The Kingom of the Battler

 We are on the road and road is bare of things to see,  If we had followed the river we crossed yesterday we could have seen an 18th century bridge, based on a Medieval one with suggestions of Romans.  Nothing on the road though.


We have not really talked about the Crown of Aragon and as we are almost in catalonia we better had now.



The Carolingians poured over the Pyrenees, set up some feudal fiefs and buggered off.  One was based around Jaca.  In theearly 9th century it was a vassal of the Kingdom of Pamplona.  In the way of it, the king of Pamplona - now Navarre, died, left some of his land to his son, who then duffed up his half brothers and and grabbed the lot.  The Aragonese expanded but then, as happens. Alfonso the Battler died childless and Navaree and Aragon split   .



It has been observed that ‘Spain’ didn’t have to be as it is today.  You could have removed Catalonia and replaced it with Portugal.  In 1150 the Crown of Aragon got all dynastic with the County of Barcelona,  This Ramon Berenguer IV married the Aragonese Princess Petronilla.  Their son, Alfonso II got Aragon, Catalonia plus Majorca, Valencia Sicily, Naples and Sardinia.



From that point on we are heading towards the fifteenth century and the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castille.  Unlike the Union of England and Scotland, the Aragonese did not get equal access to the Empire and the rewards for those who sought them.. The merger would not come till the early eighteenth century when Phillip V established his centralised rule.



The Crown of Aragon would remain an administrative until till 1833.  The region was then divided into the three parts. In 1982 Aragon became one of the autonomous communities,

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