General Notes

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Note: byname SANCHO THE GREAT, Spanish SANCHO EL MAYOR, OR EL GRANDE,king of Pamplona (Navarre) from about 1000 to 1035, the son ofGarc¡a II (or III).
Sancho established Navarrese hegemony over all the Christianstates of Spain at a time when the caliphate of C¢rdoba was in a state of turmoil. Sancho was uninterested in a crusade againstthe Moors, but he was interested in the expansion of Pamplona,which he began by the seizure of the ancient Frankish countiesof Sobrarbe and Ribagorza (1016-19). A skilled politician,Sancho pursued his aims more by subversion than by force of arms. He persuaded the Count of Barcelona, Berenguer Ram¢n I, to accept him as overlord. Gascony did likewise, giving him direct sovereignty over Labourd. As a consequence of his marriage(1010) to Munia, daughter of Count Sancho Garc¡a (d. 1017) of Castile, Sancho secured his own acceptance as count when Sancho Garc¡a's son, the child Count Garc¡a, was assassinated (1029).He then took up Castilian irredentist claims in eastern Leon andoccupied the Leonese capital, where he was crowned(1034)--taking the imperial title. Sancho, who introduced some feudal practices into his new dominions, also encouraged theCluniac reformers and established much closer contacts generallybetween Christian Spain and trans-Pyrenean Europe. In his will,however, he deliberately destroyed the empire he had created: hedivided it into four kingdoms and left these to his four sons,thus making inevitable the fratricidal wars that followed hisdeath. Sancho created the kingdom of Aragon and was responsible for the elevation of Castile from county to kingdom, though hetransferred some Castilian territory to Pamplona, which he left to his eldest son, Garc¡a III (or IV).