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| Ramiro II | |
|---|---|
 Miniature from theTumbo A manuscript,c. 1129–1255 | |
| King ofLeón | |
| Reign | 931–951 |
| Predecessor | Alfonso IV |
| Successor | Ordoño III |
| Born | c. 900 |
| Died | 1 January 951 (aged 50–51) León |
| Burial | |
| Consort | Adosinda Gutiérrez Urraca of Pamplona |
| Issue | Bermudo Ordoño III Teresa Ramírez Sancho I Elvira |
| Dynasty | Astur-Leonese dynasty |
| Father | Ordoño II of León |
| Mother | Elvira Menéndez |
| Religion | Chalcedonian Christianity |
Ramiro II (c. 900 – 1 January 951), son ofOrdoño II and Elvira Menendez,[1] was aKing of León from 931 until his death. Initially titular king only of a lesser part of the kingdom, he gained the crown of León (and with it,Galicia) after supplanting his brotherAlfonso IV and cousinAlfonso Fróilaz in 931. The scantAnales castellanos primeros are a primary source for his reign.
He actively campaigned against theMoors, who referred to him asthe Devil due to his ferocity and fervor in battle. He defeated the hosts of theUmayyad caliph,Abd al-Rahman III, at the Battle of Simancas (939).
When, shortly before his death in 910,Alfonso III of Asturias was forced by his sons to abdicate, theKingdom of Asturias descended into a period of successional crises among the royal family and their supporters from the regionalmarcher aristocracies. The kingdom was initially partitioned, withGarcía I receivingLeón,Ordoño IIGalicia andFruela II theAsturian heartland.
With the successive deaths of García I (914) and Ordoño (924), these were re-consolidated, Fruela ruling the entirety of what would thenceforth be referred to as theKingdom of León. His death the next year, 925, again brought about disputed succession and partition. A younger brother, Ramiro, appears to have married Fruela's widow and adopted the royal title, but gained no traction. Instead it was the next generation that rose to the forefront.
As eldest son of the prior king,Alfonso Fróilaz was crowned but proved unable to extend his power to the entire kingdom and was marginalized by his cousins the three sons of Ordoño II, who had the backing of theKingdom of Pamplona. These brothers again partitioned the portion of the kingdom they controlled: the eldest,Sancho Ordóñez, ruling in Galicia,Alfonso IV in León, and Ramiro II in the newly conquered lands to the south (al-Andalus chroniclerIbn Hayyan located his court atCoimbra).
When Sancho died in 929 his kingdom was absorbed by Alfonso IV, but in a quick succession of events taking place in Leon and Zamora, Ramiro forced the abdication of Alfonso IV, and had him and Fruela II's three sons blinded in order to make them incapable of ruling.[2]
Ramiro stood out as an excellent military commander, and expanded his territories south to a remarkable extent (e.g., into Salamanca and Ledesma) as well as founding or repopulating frontier strongholds (e.g., Osma, Clunia). Ramiro masterminded aPamplona/León coalition that defeated a jointAndalusian counter-offensive in theBattle of Simancas (939).[2] This victory allowed the advance of the Leonese border of theDuero to theTormes.
In the last years of his reign, he lost the support of his Pamplona brother-in-law/son-in-lawGarcía Sánchez I, who then helped another brother-in-law, the countFernán González of Castile, to gain briefde facto independence. Still in 950 Ramiro launched an expedition to the valley of the Edge and defeated the Cordovan Umayyads atTalavera.
Ramiro II married twice. His first wife was a member of the Galician nobility and his first cousin, Adosinda Gutiérrez,[1] daughter of Gutier Osóriz and Ildonzia Menéndez (a sister of Ramiro's mother, queen Elvira Menéndez, and also aunt ofSan Rosendo). Ramiro's second marriage toUrraca Sánchez of Pamplona, daughter ofSancho I of Pamplona andToda,[1] brought him an alliance with Pamplona. By Adosinda, Ramiro had at least two sons, the poorly-documented Bermudo who died during his father's lifetime, andOrdoño III, Ramiro's successor, plus presumably also a daughter,Teresa, the second queen ofGarcía Sánchez I of Pamplona.[a] By Urraca, Ramiro had two children,Sancho I of León andElvira Ramírez. These marriages would set the stage for further succession conflict, with Ordoño and his sonVermudo II supported by the Galician nobility, while Elvira, Sancho and his sonRamiro III relied on support from Urraca's relatives in Pamplona and Córdoba.
Ramiro figures prominently in the romantic poem, theMiragaia, which tells the apocryphal story of Ramiro bedding Ortega, the daughter of a local Arab lord. By her he is given a sonAboazar, the progenitor of theGalician/Portuguese Maia family.[b] This Maia tradition was subsequently linked to another legend, that told in theCantar de los Siete Infantes de Lara by giving Ramiro and Ortega a daughter Ortega Ramírez, who is made to marry Gustios Gonzalez, grandfather of the legendaryinfantes and of that tale's hero, Mudarra González. Subsequent elaboration of this legend gave further supposed descendants among theLara family, but these Lara connections are dismissed by modern scholars.
Ramiro II of León Born: circa 900 Died: 1 January 951 | ||
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| Preceded by | King ofLeón 931–951 | Succeeded by |
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