Zaida of Seville

Zaida of Seville, ca. 1070-1093/1107 (?), was a refugee Muslim princess who was a mistress and then perhaps wife of king Alfonso VI of Castile.[1]

Zaida of Seville
Zaida

She is said by Iberian Muslim sources to have been the daughter-in-law of Al Mutamid, the Muslim King of Seville, wife of his son Abu al Fatah al Ma'mun, ruler of the Taifa of Córdoba, (d. 1091).[2][3][4][5][6] Later Iberian Christian chroniclers call her Al Mutamid's daughter, but the Islamic chroniclers are considered more reliable.[2][4][5][6] With the fall of Seville to the Almoravids, she fled to the protection of Alfonso VI of Castile, becoming his mistress, converting to Roman Catholic Christianity and taking the baptismal name of Isabel.[2][4][5][6]

She was the mother of Alfonso VI of Castile's only son, Sancho,[2][4][5][6] who, though illegitimate, was named his father's heir but was killed in the Battle of Uclés of 1108 during his father's lifetime. It has been suggested that Alfonso's fourth wife, Isabel, was identical to Zaida,[7][6][8][9] but this is still subject to scholarly debate, others making Queen Isabel distinct from the mistress[2][4][5] or suggesting that Alfonso had two successive wives of this name, with Zaida being the second Queen Isabel.[10] Alfonso's daughters Elvira and Sancha, were by Queen Isabel, and hence may have been Zaida's.[2][5][6][10] Queen Isabel is last seen in May 1107.[2]

Zaida is said to have died in childbirth, but it is unclear whether this was at the birth of her known son Sancho in 1093, at the birth of a different child of Zaida otherwise unknown, of if she is the same as Queen Isabel, in 1107 when she disappears from the historical documentation, perhaps at the birth of whichever was the younger daughter of the queen, Sancha or Elvira.[2][5][6] A funerary marker formerly at Sahagun but later moved to Leon bore the inscription:

H.R. Regina Elisabeth, uxor regis Adefonsi, filia Benabet Regis Sevillae, quae prius Zayda, fuit vocata

("Queen Isabel, wife of King Alfonso, daughter of Aben-abeth, king of Seville; previously called Zayda.")

A second inscription memorializes Queen Isabel, making her daughter of Louis, King of France, although there was no French king named Louis in the generation prior to Queen Isabel. Neither memorial is contemporary and neither is generally viewed as credible.[2][4][5][6]