1130
Siege of Bayonne
The Count of Toulouse, Alfonso Jordan, had done homage to Alfonso VII of León and Castile upon the count’s succession in 1126. In March that year, he had even taken the capital city of León from some rebels holding out in favor of an illegitimate half-brother of Alfonso VII, one of the sons of his mother, Queen Urraca, and her lover, Pedro Gonzalez de Lara. Urraca's second, childless marriage was to Alfonso I “the Battler”, King of Aragon and Navarre. For a period of over a decade the 2 had been engaged in a civil war for power in Castile and León. With the death of Urraca, Alfonso VII, her son by an earlier marriage, succeeded to her position as primary rival of Alfonso the Battler.
Alfonso VII concluded an alliance with Alfonso's eastern neighbor, Raymond Berengar III of Barcelona, by marrying his daughter, Berengaria, in 1127. This may have prompted Alfonso of Aragon to make an attack on Raymond's allies north of the Pyrenees in an effort to scuttle Raymond's political aspirations there. Alfonso the Battler was perhaps hoping to persuade the Count of Toulouse to switch allegiance to him.
The attacking army was probably already passing through the Pyrenees when, on September 4, 1130, Alfonso visited a chapel in Ardanés, a now depopulated village in the Valle de Hecho. The army probably crossed via the pass at Somport in order to enter Gascony through the allied territory of Béarn. Pedro Gonzalez de Lara was now an ally, hoping the strengthen Aragon against Alfonso VII. Other allies included Gaston IV of Béarn and Centule II of Bigorre.
In October, Alfonso besieged Bayonne. The city was then a part of Aquitaine, nominally a part of France, and under Duke William X. For several days Alfonso plundered the countryside around Bayonne before assaulting the city's walls with siege engines brought from Aragon. Alfonso also blockaded the city with ships on the river Adour.
At some point a relief army led by Alfonso Jordan, Count of Toulouse, arrived. Pedro, for reasons unknown, challenged him to a joust. The Spaniard was wounded and unhorsed, breaking an arm and died a few days later. The relief force strengthened the defense and prolonged the siege.
The siege dragged on, and during his year-long absence from Spain, Alfonso the Battler lost Castrojeriz and the other places he held in Castile west of the Sierra de la Demanda to Alfonso VII. The Aragonese king himself remained at the siege throughout the end of 1130. He continued to be "about Bayonne" from January to May 1131, as both royal and private documents say. The siege continued through the summer, but in July and August Alfonso was leading forces in a place called Rocha Tallata or Rocathalada, possibly modern Peyrehorade. While still besieging Bayonne, Alfonso drafted his will in October 1131: it contains the last datable reference to the siege. When the siege was lifted is not known, but most of November 1131 must have been spent returning to Aragon. In December the royal court was at Tiermas.
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