Siege of Bayonne

The Siege of Bayonne was launched by Alfonso the Battler, King of Aragon and Navarre, apparently against the Duke of Aquitaine, William X, and lasted from October 1130 to October 1131. The city of Bayonne was then a part of Aquitaine, nominally a part of France. The chief narrative source for the siege of Bayonne is the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, a contemporary account of events in Spain compiled to celebrate the feats of Alfonso VII of León and Castile. The siege began with knights, infantry, and siege engines and included the plundering of the environs of the city and assaults on its walls. The arrival of a relief army led to a famous joust and the prolongation of the siege. The siege was a failure, and was lifted after Alfonso had made his famous last will and testament.

The primary sources are insufficient to fully explain the purposes behind Alfonso's siege, but historians are unanimous in attributing his actions to his ongoing conflict with his western neighbour, Alfonso VII, hero of the aforementioned Chronica. The latter had concluded an alliance with Alfonso's eastern neighbour, Raymond Berengar III of Barcelona, by marrying his daughter, Berengaria, in 1127. This may have prompted Alfonso to make an attack on Raymond's allies north of the Pyrenees in an effort to scuttle Raymond's political aspirations there, for Raymond was an ally of the Duke of Aquitaine. At the same time the Count of Toulouse, Alfonso Jordan, had done homage to Alfonso VII upon his succession in 1126. In March that year, with Suero Vermúdez, he had even taken the capital city of León from some rebels holding out in favour of an illegitimate half-brother of Alfonso VII, one of the sons of his mother, Queen Urraca, and her lover, Pedro González de Lara. Urraca's second, childless marriage was to Alfonso the Battler. For a period of over a decade the two 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 for the rule of these two kingdoms. In besieging Bayonne, Alfonso the Battler was perhaps hoping to persuade the Count of Toulouse to switch allegiance to him and aid him in his war in Castile.

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