JimÊnez dynasty
JimÊnez | |
---|---|
Country |
![]() ![]() |
Titles | King |
Founded | 921 |
Founder | Prince GarcÃa JimÊnez of Pamplona |
Final ruler | Sancho VII |
Current head | Extinct |
Dissolution | 1234 |
The JimÊnez or GimÊnez/Ximenes (Basque pronunciation: [ĘimenesĖē]) were an Iberian ruling family from the 10th century to the 13th century.
History
The first known member of the family, GarcÃa JimÊnez of Pamplona, is obscure, it being stated by the Roda Codex that he was "king of another part of the kingdom" of Pamplona, presumably lord of part of Navarre beyond the area of direct control of the ÃÃąiguez kings: probably the frontier areas of Ãlava and the western Pyrenees given the list of their landholdings preserved in a later charter. It was long believed that their origins lay in Gascony.
In 905 Sancho GarcÊs, a younger son of the dynasty founder, used foreign assistance to displace the ÃÃąiguez ruler FortÃēn GarcÊs and consolidate the monarchy in his dynasty's hands. Based on this, for several subsequent generations the family would be called the Banu Sanjo (Arabic: بŲŲ Ø´Ø§ŲØŦŲâ) in Iberian Muslim sources. In addition to repulsing several attacks from the Emir of CÃŗrdoba, Sancho crushed the neighboring Banu Qasi and thus expanded Pamplona to the upper Ebro River valley, as well as incorporating the previously-independent County of Aragon into the realm.
Following the death of Sancho in 925, his brother Jimeno GarcÊs maintained a position of strength, intervening in the politics of neighboring Christian and Muslim states. His death left the crown to his nephew, Sancho's son GarcÃa SÃĄnchez I, who was still a child. Originally ruling under the tutelage of his mother, the ÃÃąiguez descendant Toda Aznar who established a web of political and marital alliances among the Iberian Christian states, he invited the intervention of his cousin Abd-ar-Rahman III of CÃŗrdoba to achieve emancipation from his mother. There followed three generations of defeat and subjugation by the Caliphate. He did create for his younger son a short-lived sub-kingdom centered at Viguera, which lasted for several decades until it was reabsorbed into the Pamplona kingdom.
The kingdom of Pamplona only reemerged from the Cordoban shadow during the reign of Sancho the Great, who ruled from 1000 to 1035 in Pamplona, but also ruled Aragon, Castile, Ribagorza and eventually LeÃŗn (but not Galicia) by right or conquest. He received the homage of the Count of Barcelona and possibly of the Duke of Gascony. After his coronation in LeÃŗn, he even took up the imperial title over all Spain. His vast domains were divided amongst his sons at his death, giving rise to three independent medieval kingdoms each ruled by a JimÊnez monarch.
The Kingdom of Navarre, passing to the eldest son GarcÃa, was unable to maintain its hegemony, leading to the full independence of Aragon under his illegitimate brother Ramiro I, who had previously taken over the territories of murdered brother Gonzalo of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza. Younger sibling Ferdinand I, then Count of Castile, killed in battle his nominal overlord the King of LeÃŗn and Galicia in 1037 and thereby inheriting them and bringing them fully into the orbit of his ruling clan. He then defeated GarcÃa, achieving a sort of hegemony over his brothers, but again divided his realm among his sons. One of these, Alfonso VI, not only succeeded to the reunited realm of his father, but also conquered Toledo, reclaimed the imperial title and even pretended to rule over both Christian and Moslem Spain.
The Navarre branch of the dynasty went into eclipse when in 1076 Sancho IV was assassinated by his siblings, and his cousins Alfonso VI of Castile and Sancho RamÃrez of Aragon converged and divided the kingdom, with the Aragon ruler gaining the Navarre crown, while ceding western lands to Castile.
The holdings of the family were briefly reunited when Alfonso the Battler of Navarre and Aragon married Alfonso VI's daughter Urraca, Queen of Castile and LeÃŗn, and claimed the imperial title. However, the marriage failed and the kingdoms of Castile and LeÃŗn passed out of the dynasty, to Urraca's son by a prior marriage. The Kingdom of Aragon and that of Navarre likewise went their separate ways following Alfonso's death, the former passing to his brother, the latter to a descendant of its original ruling family, with each eventually passing to other dynasties through heiresses: Petronilla of Aragon, who married the ruler of Barcelona and thus united those two realms into the Crown of Aragon; and Blanca, sister of Sancho VII of Navarre, whose 1234 death brought JimÊnez rule to an end.
The Borgias of Italy in the 15th century would present a pedigree that traced their ancestry to Pedro de AtarÊs, lord of Borja, Zaragoza, who had been a competitor for the thrones of Navarre and Aragon following the death of Alfonso the Battler. Pedro was a scion of this family, being grandson of Sancho RamÃrez, Count of Ribagorza, illegitimate brother of king Sancho RamÃrez of Aragon. Such a descent would thus have made the Borgias male-line descendants of the JimÊnez dynasty. However, the descent was a fabrication.
Rulers
Emperors in bold. Date of assumption of imperial title in parentheses.
Navarre
- 905â925 Sancho I, son of GarcÃa JimÊnez of Pamplona 'king of another part of the kingdom'
- 925â931 Jimeno GarcÊs, brother of Sancho I
- 925â970 GarcÃa SÃĄnchez I, son of Sancho I
- 970â994 Sancho II, son of GarcÃa
- 994â1000 GarcÃa SÃĄnchez II, son of Sancho II
- 1000â1035 Sancho III (1034), son of GarcÃa
- 1035â1054 GarcÃa SÃĄnchez III, son of Sancho III
- 1054â1076 Sancho IV, son of GarcÃa
- United with Aragon 1076 to 1134.
- 1134â1150 GarcÃa RamÃrez, grandson of an illegitimate son of GarcÃa SÃĄnchez III
- 1150â1194 Sancho VI, son of GarcÃa
- 1194â1234 Sancho VII, son of Sancho VI
- Navarre to House of Champagne in 1234.
Castile, LeÃŗn, and Galicia
- 1035â1065 Ferdinand I (1056), son of Sancho III
- Took LeÃŗn and Galicia in 1037.
- 1065â1072
- Sancho II in Castile, son of Ferdinand
- Alfonso VI in LeÃŗn, son of Ferdinand
- GarcÃa II in Galicia and Portugal (displaced in 1071 by Sancho II and Alfonso VI), son of Ferdinand
- 1072 Sancho II in Castile, LeÃŗn, and Galicia
- 1072â1109 Alfonso VI (1077)
- 1109â1126 Urraca, daughter of Alfonso, briefly wife of Alfonso I of Aragon
- Galicia to House of Burgundy in 1111, LeÃŗn and Castile in 1126.
Sobrarbe and Ribagorza
- 1035â1043 Gonzalo, son of Sancho III
- Sobrarbe and Ribagorza merged into Aragon in 1043.
Aragon
- 1035â1063 Ramiro I, illegitimate son of Sancho III
- 1063â1094 Sancho RamÃrez, son of Ramiro
- 1094â1101 Peter I, son of Sancho
- 1104â1134 Alfonso I (1109), half-brother of Peter
- 1134â1137 Ramiro II, brother of Alfonso
- 1137â1162 Petronilla, daughter of Ramiro II
- Aragon to House of Barcelona in 1137.
Viguera
- 970â991 Ramiro GarcÊs, son of GarcÃa SÃĄnchez I, half-brother of Sancho II
- 991â1002 Sancho RamÃrez son of Ramiro
- 1002â1005/1030 GarcÃa RamÃrez, brother of Sancho
- Viguera merged back into Navarre by 1030.