Jiménez | |
---|---|
Country |
Navarre (Kingdom of Pamplona) Aragon |
Titles | King |
Founded | 921 |
Founder | Prince García Jiménez of Pamplona |
Final ruler | Sancho VII |
Current head | Extinct |
Dissolution | 1234 |
The Jiménez or Giménez/Ximenes (Basque pronunciation: [ʃimenes̺]), alternatively called the Jimena, the Sancha, the Banu Sancho, the Abarca or the Banu Abarca, were an Iberian ruling family from the 10th century to the 13th century.
The first known member of the family, García Jiménez of Pamplona, is obscure, it being stated by the Roda Codex that he was "king of another part of the kingdom" of Pamplona, presumably lord of part of Navarre beyond the area of direct control of the Íñiguez kings: probably the frontier areas of Álava and the western Pyrenees given the list of their landholdings preserved in a later charter. It was long believed that their origins lay in Gascony.
In 905 Sancho Garcés, a younger son of the dynasty founder, used foreign assistance to displace the Íñiguez ruler Fortún Garcés and consolidate the monarchy in his dynasty's hands. He would be viewed as founder of the dynasty, with several Iberian Muslim sources calling the family the Banu Sanjo (Arabic: بنو شانجه - the descendants of Sancho) for several subsequent generations, while a 12th-century Tunisian chronicler of Al-Andalus, Ibn al-Kardabūs, would referred to Sancho III of Pamplona as ibn Abarca (Arabic: بن أبرك - son or descendant of Abarca), referencing a nickname originally borne by Sancho I in the naming of this Banu Abarca dynasty. In addition to repulsing several attacks from the Emir of Córdoba, Sancho I crushed the neighboring Banu Qasi and thus expanded Pamplona to the upper Ebro River valley, as well as incorporating the previously-autonomous County of Aragon into the realm.