Berengaria (
Castilian: ''Berenguela''), nicknamed the Great (Castilian: la Grande) (1179 or 1180 – 8 November 1246), was
Queen of Castile[The full title was ''Regina Castelle et Toleti'' (Queen of Castile and Toledo).] for a brief time in 1217, and
Queen of León from 1197 to 1204 as the second wife of King
Alfonso IX. As the eldest child and
heiress presumptive of
Alfonso VIII of Castile
Alfonso VIII (11 November 11555 October 1214), called the Noble (El Noble) or the one of Las Navas (el de las Navas), was King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. After having suffered a great defeat with his own army at Alarc ...
, she was a sought-after bride, and was engaged to
Conrad, the son of
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. After Conrad's death, she married her cousin Alfonso IX of León to secure the peace between him and her father. She had five children with him before their marriage was voided by
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216.
Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...
.
When her father died, Berengaria served as
regent
In a monarchy, a regent () is a person appointed to govern a state because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties, or the throne is vacant and a new monarch has not yet been dete ...
for her younger brother
Henry I in Castile until she succeeded him on his untimely death. Within months, she turned Castile over to her son
Ferdinand III, concerned that as a woman she would not be able to lead Castile's forces. However, she remained one of his closest advisors, guiding policy, negotiating, and ruling on his behalf for the rest of her life. She was responsible for the re-unification of Castile and León under her son's authority, and supported his efforts in the
Reconquista
The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...
. She was a patron of religious institutions and supported the writing of a history of the two countries.
Early life
Berengaria was born either in 1179 or 1180, in
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...
. She was the eldest daughter of King
Alfonso VIII of Castile
Alfonso VIII (11 November 11555 October 1214), called the Noble (El Noble) or the one of Las Navas (el de las Navas), was King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. After having suffered a great defeat with his own army at Alarc ...
and his wife,
Eleanor of England. She was the elder sister of
Henry I of Castile and was named in honor of Alfonso VIII's grandmother
Berengaria of Barcelona
Berengaria of Barcelona (1116 – 15 January 1149), called in Spanish Berenguela de Barcelona and also known as Berengaria of Provence, was Queen consort of Castile, León and Galicia. She was the daughter of Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Ba ...
. Those who cared for the young
infanta
Infante (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as "infant" or translated as "prince", is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to the ...
were generously rewarded. Her nurse Estefanía received land from Alfonso and Eleanor on her retirement in May 1181. Another nurse, Elvira, received a similar retirement gift in 1189 at Berengaria's request.
As the eldest child of King Alfonso and Queen Eleanor, who preferred to give birth to a son and therefore later king, Berengaria was the
heiress presumptive to the throne of Castile for several years because many of the children born later to the couple died shortly after birth or in early infancy. She became a greatly-desired bride throughout Europe.
Berengaria's first engagement was agreed in 1187 when her hand was sought by
Conrad, the fifth child of Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa
Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (; ), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death in 1190. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aa ...
. The next year, the marriage contract was signed in
Seligenstadt, including a dowry of 42000
Maravedí
The ''maravedí'' () or ''maravedi'' (), deriving from the Almoravid dinar (), was the name of various Iberian coins of gold and then silver between the 11th and 14th centuries, and the name of different Iberian accounting units between the 11t ...
. Conrad then marched to Castile, where in
Carrión the engagement was celebrated and Conrad was knighted making him a servant of his new lord, Alfonso. Berengaria's claim to the throne was based in part on documentation in the treaty and marriage contract, which specified that she would inherit the kingdom after her father or any childless brothers who might come along. Conrad would only be allowed to co-rule as her spouse, and Castile would not become part of the Empire. Furthermore, he was not allowed to claim the throne for himself in case of Alfonso's death, but was obliged to defend and protect the kingdom until Berengaria arrived. The treaty also documented traditional rights and obligations between the future sovereign and the nobility.
