On 30 April 1073
Pope Gregory VII authorised a new crusade against the Muslims in Spain. (The
Barbastro Crusade of a decade earlier had failed to achieve anything lasting.) In the
bull, addressed to "all the princes [rulers] in the land of Spain", Gregory asserted Papal suzerainty over the Iberian peninsula—"we believe the kingdom of Spain to have been from antiquity the rightful property of Saint Peter"—and informed them that he had ceded this right to Ebles of Roucy. The negotiations between Ebles and the Holy See had been conducted by Gregory as
legate before he became Pope on 22 April, and his letter makes clear there had been prior letters between Ebles and
Pope Alexander II. Ebles made a pact (
pactio) with the Holy See whereby the lands he conquered in Spain would be held by him as a Papal
fiefdom "for the honour of Saint Peter". Four fragments of bulls issued by Alexander granting the
plenary indulgence for engaging in a holy war have been customarily dated to the campaign against Barbastro (1063–64) but may belong to that of Ebles. Ebles was probably a relative of
Sancho Ramírez,
King of Aragon, both descending from the
Dukes of Aquitaine. On 25 May
Sancho Garcés IV, the ruler of
Navarre, and his neighbour,
Ahmad al-Muqtadir, the ruler of
Zaragoza, concluded an alliance by treaty against the planned crusade. For reasons unknown, the crusade never took place, or at least left no record of its accomplishments, which must in any case have been meagre. According to one historian, the crusade may have been frustrated by
Gerald of Ostia, Papal legate,
Cardinal and Cluniac, as part of the efforts of the
Abbey of Cluny to support the
Kingdom of León–
Castile in its rivalry with the
Kingdom of Aragon. The Papacy under Alexander and Gregory supported the king of Aragon, and at least some of
Alfonso VI of Castile's actions in 1073 can be seen as a response to the projected crusade. The appointment of Gerald, a former grand prior of Cluny, and the archdeacon Raimbald as legates in Spain may have been intended originally by Alexander II to appease Alfonso VI or his predecessor,
Sancho II, by assuring them that their claims on the
parias of Zaragoza (which, along with allied Navarre, felt threatened by the crusade) were not in jeopardy. Upon becoming Pope, however, Gregory removed Gerald from this position and instated
Hugh Candidus, a veteran of the crusade of Barbastro and a friend of the king of Aragon. In February 1074 Gregory was busy pushing Sancho, a recognised Papal vassal since 1068, to act against the Muslims. Sancho at some point took as his second wife Felicia (Félicie), perhaps the sister of Ebles. ==Feudal conflict in France==