The existence of the kingdom was endangered by his death. As he was childless he had designated the Christian orders of the knights of the Holy Sepulchre, who had taken the most active share in the struggles against the Saracens and who possessed lands and castles in all parts of the peninsula, as his heirs. But this disposition was not carried into effect. In the “royal city” of Jaca, the Aragonese elected a brother of the dead man for their king. This was Ramiro II (1134-1137), who had lived in a cloister from his youth; and thus the warrior was replaced by a monk. On the other hand the Navarrese raised to the throne Garcia IV, a scion of their old princely house, and declared their independence of Aragon. Indeed, the priest-king was a feeble substitute for “the fighter”; still he secured the continued existence of Aragon. Immediately after his accession Ramiro espoused Inez, sister of the duke of Aquitaine and Poitou; she bore him a daughter, Petronilla, who at the age of two years was betrothed, on the advice of the grandees, to Raymond Berengar IV [or V] of Barcelona, or Catalonia, and when Ramiro soon after returned to the cloister the count received the regency of Aragon till the age of the bride should make the nuptials possible. The result of this marriage was the lasting union of Aragon and Catalonia[29] under Alfonso II, the son of Raymond and Petronilla.[o] Want of space forbids us to give the details of the history of Raymond Berengar’s dominions. The district had been conquered by the Moslems in the eighth century, but part of it was recovered for Christianity by the Franks and formed into a province under the name of the Spanish Mark. The various counts soon asserted their independence, and those of Barcelona increasing in power and importance gradually absorbed the dominions of the rest and became masters of the whole of Catalonia.[a] FOUNDATION OF THE SPANISH ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD [Sidenote: [1082-1162 A.D.]] Raymond sought to fulfil the testamentary dispositions of Alfonso by founding a special order of knighthood, modelled on the pattern of the Temple, “for the defence of the Western church and to oppose the Moors in Spain,” and he bestowed on it large possessions with castles and revenues. As a special Aragonese branch of the order of the Temple, it was under the grand-master of Jerusalem. The large profits which the brethren of the order might hope to derive from the spoils of the Arabs in case of a victory were a powerful incentive to enterprises and expeditions of conquest.