Kingdom of Aragon

The Kingdom of Aragon was a medieval and early modern state in the Iberian Peninsula, created in 1035 when Ramiro I inherited Aragon from his father Sancho III of Navarre. Its core was the old County of Aragon around Jaca, a Frankish march that had passed to Navarre in 922. Ramiro and his successors expanded south, taking Huesca and Zaragoza, and in 1137 the kingdom was joined with Catalonia through the marriage of Petronilla and Ramon Berenguer IV. The resulting Crown of Aragon, proclaimed in 1162, united Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca and later Sicily, Sardinia and Naples under one king, though each realm kept its own laws and cortes. James I conquered Majorca and Valencia in the thirteenth century, and the crown became a Mediterranean power. In 1479 Ferdinand II married Isabella of Castile, and their union created the nucleus of modern Spain. Aragon kept its institutions until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707 abolished them after the War of the Spanish Succession.