Family of Fernand III + of CASTILE and Joan + of DAMMARTIN

Husband:	Fernand III + of CASTILE (1199-1252)
Wife:	Joan + of DAMMARTIN (1222-1279)
Children:	Ferdinand of CASTILE AND LEON (1239- )
	Eleanor + of CASTILE (1241-1290)
Marriage	1237	Burgos, Castile-Leon, Spain

Husband: Fernand III + of CASTILE

Wife: Joan + of DAMMARTIN

Name:	Joan + of DAMMARTIN
Sex:	Female
Father:	Simon II + of DAMMARTIN (1180-1239)
Mother:	Marie + (1199-1251)
Birth	1222	Dammartin, Seine-et-Marne, France
Occupation		Countess of Ponthieu
Title	frm 1237 to 1252 (age 14-30)	Queen Consort of Castile and Leon
Title	frm 1239 to 1279 (age 16-57)	Countess of Aumale
Title	frm 1251 to 1279 (age 28-57)	Countess of Ponthieu
Death	15 Mar 1279 (age 56-57)	Abbeville, Somme, Picarde, France

Child 1: Ferdinand of CASTILE AND LEON

Name:	Ferdinand of CASTILE AND LEON
Sex:	Male
Birth	1239

Child 2: Eleanor + of CASTILE

Note on Husband: Fernand III + of CASTILE

Saint Ferdinand III (5 August 1199 – 30 May 1252) was the King of Castile from 1217 and León from 1230. He was the son of Alfonso IX of León and Berenguela of Castile. Through his second marriage he was also Count of Aumale. He finished the work done by his maternal grandfather Alfonso VIII and consolidated the Reconquista. In 1231, he permanently united Castile and León. He was canonized in 1671 and, in Spanish, he is Fernando el Santo, San Fernando or San Fernando Rey.

 

Ferdinand was born at the monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, in what is now the province of Zamora) in 1198-99.

 

His parents' marriage was annulled by order of Pope Innocent III in 1204, due to consanguinity. Berenguela took their children, including Ferdinand, to the court of her father. In 1217, her younger brother Henry I died and she succeeded him to the Castilian throne, but immediately surrendered it to her son, Ferdinand, for whom she initially acted as regent. When Alfonso died in 1230, Ferdinand also inherited León, though he had to fight Alfonso's heirs, Sancha and Dulce, daughters of his first wife, for it. He thus became the first sovereign of both kingdoms following the death of Alfonso VII in 1157.

 

Ferdinand was born at the monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, in what is now the province of Zamora) in 1198-99.

 

His parents' marriage was annulled by order of Pope Innocent III in 1204, due to consanguinity. Berenguela took their children, including Ferdinand, to the court of her father. In 1217, her younger brother Henry I died and she succeeded him to the Castilian throne, but immediately surrendered it to her son, Ferdinand, for whom she initially acted as regent. When Alfonso died in 1230, Ferdinand also inherited León, though he had to fight Alfonso's heirs, Sancha and Dulce, daughters of his first wife, for it. He thus became the first sovereign of both kingdoms following the death of Alfonso VII in 1157.

 

Ferdinand was born at the monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, in what is now the province of Zamora) in 1198-99.

 

His parents' marriage was annulled by order of Pope Innocent III in 1204, due to consanguinity. Berenguela took their children, including Ferdinand, to the court of her father. In 1217, her younger brother Henry I died and she succeeded him to the Castilian throne, but immediately surrendered it to her son, Ferdinand, for whom she initially acted as regent. When Alfonso died in 1230, Ferdinand also inherited León, though he had to fight Alfonso's heirs, Sancha and Dulce, daughters of his first wife, for it. He thus became the first sovereign of both kingdoms following the death of Alfonso VII in 1157.

 

Early in his reign, Ferdinand had to deal with a rebellion of the House of Lara. He also established a permanent border with the Kingdom of Aragon by the Treaty of Almizra (1244).

 

St Ferdinand spent much of his reign fighting the Moors. Through diplomacy and war, exploiting the internal dissensions in the Moorish kingdoms, he triumphed in expanding Castilian power over the southern Iberian peninsula. He captured the towns of Úbeda in 1233, Córdoba in 1236, Jaén in 1246, and Seville in 1248, and occupied Murcia in 1243, thereby reconquering all Andalusia save Granada, whose king nevertheless did homage as a tributary state to Ferdinand in 1238. Ferdinand divided the conquered territories between the Knights, the Church, and the nobility, whom he endowed with great latifundias. When he took Córdoba, he ordered the Liber Iudiciorum to be adopted and observed by its citizens, and caused it to be rendered, albeit inaccurately, into Castilian.

