Gonzalo

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37428

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37415

Notes:

Menendo González (Portuguese and Galician: Mendo Gonçalves) (died 6 October 1008) was a semi-autonomous Duke of Galicia and Count of Portugal (997-1008) and a dominant figure in the Kingdom of León around the turn of the second millennium. He was the tutor and father-in-law of King Alfonso V from at least 1003. He maintained peaceful diplomatic relations with the Caliphate of Córdoba until 1004, after which there was a state of war. In his last years he had to deal with Viking raids, during one of which he may have been killed.

Menendo González was probably the eldest son and successor of Gonzalo Menéndez and his wife Ilduara Peláez.[2] Menendo's wife is variously known in contemporary sources as Toda, Tota, Todadomna, Tutadomna, Tutadonna, etc. One twelfth-century source calls her Mayor.

Menendo had at least five sons and three daughters. One son, Rodrigo Menéndez, was a direct ancestor in the maternal line of Urraca Fróilaz, wife of Pedro Fróilaz de Traba. Another, Gonzalo (attested 1007-14), is cited with the title of count, and one Ramiro (attested 1005-14) was the armiger regis, or royal alférez, a post his father had also held. His other sons were Egas and Munio (both attested 1007-14). Besides his daughter Elvira (of whom more below), he had daughters named Ilduara (attested 1025-58) and Ildoncia/Eldonza (attested 1014). Ilduara married Nuño Aloitiz, a count in Portugal.

Regency of Alfonso V:

Before 999 King Vermudo II placed his heir, Alfonso V, under the tutorship of his alférez Menendo.[6] Alfonso was only five at his father's death (September 999) and he spent the early years of his reign in the care of Menendo and his wife. The earliest act of Alfonso as king dates to 13 October 999, and it lists as confirmants first Count Menendo González (“Menendus Gundisaluiz, comes”) and then "Duke" (count) Sancho García of Castile (“Santius, dux, Garsea prolis”). Menendo also appears in contemporary documents with the ducal title, as in dux domnus Menendus proles Gundisalvi.

The young Alfonso always appears in his early charters beside his mother, Elvira García, a sister of the count of Castile and possibly exercising the regency under his influence. After 1003 Elvira no longer appears in royal charters, perhaps she was removed in a palace coup by Menendo. In subscribing one royal act Menendo went so far as to call himself "he who under the authority of the aforementioned king ordains and guides all things" (“qui sub imperio iam dicti regis hec omnia ordinavit et docuit”). In 1004 Sancho challenged the regency of Menendo. Both counts petitioned the Córdoban hajib Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar to arbitrate the dispute. According to Ibn Khaldun, a hearing took place and al-Muzaffar's deputy, the qadi of the Mozarabic community of Córdoba, Asbag bin Abd Allah bin Nabil, found in favour of Menendo. According to some sources this took place in Córdoba with the two disputant counts in attendance, but according to others it took place in León.

In 1000, as regent, Menendo confirmed the testament of Hilal, called Salvatus, the Mozarabic abbot of San Cipriano de Valdesalce, after the queen-regent Elvira and the young king and before five bishops of the realm. A charter dated 23 December 1001 records the settlement of a dispute concerning the monastery of Celanova by Alfonso V and "his elder, the lord Menendo, son of Gonzalo" (“senatus sui domni Ermenagildi Gundisaluiz prolis”). Another charter dated 11 January 1002 records the donation of San Andrés de Congostro to the monastery of Celanova and was confirmed by "duke Menendo, son of Gonzalo" (“Menendus dux prolis Gundisaluiz”).

Relations with Córdoba:

Menendo did not initially collaborate with the Córdobans, but after contingents were sent from Córdoba to reinforce Coimbra and the frontier with Portugal, Menendo entered into a pact with al-Muzaffar, which included a clause calling for military collaboration in 1003. That year Leonese and Castilian troops assisted the Córdobans in their attack on Catalonia. This pact seems to have been broken when, in 1005, a Córdoban army marched with the intent of taking Zamora. The city was not captured, but much territory was seized. For the remainder of Menendo's regency there was no peace with the Córdobans.

