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Baldwin, M. W. (ed.) / Volume I: The first hundred years
(1969)
II: Conflict in the Mediterranean before the First Crusade, pp. [30]-[79]
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Page 36
36 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES I assumed by the emir in 929—was by this time so great that the victory was one of the few events of the peninsula to be noted by chroniclers north of the Alps. Although Fernán Gonzalez was defeated and imprisoned, his following was so considerable that Ramiro was forced to release him, subject to an oath of allegiance and an arranged marriage between the count's daughter and the king's son, all to little effect. The foundation of Ramiro's policy was a firm alliance with Navarre, which was governed by the dowager queen Tota, on behalf of her infant son. This vigorous lady was in the habit of leading her troops in battle. She had married her two daughters to the count of Castile and the king of Leon respectively. It was this complex of family alliances which was ultimately to ac complish a temporary unification which would save the Christian states from complete subservience to the caliphate. In the period following the death of Ramiro, the Christian states became almost completely dependent. Directly and in directly the Moslem power was able to interfere in internal affairs of the states by treaty, intervention, and negotiations with disloyal vassals. The case of Ramiro's second son Sancho "the Fat" is illustrative. His mother was a princess of Navarre. Tota, his grandmother, was still regent in Navarre. When the nobles of Leon deposed Sancho, ostensibly because he was too fat to cut a proper royal figure, he took refuge at his grand mother's court at Pamplona. Tota got in touch with ' Abd-ar Rahmãn III who was delighted, first to supply a physician and then to welcome king Sancho and his grandmother Tota to the court at Cordova as honored suppliants. Sancho returned to Leon without his surplus weight but with a Moslem army and with treaty obligations involving delivery of certain towns to the caliphate. Having regained his throne he showed no interest in fulfilling his promises until forced to do so. After Sancho had been conveniently poisoned, his successor, Bermudo II (984— 999), was plundered and exploited by his nobility until he appealed to the Moslem commander, the chamberlain al Mansflr. The Moslem demanded submission, in return for which al-Mansür placed Moslem garrisons in most of the Leonese fortresses. The king's efforts to escape from this burden led ultimately to the punitive sack and plundering of the shrine of Santiago at Compostela (997). The wealth of plunder re ported to have been carried away is revealing. Large numbers of the turbulent Leonese and Galician nobility participated in
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