He is said to have married Ormesinda, daughter of Pelayo, who was raised on the shield in Asturias as king of the Visigoths after the Moorish conquest. He is also said to have been the son of Peter of Cantabria, duke of Cantabria. It is not improbable that he was in fact an hereditary chief of the Basques, but no contemporary records exist. His title of "the Catholic" itself may very well have been the invention of later chronicles.