Family tree Bas » Alfonso I van Asturië (693-757)

Personal data Alfonso I van Asturië 

• He was born in the year 693.
• (Levens event) .Source 1

  Alfonso I of Asturias, called the Catholic (el Católico), was the King of Asturias from 739 to his death in 757. He succeeded Favila, and was succeeded by his son, Fruela I.
  Biography
  
  As the son of Duke Peter of Cantabria, Alfonso held many lands in that region. He may have been the hereditary chief of the Basques, but this is uncertain. He is said to have married Ermesinda, daughter of Pelagius, who founded Asturias after the Battle of Covadonga in which he reversed the Moorish conquest of the region. He succeeded Pelagius' son, his brother-in-law, Favila, on the throne after the latter's premature death.
  
  Whether Pelagius or Favila were ever considered kings in their own lifetime is debatable, but Alfonso certainly was. He began a lifelong war against the Moors. In 740, he conquered Galicia and in 754, León. He went as far as La Rioja. However, the few urban populations of these frontier regions fled to his northern dominions, leaving a depopulated buffer between the Christian and Muslim states.
  
  This created the so-called Desert of the Duero, an empty region between the River Duero and the Asturian Mountains. Alfonso intended it this way; he wished to leave such a zone where any invading army would find it too difficult to survive. Besides the martial, the demographic and cultural effects of this policy on later Asturian, Spanish and Portuguese history is large. It was over a hundred years before the region was repopulated (an event known as the Repoblación).
  
  The Arab writers speak of the kings of the northwest of Iberia as the Beni-Alfons (descendants of Alfonso), and appear to recognize them as a Galician royal stock derived from Alfonso I. Alfonso is credited with establishing the shrine of Our Lady of Covadonga, in commemoration of his father in law's victory at the Battle of Covadonga.

• He died in the year 757, he was 64 years old.
• A child of Peter van Cantabrië
• This information was last updated on November 27, 2012.

Household of Alfonso I van Asturië

(1) He is married to Ermesinda Baltes van Asturië.

They got married.

Child(ren):

1. Adosinda van Asturië  
2. Vimerano van Asturië  ????-765 
3. Fruela I van Asturië  725-768 

(2) He had a relationship with Sisalda.

The relationship startedSource 2

Child(ren):

1. Mauregato I van Asturië  730-789 

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Timeline Alfonso I van Asturië

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