Alfonso II (1–25 March 1157[1][2][3] – 25 April 1196), called the Chaste or the Troubadour, was the King of Aragon and, as Alfons I, the Count of Barcelona from 1164 until his death.[1][4] The eldest son of Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona and Queen Petronilla of Aragon,[5] he was the first King of Aragon who was also Count of Barcelona. He was also Count of Provence,[6] which he conquered from Douce II, from 1166 until 1173, when he ceded it to his brother, Ramon Berenguer III. His reign has been characterised by nationalistic and nostalgic Catalan historians as l'engrandiment occitànic or "the Pyrenean unity": a great scheme to unite various lands on both sides of the Pyrenees under the rule of the House of Barcelona.[7]
Reign
Born at Huesca,[2] Alfonso, called indistinctly from birth Alfonso and Ramon,[8] ascended the united throne of Aragon and Barcelona as Alfonso, in deference to the Aragonese, to honour Alfonso the Battler.[9]
For most of his reign he was allied with Alfonso VIII of Castile, both against
Navarre and against the Moorishtaifas of the south. In his
Reconquista effort Alfonso pushed as far as Teruel, conquering this important
stronghold on the road to Valencia in 1171. The same year saw him capturing Caspe.
Apart from common interests, kings of Aragon and Castile were united by a formal bond of vassalage the former owed to the latter.[citation needed] Besides, on January 18, 1174, in Zaragoza Alfonso married Sancha, sister of the Castilian king.[10] Another milestone in this alliance was the Treaty of Cazorla between the two kings in 1179, delineating zones of conquest in the south along the watershed of the rivers Júcar and Segura. Southern areas of Valencia including Denia were thus secured to Aragon. Alfonso also reached an agreement, the Treaty of Sangüesa (1168), with Sancho VI of Navarre dividing the territory of the Taifa of Murcia between them.
During his reign Aragonese influence north of the Pyrenees reached its zenith, a natural tendency given the affinity between the Occitan, Catalan and Aragonese dominions of the Crown of Aragon. His realms incorporated not only Provence (from 1166 or just before),[6] but also the counties of Cerdanya (1168) and Roussillon (inherited in 1172).[11]Béarn and Bigorre paid homage to him in 1187. Alfonso's involvement in the affairs of Languedoc, which would cost the life of his successor, Peter II of Aragon, for the moment proved highly beneficial, strengthening Aragonese trade and stimulating emigration from the north to colonise the newly reconquered lands in Aragon.
In 1186, he helped establish Aragonese influence in Sardinia when he supported his cousin Agalbursa, the widow of the deceased Judge of Arborea, Barison II, in placing her grandson, the child of her eldest daughter Ispella, Hugh, on the throne of Arborea in opposition to Peter of Serra.
Alfonso and his love affairs are mentioned in poems by many troubadours, including Guillem de Berguedà (who criticized his dealings with Azalais of Toulouse) and Peire Vidal, who commended Alfonso's decision to marry Sancha rather than Eudokia Komnene that he had preferred a poor Castilian maid to the emperor Manuel's golden camel.
Alfonso II of Aragon and his wife Sancha, surrounded by the women of court. From the Liber feudorum maior.
^Ernest Belenguer (2006), "Aproximación a la historia de la Corona de Aragón"Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine, p. 26, in Ernest Belenguer, Felipe V. Garín Llombart and Carmen Morte García, La Corona de Aragón. El poder y la imagen de la Edad Media a la Edad Moderna (siglos XII – XVIII), Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior (SEACEX); Generalitat Valenciana and Ministerio de Cultura de España: Lunwerg, pp. 25–53. ISBN84-9785-261-3
^ abcdefPrevite-Orton, C.W. (1960). The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. II: The twelfth century to the Renaissance. Cambridge at the University Press. p. 825.
^T. N. Bisson, "The Rise of Catalonia: Identity, Power, and Ideology in a Twelfth-Century Society," Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, xxxix (1984), translated in Medieval France and her Pyrenean Neighbours: Studies in Early Institutional History (London: Hambledon, 1989), pp. 179.
^Gerardo II of Rosellon (1164–1174) willed in his testament that "the entire Rosellon I give to my lord the king of Aragón" for the loyalty that he had in his sovereign, Alphonso II, who was immediately recognized as king in Perpignan. See José Ángel Sesma Muñoz (2000). La Corona de Aragón. Zaragoza: CAI (Colección Mariano de Pano y Ruata, 18), pp. 59–60.
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