camino de Santiago

Scholars have concluded that the Abbey of Cluny played a major role in preparing and profiting from the Crusades.[1] Similarly, the Cluniacs were also believed to have played a significant role in directing the Spanish Reconquista, with the aim of establishing their own “Second Holy Land.” At the time, the Abbey of Cluny was the strongest arm of the Church in France. It was the abbots of Cluny who supported the decision to come to the aid of the Christian kingdoms in northern Spain against the Moors. It was therefore in the interest of the Spanish rulers to become patrons of Cluny. Strong political ties with Burgundy in France, in which the interests of Cluny were closely interwoven, were established with the marriage of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile (c. 1040/1041 – 1109) to Constance of Burgundy, the niece of the Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, also known as Hugh the Great, who played an important role through his influence over Pope Urban II, who launched the First Crusade. Through the marriage of her nephew Raymond and his cousin Henry to the daughter of Alfonso VI, the produce the descendants responsible for the creation of knightly orders which would represent the survival of the Templars: the Order of Santiago, the Order of Calatrava, the Order of Montesa, the Order of Saint George, and the Order of Christ.

Under the leadership of Saint Odilo in the ninth century, the Abbey of Cluny exploited its vast network of support to encourage and develop the pilgrimage to Compostela.[2] The Camino de Santiago, known in English as the Way of Saint James among other names, is a network of pilgrims’ ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain. The church, with the exception of Rome itself, is the single most important shrine and pilgrimage center in the Christian world in Medieval times. It was through France that the four main pilgrim routes passed on their way to Spain, and it was from France that military support entered into Spain to safeguard the route to Santiago de Compostela. The abbey of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, founded in 804 by Guillaume de Gallon was a major stop for pilgrims. Along the pilgrimage roads to Santiago de Compostela were also many monasteries which belonged to the federation of Cluny.

Saint James is the patron saint of Spain and was already believed to have been the great evangelist of Spain for many hundreds of years. According to legend, his remains are held in Santiago de Compostela. James was the son of Zebedee and Mary Salome, and the brother of John the Apostle. In medieval tradition Mary Salome was counted as one of the Three Marys who were daughters of Saint Anne, so making her the sister or half-sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In the year 44, James was beheaded in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa himself, and his body was taken up by angels, and sailed in a rudderless stone boat to Galicia, to the place where stands Santiago de Compostela Cathedral.

The discovery of the relics of St. James then became a focal point for pilgrims. However, many in Galicia today continue to believe that the remains of St. James are those of the first executed heretic, Priscillian of Avila (died c. 385).[3] The possibility that a cult of James was instituted to supplant the Galician cult of Priscillian, who was widely venerated across the north of Iberia as a martyr, was raised by Henry Chadwick, Regius Professor of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge, in his book Priscillian of Avila: the occult and the charismatic in the early church.

Around the Spanish towns of Mérida and Cordoba, Priscillian led his followers in a quasi-secret society that preached a dualist doctrine that was similar to both Gnosticism and Manichaeism in its belief that matter was evil and the spirit good. Among his many unorthodox doctrines, Priscillian taught that angels and the souls of humans emanated from the Godhead, that bodies were created by the devil, and that human souls were joined to bodies as a punishment for sins. Priscillian’s followers aimed for higher perfection through ascetic practices and outlawed all sensual pleasure, marriage, and the consumption of wine and meat. The spread of Priscillianism throughout western and southern Spain and in southern Gaul disturbed the Spanish church.

Around 385, Priscillian was charged with sorcery and executed by authority of the Magnus Maximus, the Roman emperor of Britain, Gaul and Spain, in Trier. Priscillian had confessed that he studied obscene doctrines, held nocturnal meetings with shameful women, and prayed while naked.[4] Nevertheless, the ascetic movement Priscillianism is named after him, and continued in Hispania and Gaul until the late sixth century. Tractates by Priscillian and close followers, which had seemed lost, were discovered in 1885 and published in 1889. It is widely recognized that Priscillian drew his tenets from Jewish and Christian apocryphal texts.[5] The major pilgrimage route to Santiago is said to be that by which Priscillian’s body was brought back for burial from Tier.[6]

Kingdom of Asturias

It was also from Santiago that the Reconquista against the Moors was launched. The beginning of the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula originated in the last holdout of the Christian rebels who succeeded in resisting the Muslim conquest and establishing the Kingdom of Asturias. The kingdom was founded by the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius of Asturias (c. 685 – 737), also known as Pelayo, who defeated an Umayyad army at the Battle of Covadonga in in 718 or 722. Under Pelayo’s great-grandson, King Alfonso II (791 – 842), Asturias was firmly established with his recognition as king by Charlemagne and the Pope. During his reign, the holy bones of St James the Great were declared to be found in Galicia, in Compostela.

