[31] The lists giving the succession of bishops in each see, which are prefixed to every section of this chapter, will be found to differ from those in previously published works of reference such as P.B. Gams's Series Episcoporum Ecclesiae Catolicae. To have cited the evidence upon which the lists are based would have been to weigh the chapter down with a heavy freight of chronological minutiae. The curious will find it set out in the thesis upon which this book is based, a copy of which is deposited in the Bodleian Library. The bishoprics are in roughly the natural order working from south to north. Given the nature of the evidence, this also means working from the hardly knowable to the quite well-known.

Coria
 

Navarro	1142	1151
Suero	1155	1168
Pedro	1169	1174 X 1177
Arnaldo I	1181	1197-8
Arnaldo II	1198-9	1211-12
Giraldo	1212	1227

Coria was probably the poorest see in the kingdom of León, and is certainly that about which we know least. The town of Coria was re-conquered by Alfonso VI, lost to the Almoravides after his death, and then again reconquered by Alfonso VII in June 1142. Thenceforward it remained in Christian hands. Alfonso VI, it would seem, had made no attempt to restore at Coria the bishopric which had existed there under the Visigoths; but among Alfonso VII's first actions after the reconquest of 1142 was the reintroduction of a Christian establishment and the appointment of a bishop.⁽¹⁾

[32] All our evidence about the earlier career of the first bishop of Coria, Navarro, comes from a Segovia document of 1148.⁽²⁾ We learn from this that he had the title of magister; that he had been a canon of Segovia; and that, arctiorem vitam ducere volens, he had founded a religious house at Párraces -- probably for Augustinian canons -- to which he had himself retired. Navarro's name suggests that he was a native not of León-Castile but of Navarre, as were, it seems, a good many of the repobladores of the dioceses of Segovia and its neighbouring Avila. His experience at Segovia, a church which was busily facing up to the problems of re-establishing ecclesiastical life in a newly-won frontier area, must have commended him to the king as a suitable candidate for the new see of Coria.⁽³⁾ Unfortunately we know virtually nothing of his episcopate. He was an infrequent witness of royal charters⁽⁴⁾, so perhaps he spent most of his time in his diocese. His translation to the more important see of Salamanca in 1151 presumably indicates that the king thought well of him. At one moment only is the veil lifted slightly. Navarro was one of the few bishops of León-Castile to attend the council of Rheims in 1148. After it was over he stayed on at the papal curia for reasons which Eugenius III explained to Alfonso VII:

... notum fieri volumus quod Cauriensern episcopum nobiscum duximus retinendum, tum quia in ecclesia que sibi commissa est gravi inopia sicut accepimus premebatur et officium suum ibi exercere utiliter non poterat, tum quia confidimus quod munificentia tua suis debeat necessitatibus honestius providere.⁽⁵⁾

We have no record of any bishop of Coria between 1151 and 1155; and since no bishop attended the councils of Salamanca (1154) or Valladolid (1155) we may be tolerably certain that the diocese was kept vacant. It is indeed possible that the next appointment was made at the prompting of the [33] legate cardinal Hyacinth, who visited Spain in 1154-5. The new bishop, Suero, was a religious like his predecessor, having been abbot of Nogales in the diocese of Astorga.⁽⁶⁾ Little record of his episcopate has survived. The diocese of Coria seems to have remained poor, exposed and struggling. It may have been difficult to attract settlers to the region, for its situation rendered it vulnerable to attack from south, east and west, while the Sierra de Gata and the broken country known as Las Hurdes made communication with the friendly north difficult. Fernando II in 1183 described the diocese as deserta adhuc;⁽⁷⁾ clearly repoblación was slow and ineffectual. But it was also very necessary, for defence rested upon resettlement, and the Coria area was of great military importance. The town itself lay between the important Roman roads from Mérida to Astorga and from Salamanca to Coimbra. It was at the southernmost tip of the kingdom of León, marching with the potential enemies Portugal, the Moslem principalities and, after 1157, Castile. It was thrust, in the expressive phrase of the royal charter of 1183, in faucibus Sarracenorum.

Bishop Suero may, in his straitened circumstances, have found it impossible to carry out the duties expected of him. The lordship of the town of Coria had been divided equally between the king, the bishop, and the archbishop of Compostela (in whose province the diocese lay) in 1142. In 1163 Fernando II gave exclusive lordship to the church of Compostela, and in 1168 transferred this to the Knights Templar.⁽⁸⁾ It is not easy to understand exactly what was being done, but it would seem likely that considerations of military defence were uppermost in the king's mind. At the same time, some steps were taken to increase the modest endowments of the see. Bishop Suero obtained a solemn privilege from Pope Alexander III in 1168 confirming the possessions of his church, and this reveals that Alcántara and Cáceres, conquered by Fernando II in 1166, had been added to them.⁽⁹⁾

Suero's successor Pedro is no more than a name, and after his death, the date of which cannot be exactly determined, there was another episcopal vacancy, this time of about four years. Arnaldo I, the next bishop, has left some traces of his activity. He introduced the Augustinian Rule for his cathedral chapter before 1185.⁽¹⁰⁾ He acquired two papal privileges, in 1185 and 1186, to buttress the endowments and privileges of his see.⁽¹¹⁾ One royal charter, from early in his episcopate, shows him as a vigorous defender of his episcopal rights, and hints at the kinds of problem which a bishop had to face in the turbulent society of the frontier.⁽¹²⁾

External enemies remained threatening. Cáceres and Alcántara, lost for a short time to the Portuguese in 1168-9, were taken by the Almohades in 1174. Fernando II failed to recover Cáceres in 1184. The truce with the Almohades in 1191 ensured peace from one quarter. But uneasy hostilities between Portugal and León smouldered on, while in Castile the creation of the diocese of Plasencia in 1189-90 was a warning of the direction in which the ambitions of Alfonso VIII were moving.⁽¹³⁾ Neither is there any evidence that the poverty of the diocese of Coria was effectually remedied. Arnaldo I's two successors are no more than names in the witness-lists to royal charters. All we are entitled to say about them is that they hung on. A change came in the thirteenth century. Alcántara fell to the Christian forces in 1212, Cáceres in 1227, and the great prize of Mérida in 1234. The safety of Coria was at last ensured. But for the first seventy years of its existence, after 1142, the history of the diocese is barely more than an uncertain record of a struggle for survival.

Ciudad Rodrigo
 

Domingo	1161 X 1168	1172-3
Pedro de Ponte	1174	1190
Martín	1190	1211
Lombardo	1214	1227

[35] The sources for the twelfth-century history of Ciudad Rodrigo are as meagre as those relating to Coria, but we have the advantage that they have already been carefully studied by Fidel Fita.⁽¹⁴⁾ Reconquered early in the century, we do not know exactly when, the town with its término was acquired by purchase by the citizens of Salamanca in about 1135.⁽¹⁵⁾ It is to be presumed that they controlled it until 1161, when Fernando II, eager to strengthen the south-western frontier of his kingdom, took it into his own hands. He introduced settlers there, built a castle, created a bishopric and founded at least two religious houses.

This royal action provoked hostility both from the people of Salamanca who resented the loss of a lordship which they had enjoyed for twenty-five years, and from the king of Portugal who felt himself threatened by the foundation of a fortress so close to his eastern frontier. With the ensuing troubles -- the revolt of Salamanca in 1162, the Portuguese invasion of 1163, and in addition an Almohade attack on 'Alsibdat' in 1174 -- we are not here concerned. But there were also repercussions of an ecclesiastical nature -- a quarrel between the churches of Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca over their common frontier, and a brush with Pope Alexander III.

The boundary dispute will be touched on later. Here it is enough to say that it was settled, though probably not finally settled, in 1174. The eastern boundary of the diocese was fixed between the little rivers Huebra and Yeltes. The northern frontier was presumably formed by the Huebra and the Duero, the western by the political frontier between León and Portugal, and the southern by the desolate country between Ciudad Rodrigo and Coria.

It was the constitution of the new bishopric which roused the anger of the pope. Fernando II may well have appeared to be creating an entirely new see in 1161. He claimed, however, only to be restoring the Visigothic see of Caliabria. Since [36] no-one knew where Caliabria had been, the claim could not be tested. But the king had certainly acted without any reference to the pope, not only in setting up the diocese, but also in issuing what has been called the fuero eclesiástico of Ciudad Rodrigo on 13 February 1161.⁽¹⁶⁾ In this document the king made the remarkable provision that the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, in whose province the new diocese lay, was to nominate its bishop without any reference to its chapter. The pope's apprehension, known only, unfortunately, from a brief reference in a bull of 1175, was understandable. Since the provision was omitted from a further royal charter of 20 September 1168, it may be suggested that the king had withdrawn it in obedience to papal protests.⁽¹⁷⁾

How the first bishop reacted to it is as obscure as everything else concerning him. Domingo, presumably appointed in or soon after 1161, is not mentioned by name until 1168, and died in 1172 or 1173 having left no trace at all of any activity in our records. His successor is a little less obscure. Pedro de Ponte was perhaps a native of Galicia,⁽¹⁸⁾ and an important royal servant: a king's clerk from at least 1163, he had been rewarded with prebends at the rich sees of Oviedo and Compostela, and in the years 1170 to 1172 he was the royal chancellor.⁽¹⁹⁾ Among his first actions as bishop was a tactful visit to the papal curia in 1175, from which he returned with a privilege confirming the establishment of the new diocese and condoning, with a mild rebuke, Fernando's initiative.⁽²⁰⁾ Pedro visited the curia again, in 1179, when he attended the Third Lateran council.⁽²¹⁾ Nothing more is known of him, and virtually nothing at all of his two successors, Martín and Lombardo. Their names appear in the witness-lists of royal charters, and Martín once acted as a papal [37] judge-delegate;⁽²²⁾ but of their actions as bishops nothing can be said and speculation is fruitless.

