Kingdom of Aragon
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| Kingdom of Aragon Reino d'Aragón (Aragonese) Regne d'Aragó (Catalan) Regnum Aragonum (Latin) Reino de Aragón (Spanish) |
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 In red, the modern territory of Aragon within Spain
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| Capital | Jaca, Huesca, Zaragoza (in chronological order) | ||||
| Languages | Aragonese, Catalan, Spanish, and Latin | ||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism | ||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||
| Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||
| - | County of Aragon established as independent kingdom | 1035 | |||
| - | Nueva Planta decrees dissolve remaining Aragonese institutions in 1715 | 1715 | |||
| Today part of |  Spain |
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The Kingdom of Aragon (Aragonese: Reino d'Aragón, Catalan: Regne d'Aragó, Latin: Regnum Aragonum, Spanish: Reino de Aragón) was a medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain. It should not be confused with the larger Crown of Aragon, of which the Kingdom of Aragon became a member along with other territories such as the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca or the County of Provence, all of them under the rule of the King of Aragon.
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History [edit]
Independent kingdom [edit]
Aragon was originally a Carolingian feudal county around the city of Jaca, which in the first half of the 9th century became a vassal state of the kingdom of Pamplona (later Navarre), its own dynasty of counts ending without male heir in 922. The name Aragón is the same of the river Aragón, which flows by Jaca. It might derive from the Basque Aragoi meaning "high valley".
On the death of Sancho III of Navarre in 1035, the Kingdom of Navarre was divided into three parts: (1) Navarre with some Basque lands, (2) Castile and (3) Sobrarbe, Ribagorza and Aragon. Sancho's son Gonzalo inherited Sobrarbe and Ribargorza, whereas his illegitimate son Ramiro received Aragon, but Gonzalo was killed soon after and all the land he owned went to his brother Ramiro, thus becoming the first de facto king of Aragon,[1] although he never used that title.
By defeating his brother, García Sánchez III of Navarre, Ramiro achieved virtual independence for Aragon. His son Sancho Ramírez, who also inherited the kingdom of Navarre, was the first to call himself "King of the Aragonians and Pamplonese".[2] As the Aragonian domains expanded to the south, conquering land from Al Andalus, the capital city moved from Jaca to Huesca (1096), and later to Zaragoza (1118). After the death of Alfonso the Battler in 1135, the split between the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon was final. By 1285 the southernmost areas of Aragon had been taken from the Moors.
Dynastic union with Catalonia [edit]
The Kingdom of Aragón gave the name to the Crown of Aragon, after the dynastic union in 1150 of the Queen of Aragon (Petronilla of Aragon) with a Count of Barcelona (Ramon Berenguer IV), their son inheriting all their respective territories in the House of Aragon. The Kings of Aragon had also the title of Count of Barcelona and ruled territories that consisted of not only the present administrative region of Aragon but also Catalonia, and later the kingdoms of Majorca, Valencia, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia. The King of Aragón was the direct King of the Aragonese region, and held also the title of Count of Provence, Count of Barcelona, Lord of Montpellier, and Duke of Athens and Neopatria. Each of these titles gave him sovereignty over a certain region, and these titles changed as he lost and won territories. In the fourteenth century, his power was greatly restricted by the Union of Aragon.
The Crown of Aragon became a part of the Spanish monarchy after the dynastic union with Castile, which supposed the de facto unification of both kingdoms under a common monarch. After this happened, Aragon kept its own institutions, such as the Corts, until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated between 1707 and 1715 in the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, finally put an end to it. [3]
Coordinates: 41°39′N 0°54′W / 41.650°N 0.900°W
See also [edit]
Notes [edit]
- ^ CAI Tourism of Aragon. Retrieved 2010-03-05
- ^ Antonio Ubieto, Creación y desarrollo de la Corona de Aragón, Anubar, Zaragoza, 1987, pp. 58-59.
- ^ I. Ruiz Rodríguez, Apuntes de historia del derecho y de las instituciones españolas, Dykinson, Madrid, 2005, p. 179. (In Spanish)
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