The tradition at Compostela placed the discovery of the relics of the saint in the time of king Alfonso II, by a hermit named Pelagius, who after observing strange lights in a local forest went for help after the local bishop, Theodemar of Iria, in the west of Galicia. The legend affirms that Theodemar was then guided to the spot by a star, drawing upon a familiar myth-element, hence “Compostela” was given an etymology as a corruption of Campus Stellae, “Field of Stars.”[7] The popular Spanish name for the astronomical Milky Way is El Camino de Santiago. Saint James’ symbol was the scallop shell. According to ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Aphrodite was born as a result of virginal conception and arose from the sea foam in a shell, like a shining pearl. The symbolism is portrayed in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. From its connection to the Camino, the scallop shell came to represent pilgrimage. The shell is seen very frequently along the trails, and a pilgrim wearing a shell denotes that one is a traveler on the Camino de Santiago. According to legend, Alfonso II’s son Ramiro I of Asturias (c. 790 – 850) defeated the Moors in the Battle of Clavijo in 834, during which Saint James is said to have appeared riding a white horse and bearing a white standard. Saint James was henceforth called Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor-slayer). ¡Santiago, y cierra, España! (“St. James and strike for Spain”) was the traditional battle cry of medieval Christian armies of Spain.

In later sources, the earliest to be called “Emperor of Spain” was Ramiro’s grandson, Alfonso III (c. 848 – 910), called the Great, the king of León, Galicia and Asturias from 866 until his death. As noted by Brian Catlos, “In the same way that the rebellions of the 800s demonstrated to the Umayyads that they needed a religious ideology to legitimize their claims of superiority over Islamic Spain, the kings of Asturias realized they needed religion to legitimize their own claims over Christian Spain.” Catlos further explains:

The histories from the era of Alfonso III, and those composed in the eleventh century and later, were written by foreign clergymen who had an explicit commitment to supporting the political supremacy of the Leonese monarchy and endowing it with a providential, divine character. They happily invented histories, forged documents, and concocted genealogies in order to frame the history of Spain in terms of a grand Christian-Muslim conflict that has served as the rationale for the eventual domination of Castile and León in the peninsula from the later Middle Ages until today. The monks and priests who wrote these histories conceived of the world in terms of celestial struggle; their language was biblical and their rhetoric apocalyptic. For them, the Christians of Spain were the “true Israel”—a people chosen by God but cast down for their disobedience and sin, and who were now called on to reclaim their rightful place through inner piety and earthly battle against the infidel.[8]

In his last years, Alfonso III was deteriorated into discord among the king and his sons, García, Ordoño, and Fruela, who rose up in rebellion against their father in 910, forcing him to abdicate and divide his realm into three independent kingdoms, with García I receiving León, Ordoño II Galicia and Fruela II the Asturian heartland. The Kingdom of Asturias transitioned into the Kingdom of León in 924, when Fruela II became king with his royal court in Lepn. However, by 925 the three brothers were dead and the region once more plunged into a struggle for succession, and for the next century it would come under the effective domination of the Muslim caliphate of Cordoba. Fruela’s death in 925 was followed by a civil war, after which Alfonso, the eldest son of Ordoño II, emerged as the new king of Leon as Alfonso IV, ruling from 925–932.

The succession crisis caused hostilities against Abdur Rahman III to cease until Ordoño II’s son Ramiro II (c. 900 – 951) obtained the throne in 932. By 929, Cordoba was again ruling over a united al-Andalus, and about to enter its greatest era of glory, making the Ummayad caliphate the uncontested superpower of Western Europe and the Western Mediterranean and Cordoba “the ornament of the world.”[9] Ramiro II actively campaigned against the Muslims, who referred to him as the Devil. In 934, after reasserting supremacy over Pamplona and Álava, Abdur Rahman III forced Ramiro II to retreat to Burgos, and forced his own aunt Toda, Queen of Navarre, to submit to him as a vassal and withdraw from direct rule as regent for her son García Sánchez I (c. 919 – 970). Toda was the aunt of Abdur Rahman III, through her mother's first marriage to Abdullah ibn Muhammad (844 – 912), the Emir of Córdoba. Toda’s husband was Sancho I (c. 860 – 925), who had been aided by Alfonso III in gaining control of Pamplona, over which he ruled as King from 905 until 925.

Despite early setbacks, Ramiro II and García were able to defeat the caliphal army in 939 at the Battle of Simancas, and almost kill Abdur Rahman III. One of the Muslim prisoners taken by Ramiro II’s troops in the battle was the caliph’s dear friend, Muhammad ibn Hashim al-Tujibi, which caused Abdur Rahman III to offer peace. To this purpose, the caliph dispatched to Ramiro II the famous Jewish physician Hasdai ibn Shaprut, who was in correspondence with the Khazars. According to Ibn Hayyan, an eleventh-century historical chronicler of Cordova, “Hasdai ibn Shaprut, that  unique man of his  generation the likes of whom could not  be found amongst the servants of any  other emperor in  the world, because of his  high culture, the depth of his  cunning, his  sharp discernment, and  his exceptional cleverness.”[10] Hasdai ultimately became very close friends with Ramiro II, who eventually extended Hasdai's stay to over seven months.[11]