Salamanca
 

Jerónimo	1102	1120
Giraldo	1120	1123
Nuño	1123	1130
Alfonso Pérez	1130	1131
[Schism	1131	1135]
Berengar	1135	1150
Navarro	1151	1158-9
Ordoño	1159	1164-5
Pedro Suárez de Deza	1166	1173
Vidal	1174	1194-5
Gonzalo	1195	1226

Unlike Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca had been the seat of a bishop during the Visigothic period: The see was revived in the ninth century and the succession of its bishops may be traced, if hazardously, until towards the end of the tenth. There they cease, presumably in the wake of Almanzor's campaigns, and we do not know what, if any ecclesiastical establishment existed in the town when it passed again into Christian hands during the reign of Alfonso VI. The resettlement of the vast area between the Duero and the Sierra de Guadarrama was entrusted by Alfonso to his son-in-law Raymond of Burgundy, who was also given, it would seem, wide responsibilities for the restoration of ecclesiastical life.⁽²³⁾ Raymond found a man who must have seemed the ideal pastor for his frontier honour -- Jerónimo of Périgord, companion of the Cid, and bishop of Valencia from 1098 until its abandonment by the Cid's widow in May 1102.

Jerónimo, a native of Périgord, where he had been a monk, perhaps at Moissac, had been brought to Spain by Bernardo, archbishop of Toledo, in 1096 or 1097, together with several [38] other promising young men, of whom at least six later became archbishops or bishops. After a short spell as a canon of Toledo, he entered the service of the Cid, from whom he received the see of Valencia, being consecrated in Rome by Urban II in 1098. After the withdrawal from Valencia Jerónimo moved directly to the circle of Raymond of Burgundy and his wife Urraca; on 26 June 1102 they were granting endowments to Jerónimo as bishop of Salamanca.⁽²⁴⁾ In addition, he held the sees of Avila and Zamora in plurality with Salamanca. Jheronimus episcopus Abelensis features in an Avila document of 1103.⁽²⁵⁾ At Zamora he displaced one of Raymond's clerks, Roscelin,⁽²⁶⁾ and may be traced as bishop of Zamora in three documents, of 1104, 1107, and 1111.⁽²⁷⁾

His episcopate at Salamanca has left no trace in our records beyond the occasional appearance of his name in the witness-lists of royal charters.⁽²⁸⁾ We do however know that he was instructed by Calixtus II to make a profession of obedience to Diego Gelmírez when his see of Compostela was raised to metropolitan status in 1120 and given the rights of Mérida, in whose province the Visigothic bishopric of Salamanca had lain. Eighty years later it was believed that Jerónimo had actually made such a profession.⁽²⁹⁾ This matter of the metropolitan allegiance of Salamanca was to trouble the diocese during the fifteen years after Jerónimo's death. His successor, Giraldo, may have been another Frenchman (judging only by his name) and seems to have had connections with the church of Compostela. He was expelled from his diocese during the Aragonese invasion in the winter of 1121-2 and seems never to have returned there. The state of confusion into which the diocese had been thrown gave [39] archbishop Bernardo of Toledo a chance to challenge the claims of Compostela by consecrating Nuño, the successor of Giraldo. This provoked a storm of protest from Diego Gelmírez, at whose prompting Calixtus II ordered Nuño to make a profession of obedience to Compostela.⁽³⁰⁾ But the arrangement was unsatisfactory; in addition to which, Nuño does not seem to have been without his shortcomings as a diocesan:⁽³¹⁾ and his deposition by a papal legate at the council of Carrion in 1130 very probably took place at the instance of Diego Gelmírez.⁽³²⁾ His successor was clearly Diego's choice. Alfonso Pérez had been a canon of Compostela and is probably to be identified with the A. Perez who had been employed by Diego on at least two previous occasions as an emissary to the papal curia.⁽³³⁾ But his tenure of the see was short, for he died at Cluny in November 1131 while returning to Spain after attending the council of Rheims.⁽³⁴⁾ The ensuing three and a half years were a time of schism in the diocese and of the breakdown of regular episcopal succession. There were at least three candidates: the deposed Nuño, who returned from exile in Portugal, hung on at Salamanca for about three years, was summoned to the papal curia and degraded, enlisted the support of St. Bernard and is last heard of at Cluny; Pedro, the nominee of a prominent loyal layman, Count Pedro López; and a third whose name we do not know, who was put forward by the citizens of Salamanca, and who was described by the archbishop of Toledo as quidam homo absolute simplex. The confusion was ended, it would appear, through the intervention of Alfonso VII, who nominated a new bishop, Berengar.

Berengar was a king's man. It has recently been claimed that he was a French relative of Archbishop Raimundo of Toledo.⁽³⁵⁾ This is possible, though there is no evidence for it. It is more likely, in view of his eastern Spanish name, that he [40] was a Catalan who had come to the Leonese-Castiian court in the wake of Berengaria, the daughter of the count of Barcelona, whom Alfonso VII had married in 1127 or 1128. But this too is a guess. What is certain is that Berengar acquired the archdeaconry of Toledo and that he was in charge of the royal chancery by June 1134, though we do not find him with the title of chancellor until February 1135.⁽³⁶⁾ In the summer of 1135 he was promoted to the bishopric of Salamanca. As bishop, he restored stability to the troubled diocese. During his episcopate, the building of the cathedral was begun, and at least three religious houses were founded, one of them by Berengar himself.⁽³⁷⁾ He remained closely associated with the king, who lavished upon the diocese a series of important privileges.⁽³⁸⁾ Alfonso VII, indeed destined Berengar for higher things. In 1140-2 he tried to effect Berengar's translation to the archbishopric of Compostela, an attempt that was defeated by Pope Innocent II and the canons of Compostela, despite the king's adroit -- and costly -- enlistment of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, on his side.⁽³⁹⁾ What has not hitherto been noticed is that a second attempt, ten years later, was successful. In 1150 Berengar was elected to the archbishopric, though he did not live long to enjoy it. After his election, he went to Rome for his pallium, and on the way back to his new see, late in 1150 or early in 1151, he fell ill at Burgos and died at Torquemada.⁽⁴⁰⁾

We have already seen that Navarro was translated from Coria to fill Berengar's place at Salamanca. He and his successor Ordoño have left little trace of their activities as bishops of Salamanca. But we know that the period from c. 1140 onwards was an important one in Salamanca's history. The work of colonization was more successful than in any of the areas we have surveyed so far: the tempo of economic life in the diocese quickened and the town of Salamance itself grew [41] rapidly.⁽⁴¹⁾ Bishop Navarro was an active participant in the work of repoblación, for which he earned the gratitude of Alfonso VII.⁽⁴²⁾ Significantly, too, it is during the episcopate of Ordoño that we first hear of the coming of clerks from France to study in the schools of Salamanca, schools which were to blossom into a university half a century later.⁽⁴³⁾

The episcopate of Ordoño's successor was also short, but it was an important one. Pedro Suárez de Deza was a native of Galicia who had studied, allegedly, in Paris before returning to the diocese of Compostela with the title of magister before August 1162 when he was very probably a canon there. Later, certainly by 1166, he was an archdeacon and it is likely that he was in the household of archbishop Martín. He was royal chancellor in 1165, and in the following year he was promoted to the see of Salamanca to which he was consecrated at the curia by Alexander III. He held the see until 1173, when he was translated to Santiago de Compostela.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Pedro Suárez was an active administrator. He carried through certain capitular reforms. He engineered an agreement of confraternity between the chapters of Salamanca and the Castilian see of Avila. He sought lasting settlements in boundary disputes with neighbouring dioceses. He brought his see into a closer relationship with the papacy. He was active in fostering the military orders.⁽⁴⁵⁾ He contrived to remain on good terms with the kings both of León and of Castile when it was not easy to do this. And though we cannot prove it, it is reasonable to surmise that he did something to encourage the budding intellectual life of Salamanca.

