In 1205, after the French invasion of Normandy, Alfonso VIII, taking advantage of King John’s vulnerability, embarked on an expedition to obtain control of Gascony. According to the Chronica latina regum Castellae (c, 1236), which offers the most detailed account of events, Alfonso made a swift advance. His forces reached as far as the Garonne, occupying Blaye and Bourg-sur-Gironde north of Bordeaux, and the entire region of Entre-Deux-Mers. Save for the cities of Bayonne and Bordeaux, the whole of Gascony surrendered to Castilian rule. A year later, in May 1206, Alfonso abandoned his Gascon enterprise, to focus on his concerns in Spain.526 The
Chronica’s account is the most detailed, but by no means the only Spanish narrative of these events.
According to Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo (d. 10 July 1247), who supplies no other details, Alfonso took all of Gascony, except for Bordeaux, La Réole, and Bayonne.527 Lucas, bishop of Tuy, in his Chronicon mundi, written at the request of Queen Berenguela, daughter of Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, in 1236, informs us that Alfonso moved his army against the Gascons and took San Sebastián,
Burgum de Ponte, Sauveterre, the city of Dax, and other towns, before returning to
526 ‘Rex Castelle cum quibusdam de uassallis suis intrauit Vasconiam et fere totam occupait preter
Baionam et Burdegalim; habuit et blayam et Borc, que sunt ultra Garonam, et terram que est inter duo maria, et sic reuersus est in regnum suum’: L. Charlo Brea et al., eds., Chronica Hispana Saeculi XIII, Vol. lxxiii (Turnholt: 1997), xvii, 51. Cf. J.F. O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography, (Leiden: 1998), 39; Vincent, ‘A Forgotten War’, 117. The most detailed modern accounts of the Castilian invasion are those by M. Alvira Cabrer and P. Buresi, ‘Alphonse, par la grâce de Dieu, roi de Castille et de Tolède, seigneur de Gascogne: quelques remarques à propos des relations entre Castillans et Aquitains au début du XIIIe siècle’, in Aquitaine-Espagne (VIIIe-XIIIe siècle), ed. P. Sénac, (Poitiers : 2001), 219-232; F. Boutoulle, ‘Un épisode méconnu de l’offensive d’Alphonse VIII de Castille en Gascogne : le siège de Bourg-sur-Gironde (1205-1206)’, Cahiers du Vitrezais, 96 (2004), 33-40, and Vincent, ‘Jean sans Terre et la Gascogne’, 550-1, noting various charters of Alfonso beyond that to Dax noticed below.
Castile with ‘great glory’.528 Lucas de Tuy’s version seems to be, at least partially,
corroborated by a charter issued on 26 October 1204 at San Sebastián, on the Basque coast. Alfonso VIII, styling himself king of Castile and Toledo and lord of Gascony (‘Dei gratia rex Castelle et Toleti, dominus Vasconie’) granted the cathedral of Dax the fifteen villains (villanos) he had in Angonne (?Angoumé) and in Sa. The charter was witnessed by the vicomtes of Tartas (Arnald Raymond), Orthe (Loup Garcia II), and Béarn (Gaston VI), the comte of Armagnac (Gerald), and the bishops of Bayonne, (Bernard) and Bazas (Gaillard).529
It is remarkable that all three Spanish chroniclers devote only a few lines to what must at the time have been a major enterprise: the Castilian conquest of Gascony. Such brevity is further reflected in the Estodia delos godos, a vernacular version of Jimenez de Rada’s chronicle, written in the last twelve years of Alfonso X’s reign. Here we find only the briefest of notes, that Alfonso ‘won Gascony by way of his wife, Eleanor, who inherited from her mother’.530 The chronology of the expedition is relatively easy to establish. Alfonso VIII must have travelled to Gascony between October 1205 and March 1206, when there is a gap in the documentation for his rule in Spain. On 23 October, the king was at San Sebastián from where he travelled towards Bordeaux. On 6 January 1206 he was at Bazas (Uastum), approximately 60 km from Bordeaux.531 By late March 1206, Alfonso was back in the Peninsula, signing a treaty peace treaty (‘forma de paz’) with Alfonso IX of León, now married
528 ‘Adelfonsus autem rex Castelle labori cdere nescius, mouit exercitum suum contra Vascones et cepit
Sanctum Sebastianum, Ortes, et Burgum de Ponte, Saluamterram, ciuitatem Aquensem et alia plura opida, et reuersus est in Castellam cum gloria magna.’: Tudensis, Chronicon mundi, lxxxiv, p. 324.
529 González, Alfonso VIII, no. 767.
530 ‘De pues gano fascas toda Gascueña por razon de su mujer doña Leonor que la deuie heredar por su
madre’: A. Ward, ed., Estoria delos godos (Oxford: 2006), 166.
