Count of Portugal Menendo González

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• Reference Number: 37415

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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]

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• Reference Number: 37404

Elvira — Alfonso V of León. Alfonso (son of Bermudo II of León and Elvira García of Castile) was born 994; died 1028. [Group Sheet]

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• Reference Number: 37427

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• Reference Number: 37428

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• Reference Number: 37429

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• Reference Number: 37430

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• Reference Number: 37431

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• Reference Number: 37432

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• Reference Number: 37433

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• Reference Number: 37403

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Sancha of León (1013 - 27 November 1067) was a daughter of Alfonso V of León by Elvira Mendes and Queen consort of León and Castile. In 1029, a political marriage was arranged between her and count García Sánchez of Castile. However, having traveled to León for the marriage, García was assassinated by a group of disgruntled vassals. In 1032, Sancha was married to García's nephew and successor, Ferdinand, Count of Castile in 1032. At the Battle of Tamarón in 1037 Ferdinand defeated and killed Sancha's brother Bermudo III of León, making Sancha the heir and allowing Ferdinand to have himself crowned King of León and Castile, Sancha thereby became Queen consort. Following Ferdinand's 1065 death and the division of her husband's kingdom, she is said to have played the futile role of peacemaker among her sons. She was a devout Catholic, who, with her husband, commissioned the crucifix that bears their name as a gift for the basilica of San Isidoro.

Sancha — Ferdinand I of León And Castile. Ferdinand (son of Sancho Garcés, III and Mayor of Castile) was born Abt 1015; died 24 Jun 1065. [Group Sheet]

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• Reference Number: 37434

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• Reference Number: 37391

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Alfonso VI (before June, 1040 - June 29/July 1, 1109), nicknamed the Brave (El Bravo) or the Valiant, was King of León from 1065, King of Castile and de facto King of Galicia from 1072, and self-proclaimed "Emperor of all Spain". After the conquest of Toledo he was also self-proclaimed victoriosissimo rege in Toleto, et in Hispania et Gallecia. Much romance has gathered around his name.

Accession:

As the middle of three sons of King Ferdinand I of León and Sancha of León, Alfonso was allotted León when the kingdom was divided following his father's death, while Castile was given to his elder brother Sancho, Galicia to younger brother García, and sisters Urraca and Elvira given the cities of Zamora and Toro respectively. Each of the brothers was also assigned a sphere of influence among the Taifa states. Alfonso appears to have taken the first step in violating this division, in 1068 invading the Galician client Taifa of Badajoz and extorting tribute. In response, Sancho attacked and defeated Alfonso at Llantada but three years later in 1071 they joined forces against García. Sancho over-marched Alfonso's León to conquer García's northern lands, while Alfonso himself is found issuing charters in the southern part of the Galician realm. García fled to taifa Seville, and the remaining brothers then turned on each other. This conflict culminated in the Battle of Golpejera in early January, 1072. Sancho proved victorious and Alfonso himself was forced to flee to his client Taifa of Toledo. Later that year as Sancho was mopping up the last of the resistance, besieging his sister Urraca at Zamora in October, he was assassinated, opening the way for Alfonso to return to claim Sancho's crown. García, induced to return from exile, was imprisoned by Alfonso for life, leaving Alfonso in uncontested control of the reunited territories of their father. In recognition of this and his role as the preeminent Christian monarch on the peninsula, in 1077 Alfonso proclaimed himself "Emperor of all Spain".

In the cantar de gesta The Lay of the Cid, he plays the part attributed by medieval poets to the greatest kings, and to Charlemagne himself. He is alternately the oppressor and the victim of heroic and self-willed nobles - the idealized types of the patrons for whom the jongleurs and troubadours sang. He is the hero of a cantar de gesta which, like all but a very few of the early Spanish songs, like the cantar of Bernardo del Carpio and the Infantes of Lara, exists now only in the fragments incorporated in the chronicle of Alfonso the Wise or in ballad form.

His flight from the monastery of Sahagún (Safagún in Leonese language), where his brother Sancho endeavoured to imprison him, his chivalrous friendship for his host Almamun of Toledo, caballero aunque moro, "a knight although a Moor", the passionate loyalty of his vassal, Pero (Pedro) Ansúrez, and his brotherly love for his sister Urraca of Zamora, may owe something to the poet who took him as a hero.

They are the answer to the poet of the nobles who represented the king as having submitted to taking a degrading oath at the hands of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid) to deny intervention in his brother's death in the church of Santa Gadea at Burgos, and as having then persecuted the brave man who defied him.

Strong fighter:

When every allowance is made, Alfonso VI stands out as a strong man fighting as a king whose interest was law and order, and who was the leader of the nation in the reconquest. He impressed himself on the Arabs as a very fierce and astute enemy, but as a keeper of his word. A story of Muslim origin, which is probably no more historical than the oath of Santa Gadea, tells of how he allowed himself to be tricked by Ibn Ammar, the favourite of Al Mutamid, the King of Seville. They played chess for an extremely beautiful table and set of men, belonging to Ibn Ammar. Table and men were to go to the king if he won. If Ibn Ammar gained he was to name the stake. The latter did win and demanded that the Christian king should spare Seville. Alfonso kept his word.

Whatever truth may lie behind the romantic tales of Christian and Muslim, we know that Alfonso represented the two great influences then shaping the character and civilization of Hispania.

