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Kingdom of Aragon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Kingdom of Aragon was an old kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon (Aragón), in Spain. It must not be confused with the larger Crown of Aragon, from which the Kingdom of Aragon was a member along with other territories such as the Kingdom of Valencia or the Principality of Catalonia, all of them sharing the same king.
This kingdom was originally a Frankish feudal county around the city of Jaca, which was united to the kingdom of Pamplona (later Navarre) in 925. The county of Aragón was split from the kingdom of Navarre in 1035, and elevated into a kingdom by Ramiro I. As it expanded to the south, conquering land from Al Andalus, the capital city was moved first to Huesca (1096), and later to Zaragoza (1118). By 1285 the southernmost areas of Aragon had been taken from the Moors.
The Kingdom of Aragón gave the name to the Crown of Aragon, after the dynastic union in 1150 of a Count of Barcelona (Ramon Berenguer IV) with a Queen of Aragón (Petronila of Aragon), their son inheriting all their respective territories. The Kings of Aragón had also the title of Count of Barcelona and ruled territories that consisted of not only the present administrative region of Aragon but also Catalonia, and later the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia (see Crown of Aragon). The King of Aragón was the direct King of the Aragonese region, and held also the title of King of Valencia, King of Mallorca (for a time), Count of Barcelona, Lord of Montpellier, and, for a time, Duke of Athens and Neopatria. Each of these titles gave him sovereignty over a certain region, and these titles changed as he lost and won territories. In the fourteenth century, his power was greatly restricted by the Union of Aragon.
The Crown of Aragon was effectively disbanded after the dynastic union with Castile which supposed the de jure unification of the Spanish Kingdom after some time of de facto unification under a common monarch. After this happened, Aragon kept some political institutions, until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated in 1707, finally put an end to it.
