A small Pyrenean kingdom created in 1035 when Sancho III of Navarre divided his realm among his sons, leaving Ramiro I the mountain county of Aragon as an independent crown in its own right.
United dynastically with the County of Barcelona in 1164 to form the Crown of Aragon, and merged with Castile in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs; Aragonese institutions and the separate title survived until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707-1716 centralized the Spanish crown.
The classic English-language survey of Aragon's medieval history from its 1035 founding, covering exactly this record's formation.