Alfonso showed a greater degree of continental integration than his predecessors. The marital practices of the Iberian royalty had been largely endogamous, previously limiting choice of partners to the peninsula and Gascony, but Alfonso married French and Italian wives, while marrying daughters to French princes and an Italian king. His second marriage was arranged, in part, through the influence of the French Cluniac Order, and Alfonso is said to have introduced them into Iberia, established them in Sahagun and choosing a French Cluniac, Bernard, as the first Archbishop of Toledo after its 1085 conquest. He also drew his kingdom nearer to the Papacy, a move which brought French crusaders to aid him in the reconquest, and it was Alfonso's decision which established the Roman ritual in place of the old missal of Saint Isidore - the Mozarabic rite.

On the other hand he was very open to Arabic influence. He protected the Muslims among his subjects and struck coins with inscriptions in Arabic letters. He also admitted to his court and to his bed the refugee Muslim princess Zaida of Seville.
Alfonso was defeated on October 23, 1086, at the battle of Sagrajas, at the hands of Yusuf ibn Tashfin, and Abbad III al-Mu'tamid, and was severely wounded in the leg.

Marriages and children:

Alfonso married at least five times and had two mistresses and a fiancée:

In 1067, two brothers from Iberia are said to have competed for the hand of Agatha, one of the daughters of William I of England and Matilda of Flanders and formerly fiancee of Harold Godwinson. Alfonso proved successful, and was betrothed to Agatha. A nun at the time, Agatha is said to have prayed for death rather than being forced to marry Alphonso, and she died before the marriage could take place.

In 1069, Alfonso married Agnes of Aquitaine, daughter of William VIII of Aquitaine and his second wife Mateoda. They last appear together in May 1077, and then Alfonso appears alone. This suggests that she had died, although Orderic Vitalis reports that in 1109 Alfonso's 'relict' Agnes remarried to Elias I of Maine, leading some to speculate that Alfonso and Agnes had divorced due to consanguinity. It seems more likely that Orderic gave the wrong name to Alfonso's widow, Beatrice. Agnes and Alfonso had no children.
Apparently between his first and second marriages he formed a liaison with Jimena Muñoz, a "most noble" (nobilissima) concubine "derived from royalty" (real generacion). She appears to have been put aside, given land in Ulver, at the time of Alfonso's remarriage. By her Alfonso had two illegitimate daughters, Elvira and Teresa.

His second wife, who he married by May 1080, was Constance of Burgundy, daughter of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy. This marriage initially faced papal opposition, apparently due to her kinship with Agnes. Her tenure as queen consort brought significant Cluniac influences into the kingdom. She died in September or October, 1093, the mother of Alfonso's eldest legitimate daughter Urraca, and of five other children who died in infancy.

Either before or shortly after Constance's death, Alfonso formed a liaison with a second mistress, Zaida of Seville, said by Iberian Muslim sources to be daughter-in-law of Al Mutamid, the Muslim King of Seville. She fled the fall of Seville for Alfonso's kingdom in 1091, and soon became his lover, having by him Alfonso's only son, Sancho, who, though illegitimate, was apparently not born of an adulterous relationship, and hence born after the death of Constance. He would be named his father's heir. Several modern sources have suggested that Zaida, baptised under the name of Isabel, is identical with Alfonso's later wife, Queen Isabel (or that she was a second queen named Isabel whom he married in succession to the first). Zaida/Isabel died in childbirth, but the date is unknown, and it is unclear whether the child being delivered was Sancho, an additional illegitimate child, otherwise unknown, or legitimate daughter Elvira (if Zaida was identical to Queen Isabel).

By April 1095, Alfonso married Bertha. Chroniclers report her as being from Tuscany, Lombardy, or alternatively, say she was French. Several theories have been put forward regarding her origin. Based on political considerations, proposals make her daughter of William I, Count of Burgundy or of Amadeus II of Savoy. She had no children and died in late 1099 (Alfonso first appears without her in mid-January 1100).

Within months, by May 1100, Alfonso again remarried, to Isabel, having by her two daughters, Sancha, (wife of Rodrigo González de Lara), and Elvira, (who married Roger II of Sicily). A non-contemporary tomb inscription says she was daughter of a "king Louis of France", but this is chronologically impossible. It has been speculated that she was of Burgundian origin, but others conclude that Alfonso married his former mistress, Zaida, who had been baptized as Isabel. (In a novel twist, Reilly suggested that there were two successive queens named Isabel: first the French (Burgundian) Isabel, mother of Sancha and Elvira, with Alfonso only later marrying his mistress Zaida (Isabel), after the death of or divorce from the first Isabel.) Alfonso was again widowed in mid-1107.

By May 1108, Alfonso married his last wife, Beatrice. She, as widow of Alfonso, is said to have returned home to France, but nothing else is known of her origin unless she is the woman Orderic named as "Agnes, daughter of William, Duke of Poitou", who as relict of Alfonso, (Agnetem, filiam Guillelmi, Pictavorum ducis, relictam Hildefonsi senioris, Galliciae regis), remarried to Elias of Maine. If this is the case, she is likely daughter of William IX of Aquitaine and niece of Alfonso's first wife. Beatrice had no children by Alfonso.

One other woman was reported by later sources to have been Alfonso's lover. The historian Abu Bakr Ibn al Sayraff, writing before 1161, stated that Alfonso abandoned Christianity for Zoroastrianism and had carnal relations with his sister Urraca, but then repented and was absolved, making pilgrimages to holy sites as penance. This has been followed by some later historians but others dismiss it as propaganda or misunderstanding.

Alfonso's designated successor, his son Sancho, was slain after being routed at the Battle of Uclés in 1108, making Alfonso's eldest legitimate daughter, the widowed Urraca as his heir. In order to strengthen her position as his successor, Alfonso began negotiations for her to marry her second cousin, Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre, but died before the marriage could take place, Urraca succeeding.

Alfonso — Ximena Moniz. [Group Sheet]