The victory at Simancas enabled the kingdom Leon to maintain the military initiative in the peninsula until the defeat of Ramiro II’s son and successor, Ordoño III of León (c. 926 – 956). Ordoño III confronted Navarre and Castile, who supported his half-brother Sancho I (c. 932 – 966), called “the Fat,” in disputing his claim to the throne. Sancho I was the son of Ramiro II and Toda’s daughter, Queen Urraca Sánchez of Pamplona. Toda also took an interest in the health of her grandson Sancho I, whose obesity was largely responsible for his dethronement. In 958, Toda requested the assistance of Abdur Rahman III, who sent her Hasdai ibn Shaprut. Hasdai promised to cure Sancho I on condition that Toda visit the city of Córdoba. Therefore, Toda, her son García Sánchez I and grandson Sancho I, as well as nobles and clergymen, arrived in Córdoba, where they were received with full honors and amid much pomp, an event which is considered a landmark in the history of medieval diplomacy.[12]

Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile

Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile, also called “the Brave,” who is considered among the greatest of the Medieval Spanish kings, was also a supporter of the Abbey of Cluny, and did much to organize the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.[13] The Kingdom of León continued to be the most important of all those of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Alfonso VI’s grandfather, Sancho III of Navarre (c. 994 – 1035), also known as Sancho the Great, the great-great-grandson of Abdur Rahman III’s aunt Toda, took over Castile in the 1020s, and managed León in the last year of his life, leaving Galicia to temporary independence. Sancho III took the throne in 1004, as the Muslim caliphate of al-Andalus was descending into a chaos of internal rivalry between taifas. In the history of the Iberian Peninsula, a taifa was an independent Muslim-ruled principality. However, instead of waging war against the Muslims, Sancho III set out to dominate the Christian principalities of Hispania. Sancho III was the King of Pamplona from 1004 until his death in 1035. He also ruled the County of Aragon and by marriage the counties of Castile, Álava and Monzón. He later added the counties of Sobrarbe (1015), Ribagorza (1018) and Cea (1030), and would intervene in the Kingdom of León, taking its capital city of Leon in 1034.

The Kingdom of Aragon, which started off as an offshoot of the Kingdom of Navarre, was formed when Sancho III decided to divide his large realm among all his sons. Sancho’s eldest son, García Sánchez III of Pamplona (c. 1012 – 1054), inherited the dynastic rights over the crown of Pamplona, becoming feudal overlord over two of his brothers: the illegitimate Ramiro I (bef. 1007 – 1063), who was given lands that would serve as the basis for the Kingdom of Aragon; and Gonzalo (c. 1020 – 1043), who received the counties of Sobrarbe and Ribagorza. Likewise, he had some claim to suzerainty over his brother Ferdinand I (c. 1015 – 1065), who under their father had served as Count of Castile, nominally subject to the Kingdom of León but brought under the personal control of Sancho III.

Genealogy of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile

• ALFONSO VI OF LEON AND CASTILE + Constance of Burgundy (niece of Hugh of Cluny)

  • Urraca + Raymond of Burgundy (cousin of Henry of Burgundy)

    • Alfonso VII of León and Castile + Berenguela (daughter of Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona)

      • Sancho III of Castile + Blanche of Navarre

        • Alfonso VIII of Castile + Eleanor of England (sister of Richard the Lionheart)

          • Berengaria, Queen of Castile + Alfonso IX of Leon

            • Ferdinand III of Castile

          • Urraca, Queen of Portugal + Afonso II of Portugal

          • Blanche of Castile + Louis VIII of France

      • Ferdinand II of León

        • Alfonso IX of León + Berengaria of Castile

          • Ferdinand III + Elizabeth of Swabia

            • Alfonso X, El Astrologo

              • Sancho IV (had affair with Jewess)

          • Ferdinand III + Joan, Countess of Ponthieu

            • Eleanor + Edward I of England (who issue Edict of Expulsion)

    • Alfonso VII of León and Castile + Richeza of Poland

      • Sancha + Alfonso II of Aragón

  • Urraca + Alfonso I “the Battler” of Aragon and Navarre

• Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile + Jimena Muñoz

  • Teresa + Henry of Burgundy (cousin of Raymond of Burgundy)

    • Alfonso I of Portugal + Maud of Savoy

      • Afonso II of Portugal + Urraca (d. of Alfonso VIII of Castile)

• Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile + Zaida of Seville (refugee Muslim princess)

  • Elvira of Castile + Roger II of Sicily (“Jolly Roger”)

Ferdinand I of León, Alfonso VI’s father, was a leading figure of the Reconquista in the mid-eleventh century. Ferdinand is known to have taunted the Muslims by stating, as retold by Muslim chroniclers:

