Sancha Raimúndez ¹

  General Notes:

She must have been born between the years 1095 - year of the marriage of their parents - and 1102. Daughter of Queen Urraca of León and Raymond of Burgundy, she was the sister of Alfonso VII of León, who inherited after their mother's death the throne of Castile and León.

She grew up with her mother, along with her aunts, the infantas Sancha and Elvira, daughters of Alfonso VI of León and Castile, who at the time enjoyed the possession of the Infantado, i.e. a set of monasteries and churches throughout the kingdom, which upon the death of the owners, who could only be unmarried infantas, reverted to the Crown, as in the case of Infanta Sancha, who also owned Infantados in the kingdoms of Leon, Castile and Galicia.[1]

Queen Urraca, her mother, died in 1126 and was succeeded by her son Alfonso VII who named his sister Sancha queen, a precedent set by his grandfather Alfonso VI when he conferred the title of queen to Urraca of Zamora, his sister.[2] Infanta-Queen Sancha then became one of the closest advisor and collaborator of her brother the king and her name appear in nearly all of her brother's public documents.

In 1127, a year after the death of her mother, her brother the king granted her the Infantado, which made her the lady of several of the most important monasteries of the kingdom, including San Isidoro de León.[3] She first took possession of the Infantado of León, and later, those of Galicia and Asturias. She inherited all the Infantados in the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, Asturias which included the Infantado of Covarrubias, Valle del Torío, León, Tierra de Campos, and El Bierzo.[4] In 1138, she promoted the restoration of the Monasterio de Santa María de Carracedo, ceding it to the monks of the Monastery of Santa María de Valverde in Corullón.

On 10 June 1140, Infanta Sancha donated the monastery of Santa María de Wamba, now disappeared, with all its lands, villas, churches, estates and possessions to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem,[5] .[6] This donation was such that during the following years, the contacts between the infanta and the Knights of St. John were almost always associated with this grant. The lands and places donated to the Hospitallers had been part of an Infantazgo that had belonged to Sancha's father, Count Raymond of Burgundy.[7] In 1148, she donated, to the same order, the Church of Santa Maria de Olmedo [es],[7] and a year before, in 1147, founded the Monastery of Santa María de La Santa Espina, in the province of Valladolid, which foundation was confirmed by her brother King Alfonso a year later.[8]

In 1148, assembled the cortes of the kingdom in the city of Palencia, Infanta-Queen Sancha persuaded her brother the emperor, the bishops and the magnates to have the Agustinian canons, who lived in the Monastery of Carbajal, transferred to the Collegiate Church of San Isidoro de León and, simultaneously, for the Benedictine nuns who had lived in San Isidoro de León for over two hundred years, to move to the Monastery of Carbajal, thereby fulfilling the wish of Saint Isidore of Seville, who had appeared to her in a vision and had ordered this move.[9]

In 1156 she donated to the Hospitallers, the town of San Juan de Arenas, in Siero, Asturias, provided they were not to dispose of it.[10] In the same year, she granted to the canons of San Isidoro the privilege, signed by her brother the king, whereby all men who so wished could become vassals of the Monastery. They would be under its jurisdiction, take all their possessions with them and would henceforth be exempt from paying any taxes to the king.[11] Her brother Alfonso VII died the following year, in 1157, and was succeeded on the throne of León by Ferdinand II and on the throne of Castile by Sancho III who only reigned for a year and succeeded by his only surviving son Alfonso VIII of Castile.

In her will, undated,[12] among other provisions, she ordered that all the possessions that she had enjoyed during her lifetime which had belonged previously to the Monastery of San Julián and Santa Basilisa of Ruiforco and had been assigned to San Isidoro de León from the time of Alfonso V of León should be returned to San Isidoro. Pursuant to her will, the properties of the monastery of Ruiforco were assigned definitely to San Isidoro de León[11] on 24 March 1159 by her nephew King Ferdinand II of León.[13] In the charter, the monarch mentions that his aunt Sancha was buried there