[42] Of his two successors we know disappointingly little, though they occupied the see for over fifty years between them. Vidal was probably promoted from the chapter of Salamanca.⁽⁴⁶⁾ The profusion of royal grants made to him suggests, even when we make allowance for the reckless improvidence of Fernando II, that he may have been a royal servant, which would be a plausible background for one who was perhaps a protégé of Pedro Suárez.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Gonzalo can be connected more directly with the royal administration. A royal notary in the years 1188-94, he may have held a canonry at Salamanca from as early as 1181. His brother, Martín, was also a royal notary. His nephew Pedro Pérez was a notary from 1203, and royal chancellor from 1213 to 1221 and 1224 to 1230, with prebends at Compostela, Salamanca and Orense. Other members of the family seem to have been lay tenentes of Salamanca c.1182 and c.1219.⁽⁴⁸⁾ Not surprisingly, Gonzalo was a prominent supporter of Alfonso IX against the pope when the king ran into trouble over his marriages.⁽⁴⁹⁾

Zamora
 

Jerónimo	1102	1120
Bernardo	1121	1149
Esteban	1150	1175
Guillermo	1175	1193
Martín	1193	1217

The history of the diocese of Zamora has much in common with that of her southern neighbour Salamanca. The natural features of the two dioceses are similar, and the societies which inhabited them in the twelfth century were of much the same kind. They were resettled at the same time, and at first under common direction. Both were economically poor and politically vulnerable for most of the first half of the century; with the extension of the political frontier of the kingdom to the south, both experienced economic growth and a more mature social life in its second half. But Zamora, unlike [43] Salamanca, had not been a Visigothic see; it was a creation of the Reconquista, founded in the ninth century. The town was sacked by Almanzor, and no bishop can be traced for a century after 1009. In view of this chequered history, it is surprising that the territorial extent of the diocese was never seriously in dispute during the twelfth century. By contrast, the metropolitan loyalties of Zamora were a matter of prolonged and bitter dispute in the course of the century between the archbishops of Toledo, Braga and Santiago de Compostela.⁽⁵⁰⁾

We do not know when the decision to restore the diocese of Zamora was taken. Raymond of Burgundy entrusted the two churches which then existed in the town to a clerk of his own, Roscelin, but this man seems never to have been a bishop. They were transferred to Jerónimo of Salamanca in 1102, who acted, as we have seen, as bishop of Zamora until his death.⁽⁵¹⁾ It was, however, his successor Bernardo who was known as the primus episcopus Zamorensis de modernis.⁽⁵²⁾ Bernardo was another of the young men brought from France by his namesake of Toledo, and before his promotion to Zamora he had been an archdeacon of Toledo.⁽⁵³⁾ He took active steps towards the restoration of ecclesiastical life in his diocese. He began the building of a new cathedral, organized the chapter and established the rudiments of a diocesan administration. He was active in resettling his diocese; all his surviving acta are fueros de población.⁽⁵⁴⁾ During his episcopate at least two religious houses were founded in the diocese, one of them -- Valparaiso -- being among the earliest Cistercian foundations in the Peninsula. Throughout his tenure of the see, so far as we can judge, Bernardo remained on the best of terms with Alfonso VII and his influential sister Doña Sancha. [44] There are indications, as we shall see later on, that he in his turn made himself useful to the crown.

The bishops of the second half of the century have left fewer traces of their activities. For over forty years after Bernardo's death, the church of Zamora was in the hands of one family, whose members all had French names. Esteban was succeeded after a tenure of twenty-five years by his nephew Guillermo, who held the see for a further eighteen.⁽⁵⁵⁾ Guillermo had started as his uncle's chaplain in 1161 and rose to be dean of Zamora in 1170.⁽⁵⁶⁾ His brother Helias also did well for himself, he witnesses an episcopal act of 1167 and had acquired an archdeaconry by 1168.⁽⁵⁷⁾ It is unfortunate that we know no more about this family.

Martín Arias was a native of Galicia, and a protégé of Archbishop Pedro Suárez of Compostela. He had the title of magister, perhaps by dint of study as a canonist.⁽⁵⁸⁾ A recent assessment has characterized Martín's episcopate as 'twenty-three years of misrule'.⁽⁵⁹⁾ This is not warranted by such evidence as we have. Martín asked leave of Innocent III to resign his see, and it is true that when he was slow to do so he was asked to stand down by Honorius III in 1217. But we know nothing of the circumstances. The large corpus of acta which survives from his episcopate⁽⁶⁰⁾ shows him as an active administrator; and he was certainly much sought-after as a judge-delegate.⁽⁶¹⁾ He was a considerable builder. And he obtained what was virtually a permanent solution of the problem of Zamora's metropolitan allegiance from Innocent III.⁽⁶²⁾ This [45] is no mean record. There is no good reason for supposing that during his retirement in Galicia⁽⁶³⁾ he was under a cloud.

Astorga
 

Pelayo	1097?	1121
Alo	1123	1131
Roberto	1131	1138
Jimeno Eriz	1138	1141
Amadeo	1141	1143
Arnaldo I	1144	1152-3
Pedro Cristiano	1153	1156
Fernando I	1156	1172
Arnaldo II	1173	1177
Fernando II	1177	1190
Lope	1190	1205
Pedro Andrés	1205	1226

The diocese of Astorga was close to Zamora geographically, but far removed from it in spirit. We have now moved away from the uneasy frontier to the heartlands of the kingdom of León. The diocese comprised the area of the plains surrounding the city; a strip of mountainous country running from the head waters of the river Orbigo down to Sanabria; and beyond this chain of hills the fertile depression known as El Bierzo in which the town of Ponferrada is set. The see was an old one, having been restored about 840. It had a monastic complexion, for some of the monasteries in the monastic 'connection' of St. Fructuosus were revived in the tenth century, notably by Bishop Gennadius (c. 899-920). Astorga was situated at an important point in the road-system of medieval Spain: beside the least difficult of the passes from the Leonese plain into Galicia, at the point where the Roman road from Lugo swung south towards Mérida, and on the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela. Not surprisingly, the see was rich, and we shall find later on that it could afford to support a very large chapter. Constitutionally, Astorga was in the province of Braga. This seems never to have been questioned during the twelfth century. Successive [46] popes confirmed it, and we possess the texts of several professions of obedience from the bishops of Astorga to their metropolitan.⁽⁶⁴⁾

Nearly all the archives of Astorga were destroyed in the course of the last century. An eighteenth-century index to them survives⁽⁶⁵⁾ and this has to be the principal source for the history of the diocese. Information filtered to us in this way is, necessarily, tantalizingly incomplete, and the history of the see cannot fail to be bald.

The diocese suffered during the civil wars between Urraca and Alfonso el Batallador after the death of Alfonso VI. What little we know of Bishops Pelayo and Alo shows them attempting to restore ordered ecclesiastical life after the ravages of war.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Pelayo may have been an archdeacon of Astorga before his promotion:⁽⁶⁷⁾ Alo seems to have been an important officer in the royal writing office.⁽⁶⁸⁾ Roberto, Alo's successor, had a French name, and is presumably to be identified with the archdeacon Roberto who subscribed episcopal acta of 1117 and 1129-30.⁽⁶⁹⁾ Two short-lived bishops succeeded him. Jimeno Eriz, previously an archdeacon, was a member of a prominent local family.⁽⁷⁰⁾ Amadeo is only a name.

Arnaldo I was closely associated with the royal court. It has been suggested that he was the author of the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris.⁽⁷¹⁾ All we know of him for certain is that he was sent on embassies to the counts of Barcelona and Montpellier late in 1146 or early in 1147 and that he served [47] in the Almería campaign of 1147.⁽⁷²⁾ Alfonso VII rewarded him well for his loyal services.⁽⁷³⁾ His successor Pedro Cristiano was a religious; he had been abbot of the Cistercian monastery of San Martín de Castañeda. He was a nobleman by birth, possibly connected with the great count Ponce de Cabrera, who stood high in the counsels of Alfonso VII and later of his son Fernando II.⁽⁷⁴⁾ Hardly anything is known of his two successors, Fernando I and Arnaldo II.

Fernando II was praised in the warmest terms by his king, and it would not be unreasonable to guess that he was a royal nominee.⁽⁷⁵⁾ His was not a happy episcopate. His desire to reward his relations led to an unseemly dispute with his chapter, in the course of which the bishop was detected in a rash attempt to forge papal letters.⁽⁷⁶⁾ Early in the reign of the new king, Alfonso IX, he fell out with the royal court and was expelled from his diocese, after which we lose sight of him.⁽⁷⁷⁾ As usual, we know nothing of the circumstances. The new bishop, Lope, probably identical with the archdeacon of that name who appears in documents of 1172 and 1174⁽⁷⁸⁾, and presumably -- in view of his predecessor's fate -- acceptable to the king,⁽⁷⁹⁾ found himself saddled with the dispute with the cathedral chapter. Towards the end of his episcopate one of his canons accused him before the pope of perjury, simony and murder (by poisoning); and though the bishop and his supporters rallied, it is clear that the church of Astorga was in a poor way by the time that Lope died in 1205.⁽⁸⁰⁾

Pedro Andrés, a member of the combative chapter⁽⁸¹⁾ and son of a prominent local nobleman, succeeded him. All that [48] we know of him is connected with military and political activities, and though he attended the Lateran Council of 1215 we may hazard the guess that he was not the sort of bishop to whom Innocent III would have committed, from choice, the reanimation of the life of the church.⁽⁸²⁾ The legate John of Abbeville, a churchman whose standards were admittedly exacting, remarked sourly in 1228 that the diocese was one in qua nulla erat ordinatio.⁽⁸³⁾ The records of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries are very meagre; yet it does look as though he was not exaggerating.

Orense
 

Diego	1097 X 1100	1132
Martín	1133	1156-7
Pedro Seguin	1157	1169
Adán	1169	1173-4
Alfonso	1174	1213
Fernando Méndez	1213	1218

The diocese of Orense, roughly co-extensive with the modern province of the same name, lay close to the northern frontier of what in the first half of the twelfth century was fast becoming the independent kingdom of Portugal. Within the diocese, the principal manifestation of the strained relations between León and Portugal lay in the complex quarrel between the bishops of Orense and their metropolitan, the archbishops of Braga, over diocesan boundaries.⁽⁸⁴⁾ It would appear that the bishops of Orense never wavered in their political allegiance to the kings of León. This was partly because they were for the most part chosen from among the loyal servants of the crown; partly because they needed royal protection -- to relieve the poverty of their see, and to guard them against their great ecclesiastical rival in the diocese, the abbey of Celanova. Founded in 936 by St. Rosendo, it had acquired a pre-eminence among Galician monasteries owing to its association with the movement of monastic 'reform' which he led and the great wealth with which the piety of noble families [49] had endowed it. This position was enhanced in the century from c.970 to c.1070, when the bishopric of Orense was abandoned, while the monastery continued to flourish. A prolonged dispute over Celanova's claim to exemption took place in the twelfth century.

