Ancient Cantabria, which the writers of the eighth century usually termed Bardulia, and which, at this period, stretched from the Biscayan Sea to the Douro, towards the close of the same century began to be called Castella—doubtless from the numerous forts erected for the defence of the country by Alfonso I. As the boundaries were gradually removed towards the south, by the victories of the Christians, the same denomination was applied to the new as well as to the former conquests, and the whole continued subject to the same governor, who had subordinate governors dependent on him. Of the first governors or counts, from the period of its conquest by that prince in 760 to the reign of Ordoño I (a full century), not even the names are mentioned in the old chroniclers; the first we meet with is that of Count Rodrigo, who is known to have possessed the dignity at least six years, viz., from 860 to 866.
Bermudo II, who, on the death of Ramiro, in 982, was acknowledged king of Leon, had little reason to congratulate himself on his elevation, since his reign was one of the most disastrous in the national annals—distracted alike by domestic rebellion and foreign invasion. The fierce Almansor laid waste the greater part of his kingdom, entered his very capital, and forced him to seek refuge in the heart of the Asturias. He died in 999.
Alfonso V was only five years of age on the death of his father; and the government was consequently entrusted to a regent. That regency is eventful, from the defeat of Almansor in 1001—a defeat which not only occasioned the death of that hero, but which was the forerunner of the fall of Cordova. In the dissensions which followed among the candidates for the throne of Hisham, the Christian princes of Spain embraced different sides, as their interests or inclinations dictated. In 1010, Alfonso was imprudent enough to confer the hand of his sister on Muhammed, king of Toledo—a prince who was subsequently raised to the throne of Cordova, but was soon deposed and put to death by Hisham. As the king of Leon grew in years, he endeavoured to repair the disasters which had been occasioned by the hostile inroads of the Arabs: he rebuilt and repeopled his capital, whither the seat of government was again transferred from Oviedo. His good intentions, however, were not a little thwarted by the rebellion of Count Sancho Garces of Castile. In 1021, Don Sancho died: his son, Don Garcia, a mere child, succeeded him. With Don Garcia ended the counts of Castile—which was thenceforth to be governed by kings, and to remain more than two centuries dissevered from Leon. Alfonso carried his arms into Portugal, and laid siege to Viseu, then held by the Mohammedans. He was mortally wounded by an arrow from the ramparts.
SANCHO EL MAYOR
[1010-1037 A.D.]
Like his father, Bermudo III, though already married to the infanta of Castile, was at a tender age on his accession. Of this circumstance advantage was unworthily taken by Sancho el Mayor, king of Navarre, who, not satisfied with assuming the sovereignty of Castile in right of his queen, Doña Muña Elvira, the elder sister of the queen of Leon, and daughter of Don Garcia, the last count of Castile, made a hostile irruption into the states of his brother-in-law. Having passed the Pisuerga, the western boundary of Castile, he conquered as much of Leon as lay between that river and the Cea. Peace was, however, made on the condition that the king of Leon should confer the hand of his sister, Doña Sancha, on Don Ferdinand, one of King Sancho’s sons. But this peace appears to have been subsequently broken, doubtless through the ambition of the enterprising Navarrese; for, according to the Complutensian[p] and Toledan[q] annals, that king in 1034 possessed Astorga, and indeed most of the country as far as Galicia. Yet what need of conquest? As Bermudo continued childless, the wily monarch might safely cherish the hope that the crown of Leon would devolve on the brows of his son in right of the infanta, his daughter-in-law.
On the death of Sancho, in 1035, his ample states were thus divided: to Garcia he left the kingdom of Navarre, the lordship of Biscay (which had been hitherto annexed to Castile), and a part of Rioja; to Ferdinand he bequeathed the new kingdom of Castile, and the conquests he had made between the Pisuerga and the Cea; to Ramiro fell the states of Aragon, which had hitherto continued a stateship as much dependent on Navarre as Castile on Leon; to another son, Gonsalo, he left Ribagorza, with some forts in Aragon. This policy could not fail to be followed by fatal results. While Ramiro made war on his brother of Navarre, Ferdinand I was summoned to the defence of the conquests which he held beyond the Pisuerga, and which Bermudo resolved again to incorporate with the kingdom of Leon. Aided by some auxiliary troops under his brother Garcia, he encountered Bermudo on the banks of the Carrion. The battle, which was fought in 1037, was sanguinary and long-continued; until the king of Leon impatiently spurred his horse into the midst of the hostile squadrons, and fell mortally wounded by the thrust of a lance.
With Bermudo III ended the male line of the house of Leon. This prince deserved a better fate than that of falling by hostile hands at the premature age of nineteen. The zeal with which he rebuilt churches and monasteries; the valour which he exhibited against the Mohammedans of Portugal, from whom he took several fortresses; the firmness with which, even at that early age, he enforced the administration of justice; and his affability of disposition, rendered him deservedly dear to his people.[h]
THE HISTORY OF CASTILE (1037-1109 A.D.)
[1037-1064 A.D.]