Royal power and proprietary churches in the eleventh-century Kingdom of Pamplona

Abstract

The involvement of eleventh-century kings in ecclesiastical reform initiatives has usually been approached from the standpoint of their relationship with high-standing ecclesiastical institutions and their participation in the struggles for dominance between the cadres of lay and ecclesiastical elites. However, other associated phenomena, such as the increase in the number of grants of proprietary churches and monasteries, may have opened further arenas to royal intervention. This paper addresses the role of the kings of Pamplona as grantors of religious houses, as well as their participation in grants made by other actors, in order to assess the effects of their engagement in the sphere of proprietary churches and how it affected their position within the social and political edifice of the kingdom.