Castile (Alfonso IX)
John Carmi Parsons
Alfonso IX of Leon and Berengaria, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile,
were born in this order: Leonor, Constanza, Berengaria, Ferdinand III, and
Alfonso, lord of Molina (b. 1203). This cannot, however, be correct as
Alfonso IX and Berengaria only married in 1197 or possibly 1198 and could
not have produced three daughters before Fernando III was born in 1200 (the
year all but conclusively proved in the study by Julio Gonzalez I cited in
an earlier posting). One of the daughters may have been older than Fernando,
and it may well have been Leonor, who bore the name of Berengaria's revered
mother Queen Leonor, wife of Alfonso VIII. But the other daughters must
have been younger than the future king. I suggest the following (details
from authorities/sources as cited):
1. Leonor, b. 1198/99? d. according to Florez, *Reinas Catolicas*, she d. 31
Oct. 1210.
2. Fernando III, b. 1200.
3. Berengaria, b. 1201/02, d. 1237, m. 1224 John de Brienne, formerly K. of
Jerusalem in virtue of his first marriage to its heiress. John, who was
nearing 80 at the time of his marriage to Berengaria, also d. 1237. The
couple produced 4 children. I dealt with their family in a posting 2 or 3
weeks ago.
4. Alfonso, lord of Molina, b. 1203, d. 1272. He married 3 times and left
issue by all 3 wives, as well as (according to Florez) 4 OOW daughters.
Florez and ES however disagree on the sequence and identity of his wives.
Florez has: first marriage before 1240 to Mafalda Manrique de Lara, lady
of Molina; second, Teresa Gonzalez de Lara; third, Mayor Alfonso de Meneses.
ES has Mayor de Meneses first, then Mafalda Perez, then Teresa Perez. Miriam
Shadis, "Berenguela of Castile's Political Motherhood," in *Medieval Mothering*
ed. J.C. Parsons and B. Wheeler (NY, 1996), pp. 342-43, says that the first
marriage, in 1240, was to Mafalda, daughter of Gonzalo Perez de Molina, a Lara
kinsman. Shadis, p. 342, adds that Alfonso of Molina had an OOW son, Juan
Alfonso, bishop of Palencia, and that Alfonso's OOW daughter Berenguela
Alfonso was a mistress of Jaime I of Aragon. Small world royalty lives in.
All authorities agree that Mayor Alonso de Meneses was the mother of Alfonso of
Molina's best-known child, Maria, who married her cousin Sancho IV of Castile
and was the mother of Sancho's son Ferdinand IV. Florez agrees that by Mafalda,
lady of Molina, Alfonso had a daughter Blanca, who married Alfonso X's OOW son
Alfonso Fernandez (d. 1281), as I reported in an earlier post; they had one
daughter, Isabel m. Juan Nunez de Lara.
5. Constanza, b. ca 1205? d. a nun at las Huelgas 7 Sept. 1242 (Florez).
FTR, Alfonso IX's children by his first marriage to Teresa of Portugal
(m. 1190, divorced for consanguinity 1198, and later canonized) were:
1. Sancha was probably the eldest; she was betrothed in 1216 to her cousin
Enrique I of Castile, who d. 1217; briefly a claimant to the Leonese throne
when her father d. 1230, she d. as a nun at Cozollos in 1270, aged 80 (Florez)
and was later beatified. According to Shadis' article cited above, John de
Brienne really came to Spain to marry either Sancha or her sister Aldonza in
order to bolster their claims to the Leonese throne; their father was trying to
exclude his son Fernando (III) and hoped that if one of his elder daughters
married and had a son, it would strengthen her claims. However Alfonso IX's
other ex-wife, Berengaria, avoided this threat by inducing John de Brienne to
marry her daughter instead. When Alfonso IX d. 1230, Sancha and Dulce were in
their late 30s, unmarried and childless, and Berengaria and her son Fernando
III (married and w/several children by then) were easily able to defeat the
sisters. Their mother Urraca helped negotiate the treaty by which her daughters
renounced their claims to the Leonese throne in favor of their half-brother.
2. Aldonza or Dulce, of whom little is known. After her parents' divorce, she
is said to have been raised in Portugal by her mother (Florez). Her ultimate
fate and the year of her death are unknown to me.
3. Fernando, d. on a Monday in August 1214 when probably about 10 years old.
John Parsons