Sancho the Great

Sancho III
The burial stone of Sancho III, bearing his effigy
King of Pamplona
Tenure	1004–1035
Predecessor	García Sánchez II
Successor	García Sánchez III
Count of Aragon
Tenure	1004–1035
Predecessor	García Sánchez II
Successor	Ramiro I
Born	c. 990/992
Died	c. 1035
Burial	Monastery of San Salvador de Oña
Spouse	Muniadona of Castile
Issue	Garcia III of Pamplona Ferdinand I of León Jimena Gonzalo (illegitimate) Ramiro I of Aragon
House	House of Jiménez
Father	García Sánchez II
Mother	Jimena Fernández
Religion	Catholicism

Sancho Garcés III (c. 994 – 18 October 1035), also known as Sancho the Great (Spanish: Sancho el Mayor, Basque: Antso Gartzez Nagusia), was the King of Pamplona from 1004 until his death in 1035. He also ruled the County of Aragon and by marriage the counties of Castile, Álava and Monzón. He later added the counties of Sobrarbe (1015), Ribagoza (1018) and Cea (1030), and would intervene in the Kingdom of León, taking its eponymous capital city in 1034.

He was the eldest son of García Sánchez II and his wife Jimena Fernández.

The year of Sancho's birth is not known, but it is no earlier than 992 and no later than 996. His parents were García Sánchez II the Tremulous and Jimena Fernández, daughter of Fernando Bermúdez, count of Cea on the Galician frontier. García and Jimena are first recorded as married in 992, but there is no record of their son Sancho until 996. The first record of the future king is a diploma of his father's granting the village of Terrero to the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. The king describes Sancho merely as "my son" (filius meus). The same diploma also shows the future duke of Gascony, Sancho VI, at the court of Pamplona.

Sancho was raised in Leyre. His father last appears in 1000, while Sancho is first found as king in 1004, inheriting the kingdom of Pamplona (later known as Navarre). This gap has led to speculation as to whether there was an interregnum, while one document shows Sancho Ramírez of Viguera reigning in Pamplona in 1002, perhaps ruling as had Jimeno Garcés during the youth of García Sánchez I three generations earlier. On his succession, Sancho initially ruled under a council of regency led by the bishops, his mother Jimena, and grandmother Urraca Fernández.