The marriage was not
consummated
The consummation of a marriage, or simply consummation, is the first officially credited act of sexual intercourse following marriage. In many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, the definition usually refers to penile–vaginal p ...
because Berengaria was less than 10 years old. Conrad and Berengaria never saw each other again. By 1191, Berengaria requested an
annulment
Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning alm ...
of the engagement from the pope, influenced, no doubt, by third parties such as her grandmother Duchess
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor of Aquitaine ( or ; ; , or ; – 1 April 1204) was Duchess of Aquitaine from 1137 to 1204, Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of King Louis VII, and Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of King Henry II. As ...
, who was not interested in having a
Hohenstaufen
The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynast ...
as a neighbor to her French fiefdoms. Those fears were neutralized when Conrad was assassinated in 1196.
Queen consort of León
In order to help secure peace between Castile and León and by becoming a mediator between her father and her husband, Berengaria married King
Alfonso IX of León
Alfonso IX (15 August 117123 or 24 September 1230) was King of León from the death of his father Ferdinand II in 1188 until his own death.
He took steps towards modernizing and democratizing his dominion and founded the University of Salaman ...
, her first cousin once removed, in
Valladolid
Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...
in 1197. As part of the marriage, and in accordance with Spanish customs of the time, she received direct control over a number of castles and lands within León. Most of these were along the border with Castile, and the nobles who ran them in her name were allowed to seek justice from either king in the event of being wronged by the other. In turn, these knights were charged with maintaining the peace along the border in the queen's name.
Starting in 1198,
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216.
Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...
objected to the marriage on the grounds of
consanguinity
Consanguinity (from Latin '':wikt: consanguinitas, consanguinitas'' 'blood relationship') is the characteristic of having a kinship with a relative who is descended from a common ancestor.
Many jurisdictions have laws prohibiting people who are ...
and even threatened to excommunicate Alfonso, though the couple stayed together until 1204. They vehemently sought a dispensation in order to stay together, including offering large sums of money. The pope denied their request, but they succeeded in establishing the
legitimacy of their children. The marriage was dissolved in 1204. Berengaria returned to her parents in Castile in May, where she dedicated herself to the care of her children. The eldest of them, Eleanor (1198/99-1202), had died; Constance (1200–1242),
Ferdinand
Ferdinand is a Germanic name composed of the elements "journey, travel", Proto-Germanic , abstract noun from root "to fare, travel" (PIE , "to lead, pass over"), and "courage" or "ready, prepared" related to Old High German "to risk, ventu ...
(1201–1252),
Alfonso
Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula. I ...
(1203–1272), and
Berengaria (1204–1237) survived infancy.
Between queenships
Though she had left her role as queen of León, Berengaria retained authority over and taxing rights in many of the lands she had received there, including
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...
and
Castroverde, which she gave to her son Ferdinand in 1206. Some of the nobles who had served her as queen followed her back to the court in Castile. The peace which had prevailed since her marriage was lost, and there was war again between León and Castile, in part over her control of these lands. In 1205, 1207, and 1209, treaties were made again between the two countries, each expanding her control. In the treaties of 1207 and 1209, Berengaria and her son were given again significant properties along the border, including many key castles, including
Villalpando. The treaty in 1207 is the first existing public document in the
Castilian dialect.
In 1214, on the death of her father, Alfonso VIII, the Castilian crown passed to his only surviving son, Berengaria's 10-year-old brother, Henry I. Their mother Eleanor assumed the regency, but died 24 days after her husband. Berengaria, now heir presumptive again, replaced her as regent. At this point internal strife began, instigated by the nobility, primarily the
House of Lara
The House of Lara (Spanish: ''Casa de Lara'') is a noble family from the medieval Kingdom of Castile. Two of its branches, one of the Dukes of Nájera and one of the Marquises of Aguilar de Campoo were considered Grandees of Spain. The Lara fami ...