There is an ivory pyxis containing a contemporary chalice and paten in the treasury of the Cathedral of Braga. The pyxis has an inscription on the rim of its lid which allows it to be dated rather precisely to between 1004, when the hajib Abd al-Malik received the title he bears in the inscription, Sayf al-Dawla, and 1007, when he received the higher title of al-Muzaffar. The pyxis had found its way into the hands of Menendo González sometime before his death, since an added inscription on the bottom of it relates its donation to the church by him and his wife, Toda. It reads: IN N[omi]NE D[omi]NI MENENDUS GUNDISALVI ET TUDAD[o]MNA SUM. It has been suggested that the chalice and paten, which appear to be made to fit the pyxis, were possibly commissioned by Menendo for the pyxis he obtained during a campaign against Córdoba, so to be donated to Braga. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the pyxis was originally a gift from the court of Córdoba to the Leonese regent during diplomatic negotiations. Historian Serafin Moralejo sees it presented to Menendo by Asbagh the qadi as "a good-will gift ... a bitter one indeed and a warning oo, since the title of Sayf al-Dawla carved on its lid commemorated the raid the hajib had launched on León one year earlier." The iconography of the pyxis is peaceful, and its original function could have been at a "marriage, or an occasion of a calendrical observance such as a summer of fall harvest festival". The carvings of birds eating fruit may imitate a well-used Christian eucharistic motif dating back to Visigothic times. If so, the piece may have been designed to serve as a diplomatic gift to a Christian ruler, perhaps Menendo.

Death:

The Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun, dating it by the anno Hegirae, places Menendo's death between 17 September 1007 and 4 September 1008. The Chronicon Lusitanum records Menendo's death under the year 1008 as taking place on 6 October (Æra 1046. II. Non. Octobris occisus fuit Comes Menendus). The wording suggests that Menendo was assassinated. He was succeeded as regent by the queen-mother Elvira and the count of Castile. Towards 1013 Alfonso V, by then of age, married Elvira Menéndez, Gonzalo's daughter. She gave him a son, Vermudo III, his successor, and a daughter, Sancha, who married Ferdinand of Castile and passed the Leonese throne on to him. She died on 2 December 1022. In 1014 Alfonso confirmed all the possessions of the monastery of Guimarães, founded by Menendo's grandmother, Mumadona Díaz.

It has been suggested that Menendo was perhaps killed defending Portugal from a Viking raid. According to the later Icelandic saga Heimskringla, the Vikings under Olaf Haraldsson attacked Gunnvaldsborg (from hypothetical Latin *Gundisalvus-burgus), probably to be identified as a descriptive toponym meaning "city of González" (Portuguese: cidade de Gonçalves) and indicating Tui, which was in Menendo's lordship and is independently known to have been destroyed by Vikings about this time. In the words of the Heimskringla:

Here [Olaf] conquered the city of González, which was large and ancient, and here he made a prisoner the count who was lord of the city and who was called Geirfinn. Here King Olaf spoke with the inhabitants of the city; he made the city and the count pay twelve thousand coins of gold and he carried away all that he could. Sigvat said this:

O the dreadful lord of Trönderne
has won his thirteenth battle
in the south, at Rivas de Sil
Unfortunate fugitives!
Rapidly, in the morning he took control
of the city of González,
he risked himself and took prisoner
the count who is called Geirfinn.

There is a Latin document of 1024 titled “Tudensis sedes post Normannorum vastationem Ecclesiae Divi Jacobi attributa”: the see of Tui was assigned to the church of Santiago after being laid waste by the Northmen.

Menendo — Todadomna. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Toda, Tota, Todadomna, Tutadomna, Tutadonna, etc.
• Reference Number: 37426

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37416

Notes:

Gonzalo Menéndez (or Gonçalo Mendes) (fl. 950-997) was a Count of Portugal in the Kingdom of León. He regularly carries the title count (comes), the highest in the kingdom, in surviving documents. He may have used the title magnus dux portucalensium ("great duke of the Portuguese"). His name in contemporary records is usually spelled Gundisaluus Menendiz.

Gonzalo was a son of count Hermenegildo González and Mumadona Dias, and named for his grandfather, count Gonzalo Betótez. His father was dead by 950, when his widow distributed some of his lands. In the pertinent document Gonzalo is mentioned for the first time (24 July 950).

In 966 Gonzalo assassinated Sancho I of León. He invited him to a banquet and fed him poisoned food, an apple according to some sources. In the late 960s Gonzalo's lands came under the ravages of the Vikings. In 968, he fell out with king Ramiro III after the latter refused to fight them. In the factional and successional politics of the time, Gonzalo may be said to have favoured the line of Ordoño III and his son Vermudo II over Sancho I and his son Ramiro III.

A dispute between Gonzalo's mother, abbess of Guimarães in her widowhood, and a relative of the Galician magnate Rodrigo Velásquez, spurred a rivalry between the two families that would span several years. Rodrigo's brother's sister-in-law, Guntroda, abbess of Pazóo, had appropriated the monastery of Santa Comba, which belonged to a monk name Odoino, who appealed to Mummadomna for support. She sent her sons Gonzalo and Ramiro to force Guntroda to return it volens nolens (willing or not). The conflict left to open warfare between the factions led by Gonzalo and Rodrigo. In 968 or perhaps 974, Gonzalo defeated his rival in the Battle of Aguioncha.