The see of Orense was restored in 1071. Diego was its third bishop. Previously a canon of Compostela, he remained an associate of Diego Gelmírez after his promotion, being employed by him, for example, as an envoy to the papal curia in 1118-19.⁽⁸⁵⁾ He was a staunch supporter of Queen Urraca in the civil war of her reign.⁽⁸⁶⁾ His successor Martin had been one of the royal capellani,⁽⁸⁷⁾ and that he remained closely connected with the king is shown by the very large number of royal charters which he subscribed during his episcopate. He was, further, employed by Alfonso VII on a mission to the papal curia late in 1135 or early in 1136.⁽⁸⁸⁾

The same close connection with the kings of León seems to have been maintained during the episcopates of Martin's two successors, Pedro Seguin and Adán. Alfonso VII 'rejoiced' in Pedro's appointment, and Fernando II addressed him in terms which suggest that he may have been that king's confessor.⁽⁸⁹⁾ Pedro seems previously to have been connected in some way with the church of Compostela.⁽⁹⁰⁾ A not implausible tradition has it that he was a Frenchman, from Poitou.⁽⁹¹⁾ We are fortunate in possessing the letter which the chapter of Orense wrote to the archbishop of Braga to announce its election of Adán as Pedro's successor in 1169.⁽⁹²⁾ We learn that he had been prior of the cathedral, that he was noted for his [50] honestas morum, and that he even non deest in peritia litterarum. From other sources we learn that he had been the royal chancellor in 1166-7.⁽⁹³⁾ Flórez drew attention to a document which referred to an interdict upon the diocese of Orense in April 1173 and surmised that its bishop had defended the marriage of Fernando II to Urraca of Portugal which had recently been dissolved by the legate Cardinal Hyacinth.⁽⁹⁴⁾ The guess is reasonable; it is what we should expect from an ex-chancellor whose see lay on the frontier of León and Portugal.

Our last two bishops of Orense are barely more than names, though the first of them occupied the see for nearly forty years. Alfonso may have been dean of Orense before his promotion.⁽⁹⁵⁾ Most of what we know of him concerns his somewhat stormy relations with the monasteries of his diocese.⁽⁹⁶⁾ His successor Fernando Méndez held the see for only a short time, most of it outside our period. He too was probably dean of Orense before succeeding to the bishopric.⁽⁹⁷⁾

Tuy
 

Alfonso	1097	1131
Pelayo Menéndez	1131	1155-6
Isidoro	1156	1166-7
Juan	1168	1172
Beltrán	1173	1187
Pedro	1188	1205
Suero	1206	1215

Orense was not a rich bishopric; Tuy was certainly poorer. Situated on the north bank of the Miño some ten miles from the Atlantic, it was remote as well, not easily reached from the hinterland of the Spanish peninsula. Its good communications by sea had been its undoing at an earlier date: Viking and Saracen raids had extinguished the bishopric for much of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Restored in 1070, the see [51] had not had time to recover from this unhappy history before the political disputes which led to the secession of Portugal from León broke out early in the twelfth century, and these ran imperceptibly into a time of sporadic warfare and uneasy truces which lasted into the thirteenth. The town of Tuy changed hands several times. Parts of the diocese lay to the south of the Miño, in what became Portugal. Tuy lay in the metropolitan province of Braga. The political allegiance of the bishops, judged on the evidence of their subscriptions to royal charters, wavered uncertainly between the house of León and that of Portugal. No bishopric could have prospered under such handicaps.

Alfonso, third bishop of Tuy after the restoration of the see, has left few traces for the historian. He may have been one of the archdeacons of that name who witnessed a royal charter of 1095.⁽⁹⁸⁾ We can trace, with the aid of charter-subscriptions, the way in which he shifted his political loyalties to adapt to changing circumstances during his long episcopate. But this is all that may be said about him. We can form a slightly clearer picture of Pelayo Menéndez who succeeded him in 1131. He was a member of the local nobility, though not of its highest ranks. He was a patron of monasteries: with his brother Suero he tried to restore the monastery of Barrantes in 1151;⁽⁹⁹⁾ he was a benefactor of the monastery of Oya, and may indeed have been instrumental in founding this house.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ At Tuy itself he introduced the Augustinian Rule for his cathedral chapter in 1138.⁽¹⁰¹⁾

The first half of Pelayo's episcopate was a time of political disturbance, but its second half, after the treaty between León and Portugal in 1143, was more tranquil. This was not to last. After the death of Alfonso VII in 1157 the tenuous peace broke down, and further warfare occurred in the years 1159-65. Bishop Isidoro, who held the see during these years, [52] is an obscure figure. Allegedly Portuguese by birth,⁽¹⁰²⁾ he seems to have remained loyal to the king of León until the summer of 1163, after which we next find him acting in a plea with the king of Portugal in April 1165.⁽¹⁰³⁾ He may have seen which way the wind was blowing, for it was very probably in 1165 that Tuy and the area round it, known as Toroño, was ceded by Fernando II of León to Afonso Henriques of Portugal.

The arrangement did not last for long. In 1169, by a lucky chance, the king of Portugal fell into Leonese hands at Badajoz, and Fernando II was able to exact Tuy and Toroño from him as the price of his release. Having recovered the lost province, Fernando revenged himself upon it for what one suspects was treachery in 1165, and took steps to ensure that the loss should not occur again. The king's actions are bafflingly hard to understand, mainly because the quarrel between the bishop and the concejo of Tuy in the mid-thirteenth century led to forgery -- or at least liberal interpolation -- of the royal charters issued in 1170 which form our sole evidence for them. For Tuy the only permanent result was the bodily removal of the town, on the king's orders, to a new and stronger site, where it has since remained. For Bishop Juan (of whose antecedents nothing is known) the consequences were serious. He had to buy the royal goodwill with a large money payment, he was stripped of some of his property, and (at least for a time) was deprived of some, possibly all, the powers which he had exercised as lord of the town of Tuy.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ One is tempted to wonder whether it is entirely coincidental that Bishop Juan disappears from our records at a time when a papal legate, Cardinal Hyacinth, was in Spain with full power to depose bishops.

The bishopric had little time to recover from the violent events of 1170. Hostilities between León and Portugal occurred again in 1179 and perhaps in 1188. The general [53] warfare which engulfed all the Christian kingdoms of the Peninsula broke out in 1196 and dragged on until 1208. The bishops of this period are hardly more than names. Beltrán's obit was recorded in the book of anniversaries of Sta. Cruz de Coimbra; perhaps he retired there after his resignation of the see in 1187.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ He had received grants from both the king of Portugal and the king of León.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ Virtually nothing is known of his successor Pedro. The last of our bishops, Suero, had previously been dean of Tuy, and is probably to be identified with the Archdeacon Suero Menéndez, dilectus of Fernando II, who had received a grant from that king in 1180.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ In 1204 the archbishop of Compostela remitted the payment of votos de Santiago due from the church of Tuy -- an indication of the financial plight of the diocese.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ It would not be unreasonable to suppose that the see was as poverty-striken at the end of the twelfth century as at its beginning.

Santiago de Compostela
 

Diego Gelmírez	1100	1140
Berengar (elected)	1141-2
Pedro Helias	1143	1149
Berengar	1150	1151
Bernardo	1151	1152
Pelayo	1153	1155
Martín	1156	1167
Pedro Gudestéiz	1167	1173
Pedro Suárez de Deza	1173	1206
Pedro Múñoz	1206	1224

Some fifty miles to the north of Tuy lies the town of Santiago de Compostela, the seat of what was in the twelfth century incomparably the richest and most renowned of the bishoprics of the kingdom of León. As the shrine of St. James, Compostela attracted pilgrims from all parts of Latin Christendom. Much of the history of the diocese in the twelfth century turns upon the resentments aroused by the prestige [54] and wealth which the pilgrims brought to the guardians of the apostle's resting-place. We are specially well-informed about that history for reasons already discussed.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ Santiago de Compostela is the only church in twelfth-century León to have left us a considerable piece of native historical writing in the Historia Compostellana; its archives have survived in abundance: and it has been fortunate in its local historian, Antonio López Ferreiro.

Yet the survival of the Historia Compostellana is not an unmixed blessing. In the first place, its authors were devoted and uncritical admirers of Diego Gelmírez, and they did less than justice to two among his immediate predecessors, Diego Peláez (c. 1070-88) and the Cluniac monk Dalmatius (1094-5). These bishops anticipated some of the work of Diego Gelmírez. He continued an established tradition, he did not initiate a new one. In the second place, we have no comparable sources for the period after 1140. The archbishops of the years 1140 to 1173 are shadowy figures, and even the second great archbishop of the century, Pedro Suárez de Deza, is a man about whom we know very little. We must beware of looking at the church of Compostela through the glass of the Historia alone, and of unduly neglecting that part of the see's history which falls outside its scope.

