Urraca I de León y Castilla:¿LA PRIMERA REINA DE EUROPA? *Sonia Vital*

Nine hundred years have passed since the death of one of the most fascinating and least recognized sovereigns of the Middle Ages. In 1109, after the death of her father, Alfonso VI, Urraca inherited the kingdoms of León, Castile, and Galicia in her own right. Not as regent, not as consort… but as queen and empress, the first woman to rule a major European kingdom in her own right. Thanks to Sonia Vital, author of "URRACA, A QUEEN ON A KING'S THRONE" ** https://amzn.to/4wzAkxF **, we will travel to a century where power was understood as a male prerogative. Urraca had to face everything: An arranged marriage to Alfonso I of Aragon that aimed to reduce her to a queen consort. Rebellious nobility and ambitious bishops. External pressures from the Almoravids and Aragonese. And, above all, the prejudices of a society unprepared to see a woman wielding royal authority. Even so, she reigned for 17 years with a firm hand: she consolidated alliances, defended borders, minted coins bearing her own image, and maintained the integrity of the kingdom until bequeathing it to her son, Alfonso VII. Later chronicles minimized her role, moralized her, and reduced her reign to a mere “interregnum.” Was she truly the first queen of Europe? Facts and modern historiography suggest so. And her example remains key to understanding how power was constructed in medieval Spain. #UrracaDeLeon #FirstQueenOfEurope #MedievalHistory #ForgottenQueens #Bellumartis #SoniaVital