Justo Pérez de Urbel argued that the absence of Rodrigo and Gonzalo from court during the regency of queen Elvira Ramírez was evidence that during this period they were de facto independent, but they were in León on 20 September 968 for the confirmation of a noble gift to the abbey of Sobrado.

On 12 August (16 Shawwal) 971, according to the al-Muqtabis, the Caliph of Córdoba, al-Hakam II, received six separate Christian embassies in his palace of al-Zahra. From Sancho Garcés II of Pamplona, "prince of the Bascones", he received the abbot Bassal (Basilio) and Velasco, a judge of Nájera. From Elvira Ramírez came her envoy al-Layt and the Córdoban arif Abd al-Malik, who had been at her court. From Fernando Flaínez, count of Salmántica, the caliph received the ambassadors Habib Tawila and Saada. From Garci-Fernández, Count of Castile and Álava, arrived one García, son perhaps of a certain Gatón. Then came Esimeno (Jimeno) and Elgas from Fernando Ansúrez, the count of Monzón, Peñafiel, and Campos, and finally the ambassadors of a certain count Gundisalb: Sulayman and Jalaf ibn Sad. This last may have been either Gonzalo Menéndez or Gonzalo Muñoz, Count of Coimbra.

In 981, after the Christian defeat at the Battle of Rueda, he led the rebellion against Ramiro III that installed the king's cousin Vermudo Ordóñez, perhaps Gonzalo's nephew, on the throne. Gonzalo was soon joined by his son Menendo González, and by Tedón Aldretiz, Tello Eloritiz, Gutier Díaz, Rodrigo Sarracínez, Gonzalo Álvarez, and Gonzalo Díaz. Among the bishops to support the revolt were Viliulfo of Coimbra, Ikilano of Viseu, and James of Lamego. The first document which titles Vermudo "king" (Vermudus rex, prolix domni Ordoni)[6] is a donation to the monastery of Lorvão of the fourth part of the villages of Palos and Lamas made by Gonzalo on 22 December that year. Vermudo had signed a document with his cousin on 11 October, and the success of the rebellion must have come after that date. Gonzalo is sometimes credited with chasing Pelayo Rodríguez, the son of his old enemy Rodrigo Velázquez, from the diocese of Iria Flavia in the fall of 982, for Vermudo's coronation.

In 985 Gonzalo-and many other Portuguese magnates-had begun to employ the title duke (dux); Gonzalo is usually listed on documents ahead of all of them. In 994 he was granted the city and territory of Braga. He was killed in 997 during Almanzor's campaign against Santiago de Compostela.

Gonzalo — Ilduara Peláez. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37425

Other Events:

• Reference Number: 37418

Notes:

Hermenegildo González or Mendo I Gonçalves was a count in the 10th century Kingdom of León, and husband of Mumadona Dias, Countess of Portugal. He was son of count Gonzalo Betótez and Teresa Eriz, and maternal grandson of count Ero Fernández. His sister Aragonta González had been wife of Ordoño II of León before being set aside. Hermenegildo begins to appear in documentation in 926, and apparently died relatively young, as he is no longer seen after 943 (and was dead by 950), while his widow continues to appear through 981. His eldest son was count Gonzalo Menéndez, who first appears in a document of 24 July 950, the same document which confirms Hermenegildo as already dead. His other son, Ramiro Menéndez, may have fathered Velasquita, queen of Vermudo II of León.

Hermenegildo — Mumadona Dias. [Group Sheet]

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• Reference Number: 37417

Notes:

Mumadona Dias, or Muniadomna Díaz, Countess of Portugal in the 10th century, ruling between c. 924 - c. 950. She was daughter of Count Diogo Fernandes and of countess Onega.

Celebrated, rich and the most powerful woman in the Northwest of the Iberian peninsula, she has been commemorated by several Portuguese cities.

In c. 926 Mumadona was already married to Count Hermenegildo González. She governed the county alone after her husband's death in c. 928. She left it in the ownership of countless domains, in an area that coincided reasonably with zones that would integrate the back counties of Portucale and of Coimbra.

Those domains were divided in July of 950 among her six children, giving Gonzalo Menéndez the county of Portucale. In 950 or 951, with divine inspiration, she founded, on her property in Vimaranes, a monastery under São Mamede's invocation (Mosteiro of São Mamede or Mosteiro of Guimarães). Later she professed her vows there. To protect this monastery and its people from Viking raids, she initiated the construction of the Castle of Guimarães, in the shade of which Guimarães' burgh was developed. Eventually this became the headquarters of the court of the counts of Portucale.

The testamentary document in which she makes the donation of her domains, cattle, incomes, religious objects and books to Guimarães monastery, dated of January 26 959, was important for verifying the existence of several castles and villages in the region.