Yet even when we have taken these considerations into account, Diego Gelmírez remains a commanding figure.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ A member of the local Galician nobility, he was educated at the cathedral school of Compostela and spent some time in the household of Bishop Diego Peláez, before choosing the high road to ecclesiastical preferment -- service to the crown. He spent a little time at the court of Alfonso VI, and then moved to the household of Raymond of Burgundy, count of Galicia, whose cancellarius et secretarius he became.⁽¹¹¹⁾ At Raymond's instance he became administrator of the vacant diocese during the years 1093-4 and 1095-1100 before becoming its bishop in the summer of 1100.

[55] Diego devoted his episcopate to the increase of the wealth, fame and power of St. James and his church of Compostela. In fulfilling this aim he was signally successful. His character was not a complex one: ambitious, unscrupulous, tirelessly energetic, he had many of the qualities which make for success in a bishop. To contemporaries, the material prosperity of the see must have been the most obvious indication of Diego's good stewardship. It was based partly on grants of land from the rulers of León-Castile, partly on the offerings of pilgrims, the stream of whom he encouraged until it became a flood, and it enabled him to give outward expression of it by building (among much else) his magnificent cathedral and the imposing palace next to it. Diego himself perhaps measured his success by a different yardstick -- the enhanced dignity of his position. Here his most notable triumphs were the elevation of his see to metropolitan status in 1120; his interventions in the confused politics of the reign of Urraca; and the control of the royal chancery conceded to him by Alfonso VII in 1127. These were only the highest peaks in a whole mountain range, but they were those which occasioned him most trouble and afforded him most satisfaction. We today might use a different measure again -- the position he built for his church in Galician society. For example, he defended the coasts of Galicia from pirates by building a fleet, he protected merchants from molestation inland, he tackled the problem of disorder by proclaiming the Truce of God, he legislated on prices and measures.

These successes were won only at a price, and the enmities aroused during the archiepiscopate of Diego Gelmírez were extensive, bitter and lasting. They sprang from four roots. First, there was a good deal of friction between Diego and certain of the local nobility -- the sort of trouble that was a hazard in the experience of any twelfth-century bishopric, rather than a problem peculiar to the see of Compostela. Second, there was opposition to Diego from certain members of his own chapter and from the townspeople of Compostela. These strands of opposition had different origins, but could come together into something formidable. The citizens resented the archiepiscopal señorío over the town, and their grievances erupted into violence on two occasions, in 1116-17 [56] and 1136.⁽¹¹²⁾ What made these revolts specially alarming was the participation in them of some of the canons. The government of the see under Diego was something of a family affair; his two brothers, and a nephew, held important charges. Again he had favourites, familiares, upon whose counsel he greatly relied -- the men, indeed, whose views are expressed in the Historia. These men were singled out by the rebels in 1116-17, and some of them suffered.⁽¹¹³⁾ Two in particular among the canons were mentioned by its authors as the ringleaders of this domestic opposition, Bernardo and his relative Pedro Helias. These were able and powerful men. Both were originally creatures of Diego and both later quarrelled with him. Bernardo, engineer, archivist and royal chancellor, he contrived to ruin in 1133-4. Pedro Helias, dean of Compostela from 1122-4, remained to command the opposition, and in 1143 he succeeded Diego as archbishop.

The other movements of opposition came from other prelates and from the king. The archbishops of Toledo resented the concession of the archbishopric to Compostela, were bent on establishing their own primacy throughout the ecclesiastical provinces of the Spains, and contested certain of Compostela's claims to suffragans. Generally, they were jealous of Compostela's fame and huge wealth; whatever it became later, Toledo was not a rich see in the twelfth century.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ Braga and Compostela squabbled over suffragans and lands, with a bitterness which increased as the political separation of Portugal from León became an accepted fact.

The quarrels with the king were rooted in certain harsh facts of twelfth-century royal finance. We have already seen that the sudden cutting-off of the revenue drawn from parias as a result of the Almoravide invasion had presented the crown with a prolonged and severe financial crisis which handicapped its operations throughout the century.⁽¹¹⁵⁾ Among [57] remedial expedients, that which has left the most obvious traces in our records was the spoliation of the secular church, resorted to with varying degrees of success by Urraca, Alfonso VII and Fernando II. The richest see in the kingdom was Santiago de Compostela, and it is not surprising to find that rulers made repeated efforts to tap its resources. Sometimes, as Diego found in his relations with Alfonso VII, a mutually acceptable bargain could be struck; he received the privilege de bonis non occupandis in 1128 by giving the king immensam pecuniam.... incomputabilem pecuniam.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ At other times he was less fortunate.

The stresses set up by these enmities weakened the archbishopric during the years 1140 to 1173. This is an obscure period in its history, but an important one. The sources are so poor that even the chronology of the archbishops who succeeded Diego Gelmírez in these years is in doubt.⁽¹¹⁷⁾ Berengar, who failed to secure the see in 1141-2 but succeeded in 1150-1, had previously been bishop of Salamanca.⁽¹¹⁸⁾ At Compostela he was the royal candidate in 1141-2, and was strongly opposed by the local candidate, Pedro Helias, dean of Compostela, the erstwhile opponent of Diego Gelmírez. Pedro was an old man, he had been a canon in 1102,⁽¹¹⁹⁾ and his tenure of the see was uneventful.

Berengar succeeded him in 1150-1, but for so short a time that he eluded the vigilance even of López Ferreiro, and was in turn followed by Bernardo, previously bishop of the Castilian see of Sigüenza from 1121 to 1151. Bernardo was a Frenchman, a native of Agen, who had been brought to Spain by Archbishop Bernardo of Toledo. He had become a canon, and then precentor, of Toledo, and then bishop of Sigüenza. His uncle was bishop of Segovia, and his brother bishop of Palencia. Both these men were closely associated with Alfonso [58] VII, and so was Bernardo -- he had served in the royal chancery, for he subscribes two royal diplomas as imperatoris capellanus.⁽¹²⁰⁾ The bishopric of Sigüenza was a difficult assignment. Not only was it a newly-restored diocese, Bernardo being its first bishop, but it was also close to the no-man's-land where Castile and Aragon marched together. Bernardo tackled the business of restoring ecclesiastical life and resettling the land with energy. Such success as he had was mainly owing to the consistent support of Alfonso VII, with whom he perforce remained closely linked. As a candidate for the see of Compostela Bernardo looks like a king's man. Whether he was equally acceptable to Galician opinion we do not know. In any event, he held the archbishopric for a very short time.

His successor Pelayo was a local man, previously an archdeacon in the diocese.⁽¹²¹⁾ His relations with the ageing Alfonso VII seem to have been good. It was during the archiepiscopate of his successor Martín that relations with the crown deteriorated into open conflict. Martín had been bishop of Oviedo from 1143 to 1156, but it seems probable that he too was a native of Compostela or its neighbourhood.⁽¹²²⁾ In 1160 he and Fernando II quarrelled bitterly.⁽¹²³⁾ The sources of the dispute are obscure. What is clear is that the quarrel lasted seven years, in the course of which Martín was twice expelled from and twice restored to his see, royal nominees being substituted during each period of exile (1160-4, 1165-7). He died soon after his final restoration in 1167. His successor was definitely a king's man; formerly tutor to Fernando II and royal chancellor in 1159-60, he had been bishop of Mondoñedo since 1155.⁽¹²⁴⁾ At Compostela he may have done something [59] to remedy the ills which had been caused in the life of the archbishopric during the upheavals of the years 1140-67. He carried out some reforms in the chapter and was quick to establish friendly relations with the nascent Order of Santiago.⁽¹²⁵⁾ But his tenure of the see was not long. The primacy dispute re-opened; he may have fallen foul of Cardinal Hyacinth during his legatine visit of 1172-3; his past may have proved embarrassing; he may have lost the support of Fernando II. For whatever reason, he resigned his see in 1173 and was succeeded in it by Pedro Suárez de Deza, another ex-royal chancellor and previously bishop of Salamanca.⁽¹²⁶⁾

The effects of the confused events between 1140 and 1173 were serious. Owing to the short archiepiscopates, there had been a break in the continuity of archiepiscopal action and guidance which must have weakened the archbishopric both morally and financially. The temporalities of the see had been despoiled by Fernando II and encroached upon by some of the local nobility, notably some of the members of the Traba family. The chapter had been internally divided: this was most evident during the time of Archbishop Martín, when the opposition to him was headed by one of his canons, the archdeacon Fernando Curialis, who was nominated by the king to the archbishopric in 1160-1. Relations with Braga and Toledo had been poor: the loyalty of Compostelan suffragans in Portugal and Extremadura was severely strained. In the various tribulations of the see the popes, when not hostile like Adrian IV, were too fearful, like Alexander III, of alienating royal support to venture to do much for a persecuted archbishop. We hear nothing of disaffection in the town of Santiago de Compostela: but, this apart, every element of opposition roused by the policies of Diego Gelmírez had become menacing after his death.