. They forced Berengaria to cede regency and guardianship of her brother to Count
Álvaro Núñez de Lara.
In 1216, an extraordinary parliamentary session was held in Valladolid, attended by such Castilian magnates as
Lope Díaz II de Haro,
Gonzalo Rodríguez Girón, Álvaro Díaz de Cameros,
Alfonso Téllez de Meneses and others, who agreed, with the support of Berengaria, to make common cause against Álvaro Núñez de Lara. At the end of May the situation in Castile had grown perilous for Berengaria, so she decided to take refuge in the castle of
Autillo de Campos, which was held by Gonzalo Rodríguez Girón (one of her allies) and sent her son Ferdinand to the court of his father. On 15 August 1216, an assembly of all the magnates of Castile was held to attempt to reach an accord that would prevent civil war, but disagreements led the families of Girón, Téllez de Meneses, and Haro to break definitively with Álvaro de Lara.
Queen of Castile
Circumstances changed suddenly when Henry died on 6 June 1217 after receiving a head wound from a tile which came loose while he was playing with other children at the palace of the
bishop of Palencia. His guardian, Count Álvaro Núñez de Lara, tried to hide the fact, taking the king's body to the castle of
Tariego, although it was inevitable that the news would reach Berengaria.
The new sovereign was well aware of the danger her former husband posed to her reign; being her brother's closest
agnate
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...
, it was feared that he would claim the crown for himself. Therefore, she kept her brother's death and her own accession secret from Alfonso. She wrote to Alfonso asking that Ferdinand be sent to visit her, and then abdicated in their son's favour on 31 August. In part, she abdicated as she would be unable to be the military leader Castile needed its king to be in that time.
Royal advisor
Although she did not reign for long, Berengaria continued to be her son's closest advisor, intervening in state policy, albeit in an indirect manner. Well into her son's reign, contemporary authors wrote that she still wielded authority over him. One example was how she arranged the marriage of her son with princess
Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen (known as ''Beatriz'' in Castile), daughter of Duke
Philip of Swabia
Philip of Swabia (February/March 1177 – 21 June 1208), styled Philip II in his charters, was a member of the House of Hohenstaufen and King of Germany from 1198 until his assassination.
The death of Philip's older brother Henry VI, Holy Roman E ...
and granddaughter of two emperors: Frederick Barbarossa and
Isaac II Angelos
Isaac II Angelos or Angelus (; September 1156 – 28 January 1204) was Byzantine Emperor from 1185 to 1195, and co-Emperor with his son Alexios IV Angelos from 1203 to 1204. In a 1185 revolt against the Emperor Andronikos Komnenos, Isaac ...
of Byzantium. The wedding took place on 30 November 1219 at Burgos. Another instance in which Berengaria's mediation stood out developed in 1218 when the scheming Lara family, still headed by former regent Álvaro Núñez de Lara, conspired to have Alfonso IX, King of León and King Ferdinand's father, invade Castile to seize his son's throne. However, the capture of Count Lara facilitated the intervention of Berengaria, who got father and son to sign the Pact of Toro on 26 August 1218, putting an end to confrontations between Castile and León.
In 1222, Berengaria intervened anew in favor of her son, achieving the ratification of the Convention of Zafra, thereby making peace with the Laras by arranging the marriage of Mafalda, daughter and heiress of the Lord of Molina, Gonzalo Pérez de Lara, to her own son and King Ferdinand's brother, Alfonso. In 1224 she arranged the marriage of her daughter Berengaria to John of Brienne, a maneuver which brought Ferdinand III closer to the throne of León, since John was the candidate Alfonso IX had in mind to marry his eldest daughter Sancha. By proceeding more quickly, Berengaria prevented the daughters of her former husband from marrying a man who could claim the throne of León.