We… demand our land, which a long time ago you conquered and which you have inhabited for as long as had been ordained [by God]. Now He has given us victory over you on account of your wickedness. Depart to your own shores [of North Africa] and give our land up to us. For there is no good in your living with us any longer, nor will we turn away from you until God has judged between you and us.[14]

In the 1050s and 1060s, Ferdinand I of León launched raids against almost every major Muslim kingdom, forcing them to recognize his rule and pay tribute. Ferdinand’s expansion also received the approval of the Papacy in Rome, which, according to Catlos, “was beginning to coalesce as an imperial authority, and new reform movements—notably the Burgundian monastic order of Cluny—were endowing it with an ideological and institutional coherence it had lacked in the past.”[15] As explained by Catlos:

Knowing to back a winner, the church supported Fernando’s claims of sovereignty over the entire peninsula, and the clergy, particularly those associated with the papacy and Cluny, actively promoted the notion of a Christian reconquest and the cult of Saint James “the Muslim Killer.” In return, and to the growing alarm of the native Spanish clergy, Fernando supported the papacy and the Cluniac order with donations of cash, land, and positions of influence. For all that, Saint James served as the angelic agent only for Castile-León; on those occasions that knights from rival Aragon, Catalonia, and Portugal received divine assistance in battle, it was Saint George who served as their “Muslim Killer. [16]

It was Sancho III who first recognized the political advantage of allying with the Catholic church and with Cluny, and seeking the military support of the Frankish lands. “It was under his reign,” recounts Catlos, “that ordinary northern Europeans became exposed to the allure of Islamic Spain via the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela, which ran through the breadth of his lands, and the notion that it was God’s will they bring it under their power.”[17] Sancho III invited Cluniac monks to Spain, and Cluny in return received and trained Spanish monks. Sancho’s three sons, Ferdinand I of Leon, Garcia II and Ramiro I of Aragon, continued the tradition.[18]

The driving force behind the Cluniac monastic movement during the last quarter of the eleventh century, which had priories throughout Southern France and northern Spain, was Hugh of Cluny. Ferdinand I undertook to grant an annual census or tribute to Cluny of the an enormous sum of 1,000 gold pieces. That was later doubled by his son Alfonso VI in 1077. His son Alfonso VI referred to “the so celebrated, so tested, so holy religion of the monastery of Cluny” and requested “the society of the monks fighting for God and St. Peter in that place” in a charter of 1090 doubling the annual subsidy and introduced the Roman Ritual at Hugh’s request.[19] It most of its likely collected from tribute paid by Muslim taifa kingdoms, and allowed Hugh of Cluny to embark on a major building program at Cluny, including from 1088, the third church.[20] Bernard of St. Blaise, writing in Germany towards the end of the eleventh century, described Alfonso VI as “Catholic in faith and an obedentiary of the abbot of Cluny in way of life” and also said, after describing his wars against pagans, restorations of churches and building the great church at Cluny, that he would have become a monk there “if the lord abbot had not considered it better for him to remain for the time being in the secular habit.”[21] Known as Cluny III, it was to remain the largest building in Europe until the sixteenth century when the new St. Peter’s in Rome was rebuilt. Seen as an example of the excesses of the Ancien Régime, the monastic buildings and most of the church were destroyed during the French Revolution.

Most prominent of all the Cluniacs was Bernard of Sédirac (c. 1050 – 1125), who was named for the archbishopric of Toledo by Alfonso VI of Castile, the great patron of Cluny, after the conquest of that city. Bernard had become a monk at Cluny, after which he was sent to Spain with others to assist the reforms of Pope Gregory VII. Cluniacs were appointed to sees in Braga, Burgo de Osma, Palencia, Segovia, Sigüenza and Valencia. The Cluniacs were joined from the 1140s by the “white monks” of the Cistercian Order, who with royal and aristocratic patronage, established numerous monastic houses in the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia and came to play a leading part in the colonization and repopulation of liberated lands.[22]

Alfonso VI’s brother, Sancho II of Castile (1036/1038 – 1072), wanted to reunite the kingdom of his father and attacked his brothers, with the famous Rodrigo Díaz, later known as El Cid, at his side. Born a member of the minor nobility, El Cid was brought up at the court of Ferdinand I and served Sancho II. El Cid rose to become the commander and royal standard-bearer of Castile upon Sancho’s ascension in 1065. El Cid went on to lead the Castilian military campaigns against Sancho’s brothers, Alfonso VI of León and García II of Galicia, as well as in the Muslim kingdoms in Al-Andalus.

Sancho II was killed in the siege of Zamora and his brother Alfonso VI took over León, Castile and Galicia. As king, Alfonso VI conquered the powerful Taifa kingdom of Toledo in 1085. Toledo, which was the former capital of the Visigoths, was a very important landmark, and the conquest made Alfonso renowned throughout the Christian world. Alfonso’s more aggressive policy towards the taifas worried the rulers of those kingdoms, who called on the African Almoravids for help.