Pedro Suárez's tenure of the see was long, but we are oddly ill-informed about it. No biography has survived (if one were ever written) and documents from Compostela are rather scarce. The best guide to his work was given long ago by [60] López Ferreiro.⁽¹²⁷⁾ In brief, he restored the position of the see of Compostela and based its new security upon friendships rather than upon enmities. The stages by which this was achieved are lost to us, but something of Pedro's methods may be gleaned from the surviving sources. He settled any outstanding disputes with the lay nobility and maintained good relations with them thenceforward. With both Fernando II and Alfonso IX he succeeded in keeping on good terms, even at the period of the interdict imposed on the kingdom of León in punishment of the incestuous marriages of the latter. He effected certain reforms: a reorganization of the machinery of diocesan administration; the promulgation of capitular statutes; a sustained attempt to secure a revenue, with royal assistance, from the votos de Santiago. He completed the building operations at Santiago de Compostela, which had probably been suspended between 1140 and 1173, and it is to his archiepiscopate that the pórtico de la gloria belongs. Himself a theologian and perhaps a canon-lawyer, he patronized other canon-lawyers like Bernardus Compostellanus Antiquus and possibly Martín Arias of Zamora. His relations with the papacy were close: he attended the Third Lateran Council in 1179, secured papal support for the reforms he wished to introduce and, above all, received favourable rulings from Innocent III on the question on his suffragans; Coimbra and Viseu were given up, but Lisbon, Evora, Lamego and Idanha were definitively placed in the province of Santiago de Compostela, while Zamora, on which there was no ruling, fell in to Compostela in the course of the thirteenth century.

The stability thus achieved was needful; but the vaulting ambitions of the days of Diego Gelmírez had been discarded. Pedro Suárez's successor Pedro Múñoz was another Galician who had been associated with the see of León, as dean and then, very briefly in 1205-6, as bishop.⁽¹²⁸⁾ His archiepiscopate has left little trace in our records. He seems to have continued the modest labours of his predecessor, conscientiously and successfully enough. But the heroic days of the see of Santiago [61] de Compostela, one cannot help but feel, had passed, never to return.

Mondoñedo
 

Gonzalo	c.1071	1108?
Pedro	1109?	1110
Nuño Alfonso	1112	1136
Pelayo	1136	1155
Pedro Gudestéiz	1155	1167
Juan	1169	1172
Rabinato	1172	1199
Pelayo	1199	1218

Mondoñedo was a miserable little diocese. Its land was economically unremunerative and exposed to attack from the sea; the endowments of the bishopric were meagre; and the bishops were overshadowed in wealth and influence by the great monastery of Lorenzana. The see entered the twelfth century inauspiciously, under Bishop Gonzalo, a member of the great Galician house of Traba.⁽¹²⁹⁾ Gonzalo struggled to hold on to what he had and to get more, but to no avail. He failed to defend the territorial integrity of his diocese against the acquisitiveness of Diego Gelmírez;⁽¹³⁰⁾ he failed to retain control of outlying enclaves of his territory in the diocese of Braga;⁽¹³¹⁾ and he failed to pull off a rather dubious deal with Alfonso VI which would have given him a large tract of the lands of the monastery of Lorenzana.⁽¹³²⁾

Gonzalo's successor was one Pedro, whose episcopate has hitherto gone unnoticed. He is no more than a name to us, but there are faint hints in the surviving sources of difficulties, perhaps even of schism in the diocese.⁽¹³³⁾ He appears to have [62] resigned his see. His successor Nuño Alfonso is better known to us. He had received his early training at the hands of Diego Gelmírez and had been a canon, and later treasurer, of Compostela. He was employed by his patron on three missions to the papal curia between 1100 and 1104, and was one of the authors of Book I of the Historia Compostellana.⁽¹³⁴⁾ He was evidently regarded as a close and trusted intimate, and it is reasonable to suppose that it was at least partly at the instance of Diego that he became bishop of Mondoñedo in 1112.⁽¹³⁵⁾

The most important event of his episcopate was the movement of the seat of his bishopric from San Martín de Mondoñedo to Villamayor de Brea (the present town of Mondoñedo), some ten miles inland to the south. The decision to move it was taken at the council of Palencia in 1113.⁽¹³⁶⁾ We are not told why it was taken, and it has been assumed that the old site on the coast was dangerously exposed to the attacks of Moorish, 'Norman' and 'English' pirates, such as we know occurred sporadically throughout this period.⁽¹³⁷⁾ But piracy was no new phenomenon, and no historian who accepts this explanation has been able to show convincingly why the translation took place in 1113 and not at any other time. On the other hand we do hear of a serious dispute between Bishop Nuño and the monastery of Lorenzana in 1112.⁽¹³⁸⁾ This was a recurrence of one of the troubles which had vexed Bishop Gonzalo, and since the monks had now found a protector in Count Rodigo Vélaz -- a powerful Galician nobleman who was probably descended from the tenth-century founder of the monastery -- the bishop's discomfiture may have been acute. It is at least possible that the translation of the see in 1113 was an attempt to move its centre away from an area close to Lorenzana and in the heart of Count Rodrigo's lands between the rivers Eo and Sor, where it seemed bound to cause trouble.

Later on in life, Nuño Alfonso became an important royal [63] servant. The wording of a royal charter of 1 June 1125 suggests that already by that date he was in the service of the young Alfonso VII.⁽¹³⁹⁾ In 1126 he appears among a number of regales nuntii, and he subscribes five royal charters of the same year as capellanus regis.⁽¹⁴⁰⁾ The fact that in 1133 he was given the custody of the luckless ex-chancellor Bernardo suggests that he had remained closely attached to the crown.⁽¹⁴¹⁾

On his resignation in 1136 -- he retired to Compostela where he founded a house of Augustinian canons⁽¹⁴²⁾ -- he was succeeded by Pelayo, previously abbot of Lorenzana. This is a tantalizing scrap of knowledge. Had the monks managed to slip their own candidate into the vacant see? If so, was this in opposition to the royal will? Pelayo received not a single royal grant during his nineteen-year episcopate, and subscribed remarkably few royal charters.⁽¹⁴³⁾ Moreover, his tenure of the see came to an abrupt end when he was deposed at the council of Valladolid in 1155 -- a council in which the king played an active part.⁽¹⁴⁴⁾

Pedro Gudestéiz was elected at once to fill the vacant see, which he held until his promotion to the archbishopric of Compostela in 1167. There is every reason to suppose that he was a royal appointment. Previously a canon and then prior of Sar -- the house of Augustinian canons founded by Nuño Alfonso -- he had been tutor to the young Fernando II..⁽¹⁴⁵⁾ During that king's reign he reaped the fullness of his reward. Virtually all the royal charters of the years 1159-63 were witnessed by him, which testifies to his position as a close [64] royal counsellor. He was the king's chancellor in 1159-60, and in 1167 his mayordomo;⁽¹⁴⁶⁾ he accompanied the king into Castile, and was present at Agreda when Fernando II and Alfonso II entered into alliance;⁽¹⁴⁷⁾ and he received generous grants from the king. Above all, when the great dispute between Fernando II and Archbishop Martín of Compostela broke out in the 1160s, Pedro Gudestéiz was one of the nominees whom the king tried to foist upon the 'vacant' diocese.

On his translation to Compostela he was succeeded at Mondoñedo by a certain Juan, who is only a name to us. After a short episcopate, Juan was followed by another bishop, Rabinato, who had been closely connected with the royal government. He had served in the chancery of Alfonso VII, probably also in that of Fernando II.⁽¹⁴⁸⁾ Before his promotion he had held in addition an archdeaconry in the diocese.⁽¹⁴⁹⁾ During his episcopate the seat of the bishopric was moved yet again: in 1182 it was shifted from Villamayor de Brea to Ribadeo, at the mouth of the Eo, where it was to stay for about the next fifty years.⁽¹⁵⁰⁾ The king's words, in the royal charter which is our only record of the decision, are vague -- pro ipsius ecclesie statu meliori -- but there are hints of conflict with the local nobility, and we may sense that the period at Villamayor, from 1113 to 1182, had been no more happy than the period before that at San Martín de Mondoñedo.

Very little is known of Rabinato's successor Pelayo. His family may have come from the diocese of Astorga, where his mother (sic) had held the patronage of a canonry.⁽¹⁵¹⁾ The few [65] documents we have concerning his episcopate show him acquiring land near Ribadeo and raising funds for the building of a cathedral there.⁽¹⁵²⁾

Lugo
 

Pedro II	c.1098	1113
Pedro III	1113	1133?
Guido	1135?	1152
Juan	1152	1181
Rodrigo I	1181	1182
Rodrigo III	1182	1218

Lugo, to the south of Mondoñedo, was the seat of a bishopric next in importance, among Galician sees, to the metropolitan at Compostela. Like Astorga, Lugo owed its standing to its position on the Roman road from Mérida to the northwest and on the pilgrimage route from France to the shrine of St. James. Already before 1100 it was a busy town, the site of a royal mint and of a monthly market to which merchants came under royal protection.⁽¹⁵³⁾ Not long before the beginning of our period, in 1085-6, the hold of Alfonso VI over Galicia had been challenged by a serious revolt, whose centre lay in Lugo, led by Count Rodrigo Ovéquiz. The reestablishment of royal power in the area had been effected largely by a close association of king and bishop; and this, together with the privileges already held by the bishops -- notably the señorío of the town of Lugo -- contributed to make them both rich and powerful when our period opens.