531 González, Alfonso VIII.nos. 780-1 For a discussion of the date of the siege of Bordeaux, see Y.
to Berenguela, Alfonso VIII’s daughter.532 Alfonso and his army must meanwhile
have laid siege both to Bordeaux and to Bayonne, which as Nicholas Vincent has noted, may have been the only cities in Gascony faithful to John. Whether or not Sancho of Navarre send aid for their defence remains unknown. What is clear is that Navarrese neutrality in this Castilian invasion was one of the few benefits extracted from the Anglo-Navarrese alliance.533 From August 1204, Bayonne had been
formally placed under the protection of King Sancho VII of Navarre who promised to safeguard its men and their goods. In return they promised to secure Navarre from both land and sea against any enemy of the king of Navarre, saving their fealty to King John.534
It is possible that Alfonso’s invasion had been preceded by other attacks from the south. As early as 29 April 1205, King John had thanked the people of Bordeaux, Bazas, and Saint-Emilion for their good services (‘bono servicio’) in saving
(‘salvaverunt’) these lands for the King.535 As this implies, and as the witness lists to Alfonso’s charters issued in Gascony themselves proclaim, loyalty to the Plantagenets was not a common trait amongst the Gascon nobility. To judge from the witness lists, Alfonso was able to count upon the support of the vast majority of the southern Gascon lords, including at least two of the Gascon bishops, not least Bernard bishop of Bayonne. Amongst these disgruntled Gascon lords was Gaston VI of Béarn, who had his own reasons to resent the rule of King John. On 13 May 1202, John had
532 Innocent III annulled the marriage on grounds of consanguinity, but this did not put an end to the
conflict between the two crowns as problems over the succession of León followed: González, Alfonso VIII.no. 782
533 Vincent, ‘A Forgotten War’, 116.
534 ‘Preterea homines de Baiona debent custodire caminum et defendere ad totum posse suum, et
debent se catare de toto dampno regis Nauarre et regni sui per mare et per terram, et quod non adiuuent inimicos regis Nauarre contra ipsum, nec ualeant eis auxilio neque consilio, salva tamen in omnibus fidelitate regis Anglie’: Jimeno Jurío et al., Archivo General de Navarra (1194-1234), no. 44.
granted Gerald of Armagnac and his brother Bernard of Armagnac the town of Else (possibly Éauze, dépt. Gers) previously held by Gaston de Béarn, with whom the king promised to make no peace until proper trial had been held in his court.536
Why then did Alfonso withdraw so swiftly after the successes of October 1205? There are a number of potential explanations here. One would be indifference. The Spanish chroniclers imply that Gascony was a worthless province, and that Alfonso, having seen it, wisely withdrew. This is almost certainly a device intended to save face. In reality, the conquest of territory north of the Pyrenees, and control over the rich southern trading ports of Bayonne and Bordeaux remained an ambition of the Spanish kingdoms long into the fourteenth, indeed into the eighteenth century. Another explanation would be family sentiment. Alfonso’s retreat was signalled, in May 1206, by a safeconduct granted to Eleanor, Alfonso’s wife, travelling for
discussions with her brother, King John.537 Eleanor was granted similar safe-conduct in September.538 Perhaps Eleanor worked to soften Alfonso’s temper and to negotiate a Castilian withdrawal. This too, however, seems improbable. It was Eleanor’s claims to dower that had first prompted the invasion, and, as we shall see, the Castilian claim to these lands was not officially abandoned for another fifty years, through to the 1250s. In these circumstances, we are thrown back upon two other possibilities. The first, favoured by French historians, is that the resistance of Bayonne and Bordeaux was so fierce as to force the Castilian retreat. Certainly, the kings of England had done their best since the 1170s to purchase the support of the
536 ‘Rex etc. omnibus etc. Sciatis nos dedisse in feodum Gerald’ de Amignac et Bearn’ de Armignac
fratri suo Castellum Novum et medietatem Else que Gasto de Beauc [sic.] tenet, et que pacem non faciemus sine eis cum ipso Gasto nec predictem feodum eis permittemus auferri nisi prius dato super hoc iudicio in curia nostra. Et ipsi iuraverunt que sine fraude per posse sue nocebunt predicto Gaston’ et iuvabunt nostros. T(este) Com’ Maresc’ Willelmo apud Arches xviii die Maii’: Ibid., 11.
