Word spread that 50,000 souls had perished. But victory was brief. The crusaders pulled out, laden with loot, slaves and women, leaving only a small garrison behind. In the following year, therefore, Barbastro was retaken by a Muslim relief column from Lleida, and the Christian garrison suffered the same fate as its predecessors.
¹⁵

The first Siege of Barbastro provides the setting for a rare insight into realities of life on the Christian–Muslim frontier; it was provided by a Moorish writer, Ibn Bassam, who was familiar in turn with the account of a Jew sent into the city to ransom prominent citizens:

When the French crusaders captured Barbastro… in 1064, each of the principal knights received a house with all that it contained, women, children and furniture… [The Jew] found the crusader in Moorish dress seated on a divan and surrounded by Moslem waiting girls; he… had married the daughter of the former owner and hoped that she would give him descendants. ‘Her Moslem ancestors did the same with our women when they possessed themselves of this country. Now we do likewise…’ He then turned to the girl and said in broken Arabic: ‘Take your lute and sing some songs for this gentleman.’ The Jew adds: ‘I was pleased to see the Count show such enthusiasm as if he understood the words, though he continued drinking.’
¹⁶

The cultural consequences of such encounters cannot have been trivial. It may be no accident that one of the leaders of the ‘Crusade of Barbastro’ was Guillaume VIII, duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitou, father of the first of the troubadours.
¹⁷

Such was the world of Rodrigo Díaz (
c.
1040–99), a Castilian knight from Vivar, who gained his early title of ‘El Campeador’, ‘the Champion’, when he slew a Navarran general in single combat. In the 1070s he was sent to collect tribute from Seville. Yet he was accused of diverting part of the king’s treasure for himself, and was banished. From then on, he became a freebooter, a mercenary who sold the services of his company’s lances to the highest bidder. He maintained close relations with Pedro I of Aragon, to whose son and heir he gave his daughter in marriage. But his principal employer was Moktadir, the Arab emir of Zaragoza, and it was from the Muslims that he gained the epithet of ‘El Cid’, ‘the War Lord’. All the northern states bore the brunt of his depredations. His final exploit was to besiege Valencia at the head of an infidel army.
¹⁸

The Cid of romance and legend, Spain’s most eminent literary hero, emerged over the centuries as a knight of perfect virtue, showing little resemblance to the real Rodrigo Díaz. The first stories, written in dog Latin, began to circulate soon after his death, while the epic
Poema del Cid
dates from the late twelfth century:

De los sos ojos tan fuertemientre llorando,

Tornava la cabeça e estrávalos catando…

Allí piensan de aguijar, allí sueltan las rriendas.

A l’exida de Bivar ovieron la corneja diestra…

‘iÁlbricia, Álbar Fán˜ez, ca echados somos de tierra?’
…

Tears streamed from his eyes, as he turned his head and stood looking at them… They all thought of leaving, slackened their reins. At the gate of Vivar, a crow flew on the right-hand side… ‘Good Cheer, Álva Fáñez, for we are banished from this land.

Ruy Díaz entered Burgos with his company of sixty knights. Men and women came out to see him pass, while the burghers and their wives stood at their windows, sorrowfully weeping. With one accord they all said, ‘What a good vassal. If only he had a good lord!’
¹⁹

In the wake of a raid on Aragon, Díaz once strayed further east into the domains of Raimund or Ramón Berenguer I, count of Barcelona. As usual, he plundered the countryside, and extorted tribute:

Rumours reached the ears of the Count of Barcelona that Cid Ruy Díaz was harrying the countryside; and the Count was highly incensed… The Count was a hasty and foolish man and spoke without due reflection: ‘The Cid, Rodrigo of Vivar, has done me great wrongs… Now he is ravaging the lands under my protection. I never… showed enmity towards him, but since he seeks me out, I shall demand redress.’

Great numbers of Moors and Christians… went in search of the mighty Ruy Díaz of Vivar. They journeyed three days and two nights and came up with the Cid in the pine wood of Tévar. The Cid, Don Rodrigo, carrying large quantities of booty, descended from the mountains to a valley, where he received the message of Count Ramón… [He] sent back word, saying: ‘Tell the Count not to take offence. I am carrying off nothing of his…’ The Count replied: ‘Not so! He shall pay for past and present injuries here and now.’

‘Knights,’ (said the Cid) ‘make ready quickly to take up arms. Count Ramón has… a vast host of Moors and Christians and is determined to fight… Tighten your saddle-girths and put on your armour. Ramón Berenguer will see the kind of man he has found today in the pine wood of Tévar…’

All were… clad in armour and mounted on their horses. They watched… the Franks
*
rode down the hill… [Then] the Cid, fortunate in battle, ordered the attack. His men were delighted to obey and they used their pennoned lances to good effect, striking some and overturning others. The Cid won the battle and took Count Ramón prisoner.

A great feast was prepared… but Count Ramón showed no relish for it. They brought the dishes and placed them in front of him, but he… scorned all they offered. ‘I shall not eat a mouthful,’ he said, ‘for all the wealth of Spain. I had rather die outright since such badly shod fellows have defeated me in battle.’

To that the Cid replied in these words: ‘Eat this bread, Count, and drink this wine. If you do as I say you will go free. If not, you will never see Christendom again.
²⁰

El Cid kept his word, and the booty. The count kept his life, and returned home to lick his wounds. As he must have realized, the future would not be decided solely by the struggle against the Moors but equally by the rivalries of Barcelona, Castile, Navarre and Aragon.