Little is known of Bishop Pedro II, beyond the fact that he resigned his see at the council of Palencia in 1113.⁽¹⁵⁴⁾ The guarded words of our authority suggest that he had been a somewhat ineffective diocesan, unable adequately to care for his see during the troubled years of the war which followed the death of Alfonso VI. His namesake and successor seems to have been more forceful. Like many another bishop he [66] was promoted from the royal service; he had been a capellanus regine before his appointment, and there are indications that he remained closely attached to the queen.⁽¹⁵⁵⁾ He reorganized the chapter of Lugo, was active in acquiring endowments for his see, started to build a new cathedral and maintained close relations with the papacy.⁽¹⁵⁶⁾ To some of these activities we shall have to return later on.

His successor Guido was French by birth,⁽¹⁵⁷⁾ and had previously been prior of the chapter of Lugo.⁽¹⁵⁸⁾ Having said this, however, we have said all that we can of him. He in his turn was succeeded by Juan, a Benedictine monk who had been abbot since at least 1145 of the important monastery of Samos. That he was acceptable to the king is shown by the letter which Alfonso VII wrote to the archbishop of Braga requesting his consecration.⁽¹⁵⁹⁾ He seems to have been extensively employed in the royal service during his episcopate. He went on probably two royal embassies to the papal curia. He acted as a pesquisador.⁽¹⁶⁰⁾ Yet another side of his secular activities is illustrated by a record of his having preached a campaign against the Moors of Mérida.⁽¹⁶¹⁾ Fernando II spoke approvingly of him,⁽¹⁶²⁾ and Bishop Juan in return received royal assistance in his own troubles -- for example, in enforcing episcopal authority over the town of Lugo when the citizens were in revolt in 1159-61 and 1178.⁽¹⁶³⁾ At the same time he contrived to remain a loyal suffragan of the archbishop of Braga, who was the closest adviser of Fernando II's enemy [67] the king of Portugal: it was on orders from Braga that Juan consecrated Guillermo bishop of Zamora in 1175, in defiance of the wishes of the archbishop of Compostela and his suffragans.⁽¹⁶⁴⁾ Though he acted as an intermediary between king and pope in the dispute over archbishop Martín of Compostela in the 1160s, he was in other respects a devoted servant of the papacy. He sought decretal letters from Alexander III, probably attended the Lateran, council of 1179, and reformed his cathedral chapter at the bidding of the legate Cardinal Hyacinth.⁽¹⁶⁵⁾

Juan's successor has almost entirely escaped the notice of historians, who have been content to follow Risco, the eighteenth-century editor of España Sagrada, in assuming that one bishop named Rodrigo presided over the see of Lugo from 1181 to 1218. In fact there were two Rodrigos, Rodrigo Menéndez and Rodrigo Fernández.⁽¹⁶⁶⁾ Rodrigo Menéndez had been a royal clerk; he had been in the service of Fernando II even before the latter's accession to the throne in 1157.⁽¹⁶⁷⁾ He had been dean of Lugo from at least 1168, and may have been an archdeacon from as early as 1155.⁽¹⁶⁸⁾ His short episcopate was troubled by strained relations with the citizens of Lugo, as was also the much longer episcopate of his namesake and successor. Rodrigo II, despite the length of his tenure, has left us few traces of his activity beyond a good collection of acta which will claim attention in a later chapter. The indications are that he too was promoted from the royal service.⁽¹⁶⁹⁾ He held his own against the rebellious citizens; he defended the boundaries of his diocese against the encroachments of León and Orense; he may have added to the cathedral of Lugo.⁽¹⁷⁰⁾ But, like so many of his contemporaries in the second half of the century, he remains obscure.

León
 

Pedro	1087?	1111?
Diego	1112-13	1130
Arias	1130	1135
Pedro Anáyaz	1135	1139
Juan	1139	1181
Manrique de Lara	1181	1205
Pedro Múñoz	1205	1206
Pelayo Pérez	1207	1208
Rodrigo Álvarez	1208	1232

León and Oviedo, our last two bishoprics, had certain features in common. Neither had been a bishopric during the Visigothic period, they were products of the Reconquista. Both had enjoyed a time of wealth and renown which was fading in the twelfth century. The see of León had but recently passed its prime. Under the kings of the tenth and eleventh centuries León had been the urbs regia: the most frequent residence of the kings of León, the heart of their 'empire' whose nature has been so hotly disputed by historians, its church the favoured recipient of their most splendid acts of piety and, at the end, their mausoleum. A change came during the reign of Alfonso VI. His conquest of Toledo, the gradual absorption of Galicia under his sway and the preservation of the union of Castile with León all tended to make the monarchy less exclusively 'Leonese' than it had been. The town was prosperous -- it had an important Jewish community -- and the last of the king-emperors, Alfonso VII, was crowned there in 1135. Yet one has a sense that the bishops of the twelfth century were gradually, and sometimes painfully, adjusting themselves to changed and straightened circumstances.⁽¹⁷¹⁾

One of the thorns in the bishops' sides, at least during the first half of the century, was the claim of the church of Toledo that León should be numbered among her suffragans, a claim which was given effect by papal recognition in 1099. [69] The most notable achievement of our first bishop, Pedro, was to secure a privilege of exemption from Paschal II in 1104.⁽¹⁷²⁾ Little is otherwise known of him, and the end of his episcopate is blanketed in obscurity. He was expelled from his see by the king of Aragon in the war that followed the death of Alfonso VI, probably after the battle of Candespina in 1111, and died in exile. The vacant see was usurped for a short time by Archbishop Maurice of Braga, before the accession of Bishop Diego.⁽¹⁷³⁾

The new bishop was a nephew of his predecessor.⁽¹⁷⁴⁾ Within his diocese, much of his work was devoted to repairing the damage wrought in the years of war. We find him exploiting new sources of revenue, restoring the property of the chapter and the ecclesiastical routine of the cathedral, settling a dispute with his chapter.⁽¹⁷⁵⁾ He had also to continue the struggle with Toledo. At first he lost the ground gained by his uncle, for in 1121 León and Oviedo were declared "suffragans of Toledo by Calixtus II, a ruling which was confirmed by Honorius II in 1125.⁽¹⁷⁶⁾ But at some point between then and 1130 Diego contrived to have the decision reversed and to regain his lost exemption.⁽¹⁷⁷⁾ It is possible that the conflict with Toledo may help to explain the most puzzling feature of Diego's episcopate -- its end. He was deposed at the council of Carrión in 1130. We do not know why this happened, but [70] we may suspect the machinations of the Toledan party. Our suspicions are strengthened by what we know of Diego's successor Arias. He was consecrated by the archbishop of Toledo, who thereby earned a rebuke from Innocent II.⁽¹⁷⁸⁾ We sense a Toledan connection, but unfortunately know too little of Arias to be able to substantiate it. His successor Pedro may well have been a protégé of Archbishop Diego of Compostela. His connections seem to have been with Galicia. He witnessed one of Diego's acta in 1136.⁽¹⁷⁹⁾ Still more significantly, Innocent II wrote to Diego warning him not to consecrate him.⁽¹⁸⁰⁾ Now Pedro's patronymic was Anáyaz, and it is at least possible that he is to be identified with Pedro Anáyaz, canon and then dean of Compostela, the trusted clerk of Diego Gelmírez, whom he had sent on an important mission to the papal curia in 1118.⁽¹⁸¹⁾ It would not be unreasonable to suppose that Diego, fearing Toledan pretensions over the see of León, took steps -- precisely how we do not know -- to insert his own candidate there.

His successor Juan had a different background. His father Albertino⁽¹⁸²⁾ was a native of León or its neighbourhood, and very probably of French extraction.⁽¹⁸³⁾ He was a man of considerable standing in the royal government during the first two-thirds of the reign of Alfonso VII.⁽¹⁸⁴⁾ There is some reason to suppose that his son Juan was below the canonical age at the time of his appointment to the see in 1139. We may feel confident that as a young man on his promotion, the son of a powerful local man who was also a prominent royal servant, he owed his position to royal favour. That he was certainly a king's man after his promotion is put beyond any doubt by references to him in royal charters.⁽¹⁸⁵⁾ We know little, [71] unfortunately, of the secular activities which such a man must have undertaken in the royal service. We can trace him on one occasion as a secular tenente.⁽¹⁸⁶⁾ He subscribed a large number of royal charters. But this is as much as we can say. We are rather better informed about his activities as a churchman. He preserved León's privilege of exemption, not without difficulty, against renewed attack from Toledo.⁽¹⁸⁷⁾ His surviving acta suggest an energetic administrator. He was a terror to his opponents. When he tried to take over the monastery church of San Isidoro and turn it into his own cathedral the saint had to intervene to prevent his doing so.⁽¹⁸⁸⁾ When a band of eager spirits in the cathedral chapter wanted to introduce the Augustinian Rule he hustled them off to found their own house elsewhere.⁽¹⁸⁹⁾

On his resignation, presumably owing to age, in 1181, Juan was succeeded by Manrique de Lara. He was a member of the greatest noble family of Castile -- not León -- and is therefore one of the very few of our bishops of whom we can say with certainty that he came from the very highest rank in society. His father Pedro Manrique was not one of the most distinguished members of the family, but he had made a splendid marriage to Sancha, infanta of Navarre.⁽¹⁹⁰⁾ The son of this union, the future bishop, had held certain offices in the church of León before 1181; the office of cantor from at least 1165, and that of archdeacon from at least 1168.⁽¹⁹¹⁾ It is difficult to believe that his promotion to the episcopate did not owe something to royal influence. Certainly, as a bishop, he was spoken of warmly by Fernando II and Alfonso IX, and it is no surprise to learn that he took the royal side against the pope in the disputes over the marriages of Alfonso IX.⁽¹⁹²⁾[72] He pursued his predecessor's feud with the canons of San Isidoro, for which the saint blinded him in return, and started to build a new cathedral, but otherwise he has left little record of his long episcopate.⁽¹⁹³⁾

Manrique's successors were very short-lived. Pedro Múñoz, a Galician by birth, and dean of León from at least April 1201,⁽¹⁹⁴⁾ was translated to Compostela after an episcopate of less than a year. Pelayo Pérez died before his consecration. Rodrigo Alvarez was bishop for twenty-four years, but the major part of his episcopate falls outside our period. Consequently he has left little trace upon those records of his first few years which have come down to us.

