THE ARISTOCRACY OF LEON-CASTILE IN THE REIGN OF ALFONSO VII (1126-1157) 2 VOLUMES SIMON FRASER BARTON DPhil UNIVERSITY OF YORK Department of History (April, 1990) TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME I Paize Table of figures 6 Acknowledgements 7 Abstract Abbreviations INTRODUCTION 13 Notes to Introduction 27 CHAPTER 1 : CLASS9 FAMILY AND LINEAGE 30 (a) The a rticulation of a class 31 (b) Famil y 57 i) Kinship and Inheritance 58 ii) Lineage 71 iii) Birth and Childhood 82 iv) Marriage 88 V) Old age and Death 108 (c) Noble households 112 i) Household organisation 112 ii) Residence 129 - iii) Recreation and Culture 132 Notes to Chapter 1 138 CHAPTER 2: PROPERTYAND POWER 164 Introduction 165 (a) The aristocratic patrimony 171 i) Rural property 173 ii) Urban property 191 iii) Great landowners 196 iv) Other sources of wealth 201 (b) The Lord and his Manor 206 i) Immune lordships 208 ii) The evidence of the fueros 211 iii) The structure of the Manor 215 iv) The profits of lordship 220 V) Administration 227 (c) Magnates and Milites 235 Notes to Chapter 2 243 CHAPTER 3 : THE NOBILITY AND THE CHURCH 258 Introduction 259 (a) The Adelskirche, in Le6n-Castile 263 i) The Proprietary Church 263 ii) Careers in the Church 275 (b) Lay aristocratic piety in Le6n-Castile 280 - i) The foundation of monasteries 280 ii) Endowment of the Church 315 iii) Pilgrimage and Crusade 329 (c) Conflict with the Church 334 Epilogue 354 Notes to Chapter 3 357 VOLUME II Table of contents 374 Table of figures 376 CHAPTER 4 KING AND COURT 377 Introduction 378 (a) Alfonso VII and the Nobility 381 i) Grants 'pro bono seruicio' 384 ii) Honores and tenenciaa 387 iii) Money fiefs 398 (b) The Court of Alfonso VII 399 i) Court membership 401 ii) The business of the curia 422 iii) The royal household 433 iv) The peripatetic court 443 Notes to Chapter 4 457 -4- CHAPTER 5: THE WARRIOR ARISTOCRACY 474 Introduction 475 (a) A society organised for war 476 (b) The wars of the reign of Alfonso VII 482 (c) The logistics of warfare 500 i) The summons to war 501 ii) The composition of the army 502 iii) Numbers 510 iv) Naval power 512 V) Finance, supply and strategy 513 vi) Castles 520 (d) Motivation 528 (e) Risks and rewards 540 Notes to Chapter 5 550 CONCLUSION 563 APPENDIX 1: Selected aristocratic charters 566 APPENDIX 2: Genealogical tables 631 MANUSCRIPTS AND BOOKS CONSULTED 641 I. Manuscript sources II. Guides, catalogues and registers III. Printed Primary Sources IV. Secondary material - TABLE OF FIGURES PaRe Figure 1 The diplomas of the reign of 23 Alfonso VII (1126-1157) Figure 2 Property acquisitions by Pelayo 178-9 Froilaz (1105-1127) Figure 3: 12th century aristocratic Sueros 214 Figure 4: Monastic houses affiliated by 297 lay patrons to independent orders (1142-1176) Figure 5 : Royal majordomos, 1126-1157 436 Figure 6 : Royal alfereces, 1126-1157 437 Figure 7 : Lay confirmants to royal 492 diplomas of 1137 Figure 8 : Lay confirmants to royal 493 diplomas of 1139 Figure 9 : Lay confirmants to royal 494 diplomas of 1147 - ACKNOWLEDGEMEMS I am grateful to the British Academy for the grant of a Major State Studentship and to the Leverhulme Trust for awarding me a Study Abroad Studentship to enable me to pursue my research in Spain. A great debt of thanks is owed to all those who have helped bring this thesis to its happy conclusion. Pride of place must go to my supervisor Dr. Richard Fletcher. His criticism, acute yet always kindly, has saved me f rom many a blunder; he has generously lent me books from his own library; and he has boosted my morale when spirits were flagging. My thanks are also due to Professor Derek Lomax of the University of Birmingham who has provided welcome encouragement and much useful advice during the course of my research. The counsel of Dr. Raymond McCluskey of the University of St. Andrews made my visit to the archives of Leon far easier than it might otherwise have been. In Spain, I am particularly indebted to Dra. Isabel Beceiro Pita of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Madrid: she has helped my work at every turno lending me books from her own library and by suggesting new approaches to my research that might not otherwise have occurred to -7- me. From the same institutions Dra. Reyna Pastor, Dra. Isabel Alfonso and Josg Manuel Gonzalez have all been of assistance. My thanks must also go to Dr. Manuel Recuero Astray of the Universidad Aut6noma in Madrid with whom I paid a most enjoyable visit to the cathedral archive of Burgo de Osma. Professor Antonio Garcia y Garcia of the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca furnished me with letters of introduction to the Galician archives and treated me with great hospitality on the occasion of my visit to Salamanca. In Valladolid I have been able to count on the friendship and advice of Dr. Pascual Martinez Sopena and have also received useful help from Professor Gonzalo Martinez Diez. In Santiago de Compostela, my