page_title: Kingdom of Galicia
section_title: Raymond of Burgundy
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Galicia / Early and High Middle Ages / Raymond of Burgundy
caption_attribution_description: English: Tumbo A
context_page_description: The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which at its territorial zenith occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. It was founded by the Suebic king Hermeric in 409, with its capital established in Braga. It was the first kingdom which adopted Catholicism officially. In 449 it minted its own currency. In 585, it became a part of the Visigothic Kingdom. In the 8th century, Galicia became a part of the newly founded Christian Kingdom of Asturias, which later became the Kingdom of León, and while occasionally achieving independence under the authority of its own kings. Compostela became capital of Galicia in the 11th century, while the independence of Portugal determined its southern boundary. The accession of Castilian King Ferdinand III to the Leonese kingdom in 1230 brought Galicia under the control of the Crown of Castile.
  Galicia resisted central control, supporting a series of alternative claimants, including John of León, Galicia and Seville, Ferdinand I of Portugal and John of Gaunt, and was not brought firmly into submission until the Catholic Monarchs imposed the Santa Hermandad in Galicia.
context_section_description: In 1091 the daughter of King Alfonso VI, infanta Urraca, married a Burgundian nobleman, Raymond of Burgundy, who had participated in the Crusades against the Almoravids. His military victories as well as his Anscarid lineage justified this union, and Alfonso bestowed on him the government of Galicia between Cape Ortegal and Coimbra, as a personal fief. This union gave rise to the House of Burgundy, which would rule in Galicia, León, and Castile until the death of King Peter.
  Two years after Raymond's marriage, in 1093, another French crusader, his cousin Henry, the grandson of Duke Robert I of Burgundy and nephew of Alfonso's queen, was given the hand of the Alfonso's illegitimate daughter Theresa, receiving lands in Castille. Both Burgundians were close allies in the affairs of the realm, ratifying a pact of friendship where Raymond promised his cousin the Kingdom of Toledo or the Kingdom of Galicia, together with a third of his treasure, in return for Henry's aid in acquiring the crown as successor of King Alfonso. However, by 1097 King Alfonso granted Henry the counties of Portugal and Coimbra, from the river Minho to the Tagus, thus limiting the powers of Raymond, who by this time was securing an important nucleus of partisans in Galicia, including Count Pedro Fróilaz de Traba, whilst appointing his own notary, Diego Gelmírez, as bishop of Compostela. In successive years he also obtained the government of Zamora, Salamanca, and Ávila, but he died in 1107, two years before King Alfonso, who was now in his seventies. The government of Galicia and their other possessions was retained by Alfonso's widow, Urraca, who styled herself Mistress and Empress of Galicia. King Alfonso, in a council held in León, asked the magnates of Galicia to swear an oath on the defense of the rights of his grandson, Alfonso Raimúndez, to the kingdom of Galicia, in case his mother Urraca remarried.
  On June 30, 1109, King Alfonso VI died. He was succeeded by Queen Urraca, who was remarried in 1109 to the king of Aragon, Alfonso the Battler, a soldier by nature who was immediately received as king in Castille and León, but not in Galicia. As part of the marriage settlement, any children born to the union were to have priority over Raymond's son Alfonso in the succession. In Galicia this union was rejected by the old party of count Raymond, now led by count Pedro Fróilaz, tutor of young Alfonso, although the partisans of Urraca also joined forces. With Leon and Castille quiet and under control, Alfonso moved on Galicia in 1110, and while he did not suffer any major defeat, he had little success, returning three months later to León. Probably as a consequence of this development, Pedro Froila drew Diego Gelmirez to his party. In 1111, the young Alfonso Raimúndez was crowned and anointed king in Compostela.
caption: Queen Urraca ruled Galicia with her husband, Raymond of Burgundy, until the death of her father Alfonso VI. Medieval portrait, Tumbo A chartulary of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
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