Amalasuntha (Fidem Pacis)

Amalasuntha was Queen of Spain from 1109 - 1126, the first queen regnant in Spanish history. She succeeded her elder brother, Alfonso V, and was in turn succeeded by her son Alfonso VI after her death in 1126 from the plague. Unusually for a medieval queen, she was a strong ruler in her own right throughout her reign, never allowing herself to be dominated by either of her husbands despite the wishes of the overwhelmingly male nobility.

She is notable for officially converting the Church of Spain to Islam, completing a slow process that was begun two hundred years earlier by King Athafuns II. Catholic Christianity had lost all its credibility after the conquest of the Papal Kingdom and the exile of the Pope to Germany, and the 1115 decree rejecting Catholic doctrine met with surprisingly little resistance from the Christian north of the realm. Unlike Athafuns, Amalasuntha's reforms lasted long after her death and Spain still has a large Muslim majority to this day.