Castile (Alfonso X)
John Carmi Parsons
stated I would. (When dialling in to email from off-campus, we have a half-
hour time limit that is rigorously enforced by automatic cutoffs, and I got
caught the last time round.)
Alfonso X married first, 1246 (consummated Jan. 1249), Iolande or Violante
of Aragon (1237-1300), daughter of Jaime I and Yolande/Violante of Hungary.
Tradition says that owing to her youth, Queen Yolande of Castile bore no
children for several years and at one point Alfonso considered repudiating her.
In fact, they had a large family. The order of birth of their children is
given very accurately in a contemporary chronicle published by A. Morel-Fatio
in *Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes* for 1898. The great biography of
Alfonso X by Antonio Ballesteros Beretta is also very helpful in this regard.
1. Ferdinand, of whom nothing is known except that he died an infant and is
buried in the royal convent of las Huelgas in Burgos. His sarcophagus there
was opened during the excavations of the convent in the 1950s; the mummified
body within was photographed and was clearly that of a very tiny infant. It is
sometimes conjectured that this was an OOW child, but it would have been a
strange gesture for Alfonso to bury an OOW in the dynastic necropolis. It is
most likely that this was his firstborn child, named for his father, who died
soon after birth.
2. Berengaria, b. Oct or Nov. 1253, d. a nun at las Huelgas where she was
living at the time of Alfonso X's death in 1284. She had been betrothed to
Louis of France (d. Jan. 1260), eldest son of Louis IX. Ballesteros Beretta, p.
1054, says she was actually cloistered at Guadalajara.
3. Beatriz, b. between 5 Nov. and 6 Dec. 1254, d. 1280. Married 1271, as his
second wife, William VII, marquess of Montferrat (abdicated 1290, d. 1292) and
left issue. (Date of birth: Ballesteros Beretta, *Alfonso X*, p. 104.)
4. Fernando `de la Cerda,' b. 23 Oct. 1255, d. 25 July 1275. Married 31
Dec. 1269 Blanche (1254-1318), daughter of Louis IX of France. (`De la Cerda'
is NOT a place. The infante is said to have received this nickname because he
was born with a single large hair or bristle, like that of a boar ["cerda" in
Spanish] protruding from his chest.) This marriage produced two, perhaps three
children:
1. Alfonso, born late in 1270, d. 1333. For the date of his birth,
*Annales Toletanes III,* published in E. Florez, *Espana Sagrada* vol.
23, pp. 419-20.
2. Ferdinand, b. posthumously 1275, d ca 1332? For the date of his
birth see the chronicle edited by Morel-Fatio cited above, pp. 340-41.
3?. Juana, who is mentioned in a genealogical table in Gerard Sivery's
biography of Louis IX's wife Marguerite of Provence, p. 252. He cites
no evidence for this child's existence.
5. Leonor, b. ca 1257, d. unm. 1275.
6. Sancho, b. 13 May 1258, succeeded his father as Sancho IV of Castile
1284. Upon the death of his elder brother in 1275, Sancho claimed to be
the new heir to the throne to his nephews' exclusion on the basis that old
Castilian custom allowed a king's sons to take precedence over grandsons.
Alfonso X had, however, promulgated law codes based on Roman law that made
direct descendants, including grandchildren in an elder line, senior heirs
over younger children such as Sancho. As the Castilian nobility opposed
Alfonso X's centralizing policies and saw his new law codes as part and
parcel of those policies, Sancho quickly found much support among the
aristocrats. After a bitter civil war Alfonso X was compelled to exclude
his de la Cerda grandsons from the succession in favor of Sancho in 1282.
7. Constance, b ca 1259, d. a nun at las Huelgas 22 Aug. 1280. She is
sometimes considered to have been OOW, but the chronicle includes her among
Alfonso's legitimate offspring.
8. Pedro, lord of Ledesma, b between 15 May and 27 July 1260, d. 10 Oct.
1283. Married 1281 Marguerite of Nabonne, and is said to have left a son
Sancho "de la Paz," though there is little reliable documentation for that son.
(For the date of Pedro's birth see Ballesteros Beretta, *Alfonso X*, p. 294.)
9. Juan, lord of Valencia, b between 22 March and 29 April 1262, d 25 June
1319. Married first, 1281, Isabella of Montferrat (no issue). Married second,
1287, Maria Diaz de Haro (d. 1325), heiress of Vizcaya (Biscay), and left issue.
(For the date of his birth, Ballesteros Beretta, *Alfonso X*, p. 346.)
10. Isabelle, b ca 1263?, d young.
11. Violante, b. ca 1265?, living 1296. Married Feb. 1281 Diego Lopez de Haro,
and is said to have left issue.
12. Jaime, b. after 9 August 1266, d. 9 Aug. 1284 "not yet 18 years old."
Alfonso X is also known to have had the following OOW children:
a. Beatrice, b. 1241, daughter of Mayor Guillen de Guzman. Married Affonso III,
king of Portugal, and left issue.
b. Alonzo Fernandez "el Nino," son of Dalanda, reputedly a Jewess. He married,
it is said, his cousin Blanca de Molina, daughter of Fernando III's younger
brother Alfonso, lord of Molina.
c. Martin Alonso, abbot of Valladolid. According to the wardrobe accounts of
his aunt Queen Eleanor of England, he visited her when she was in Gascony in
1288 and received from her a rich gold cup with a lid. Her accounts also
suggest he was still alive in 1290. No further details.
c. Urraca Alfonso. Mother unknown; few details.
d. Jaime or James, who spent most of his life in England where he was
sponsored by his aunt Queen Eleanor. Known in England as "Master James de
Hispania," he studied at Oxford, and rose to high administrative office in the
Exchequer in the reign of Eleanor's son Edward II. Appointed to many rich
ecclesiastical benefices, he was also granted by Eleanor a property she
acquired in Oxford, known as `la Oriole,' which with Edward III's permission
James was able to convey to the Oxford college that has ever since been known
as Oriel (of which both Eleanor and James are considered founders). He died
in England in 1332 and was possibly buried in St Paul's cathedral, London,
where he had held a prebend.
e. While James de Hispania was studying at Oxford in the early 1280s, there
was with him at the University one Alfonso de Hispania who was almost
certainly his brother or half-brother. Nothing more is known of him apart
from the evidence that he was at the university between 1282 and 1284. It
is however just possible that this Alfonso is to be identified with the
Alonso, abbot of Valladolid, mentioned above, who was certainly in close
contact with his aunt Queen Eleanor in the later 1280s.
f. In the 1290s and early 1300s, the English household of Edward of
Caernarvon, the future Edward II, included a yeoman known as Rodericus or
Rodrigo. In 1304-05 a letter from the English heir refers to him as Edward's
kinsman. The distinctively Spanish name suggests a Castilian origin, but
exactly how he fitted into the Castilian royal line at this period is not
certain. He might have been either an OOW son of Alfonso X or the child of
one of the OOWs listed above.
John Parsons