 

The capture of Córdoba was the result of a well-planned and executed process whereby parts of the city (the Ajarquía) first fell to the independent almogavars of the Sierra Morena to the north, which Ferdinand had not at the time subjugated.[1] Only in 1236 did Ferdinand arrive with a royal army to take Medina, the religious and administrative centre of the city.[1] Ferdinand set up a council of partidores to divide the conquests and between 1237 and 1244 a great deal of land was parcelled out to private individuals and members of the royal family as well as to the Church.[2] On 10 March 1241, Ferdinand established seven outposts to define the boundary of the province of Córdoba.

 

On the domestic front, he strengthened the University of Salamanca and founded the current cathedral of Burgos. He was a patron of the newest movement in the Church, that of the friars. Whereas the Benedictines and then the Cistercians and Cluniacs had taken a major part in the Reconquista up until then, Ferdinand founded Dominican, Franciscan, Trinitarian, and Mercedarian houses in Andalusia, thus determining the religious future of that region. Ferdinand has also been credited with sustaining the convivencia in Andalusia.[3]

 

The Primera Crónica General de España asserts that, on his death bed, Ferdinand said to his son "you are rich in lands and in many good vassals — more so than any other king in Christendom," probably in recognition of his expansive conquests.[4] He was buried in the cathedral of Seville by his son Alfonso X. His tomb is inscribed in four languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and an early incarnation of Castilian.[5] St Ferdinand was canonized by Pope Clement X in 1671. Several places named San Fernando were founded across the Spanish Empire.

 

The symbol of his power as a king was his sword Lobera.

 

[edit] Family[edit] First marriageIn 1219, Ferdinand married Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen (1203–1235), daughter of the German king Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina. Elisabeth was called Beatriz in Spain. Their children were:

 

1.Alfonso X, his successor

2.Fadrique

3.Ferdinand (1225–1243/1248)

4.Eleanor (born 1227), died young

5.Berenguela (1228–1288/89), a nun at Las Huelgas

6.Henry

7.Philip (1231–1274). He was promised to the Church, but was so taken by the beauty of Princess Kristina of Norway, daughter of Haakon IV of Norway, who had been intended as a bride for one of his brothers, that he abandoned his holy vows and married her. She died in 1262, childless.

8.Sancho, Archbishop of Toledo and Seville (1233–1261)

9.Juan Manuel, Lord of Villena

10.Maria, died an infant in November 1235

[edit] Second marriageAfter he was widowed, he married Joan, Countess of Ponthieu, before August 1237. They had four sons and one daughter:

 

1.Ferdinand (1239–1260), Count of Aumale

2.Eleanor (c.1241–1290), married Edward I of England

3.Louis (1243–1269)

4.Simon (1244), died young and buried in a monastery in Toledo

5.John (1245), died young and buried at the cathedral in Córdoba

Note on Wife: Joan + of DAMMARTIN

Joan of Dammartin (French: Jeanne de Dammartin; c.1220[1] – d. Abbeville, March 16, 1279) was Queen consort of Castile and León (1252), suo jure Countess of Ponthieu (1251–1279) and Aumale (1237–1279). Her daughter, the English queen Eleanor of Castile, was her successor in Ponthieu. Her son and co-ruler in Aumale, Ferdinand II, Count of Aumale, predeceased her, so she was succeeded by her grandson John I, Count of Aumale, deceased at the Battle of Courtrai, 11 July 1302.

Joan was the eldest daughter of Simon of Dammartin, Count of Ponthieu (1180- 21 September 1239) and his wife Marie of Ponthieu, Countess of Montreuil (17 April 1199- 1251). Her paternal grandparents were Alberic II, Count de Dammartin and Mahaut de Clermont, daughter of Renaud de Clermont, Count of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, and Clémence de Bar.[2] Her maternal grandparents were William IV of Ponthieu and Alys, Countess of the Vexin, daughter of Louis VII of France and Constance of Castile.

 

[edit] Henry III of EnglandAfter secret negotiations were undertaken in 1234, it was agreed that Joan would marry King Henry III of England. This marriage would have been politically unacceptable to the French, however, since Joan stood to inherit not only her mother's county of Ponthieu but also the county of Aumale that was vested in her father's family. Ponthieu bordered on the duchy of Normandy, and Aumale lay within Normandy itself. The French king Philip Augustus had seized Normandy from King John of England as recently as 1205, and Philip's heirs could not risk the English monarchy recovering any land in that area, since it might allow the Plantagenets to re-establish control in Normandy.