Perhaps Berengaria's most decisive intervention on Ferdinand's behalf took place in 1230, when Alfonso IX died and designated as heirs to the throne his daughters
Sancha and
Dulce from his first marriage to
Theresa of Portugal, superseding the rights of Ferdinand III. Berengaria met with the princesses' mother and succeeded in the ratification of the
Treaty of Las Tercerías, by which they renounced the throne in favor of their half-brother in exchange for a substantial sum of money and other benefits. Thus were the thrones of León and Castile re-united in the person of Ferdinand III, which had been divided by Alfonso VII in 1157. She intervened again by arranging the second marriage of Ferdinand after the death of Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen. Although he already had several children, Berengaria was concerned that the king's virtue not be diminished with illicit relations. This time, she chose a French noblewoman,
Joan of Dammartin, a candidate put forth by the king's aunt and Berengaria's sister
Blanche, widow of King
Louis VIII of France
Louis VIII (5 September 1187 8 November 1226), nicknamed The Lion (), was King of France from 1223 to 1226. As a prince, he invaded Kingdom of England, England on 21 May 1216 and was Excommunication in the Catholic Church, excommunicated by a ...
. Berengaria served again as regent, ruling while her son Ferdinand was in the south on his long campaigns of the
Reconquista
The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...
. She governed Castile and León with her characteristic skill, relieving him of the need to divide his attention during this time.
Patronage and legacy
Berengaria met with her son a final time in
Pozuelo de Calatrava in 1245, afterwards returning to Toledo. She died on 8 November 1246 and was buried at Las Huelgas near Burgos.
Much like her mother, Berengaria was a strong patron of religious institutions. She worked with her mother to support the
Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas
The Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas is a monastery of Cistercian nuns located approximately 1.5 km west of the city of Burgos in Spain. The word , which usually refers to "labour strikes" in modern Spanish, refers in this case ...
. As queen of León, she supported the
Order of Santiago
The Order of Santiago (; ) is a religious and military order founded in the 12th century. It owes its name to the patron saint of Spain, ''Santiago'' ( St. James the Greater). Its initial objective was to protect the pilgrims on the Way of S ...
and supported the
Basilica of San Isidoro
In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East ...
, not only donating to it, but also exempting it from any taxes. She re-established the tradition of Leónese royal women supporting the
Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza, last performed by her great-grand-aunt,
Sancha Raimúndez
Sancha Raimúndez (c. 1095/110228 February 1159) was a Leonese people, Leonese infanta, the daughter of Queen Urraca of León and Castile and Raymond of Burgundy. She was the older sister of Alfonso VII of León.
Biography
Sancha Raimúndez of L ...
.
Berengaria is portrayed as a wise and virtuous woman by the chroniclers of the time. She was also concerned with literature and history, charging
Lucas de Tuy to compose a chronicle on the Kings of Castile and León to aid and instruct future rulers of the joint kingdom. She herself was discussed in the works of
Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, whose work was sponsored by her son Ferdinand, and Juan of Osma, who was chancellor of Castile under Ferdinand.
Commemoration
The
Spanish Navy
The Spanish Navy, officially the Armada, is the Navy, maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation ...
screw frigate
Steam frigates (including screw frigates) and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. The first such ships were paddle stea ...
, in commission from 1857 to 1877, was named for Berengaria of Castile.
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Explores Berenguela's use of authority as both queen and regent, at varied times, for the Spanish thrones of Castile and León.
*
, -
, -
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berengaria of Castile
12th-century births
Year of birth uncertain
1246 deaths
Queens regnant in Europe
Queens consort of Leon
Galician queens consort
Castilian House of Burgundy
Hohenstaufen family
12th-century Spanish women
12th-century nobility from León and Castile
Burials at the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas
People from Segovia
People from Burgos
13th-century Spanish women
13th-century queens regnant
13th-century queens consort
13th-century women regents
13th-century regents
13th-century Castilian monarchs
Castilian infantas
Regents of Castile
Remarried duchesses consort
Mothers of Leonese monarchs