Urraca Garcés (countess)
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Urraca Garcés (c. 944 – c. 1000) was a Pamplonese infanta who was by marriage the countess of Castile (961/4–970) and duchess of Gascony (972/3–994/9). She had no children by her first marriage, but three sons and four daughters by her second.
Urraca was born around 944, the daughter of King García Sánchez I of Pamplona and Queen Teresa Ramírez.[1][2][3] Her father's sister, Sancha Sánchez, was the wife of Count Fernán González of Castile. After Sancha died sometime between 959 and 963, the count married Urraca.[4] The marriage took place sometime after 961, for in that year Urraca was still at the Pamplonese court, and before 5 May 964, when she is recorded beside her husband.[1] The marriage most likely took place in 963 or 964.[4] It did not produce children.[1]
Later popular traditions combined stories of Fernán González's two wives without naming Urraca. According to the version of the tale in the Poema de Fernán González, King García lured Fernán to a meeting to discuss his proposed marriage to the king's daughter but imprisoned him instead. The king's daughter then approached the count in prison and promised to secure his release in return for marriage. The earliest version of this story is found in the Crónica najerense of around 1160, although the count's imprisonment by García is recorded in the Anales compostelanos from around 1000, which dates the incident to 960.[5] In the original version of the legend, the princess was Urraca.[6] The story, however, has no historical validity.[7]