page_title: Alfonso the Battler
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Alfonso the Battler / Biography / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Dinero (Castilian coin) minted in Toledo during the reign of the Aragonese king Alfonso I the Battler.
context_page_description: Alfonso I, called the Battler or the Warrior, was the king of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. With his marriage to Urraca, queen regnant of Castile, León and Galicia, in 1109, he began to use, with some justification, the grandiose title Emperor of Spain, formerly employed by his father-in-law, Alfonso VI. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the Reconquista. He won his greatest military successes in the middle Ebro, where he conquered Zaragoza in 1118 and took Ejea, Tudela, Calatayud, Borja, Tarazona, Daroca, and Monreal del Campo. He died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the Muslims at the Battle of Fraga.
  His nickname comes from the Aragonese version of the Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña, which says that "they called him lord Alfonso the battler because in Spain there wasn't as good a knight who won twenty-nine battles".
context_section_description: His earliest years were passed in the monastery of Siresa, learning to read and write and to practice the military arts under the tutelage of Lope Garcés the Pilgrim, who was repaid for his services by his former charge with the county of Pedrola when Alfonso came to the throne.
  During his brother's reign, he participated in the taking of Huesca (the Battle of Alcoraz, 1096), which became the largest city in the kingdom and the new capital.  He also joined El Cid's expeditions in Valencia.  His father gave him the lordships of Biel, Luna, Ardenes, and Bailo.
  A series of deaths put Alfonso directly in line for the throne.  His brother's children, Isabella and Peter (who married María Rodríguez, daughter of El Cid), died in 1103 and 1104 respectively.
caption: A denarius minted by Alfonso in Toledo while he ruled Castile
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