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.
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,. Later Iberian Christian chroniclers call her Al Mutamid's daughter, but the Islamic chroniclers are considered more reliable. 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.
She was the mother of Alfonso VI of Castile's only son, Sancho, 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, but this is still subject to scholarly debate, others making Queen Isabel distinct from the mistress or suggesting that Alfonso had two successive wives of this name, with Zaida being the second Queen Isabel. Alfonso's daughters Elvira and Sancha, were by Queen Isabel, and hence may have been Zaida's. Queen Isabel is last seen in May 1107.
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, when Queen Isabel disappears from the historical documentation in 1107, perhaps at the birth of whichever was the younger daughter of the queen, Sancha or Elvira, or at the birth of a different child of Zaida, otherwise unknown. A funerary marker once at Sahagun bore the inscription:
The tomb was later moved to Leon where the sepulchre and inscription can now be found. A second inscription memorializes Queen Isabel, making her daughter of Louis, King of France. Both memorials are non-contemporary and neither is generally viewed as credible.