Editing Alfonso the Battler (section)

===Succession===
[[File:A box (reliquary) of the bones (relics) of Alfonso the Battler.PNG|thumb|A box ([[reliquary]]) containing the bones ([[relics]]) of Alfonso the Battler, with the skull centre, facing the viewer. Photograph by Enrique Capella (May 1920).]]
The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought.  Alfonso's only brother, [[Ramiro II of Aragon|Ramiro]], had been a [[Order of Saint Benedict|Benedictine]] monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession. The step-son of the deceased king, [[Alfonso VII of León]], as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of [[Sancho III of Navarre]], put himself forward but garnered no local support.  The nobility of Navarre aligned behind [[Pedro de Atarés]], the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro.  A convention was called at [[Borja, Zaragoza|Borja]] in order to develop a consensus. Pedro de Atarés had so alienated his own partisans there with his perceived arrogance that they had abandoned him, yet at the same time were unwilling to accept Alfonso's younger brother Ramiro.  The convention then broke up without ever arriving at a compromise, and the two regional factions proceeded to act independently.

The choice of the Navarrese lords fell on [[García Ramírez of Navarre|García Ramírez]], Lord of [[Monzón]], descendant of an illegitimate son of [[García Sánchez III of Navarre|García Sánchez III]] and protégé of Alfonso VII to be their king. The Aragonese took Ramiro out of a monastery and made him king, marrying him without papal dispensation to Agnes, sister of the [[Duke of Aquitaine]], then betrothing their newborn daughter to [[Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona]], who was then named Ramiro's heir. "The result of the crisis produced by the result of Alfonso I's will was a major reorientation of the peninsula's kingdoms: the separation of Aragon and Navarre, the union of Aragon and Catalonia and – a moot point but stressed particularly by some Castilian historians – the affirmation of 'Castilian hegemony' in Spain"{{sfn|Lourie|1975|p=645}} by the rendering of homage for [[Zaragoza]] by Alfonso's eventual heir, Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona.