Peter I of Aragon and Navarre - Marriages, Issue and Ordering The Succession

Marriages, Issue and Ordering The Succession

Peter's first marriage, to Agnes of Aquitaine (betrothed 1081), was arranged by his father and performed in the capital of Jaca in January 1086. His second marriage, to a certain Bertha, probably from Lombardy, was officiated in Huesca on 16 August 1097. This represented the transferral of the capital of Aragon from Jaca to the larger city of Huesca. Peter's only children, Isabella and Peter (born c. 1086), both from his first marriage, died young in 1103 and on 1 February 1104, respectively. The boy, Peter, was wed to María Rodríguez, a daughter of El Cid, in 1098, a marriage celebrated in the Cantar de mio Cid and subsequent literature. Both Isabella and Peter were interred in San Juan de la Peña on 18 August 1104.

When Peter I died in the Val d'Aran, his kingdoms passed to his younger half-brother, Alfonso the Battler. Peter was buried in San Juan de la Peña alongside his children. When Alfonso also died without living children, the kingdom of Aragon passed to the youngest brother, Ramiro II. Peter's name was adopted, in a feminised form, for Ramiro's only child, and successor, Petronilla (1037–64). The name Peter entered the name pool of the House of Barcelona into which Petronilla married and was thereafter common in the ruling family of Aragon.