537 Foedera, I.i.94.
two greatest cities of Gascony. Perhaps, in 1205, this approach paid off. Secondly, we must at least consider the possibility that King John’s alliance with Sancho of Navarre, itself the product of Anglo-Navarrese negotiations stretching back to the 1180s, bore fruit in 1205, with open Navarrese support for Bordeaux and Bayonne in their resistance to Castile. If we knew rather more than we do know of Sancho’s movements in 1205-6, it is at least possible that we would discover the king of Navarre taking active steps to attack Castilian interests in the Peninsula at the same time that Alfonso was engaged against Plantagenet interests in Gascony. To this extent, the Anglo-Navarrese treaty of 1202 may have enjoyed even more success than its critics have previously been prepared to accept.
Plantagenet Gascony, Between Navarre and Castile
Two other key factors can be detected in the Castilian invasion of 1205, both of which will loom large in this thesis. The first is the forging of an alliance between the Spanish kingdoms and the nobles of Gascony, in particular, with the counts of Béarn. The second is the growing complexity of the tripartite relations that now existed between England, France and Spain, in particular as a result of the marriage of Blanche of Castile with Louis of France. This too was to have a long posterity. Let us consider each of these factors in turn.
The key to Castilian success in Gascony in 1205-6 seems to lie in the presence of the vicomte of Béarn and the comte of Tartas as witnesses to Alfonso’s charters. In 1196, Arnald Raymond of Tartas, vicomte of Dax, had paid homage to Sancho of Navarre, promising to wage war against all potential enemies including the kings of England,
an alliance that reflected Navarre’s influence in the ultrapuertos.539 With Navarre
after 1202 openly in alliance with England, and with Pedro of Aragon spending most of his time in his peninsular holdings, the Gascon nobles may have turned now from alliances with either Navarre or Aragon towards a new understanding with the king of Castile.540
On 22 May 1206, as king of Castile and lord of Gascony, Alfonso confirmed all customs, donations, liberties granted to the monastery of Sauve-Majeure by the kings of England and the dukes of Aquitaine who had ruled the land before him (‘tam a regibus Angliae quam a ducibus Aquitaniae que ante nos dominium illius terrae habuerunt’). Once again Gaston and Arnald Raymond were present as witnesses.541
As this charter proves, the Chronica latina was hardly candid in its claims that Alfonso VIII, having found no faithful supporters in the poor lands of Gascony, decided to free the Gascons from their obligation to render homage to him.542 Far from abandoning his claims to Gascony, as the Chronica claims, Nicholas Vincent has unearthed evidence that, as late as 1214, Alfonso continued to style himself as ‘lord of Gascony’ in charters issued to the religious north of the Pyrenees.543
As for the Capetian connection, at first glance, the Castilian invasion of Gascony does not seem to fit with Alfonso VIII continued struggle against the Almohads and his desire to assert Castilian dominance over neighbouring León and Navarre. It is only
539 Cf. Vincent, ‘A Forgotten War’, 114.
540 According to Damian J. Smith, King Pedro II of Aragón spent less than 5 per cent of his reign in the
Midi: D.J. Smith, Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition in the Lands of the Crown of Aragon (c. 1167-1276) (Leiden: 2010), 31, n. 94.
541 González, Alfonso VIII, no. 1030.
542 ‘Paupertas siquidem terre, inconstancia hominum, in quibus rara fides inueniebatur, terram
Vasconie ipsi regi rediderant odiosam […] Vascones ipsos, tam nobiles quam populos ciutatum, absoluit a iuramento et omagio, quo ei tenebantur astricti’: Chronica latina, ii, 17, p. 52.
by considering the prospects that had opened up as a result of the marriage between Louis, the French heir, and Alfonso’s daughter, Blanche, that Alfonso’s sudden interest in Gascony begins to make sense. Alfred Richard, writing in 1903, was perhaps the first modern historian to suggest that Alfonso’s invasion was not itself a long-planned affair, but that it was Philip Augustus who, in 1205, incited Alfonso VIII to invade Gascony.544 In these circumstances, the Castilian claim to Gascony
emerges not as some long-nursed act of revenge, traced back to the grant of a marriage portion to Eleanor of Castile in the 1170s, but as a far more immediate response to the new alliance between Castile and France, forged by the marriage of Blanche and Louis in 1200, and in particular as an act of opportunism provoked by the success of Philip Augustus’ invasion of Normandy and Anjou as recently as 1204. As has long been reorganized, there is no real proof that Alfonso and Eleanor had ever been promised Gascony as Eleanor’s marriage portion. Even the Castilian
Chronica latina admits a lack of such proof, stating merely that Alfonso ‘believed’
(‘credebat’) that Henry II had granted Gascony to Eleanor.545 Lucas de Tuy and Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada are entirely silent about such Castilian belief or right, merely stating that Alfonso marched into Gascony and later returned to Castile.546 Without documentary evidence, the question of Eleanor’s marriage portion remains impossible to resolve. That she was indeed promised lands, some of which were later reassigned to Berengaria of Navarre, is perhaps hinted at in the Meiz sirvientes veuilh
far dels reis amdos, a sirvientes by Bertran de Born, in which the troubadour calls for
war, describing Richard’s grant of Gascony to Berengaria as an incitement to war
544 A. Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou 778-1204, Vol. II (Paris: 1903), 454-5. 545 Chronica latina, 51. Cf. Vincent, ‘A Forgotten War’, 114.
