But which king?

We encounter a difficulty with studying Medieval history.

We’ve mentioned before that, although none of our consultants is a trained and licensed historian, we all enjoy the subject.  Especially we enjoy history with all the details left in, and have become impatient with accounts that dismiss whole centuries in a few lines.  (That’s unfortunate for our tutor, who must give students a simpler structure to work with.)  One of our consultants has just finished re-reading a 700-page work on Medieval Spain, where he encountered a bit of unexpected confusion: at one point three different kings in the peninsula had the same name, so it was difficult to keep track of which King Alfonso the author was currently talking about.

Most students are aware that there are two different countries in Iberia now, but it comes as a surprise to many that in Medieval times Spain was made up of several monarchies.  Each had different laws and customs, plus a subtly or greatly different language from the others; and they were often at war with each other.  And that only counts the Christian kingdoms.  The Muslim political entities, about which we have fewer historical details, add a fascinating complexity to the 700-year span of our subject.

The fact that the Christian kingdoms shared much common culture, and that the royal families intermarried, meant that similar names appear often among their kings.  To work out just how confusing this might be we sat down with the genealogical tables and made a list.  We found five periods in which three kingdoms had kings with the same name.  We offer this list in case anyone needs help with Iberian kings.  (Almost all ruled outside the years given, which cover only the simultaneous period.)

From 1065 to 1072 Sancho II was on the throne of Castile, while Sancho IV ruled Navarre and Sancho I Ramírez, Aragon.  At least they all had different numbers.

From 1128 to 1134 Alfonso VII ruled Castile-León (they were one kingdom at this time) while Alfonso I was on the Aragonese throne and Afonso I Henriques was king of Portugal.  (We count the Portuguese Afonso as identical to the Spanish Alfonso; in Medieval times, minor spelling differences didn’t matter.)

From 1211 to 1214 we have simultaneously Alfonso IX of León, Alfonso VIII of Castile and Afonso II of Portugal.

From 1327 to 1336 we find Alfonso XI ruling Castile-León (back together again), Alfonso IV in Aragon and Afonso IV in Portugal.

Finally, from 1357 to 1367 Pedro (“the Cruel”) was on the Castilian throne (León, once the senior kingdom, had been subsumed), Pedro IV that of Aragon and Pedro (no number or nickname) that of Portugal.

We didn’t find any periods of four rulers with the same name.  There were periods with five separate kingdoms (León, Castile, Navarre, Aragon and Portugal), but then Sanchos and Pedros mixed with the Alfonsos.  We think that there were more years with at least two common names than not, but didn’t actually count them all out.

It all becomes much easier with the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, which united everything but Portugal. But that takes us out of the Medieval era.