The Battle of Sagrajas, also called Zalaca or Zallaqa, was a battle of 1086 against the Almoravid army led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Alfonso VI reached the battleground with some 2,500 men, including 1,500 cavalry, in which 750 were knights, some of whom were Jewish,[23] but found himself outnumbered. At one point, Alfonso’s army contained 40,000 Jews, who were distinguished from the other combatants by their black-and-yellow turbans. So honored were the Jews to the Spanish army that the Spanish chose not to engage in battle until after the Sabbath had passed. Before the battle, Alfonso VI sent not only for the bishops, but for the Jewish scholars and astrologers as well, to hear their predictions for the outcome. [24] Ibn Tashfin is reputed to have offered three choices to the Castilians: convert to Islam, to pay tribute (jizyah), or battle. Castile suffered almost no loss of territory and was able to retain the psychologically important city of Toledo, occupied the previous year. However, the Christian advance was halted for several generations while both sides regrouped.

Alfonso VI was tolerant towards the Jews, for which he won the praise of Pope Alexander II. Soon after coming to power, he offered the Jews full equality with Christians and even the rights offered to the nobility to win the wealthy and industrious Jews against the Moors.  Jews prospered under Alfonso VI and by 1098, nearly 15,000 Jews were living in Toledo, a city of 50,000.[25] To show their gratitude to the king, the Jews willingly placed themselves at his service. The king’s favoritism toward the Jews became so pronounced that Pope Gregory VII warned him not to permit Jews to rule over Christians and roused the hatred and envy of the latter.[26]

Construction of the present Santiago de Compostela Cathedral began in 1075 under the reign of Alfonso VI and the patronage of bishop Diego Peláez. Though a few pilgrims to Santiago are recorded in the tenth century, and many more in the eleventh, it was in the early twelfth century, and particularly under the promotion of Archbishcop Diego Gelmírez (1100 – 1140), that Santiago came to rank with Rome and Jerusalem as one of the great destinations of medieval pilgrimage. The first Cathedral was built over the site of the tomb, and gradually houses were established, for example by monks from Cluny in Burgundy and from Aurillac in Cantal, France, along the developing pilgrimage route.

Toledo School

In 1085, Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile captured Toledo and established direct personal control over the Moorish city, ending the medieval Taifa’s Kingdom of Toledo, from which he had been exacting tribute. After the conquest, Toledo’s Arab libraries were not pillaged, and a translation center was established in which books in Arabic or Hebrew would be translated into Castilian by Muslim and Jewish scholars, and from Castilian into Latin by Castilian scholars, thus letting long-lost knowledge spread through Christian Europe again. The Toledo School of Translators is the group of scholars who worked together in Toledo during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to translate many of the philosophical and scientific works from Classical Arabic.

The first phase of the school was led by Raymond of Toledo, the Archbishop of Toledo from 1125 to 1152, who started the first translation efforts at the library of the Cathedral of Toledo, where he led a team of translators who included Arabic and Jewish scholars, and monks from the Order of Cluny. Another important translator was John of Seville, a baptized Jew. Together with Dominicus Gundissalinus during the early days of the School, he was the main translator from Arabic into Castilian. John of Seville translated Secretum Secretorum, which was very influential in Europe during the High Middle Ages. He also translated many astrology treatises from Abu Mashar, al-Kindi and the Sabian mathematician Thabit ibn Qurra.

John of Seville produced Latin translations of Ibn Sina, Al-Farabi, Al-Ghazali, and Ibn Gabirol. Known to the West as Avicebron, Ibn Gabirol was an important Jewish Neoplatonist. With him, the center of Jewish philosophy shifted to Spain, including Abraham ibn Daud’s defense of the rabbinical tradition according to Aristotelian philosophy, Judah Halevi’s attack on philosophy, and Moses Maimonides’ great combination of Judaism and Medieval Aristotelianism, secured the place of philosophy as a legitimate aspect of rabbinical study.

Dominicus Gundissalinus (c. 1115 – post 1190) is considered to be the first appointed director of the Toledo School of Translators, beginning in 1180. Gundissalinus remained collaborating with Abraham ibn Daud—the author of the Sepher ha Kabbalah which reported of Rabbi Makhir’s exile—and Johannes Hispanus to the realisation of around twenty translations of Arabic works into Latin. Among Gundissalinus’ important translations was Fons Vitæ, by ibn Gabirol.