546 Fernández Valverde, ed., De rebus Hispanie, VIII, xxxiii, p. 256; L. Tudensis, Chronicon mundi
with Castile.547 Whatever the truth here, it is clear that through to 1200, Alfonso
made little attempt to meddle with the troublesome Gascon lords, focussing his attentions upon the Peninsula. It was only the marriage alliance between Blanche and Louis, negotiated in 1200, itself involving reciprocal interests both for the
Plantagenets and the Capetians, that for the first time properly involved Alfonso in northern politics. Even here, he was drawn into the affairs of John and Philip Augustus, at least to begin with, as a neutral party, able to supply a daughter, herself of Plantagenet descent, suitable to be offered as a Capetian bride and hence as a token of a new Anglo-French peace.
The fact that Gascony is barely mentioned in the Spanish chronicles before 1205, suggests that it was not seen as a key issue at the Castilian court and that it became a
casus belli only when the Capetian alliance via Blanche refocused Alfonso’s thoughts
north of the Pyrenees. Even before the actual invasion, Alfonso may have begun to exert pressure over Gascony, as suggested by the way in which the Anglo-Navarrese treaty of 1202 was targeted against both Castile and Aragon, and as suggested by the subsequent, apparently abortive attempts by King John to open negotiations with Castile. Instead, John continued to rely upon his alliance with Sancho VII of Navarre, himself a pariah in the eyes both of the Church and the other Spanish kingdoms as a result of his dealings with the Almohad ruler of Morocco. However, Navarre was a less than ideal ally for John, since Sancho of Navarre was now father both of Blanche countess of Champagne, and of Berengaria ruler of Le Mans, themselves firmly placed within the Capetian camp as enemies rather than allies of King John.
Other factors, in addition to the marriage alliance with Philip Augustus, may have contributed to Alfonso’s decision to invade Gascony. It was suggested by the seventeenth-century historian, Pierre de Marca, that Alfonso craved the assistance of Gaston de Béarn in securing the costal lands that the Castilian had recently (1200) taken from Navarre (San Sebastián and the Guipúzcoa). In exchange for the homages paid him by the vicomtes of Béarn, Tartas, and the comte of Armagnac, Alfonso offered them military help against King John, himself already defeated in
Normandy.548 The participation of Gaston VI of Béarn in Alfonso’s campaign was a notable event, pregnant with future significance. Nevertheless, it cannot rival the marriage between Blanche and Louis as a potential spur to the Castilian invasion of Gascony.
In the end, the Anglo-Navarrese alliance may only have added to John’s, already tarnished image both with the Church and with the Christian faithful. Like his later alliance with Raymond of Toulouse, it appeared to show him in cahoots not just with the disreputable but with the positively heretic or apostate. Matthew Paris was much later to describe John as an ‘oppressor’ (‘oppressor’) who lost (‘amiserat)’ many of his lands in France and who could have lost England as well. The chronicler used John’s alliance with Morocco to further damage the late king’s image. According to Paris, the court clerk Master Robert of London was sent to the caliph of Morocco. There, far from working his master, King John, he admitted that the English people were looking for a strong man to govern them, who would behave like a lion or an elephant (‘leo vel elephas’), as an alternative to King John and his reputation as
‘softsword’.549 In reality, John’s negotiations with the Almohads were based upon a
reasonable assessment of realpolitik, co-ordinated after 1210 in tandem with John’s negotiations with Toulouse and Aragon for a joint campaign against both Castilian and Capetian enemies.550 Meanwhile, the alliance between John and Sancho of Navarre had offered both kings a tenuous lifeline to keep Castile, their mutual enemy, at bay. Even so, in the immediate term, the Anglo-Navarrese alliance did little either to prevent Philip Augustus’ forces from taking Normandy, or from deterring Alfonso VIII’s march into Gascony.
549 CM, ii, 563, and see E.D. Ross, ‘An Embassy from King John to the Emperor of Morocco’, Bulletin
of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 3 (1924).
550 N. Vincent, ‘English Liberties, Magna Carta (1215) and the Spanish Connection’, 1212-1214: El
trienio que hizo a Europa, Actas de la XXXVII Semana de Estudios Medievales de Estella 19 al 23 de julio de 2010 (Pamplona 2011), 243-61.