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[FONT=&quot]The First and Last King - A Medieval Timeline

From ‘National Identities in Iberia’ Chapter 3: National Heroes by Giuvanni Cangelosi, 1884.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]National heroes are always, to some extent, politicised, but perhaps the most extreme examples of such are those of Iberia. Centuries of Iberian leaders and politicians have invoked and called upon these figures for their own ends, each time rewriting or adjusting the myths of these historical figures to suit the political trends and goals of the day.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The most widely celebrated figure is Sancho el Mayor, the fabled First and Last King, who is a national hero of Navarre, Castille, and to a lesser extent Aragon. His epithet comes from the historically incorrect, but widely taught, assertion than he was the only man ever to rule over all of Christian Iberia; he was both the first and last king of Spain. Only he, it is often said, had the military, political and diplomatic skill to unite the fractious peoples of the peninsula against the Moors. He has been invoked both by military leaders hoping to conquer the peninsula as his successor and by politicians attempting to keep the peninsula divided.[/FONT]



Sancho El Mayor, also known as Sancho III of Navarre, the First and Last King


[FONT=&quot]This, while making for a very good story, is a complete falsehood. While he was certainly the last ruler of all of Christian Spain (although several others have come close) he was by no means the first; there were no less than eleven Visigothic Kings (Suintila, Sisenand, Chintila, Tulga, Chindasuinth, Recceswinth, Wamba, Ergic, Egica, Wittiza and Roderic, all Arian Christians) who can be said to have ruled over all of Christian Spain, this term applying to all of Iberia at that time, a far greater realm than possessed by Sancho. In addition there were several rulers of the Kingdom of Asturias (notably the first, Pelagius, who is discussed later in this chapter) who can be said to have ruled over all of Christian Spain.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Moreover, Sancho was not a particularly great king; while he was a skilled commander, he had a substantial advantage in that most of his enemies were too young to rule effectively. The only reason why no-one has ever united Christian Spain since is because he divided his realms among his sons after his death, which prevented them from establishing permanent control over the Kingdom of Leon, which was at the time, the most culturally different of the Iberian kingdoms, and became more so over time.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Despite this, Sancho remains a powerful symbol, not so much for his specific deeds or qualities but for what he represents; the inherent unity of the Christian peoples of Spain. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]During his period, the small Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia were seen as fundamentally similar, the main differences being political, and indeed it was considered inevitable that, either during or after the Reconquista, one great King would unite them permanently; in fact, some contemporaries expected this to be Sancho himself.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]It was not until a century or so after Sancho’s death that contemporaries began to acknowledge that; in fact, it was possible that Christian Spain would never be united (notably, the [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña)[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [1][/FONT][FONT=&quot], and it was not until the so called Spanish Lethargy of the first half of the thirteenth century that a united Spain was seen as unlikely. Since then, a united Christian Spain has only been the dream of the more ambitious kings, extremist politicians, and cloistered academics.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Still, Spain is not as divided culturally as it first appears. Castille and Navarre still have, despite rivalry and in some cases hostility, a great deal of similarity. Aragon remains fundamentally similar in language, art, music and politics to Barcelona. Only Leon remains distinct, and that is the result of centuries of (admittedly sporadic) drive to establish a unique national identity by the Kings of Leon, who could always use somebody with a skill for verse to compose poetry extolling Leonese superiority [2].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Sancho is still used today as a symbol by a number of far-front and far-back extremist groups advocating the unification of Iberia, but that is a fools dream. The civicist movements in Spain are too strong, and there is too much bad blood between the Christian kingdoms. While an outsider may see a Castillian, a Galician and a Barcelonan as fundamentally similar, then they certainly would not see it that way, and if history has taught us anything, it is that Iberians do not look kindly on the rest of the world interfering in their politics.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][1]: [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Yes, I’m aware it wasn’t founded until 1370 IOTL. Chalk this one up to butterflies; I may go into more detail later.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][2][/FONT][FONT=&quot]: My apologies for such a poor pun in such an egregious place, but I wasn’t going to get through this timeline without making at least one joke on this subject, and I thought it best to get it out of the way early.[/FONT]
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