“In the nineteenth year of the reign of Alfonso the Catholic, of the era 791, of the Incarnation of our Lord 753, of the empire of Constantine 15, and of the Alarabes since Muhammed was their king, 132, it befel that King Alfonso, having populated such places as he saw he could maintain, and laboured ever to serve God as far as in him lay, and to maintain his kingdom in peace and justice, fell sick and died, and rendered his soul to God, and at the hour of his death voices were heard in the air singing, ‘The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace.’[23] And King Alfonso was buried with great pomp in the town of Cangas with his wife Doña Hermesinda, in the church of Santa Maria of that town.”[k]
ALFONSO THE CHASTE AND BERNARDO DEL CARPIO
[757-866 A.D.]
Fruela I (757-768) Alfonso’s son, made Oviedo his capital. To strengthen his position, endangered by the civil distractions of his reign, he obtained his recognition as king of the Asturias and Oviedo from the caliph of Cordova in exchange for an annual tribute. He was very pious, but killed his own brother, and his difficulties were ended only by his assassination. Four usurpers, Aurelio, Silo, Mauregato, and Bermudo I. followed one another on his throne and continued to pay the tribute to Cordova, coupled, the legend says, with the yearly present of one hundred virgins. Alfonso II, called the Chaste, is credited with putting an end to this humiliating relation to Cordova. He was the son of Fruela I and began his reign in 791 by vigorously repulsing a Moorish invasion. He added to the kingdom on the southern frontier, but his relations with Charlemagne constitute the chief interest of his reign. He is said to have offered to make the Frankish monarch his heir, in return for the latter’s assistance against the Moors, and Louis le Débonnaire, Charlemagne’s son, twice led an army into Spain, which conquered the “Spanish Mark.” But Alfonso’s promise to Charlemagne was disapproved by the nobles; whereupon (so the Spanish writers affirm), a quarrel ensued between the Franks and the Spaniards of Oviedo. With this quarrel they connect the great battle of Roncesvalles, where Charlemagne’s forces under his nephew Roland were defeated and Roland was slain. But this battle is assigned by Arab writers to 778 A.D., thirteen years before the accession of Alfonso.[a]
Of the legendary slaughter, of the heroism of Roland, of the valour of Bernardo del Carpio, of the hundred and one stories which have been embroidered upon the simple happening of this mountain ambuscade, no account can be given here; but at least one important fact comes out of the legend, namely, that Spaniards of all sorts and races, though divided enough to be constantly fighting among themselves, had now, for the first time in their history, the early promptings of the nationality of soil, as apart from that of faith or tribal connection, sufficiently strong to permit of a coalition against a foreigner as such. This feeling was again demonstrated a few years later (797), when Alfonso II, encouraged by his successful raids against the Moors in the south, bethought him to beg the aid of Charlemagne to establish himself in his new conquest, even as tributary of the Frankish emperor. But this the Spanish-Gothic nobles would not endure, and incontinently locked up their king in a monastery until he promised that no foreigner should ever be allowed to interfere in struggles on the soil of Spain.[b]
Alfonso the Chaste was succeeded in 842 by Ramiro I, son of King Bermudo. His election was disputed but he put down this as other rebellions. He repelled the Norse invaders, who then ravaged the Moslem coast. His alleged victories over the Saracens are not recorded by Arab historians. In 850 his son Ordoño I succeeded him. He won a battle at Clavijo—the great victory at the same place credited to his father being pure legend. He unintentionally aided the Moslems by defeating the Arab rebel Musa, but also drove off the hungry Norse pirates and was a famous builder of cities and castles. When he died in 866 he left the whole region from Salamanca to the Bay of Biscay to his eldest son.
Alfonso III, who was then only eighteen and was driven from the throne for a time, showed his native vigour by re-establishing himself against his enemies, though his pacificatory schemes to end the rebellions of Navarre ended in the eventual loss of that realm to Spain.[a]