Alfonso VII, Emperor, King of Castile and León

ALFONSO VII, emperor, king of CASTIGLIA and LEÓN. - B. in 1126, d. in 1157, son of Urraca of Castiglia and Raimondo di Borgogna. After the death of this French prince, his mother contracted a second marriage, marrying Alfonso I, king of Aragon. The marriage was intended to bring about, as occurred three centuries later, the desired union of almost the whole peninsula; but the Pope refused the dispensation on grounds of kinship, ordering the separation of the two sovereigns under penalty of excommunication, and the clergy as well as, finally, the nobility declared themselves against the Aragonese. A. was so successful in his struggle against the Moors (from whom he took Almeria) and the Christian kingdoms (some of which he made tributary) that, in the pride of his glory, he proclaimed himself emperor in the «cortes» of León in 1135. At the point of death he divided the kingdom between his sons, Sancio III (Castiglia) and Ferdinando II (León).