 

As it happened, Joan's father Simon had become involved in a conspiracy of northern French noblemen against Philip Augustus and to win pardon from Philip's son Louis VIII, Simon—who had only daughters—was compelled to promise that he would marry off neither of his two eldest daughters without the permission of the king of France. In 1235, the queen-regent of France, Blanche of Castile, invoked that promise on behalf of her son, King Louis IX of France, and threatened to deprive Simon of all his lands if Joan married Henry III. Henry therefore abandoned the project for his marriage to Joan and in January 1236 married instead Eleanor of Provence, the sister of Louis IX's wife.

 

[edit] Marriages and childrenIn November 1235, Blanche of Castile's nephew, King Ferdinand III of Castile, lost his wife, Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen, and Blanche's sister Berengaria of Castile, Ferdinand's mother, was concerned that her widowed son might involve himself in liaisons that were unsuited to his dignity as king. Berengaria determined to find Ferdinand another wife, and her sister Blanche suggested Joan of Dammartin, whose marriage to the king of Castile would keep her inheritance from falling into hostile hands.[3] In October 1237, at the age of about seventeen, Joan and Ferdinand were married in Burgos. Since Ferdinand already had seven sons from his first marriage to Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen, there was little chance of Ponthieu being absorbed by Castile.

 

They had four sons and one daughter:

 

1.Ferdinand II, Count of Aumale (1239–ca 1265) m. (after 1256) Laure de Montfort, Lady of Espernon (d before 08.1270), and had issue:

2.Eleanor of Castile, Countess of Ponthieu, who married king Edward I of England and had issue

3.Louis (1243–ca 1275), who married Juana de Manzanedo, Lady of Gaton, and had issue

4.Simon (1244), died young and buried in a monastery in Toledo

5.John (1245), died young and buried at the cathedral in Córdoba

She accompanied Ferdinand to Andalucia and lived with him in the army camp as he besieged Seville in 1248.[4]

 

Upon her mother's death in 1251, Joan succeeded as Countess of Ponthieu and Montreuil, which she held in her own right.

 

After Ferdinand III died in 1252, Joan did not enjoy a cordial relationship with his heir, her stepson Alfonso X of Castile, with whom she quarreled over the lands and income she should have received as dowager queen of Castile. Sometime in 1253, she became the ally and supporter of another of her stepsons, Fadrique of Castile, who also felt Alfonso had not allowed him all the wealth their father had meant him to have. Joan unwisely attended secret meetings with Henry and his supporters, and it was rumored that she and Fadrique were lovers. This further strained her relations with Alfonso and in 1254, shortly before her daughter Eleanor was to marry Edward of England, Joan and her eldest son Ferdinand left Castile and returned to her native Ponthieu.

 

Sometime between May 1260 and 9 February 1261, Joan took a second husband, Jean de Nesle, Seigneur de Falvy et de La Hérelle (died 2 February 1292).[5] This marriage is sometimes said to have produced a daughter, Béatrice, but she was in fact a child of Jean de Nesle's first marriage. In 1263, Joan was recognized as countess of Aumale after the death of a childless Dammartin cousin. But her son Ferdinand died around 1265, leaving a young son known as John of Ponthieu.

 

During her marriage to Jean de Nesle, Joan ran up considerable debts and also appears to have allowed her rights as countess in Ponthieu to weaken. The death of her son Ferdinand in 1265 made her next son, Louis, her heir in Ponthieu but around 1275 he, too, died, leaving two children. But according to inheritance customs in Picardy, where Ponthieu lay, Joan's young grandson John of Ponthieu could not succeed her there; her heir in Ponthieu automatically became her adult daughter Eleanor, who was married to Edward I of England.[citation needed] It does not appear that Joan was displeased at the prospect of having Ponthieu pass under English domination; from 1274 to 1278, in fact, she had her granddaughter Joan of Acre (the daughter of Edward I and Eleanor) with her in Ponthieu, and appears to have treated the girl so indulgently that when she was returned to England her parents found that she was thoroughly spoiled.

 

That same indulgent nature appears to have made Joan inattentive to her duties as countess. When she died in March 1279, her daughter and son-in-law were thus confronted with Joan's vast debts, and to prevent the king of France from involving himself in the county's affairs, they had to pay the debts quickly by taking out loans from citizens in Ponthieu and from wealthy abbeys in France.

 

They also had to deal with a lengthy legal struggle with Eleanor's nephew, John of Ponthieu, to whom Joan bequeathed a great deal of land in Ponthieu as well as important legal rights connected with those estates. The dispute was resolved when John of Ponthieu was recognized as Joan's successor in Aumale according to the inheritance customs that prevailed in Normandy, while Edward and Eleanor retained Ponthieu and John gave up all his claims there. By using English wealth, Edward and Eleanor restored stability to the administration and the finances of Ponthieu, and added considerably to the comital estate by purchasing large amounts of land there.