[5] This conquest, along with El Cid's taking of Valencia would greatly expand the territory and influence of the Leonese/Castilian realm, but also provoked an Almoravid invasion that Alfonso would spend the remainder of his reign resisting.

The Leonese and Castilian armies suffered decisive defeats in the battles of Sagrajas (1086), Consuegra (1097) and Uclés (1108), in the latter of which his only son and heir, Sancho Alfónsez, died, and Valencia was abandoned but Toledo remained part of an expanded realm that he passed to his daughter.

[8] According to the Historia silense, the eldest child of Ferdinand I and Sancha, a daughter called Urraca, was born when her parents were still Count and Countess of Castile, so her birth could be placed in 1033–34.

[1] The third child and second daughter, Elvira, may have been born in 1039–40,[1] followed by Alfonso in 1040–41,[1] and finally the youngest of the siblings, García, sometime between 1041 and 24 April 1043, the date on which King Ferdinand I, in a donation to the Abbey of San Andrés de Espinareda, mentions his five children.

Once king, Alfonso appointed him Bishop of Palencia and referred to him as magistro nostro, viro nobile et Deum timenti ("our master, a noble man who fears God").

[6] At the end of 1063, probably on 22 December, taking advantage of the fact that numerous magnates had gathered in León, capital of the kingdom, for the consecration of the Basílica of San Isidoro,[15] Ferdinand I summoned a Curia Regia to make known his testamentary dispositions, under which he decided to distribute his patrimony among his children, a distribution that would not become effective until the death of the monarch[16] in order to prevent any disputes arising after his death:[17] The historian Alfonso Sánchez Candeira suggests that the reasons leading King Ferdinand I to divide the kingdom (with Alfonso VI inheriting the royal title) are unknown, but the distribution was probably made because the king considered it proper that each son should inherit the region where he had been educated and spent his early years.

[25] Although Sancho II's troops were victorious, he decided not to persecute his brother Alfonso, who was imprisoned in Burgos[27] and later transferred to the monastery of Sahagún, where his head was shaved and he was forced to wear a chasuble.

[28] Alfonso VI, from his exile in Toledo, obtained the support of the Leonese nobility and his sister Urraca, who remained strong in the city of Zamora, a lordship that Ferdinand I had granted her previously.

[26] Although Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid), the standard-bearer and confidant of King Sancho II, was present at the siege of Zamora, the role he played in this event is not known.

[31] However, this did nothing to prevent speculation that Alfonso was somehow involved in Sancho's murder; despite a paucity of evidence, "minstrels and ballads filled this void with beautiful literary creations devoid of any historical reality".

[34] Now established on the Leonese throne, and with the title of "Emperor", a relic of the Gothic tradition, Alfonso VI spent the following fourteen years of his reign expanding his territories through conquests such as that of Uclés and the lands of the Banu Di-l-Nun family.

Alfonso VI continued their economic exploitation by means of the system of parias, and succeeded in subduing most of the Taifa kingdoms as his tributaries, enforced by the threat of military intervention.

In 1074, he probably recovered payment of the parias of Toledo, and the same year, helped by troops of that city, he cut down trees on the lands of the Taifa of Granada, which consequently also began to pay him taxes.

It took place in 1083 in the castle of Rueda de Jalón, when Alfonso VI received news that the governor of that stronghold, which belonged to the Taifa of Zaragoza, intended to surrender it to the Leonese king.

[43][44] In 1074, Alfonso VI's vassal and friend Al-Mamun, king of the Taifa of Toledo died of poisoning in Córdoba, and was succeeded by his grandson Al-Qádir, who asked for help from the Leonese monarch to end an uprising against him.

[citation needed] The occupation of Toledo—which allowed Alfonso VI to incorporate the title of King of Toledo with those he already used (victoriosissimo rege in Toleto, et in Hispania et Gallecia[5])—led to the taking of cities such as Talavera and fortresses including the castle of Aledo.

The incorporation of the territory situated between the Sistema Central and the Tajo river would serve as the base of operations for the Kingdom of León, from where he could launch more attacks against the Taifas of Cordoba, Seville, Badajoz and Granada.

[5] The conquest of the extensive and strategic Taifa of Toledo, the control of Valencia and the possession of Aledo, which isolated Murcia from the rest of Al-Andalus, worried the Muslim sovereigns of the Iberian Peninsula.

[52] Alfonso VI asked the Christian kingdoms of Europe to organize a Crusade against the Almoravids, who had recovered almost all the territories he had conquered, with the exception of Toledo, where the king remained strong.

They included Raymond and Henry of Burgundy, who married Alfonso VI's daughters Urraca (1090) and Teresa (1094), respectively, which led to the establishment of the Anscarid and Capetian dynasties in the peninsular kingdoms.

[60] As the price for this alliance, Alfonso VI had obtained Lisbon, Sintra, and Santarém, but lost them in November 1094 when his son-in-law Raymond of Burgundy, responsible for defending these cities, was defeated by the Almoravid army that had taken Badajoz shortly before.

[67] In 1108 the troops of the Almoravid Tamim, governor of Córdoba and son of Yusuf ibn Tashfin, attacked Christian territories, but this time the chosen city was not Toledo but Uclés.

[2] The mortal remains of the king were deposited in a stone sepulchre, which was placed at the feet of the church of the Royal Monastery, until the reign of Sancho IV, who deemed it unseemly that his ancestor was buried at the foot of the temple and ordered the tomb to be moved inside and placed in the church's transept, near the tomb of Beatriz, Dowager Lady of Los Cameros and daughter of Infante Frederick of Castile who had been executed by orders of his brother, King Alfonso X the Wise in 1277.

[77] The sepulchre that contained the remains of the king, now having disappeared, was supported on alabaster lions, and was a large ark of white marble, eight feet long and four wide and tall, being covered by a smooth black lid.

[91] After the death of Agnes, the king had an extra-marital relationship with Jimena Muñoz, "most noble" (nobilissima) concubine "derived from royalty" (real generacion), according to Bishop Pelagius of Oviedo.

[95] She was the childless widow of Count Hugues III of Chalon-sur-Saône and daughter of Duke Robert I of Burgundy and his first wife, Hélie de Semur-en-Brionnais,[96] and great-granddaughter of King Hugh Capet of France.

[98] From this union, which lasted until Constance's death in 1093,[61][h] six children were born, but only one reached adulthood:[101] Bishop Pelagius of Oviedo mentions Zaida as one of the king's two concubines and says that she was the daughter of Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, ruler of the Taifa of Seville.

[108] According to Jaime de Salazar y Acha, followed by other authors, among them, Gonzalo Martínez Diez, they married in 1100, and with this ceremony their son was legitimised and declared heir of the Kingdoms of León and Castile.

[113] He also cites a charter from the cathedral of Astorga dated 14 April 1107 where Alfonso VI grants some fueros and acts cum uxore mea Elisabet et filio nostro Sancio (with my wife Isabel and our son Sancho).

Alfonso VI had fully assumed the imperial idea of León and his openness to European influence had made him aware of the feudal political practices which, in the France of his time, reached their most complete expression.