Sancho VI of Navarre
Sancho Garcés VI, known as the Wise (Basque: Jakituna; Spanish: el Sabio), was King of Navarre from 1150 to 1194. He was the first ruler to call his realm simply Navarre, instead of the King of Pamplona.
He was the eldest son of García Ramírez (the Restorer) and Margaret of L'Aigle. He inherited a weakened kingdom that often faced raids from Castile and from the County of Barcelona (Ramon Berenguer IV), and later tensions with Aragon. The kingdom’s borders had already been reduced by earlier treaties, and Sancho worked to repair and defend them.
To strengthen royal authority, he founded several towns in 1181, including San Sebastián, Vitoria, and Treviño. The Kingdom of Artajona was returned to him in 1157.
Sancho married Sancha of Castile, daughter of King Alfonso VII, on 20 July 1153. They had six children.
He maintained a complicated set of alliances. He was hostile to Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona, but Raymond’s son Alfonso II of Aragon shared some lands with him after the treaty of Sangüesa in 1168. In 1190, they renewed a pact at Borja to protect each other from Castilian expansion.
Sancho VI died on 27 June 1194 in Pamplona, where he was buried.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:35 (CET).