♂Alfonso of Leon

Alfonso of Leon (15 August 1171 – 24 September 1230) was King of Leon, Galicia and Badajoz, remembered as Alfonso IX, a king whose two marriages, both to kinswomen, each ended over that kinship. He was the twenty-fourth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Fernando of Castile (1201–1252).

Early life and first marriage

Alfonso was the son and heir of Fernando of Leon, King of Leon^W, by his first wife, Urraca of Portugal^W, a daughter of Affonso I Enriques, King of Portugal. He is said to have been born at Zamora on 15 August 1171. At Guimarães on 15 February 1191 he married Teresa of Portugal, a daughter of Sancho I, King of Portugal, and they had three children, Fernando, Sancha and Dulce. In 1194 the marriage was annulled for consanguinity^W, because the couple were too closely related by blood. Alfonso and Teresa separated in 1197, and she later became a nun at Lorvão.

Berenguela and the interdict

In December 1197, at Valladolid, Berenguela of Castile^W married Alfonso of Leon, King of Leon, Galicia and Badajoz, as his second wife. They had two sons, Fernando and Alfonso, and three daughters, Leonor, Berenguela and Constanza. A papal dispensation for the marriage was refused, and Leon was placed under an interdict^W from 1202 to 1204, a ban that suspended most of the Church’s sacraments across the kingdom. In 1204 the couple separated because of their kinship, and Berenguela went back to her father’s kingdom. Besides the children of his two marriages, Alfonso had eleven children by various mistresses.

Death and the succession

Alfonso of Leon died at Villanueva de Sarria on 24 September 1230. He was buried in the chapel of San Lorenzo in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela^W. That same year Berenguela was appointed to negotiate with Teresa of Portugal, Alfonso’s first wife, for the renunciation by Teresa’s two daughters of their rights to the crown of Leon in favor of Berenguela’s son, Fernando, who had been King of Castile since 1217.

Notes

Sources

Alfonso’s parentage, birth, both marriages and their children, the interdict, his illegitimate children, his death and burial and the settlement of 1230 are from Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., 2011), vol. I, CASTILE 4, pp. 493–494. This is a printed genealogy of the medieval royal families, which cites the Spanish chronicles, the charters and the modern histories. His royal title is also given at ENGLAND 3, pp. 23–28, in the same volume.

His name and places

He is better known as Alfonso IX of León. Richardson spells the place of his death “Villaneuva de Sarria”; this page gives it as Villanueva de Sarria. The cathedral is named there as “Santiago el Mayor Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela”.