Galicia and Portugal

Marriage as a policy of uniting Burgundy and Leon continued into the next generation when Alfonso VI’s daughters, Urraca and Teresa, married Constance’s nephew Raymond of Burgundy (c. 1070 – 1107) and his cousin Henry of Burgundy (1066 – 1112).[27] The area once formed part of the Kingdom of the Burgundians had been annexed and incorporated into the Kingdom of the Franks in 534. When the Holy Roman Empire was partitioned by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the area west of the Saône river was allotted to West Francia as the French Duchy of Burgundy, while the southern and eastern parts of the former Burgundian kingdom fell to Middle Francia under. The part in Middle Francia became the two independent entities of southern Lower Burgundy in 879 and northern Upper Burgundy under King Rudolph I (859 – 912) in 888, whose western part became the County of Burgundy. In 933, with the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, both Lower and Upper Burgundy were re-united under King Rudolph II as the Kingdom of Arles (Arelat). The Arelat then passed to the Holy Roman Empire when it was inherited by Emperor Conrad II of the Salian dynasty, while the Duchy of Burgundy was re-installed by a cadet branch of the French Capetian dynasty.

In 982, Otto-William (955/62 – 21 September 1026 AD), son of Adalbert of Italy, received the County of Burgundy from his mother, Gerberga of Dijon. In 1002, Otto-William also claimed the Duchy of Burgundy upon the death of his stepfather Duke Henry I (946 – 1002), called the Great. However, the duchy was seized as a reverted fief by King Robert II of France (972 – 1031) two years later. Otto-William’s son, Reginald I, Count of Burgundy married Alice of Normandy, whose nephew was William the Conqueror. Reginald’s son William I (1020 – 1087), called the Great, was Count of Burgundy from 1057 to 1087.

Genealogy of Raymond of Burgundy

• Otto-William, Count of Burgundy + Ermentrude de Roucy

  • Renaud I + Alice of Normandy (aunt of William the Conqueror)

    • William I, Count of Burgundy + “Stephanie”

      • Stephen I, Count of Burgundy

        • Isabella + Hugh, Count of Champagne (founder of Templars, s-b of Stephen of Blois, f. of Henry of Blois, Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester and author of Perlesvaus)

        • Reginald III, Count of Burgundy + Agatha of Lorraine

          • Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy + Frederick Barbarossa

            • Henry VI + Constance (d. of Roger II)

              • Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (confirmed by Joachim of Fiore as fulfilment of prophecy of Merlin)

      • Pope Calixtus II (involved in Investiture Controversy with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor)

      • RAYMOND OF BURGUNDY + Urraca of León and Castile (d. of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile)

      • Sybilla + Odo I, Duke of Burgundy

        • Hugh II, Duke of Burgundy

          • Odo II, Duke of Burgundy + Marie (d. of Theobald II, Count of Champagne, and Matilda of Carinthia)

          • Sibylla of Burgundy + Roger II of Sicily

          • Matilda of Burgundy + William VII of Montpellier

            • William VIII, Lord of Montpellier + Eudokia Komnene (niece of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos).

              • Maria of Montpellier + Peter II of Aragon (killed at the Battle Muret supporting Cathars, founder of the ORDER OF SAINT GEORGE OF ALFAMA)

                • James I “the Conquerer” of Aragon

            • William VIII, Lord of Montpellier + Agnès de Castille (unknown parents)

              • William IX of Montpellier

              • Agnès + Raymond-Roger Trencavel (identified with Perceval)

      • Reginald II, Count of Burgundy

  • Agnes + William V, Duke of Aquitaine

    • William VII, Duke of Aquitaine

    • William VIII, Duke of Aquitaine

      • Agnes + Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile

      • Agnes + Peter I of Aragon

      • William IX of Aquitaine

        • William X of Aquitaine (the first troubadour)

          • Eleanor of Aquitaine + Henry II of England

            • Richard the Lionheart + Berengaria of Navarre

            • Joan of England + William II of Sicily

          • Eleanor of Aquitaine + Louis VII of France

            • Marie of Champagne (patroness of Chretien de Troyes) + Henry I of Champagne (nephew of Henry of Blois)

    • Agnes of Burgundy + Emperor Henry III

      • Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (involved in Investiture Controversy with Pope Calixtus II)

        • Agnes of Waiblingen + Frederick I, Duke of Swabia

          • Conrad III, King of Germany

          • Frederick II, Duke of Swabia + Judith of Bavaria

            • Frederick Barbarossa + Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy

              • Henry VI + Constance (d. of Roger II of Sicily and Rethel)

                • Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

After the Battle of Sagrajas, Alfonso VI asked the Christian kingdoms of Europe to organize a Crusade against the Almoravids who had recovered almost all the territories he had conquered, with the exception of Toledo. Even though the crusade did not finally materialize, a large number of foreign knights came to the Iberian Peninsula. They included William I’s son Raymond of Burgundy his cousin Henry of Burgundy, who married Alfonso VI’s daughters Urraca and Teresa, respectively, which led to the establishment of the Anscarid and Capetian dynasties in the peninsular kingdoms.[28] Raymond’s wife Urraca was the eldest and only surviving child of Alfonso VI from his second wife, Constance of Burgundy. Constance’s father was Robert I, Duke of Burgundy (1011 – 1076), the brother of Henry I of France. Robert I was the son of Robert II of France, the son of Hugh Capet and Adelaide of Aquitaine, the daughter of William III, Duke of Aquitaine, and Adele of Normandy, daughter of Rollo the Viking.