thanks are due to Professor Ermelindo Portela Silva and Dra. Maria Carmen Pallares M4ndez. I am also grateful to Adeline Rucquoi of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris,, Professor Bernard Reilly of Villanova Universitys Anna Rodr1guez Cano of the British Council in Madrid and Rosamund Jones. I dedicate this work to my wife Isabel, for whom its completion will come as a great relief. She has been a welcome ray of sunshine when things were gloomy and has put up stoically with the Ilabour pains' that inevitably accompany such research. jPor fin! - ABSTRACT The past forty years have seen much distinguished work by French and German scholars on the aristocracy of Early Medieval Europe. In a Spanish context, however, the lay nobility of the kingdom of Le6n-Castile has attracted relatively little scholarly attention: interesting studies of individual families have been produced and promising avenues for research suggested, but studies of somewhat wider scope, dealing with the nobility across the whole kingdom of Le6n-Castile remain few and far between. This thesis examines the characteristics of lay aristocratic society in Le6n-Castile during the reign of Alfonso VII (1126-1157). Drawing on the evidence of the narrative sources, together with the ecclesiastical and monastic documents of the period, the chief aims of this research have been as follows: - to identify those magnates who enjoyed a prominent position in the court of Alfonso VII and to gauge their influence in the kingdom as a whole. - to examine the feudal ties that bound such men to the king. to study the part played by the nobility in the wars of reconquest undertaken by Alfonso VII against the Muslims and the other rulers of Christian - Spain. to investigate the local power base of these aristocrats: in particularg to examine their family ties; the organisation of their households; the distribution and extent of their lordships; and their relations with the Church. - 10 - ABBREVIATIONS AC Archivo de la Catedral de AEM Anuario de Estudios-Medievales AED Archivo Hist6rico Diocesano AHDE Anuario-de. Historia-del Derecho Espafiol AHN Archivo Hist6rico Nacional, Madrid AHRG Archivo Hist6rico del Reino de Galicia., La Corufla AL Archivos Leoneses BN Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid de. Academia-de BRAH Boletfn- - , -la . -Real. - - -la CAI Chronica.. Adefonsi-. Imperatorisj ed. L. Sdnchez Be-TUa (Madridq 1950) Cart. Toledo F. J. Hernandez ed., Los- Cartularios- -de Toledo. (Madr=, -- - Catilogo- -Documental 1985) CDMR I. Rodriguez de Lama ed., Colecc16n 1a. Rio' DiplomAtica -Medieval -de . jal'-II: Documentos-(923---11-M (Logroflo, 1976) CDO M. Castro and M. Martinez Sueiro eds., ColecciOn de- documentos del Archivo .. - .. Catedral de. 0rense, 2 vols (Orense, 1922- 3) Documentos- Medievais- Portugueses: DNP . -. -.. Documentos. 195Ö) Regios, » I (Lisbong BEMCA Estudios-de la Edad. Media de la-Corona de Aragön Es EsUafla- SaRrada, ed. E. F16rez, M. Risco and others (Madridv 1747-1879) Gonzälez, El Reino de Cast-i-11. la GRC i. - . a -en - guoca- de (Madri3-, . -A1-fon-s-o - VI I13 vol s 1960) -11 - II GRF J. Gonzalez, ReResta. - -de - -Fernando (Madrid, 1943) NC Historia ComEostellana, ed. E. Florez T-Magrid, 1765) (= ES XX) Nistoria- S. A. M. LFH A. L6pez Ferreiro, -de -la - Iglesia-. de. ' 11 -SantiaR, o. -de. -Com, posteli , vols (Santiago de Compostela, 189ö-1911) OM Secc16n de Ordenes Militares PA Poema-de. Almerla, in CAI, 165-206. Rassow P. Rassow, 'Die Urkunden Kaiser Alfons' 4 Archiv. für Vii von Spanien , --- Urkundenforschung 10 928), 328-467 IT - Z1930)9 66-137 RAR Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid Medieval Sli Studia-Historica: -Historia - 12 - -INTRODUCTION - 13 - It is perhaps no exaggeration to affirm that the past forty years have witnessed a complete transformation in our knowledge of the aristocracy of Early Medieval Europe. The prodigious efforts of French and German scholars in particular - Duby, Schmid and Werner are three names that spring readily to mind - have made it possible to trace the origins and evolution of the privileged aristocratic group across the Early and Central Middle Ages; to unravel the complexities of its family ties; and to analyse the distribution of wealth and power within its ranks. In short, they have enabled us to begin to understand the dominant role played by the nobility within the framework of medieval society as a whole. (l) Fruit of this endeavour has been the publication of a spate of learned books and articles. If some of the most enlightening studies have taken the aristocracy of medieval France and Germany as their theme, important advances have been made in other parts of Europe too, Mattoso, for example, has almost single-handedly investigated the character and concerns of the medieval Portuguese aristocracy; and there have been important studies of the nobility of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England.