José Casado del Alisal

The Legend of the Monk King - 1880       [Museo del Prado, Madrid]

In 1035, Sancho III of Navarre (Navarra), self-styled Rex Hispaniarum, distributed his Iberian possessions among his sons; most notably Castile to Ferdinand I, Navarre to García III, and Aragon to Ramiro I. By 1076, Aragon and Navarre were ruled jointly under Ramiro I's son, Sancho, who became king of Aragon in 1063 and king of Navarre in 1076. By 1134, two of Sancho's sons had successively acceded to both thrones and died without heirs, leaving only one son left: Ramiro, Bishop of Barbastro-Roda. This presented an opportunity for the Navarrese to dispense with a union they disliked and, before Ramiro could act, the kingdom's barons appointed a monarch of their own choice. The new king of Navarre and the king of Castile began to eye Aragon for themselves, which meant that the continuance and defense of his family's rule in Aragon rested solely on Ramiro - a monk for 40 years - to take definitive action.

At around 59 years of age, Ramiro left the monastery and became Ramiro II of Aragon (Ramiro II de Aragón). Ramiro the monk-king became a fierce adversary to those interested in wresting his throne from him. In addition to successfully fighting off King García IV of Navarre and King Alfonso VIII of Castile and León, Ramiro also appears to have successfully - and brutally - suppressed an uprising of his own nobles.

The San Juan de la Peña Chronicle (also known as San Chuán d'a Peña), written in the 14th Century, tells that Ramiro II sent a herald to the Abbey of San Ponce de Tomeras, ruled by his old master, seeking advice as how to best deal with his more troublesome Aragonese noblemen. The master showed the herald into the garden and proceded to cut the heads from the roses (sometimes it is said they were cabbages or artichokes) that stood out from the rest. The herald returned to Aragon and told the king what he had seen.

Ramiro summoned fifteen nobles to the palace of the kings of Aragon in Huesca under the pretext that he wanted their help to finance a bell that could be heard throughout the entire kingdom. When the nobles arrived at the appointed room in the palace, they were detained by Ramiro's men and promptly decapitated. Popular tradition has it that he then built a circular bell with the noble's heads with a clapper taken from the leader. From that day, the kingdom of Aragon may not have heard the loud ringing sound of a bell, but they undoubtedly heard loud and clear what happened to rebels under the rule of "The Monk".

For all his apparent ferocity, Ramiro wanted to return to his monastic life as quickly as possible. In 1135, he secured a special dispensation from the Pope to marry Agnes Maud of Poitiers (Aquitaine), the daughter of William IX of Aquitaine and aunt of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The couple quickly had a child, Petronila, who was just as quickly betrothed in 1137 to Ramón Berenguer IV "The Saint", Count of Barcelona. Since Petronila was barely three and her husband about 22, it wasn't until 1150 that they were officially married at the Cathedral of Lérida in Catalonia.

In 1137, Ramiro abdicated in Petronila's favour and returned to the monastery of San Pedro el Viejo in Huesca, where he died in 1154.