Genealogy of Henry of Burgundy, Count of Portugal

• Hugh Capet + Adelaide of Aquitaine (daughter of William III, Duke of Aquitaine and Adele of Normandy, d. of Rollo of Normandy)

  • Robert I, Duke of Burgundy + Helie of Semur (sister of Hugh of Cluny)

    • Constance + Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile

      • Urraca + Raymond of Burgundy

    • Henry of Burgundy

      • HENRY OF BURGUNDY, COUNT OF PORTUGAL + Teresa of Leon (d. of Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile + Jimena Muñoz)

        • Afonso I of Portugal + Maud of Savoy

      • Odo I, Duke of Burgundy

        • Hugh II, Duke of Burgundy

          • Odo II, Duke of Burgundy + Marie (d. of Theobald II, Count of Champagne, and Matilda of Carinthia)

          • Sibylla of Burgundy + Roger II of Sicily

          • Matilda of Burgundy + William VII of Montpellier

            • William VIII, Lord of Montpellier + Eudokia Komnene (niece of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos).

              • Maria of Montpellier + Peter II of Aragon

                • James I of Aragon

            • William VIII, Lord of Montpellier + Agnès de Castille (unknown parents)

              • William IX of Montpellier

                • Agnès + Raymond Roger Trencavel (Perceval according to Wolfram von Eschenbach)

    • Robert + Violante of Sicily (d. of Roger I of Sicily)

• Robert I, Duke of Burgundy + Ermengarde (d. of Fulk III of Anjou)

  • Hildegarde + William VIII of Aquitaine

    • William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (s. of William V of Aquitaine + Agnes of Burgundy, d. of Otto-William, Count of Burgundy and Ermentrude de Roucy) + Philippa of Toulouse (d. of William IV Count of Toulouse, brother of Raymond IV of Toulouse)

      • William X, Duke of Aquitaine

        • Eleanor of Aquitaine

          • Henry the Young King + Henry II of England

            • Richard Lionheart + Berengaria of Navarre (d. of Sancho VI of Navarre and Sancha of Castile)

            • Eleanor + Alfonso VIII of Castile

            • Joan + William II of Sicily, and later Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse

            • John, King of England + Isabella of Angoulême

      • Raymond, Prince of Antioch + Constance of Antioch (d. of Bohemond II of Antioch + Alice of Jerusalem, sister of Melisende, d. of Baldwin II and Morphia of Armenia)

      • Agnes, Queen of Aragon + Ramiro II of Aragon (brother of Alfonso I “the Battler” of Aragon)

        • Petronilla + Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona (son of Templar Ramon Berenguer III)

          • Alfonso II of Aragon + Sancha of Castile (daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile and Richeza of Poland)

            • Peter II of Aragon

            • Eleanor + Raymond VI of Toulouse.

            • Sancha + Count Raymond VII of Toulouse

          • Alfonso II of Aragon + Adelaide de Burlat (mother of Raymond Roger Trencavel?)

    • Agnes of Aquitaine + Peter I of Aragon and Navarre

    • Beatrice + Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile (secondly to Elias I, Count of Maine)

By his marriage to Urraca, Raymond received as dowry the government of the Kingdom of Galicia, which included the County of Portugal and the County of Coimbra. Shortly after, in 1095, Alfonso VI gave those counties to Constance’s nephew, Henry of Burgundy, who was married to his daughter Teresa. Bernard de Clairvaux’s father, chevalier Tescelin le Roux, had been Henry of Burgundy’s vassal.[29] Henry of Burgundy was also the brother of Odo I, Duke of Burgundy (1060 – 1102), who sponsored abbey of Molesme, which included Stephen Harding and Bernard of Clairvaux before they went on to found the Cistercian Order. Odo I married Raymond’s sister, Sibylla. Raymond and Henry first arrived in Iberia is uncertain probably with the Odo I’s army in 1086. It was likely Odo I who arranged the marriage to Alfonso VI’s heiress, Urraca.[30]

Raymond’s brother Stephen I (1065 – 1124) succeeded to the County of Burgundy in 1097, following the death in the Crusades of his elder brother, Reginald II. Stephen’s daughter Isabella married Templar founder, Hugh, Count of Champagne. Stephen I himself participated in the Crusade of 1101, as a commander in Stephen, Count of Blois’ army. Raymond and Stephen’s brother was Guy of Vienne (1065 – 1102), who was elected pope, in 1119 at the Abbey of Cluny, as Pope Calixtus II. Callixtus II, who was one of the great proponents of the pilgrimage, started the Compostela Holy Years.[31] The official guide in those times was the Codex Calixtinus, which first made mention of the association of St. James and the scallop shell. In 1120, Callixtus II canonized Hugh of Cluny appointing April 29 his feast-day.

Raymond and Henry drew up the Pact of Succession” which committed Henry to helping Raymond seize the throne of Leon-Castile on Alfonso VI’s death. Sometime between 1093 and 1107, Raymond and Henry wrote to Hugh of Cluny and “to the entire congregation of St. Peter” saying that they had met Hugh’s legate Dalmatius Geret and promised to respect each other’s life and safety and agreed on a division of Alfonso’s kingdom. Raymond further swore on the hand of Dalmatius to give Toledo or Galicia to Henry in return for his help in the acquisition of “the whole land of Leon and Castile.”[32] The secret agreement was then conveyed to Cluny.[33]

[1] H.E.J. Cowdrey. “Cluny and the First Crusade.” Revue benedictine, 83, 1973, p. 285-311.

[2] Arnaud Blin. War and Religion: Europe and the Mediterranean from the First through the Twenty-first Centuries (Univ of California Press, 2019).

[3] Américo Castro. The Spaniards: An Introduction to Their History (University of California Press, 1985), p. 201.

[4] Haig Bosmajian. The Freedom Not to Speak (NYU Press. 1999), p. 20.

[5] William Adler, James VanderKam. Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature, Volume 4, Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (Brill, 1996), p. 126.

[6] Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh. The Messianic Legacy (Random House,  2013), p. 148.

[7] Aruna Vasadevan. “Santiago de Compostela (La Coruña, Spain).” In Trudy Ring, Noelle Watson & Paul Schellinger (eds.). Southern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places (Taylor & Francis, 2013), pp. 621–624.

[8] Brian Catlos. Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain (New York: Basic Books, 2018).

[9] Ibid.

[10] Cited in Norman Golb. “The Caliph’s Favorite.” Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (2011).

[11] Golb. “The Caliph’s Favorite.”

[12] Francisco Cantera Burgos. “Christian Spain.” In Roth, Cecil (ed.). The World History of the Jewish People. 2nd series: Medieval Period. Vol. 2, The Dar Ages: Jews in Christian Europe, 711–1096 (Tel Aviv: Massadah Publishing, 1966), pp. 357–381.

[13] Edwin Mullins. The Pilgrimage to Santiago (Signal Books, 2001), p. 94.

[14] Tibi. The Tibyān, 90.

[15] Brian Catlos. Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain (New York: Basic Books, 2018).

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Edwin Mullins. The Pilgrimage to Santiago (Signal Books, 2001), p. 94.

[19] Bernold of St. Blaise. Chronicon, s.a. 1093, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores. Cited in Constable Giles. “Cluny and the First Crusade.” In Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade. Actes du Colloque Universitaire International de Clermont-Ferrand (1995) Rome : École Française de Rome, 1997 (Publications de l’École française de Rome, 236), p. 187.

[20] Simon Barton. “‘El Cid, Cluny and the Medieval Spanish’ Reconquista.” The English Historical Review, Vol. 126, No. 520 (June 2011), p. 538.

[21] Bernold of St. Blaise. Chronicon, s.a. 1093, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores. Cited in Constable Giles. “Cluny and the First Crusade.” In Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade. Actes du Colloque Universitaire International de Clermont-Ferrand (1995) Rome : École Française de Rome, 1997 (Publications de l’École française de Rome, 236), p. 187.

[22] Simon Barton. A History of Spain (Macmillan International Higher Education, 2009), p. 58.

[23] Benzion Netanyahu. The origins of the Inquisition in fifteenth century Spain (New York: Random House, 1995). p. 1211.

[24] “Spain.” Jewish Encyclopedia.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] John Williams. “Cluny and Spain.” Gesta, Vol. 27, No. 1/2, Current Studies on Cluny (1988), p. 93.

[28] Bernard F. Reilly. The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain: 1031-1157 (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992, p. 90.

[29] Thomas Merton. Bernard de Clairvaux (Éditions Alsatia, 1953), p. 10.

[30] Bernard F. Reilly. The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 194–95.

[31] “Brief history: The Camino – past, present & future.”

[32] Migne. Patrologia Latina, CLIX; Cited in Constable Giles. “Cluny and the First Crusade.” In Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade. Actes du Colloque Universitaire International de Clermont-Ferrand (1995) Rome : École Française de Rome, 1997 (Publications de l’École française de Rome, 236), p. 188.

[33] Simon Barton. “‘El Cid, Cluny and the Medieval Spanish’ Reconquista.” The English Historical Review, Vol. 126, No. 520 (June 2011), p. 541.

Volume One

Introduction

1. Babylon

2. Ancient Greece

3. The Hellenistic Age

4. The Book of Revelation

5. Gog and Magog

6. Eastern Mystics

7. Septimania

8. Princes' Crusade

9. The Reconquista

10. Ashkenazi Hasidim

11. The Holy Grail

12. Camelot

13. Perceval

14. The Champagne Fairs

15. Baphomet

16. The Order of Santiago

17. War of the Roses

18. The Age of Discovery

19. Renaissance & Reformation

20. Kings of Jerusalem

21. The Mason Word

22. The Order of the Dragon