Oviedo
 

Pelayo	1101?	1130
Alfonso	1130	1142
Pelayo (again)	1142	1143
Martín	1143	1156
Pedro	1156	1161
Gonzalo	1161	1175
Rodrigo	1175	1188
Menendo	1188	1189
Juan	1189	1243

The see of Oviedo, squeezed between the Cantabrian mountains and the Bay of Biscay, had become progressively more isolated from the main currents of Leonese life ever since the Asturian kings had moved the principal seat of their government from Oviedo down to León early in the tenth century. During the twelfth, the virtual independence of the Asturias was being whittled away. Two serious rebellions, in 1132 and 1164, challenged the encroachments of royal authority, but could not hold up its advances altogether. The bishops of Oviedo had also to face a challenge -- a determined attempt by the archbishops of Toledo to incorporate Oviedo in their ecclesiastical province. Like León, Oviedo was declared a suffragan of Toledo in 1099, acquired exemption in [73] 1105, lost it again in 1121, and then had to wait nearly forty years before regaining it.⁽¹⁹⁵⁾ It is from this context that the works of Bishop Pelayo el Fabulador have come down to us. Pelayo is the only one among our bishops who has left a body of writings behind him. Some of his work was original, as for instance the chronicle which deals with the years 982 to 1109,⁽¹⁹⁶⁾ but a large part of the corpus consists of interpolations into earlier works and especially into earlier documents, and it is to this activity that Pelayo owes the nickname which scholars have given him. His work cannot be called an impressive intellectual achievement, but it is of considerable interest to the student of Spanish history, and deserves more critical attention than it has yet received.⁽¹⁹⁷⁾ It was designed to serve a purpose. Pelayo wished to exalt the see of Oviedo, partly through its relics, partly through its glorious past which he had so artfully touched up, the better to be able to establish its independence of any metropolitan. Indeed, he went so far as to claim that the see of Oviedo had itself been a metropolitan see in the ninth and tenth centuries.⁽¹⁹⁸⁾

We would gladly know more of Pelayo than we do. Nothing is known of his background, and the manner in which his episcopate came to an end raises questions which cannot be answered. Like Diego of León, Pelayo was deposed by the legate Cardinal Humbert at the council of Carrión in February 1130.⁽¹⁹⁹⁾ As usual when we search for the reasons behind this we are left groping in darkness. Clearly it must have been in the interests of the church of Toledo to have Pelayo out of the way. What we cannot do is to connect his successor Alfonso with the Toledan interest. Alfonso's career, indeed, is bafflingly hard to make out. We may presume that he was a local man, for he had relatives holding land in the Asturias.⁽²⁰⁰⁾ A royal grant to him dated 18 August 1132 indicates loyalty [74] to Alfonso VII during the revolt of Count Gonzalo Peláez,⁽²⁰¹⁾ and he was certainly present at the imperial coronation in 1135. Our most surprising record of him comes from two papal bulls of 1133.⁽²⁰²⁾ We learn from these that the legate -- presumably Humbert -- had forbidden him to receive consecration, that he had defied this order, and that now, at the request of the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela and the bishops of Lugo and León, he was excommunicated. What was going on? We simply do not know. Whatever it was, the king paid no attention to it; he subscribed one of the bishop's acta dated August 1133, shortly after the arrival of the papal bulls.⁽²⁰³⁾ This might be construed as a faint hint that Bishop Alfonso's connections were with royal circles.

He died early in 1142 and was succeeded by -- Pelayo. After his deposition he had presumably continued to live in Oviedo: in 1136 he had granted some lands near León to the canons of Oviedo, describing himself as quondam Ovetensis ecclesie episcopus.⁽²⁰⁴⁾ He returned to the see in 1142 and occupied it until the early summer of 1143.⁽²⁰⁵⁾ His successor Martín was elected at the council of Valladolid in September. He was a native of Galicia, and had previously been connected, though we do not know exactly how, with the church of Compostela, for he is referred to as Iacobita and as Compostellanus in several documents during his episcopate at Oviedo.⁽²⁰⁶⁾ He may be identical with the Martín Martínez who subscribed an act of Diego Gelmírez in 1136.⁽²⁰⁷⁾ This, and the fact that on the evidence of his subscriptions to royal charters we may judge him to have been an assiduous attender at the royal court, especially in the years 1152-6, perhaps help to explain why he was an acceptable choice for the archbishopric of Compostela in 1156. He attended the council of Rheims in 1148,⁽²⁰⁸⁾ and saw to the settlement of two longstanding boundary [75] disputes with the sees of Lugo and Orense, but we know no more of his episcopate at Oviedo. His successor Pedro was a black monk who had been abbot of San Vicente de Oviedo for over twenty-five years.⁽²⁰⁹⁾ He must therefore have been an elderly man in 1156, and his episcopate was a short one. But it was important, for in 1157 Pedro visited the papal curia and brought back two bulls from Adrian IV by which the exemption of the see was renewed.⁽²¹⁰⁾

This time it was not to be reversed. Alexander III confirmed it in 1162,⁽²¹¹⁾ and we do not hear that it was ever afterwards called in question. This confirmation was given, we may assume, when Pedro's successor visited the curia for consecration. This man, Gonzalo Menéndez, is probably to be identified with the archdeacon of the same name whom we can trace in Oviedo documents from 1136 onwards.⁽²¹²⁾ During his episcopate the second great Asturian rebellion occurred. Very little is known of this, in the absence of any contemporary narrative source for the reign of Fernando II, but one thing is clear: Bishop Gonzalo was a strong supporter of the king and helped him to put down the rebels.⁽²¹³⁾ He had his reward. Royal donations, which had been a trickle under Alfonso VII, became a torrent under his son. We know Fernando II to have been recklessly extravagant yet even so the largesse poured out on Bishop Gonzalo and his see was altogether exceptional. Yet in this respect Gonzalo's episcopate compares ill with that of his successor Rodrigo. Like Gonzalo, he had previously been an archdeacon of Oviedo;⁽²¹⁴⁾ more significantly, he had been the king's chancellor in 1167-8.⁽²¹⁵⁾ Lands and privileges rained down upon him from the king, who spoke of him in extravagantly fulsome terms.⁽²¹⁶⁾ Rodrigo repaid [76] the debt. He lent his king money; he served in the royal army at the siege of Cáceres in 1184.⁽²¹⁷⁾ There is also some evidence that Fernando II used him as something like a viceroy over the difficult province of the Asturias.⁽²¹⁸⁾ After Fernando's death his son Alfonso IX accepted and confirmed the special position of the bishop of Oviedo.⁽²¹⁹⁾

Did it persist? We do not know. Rodrigo's successor Menendo Menéndez held the see for a very short time and has left correspondingly few records of his episcopate. Our last bishop, Juan González, had a very long episcopate. Most of the first ten years of it was spent in a bitter quarrel with Alfonso IX. Juan was the only bishop in the kingdom of León who opposed Alfonso's two marriages which were condemned by Celestine III on the grounds of consanguinity. The king's answer was simple and rapid; the bishop was exiled and his property confiscated.⁽²²⁰⁾He was restored only at the express command of Innocent III.⁽²²¹⁾ We know little more about his long episcopate, but it would be misleading to cast him as a stern upholder of the canon law of the church simply because he stood up to Alfonso IX. Much later on, in the 1220s, his doings were being investigated, and some ugly facts were coming to light.⁽²²²⁾ Whatever the state of the church of Oviedo in the last decade of the twelfth century, it was in a very bad way thirty years later, and it would seem that Bishop Juan was largely to blame for this. But these murky transactions lie beyond our period, and thus outside our scope.
 

The foregoing survey, if it has achieved no other end, will have shown conclusively how little we really know about these bishops. Any general remarks about them must be so hedged about by words of caution as to render their force [77] almost null. Yet there are questions to be asked and answers, however hesitant, to be given.

Who chose bishops? We are desperately ill-informed about the conduct of episcopal elections, but what little we do know of them suggests that the wishes of the king were powerful, perhaps decisive elements in the process of choice. Evidence survives to shed some light on four elections only -- those of Iñigo to the (Castilian) see of Avila in 1133, of Berengar to that of Salamanca in 1135, of Juan to that of Lugo in 1152, and of Adán to the see of Orense in 1169.⁽²²³⁾ We hear of electors submitting their choice to the king (Avila and Lugo), of elections taking place in the presence of the king (Salamanca and Lugo), of a cathedral chapter (Orense) seeking royal permission to make a free election (in which a man who had recently been the royal chancellor was chosen). These consultative processes -- which were regarded as standard practice in thirteenth-century Spain⁽²²⁴⁾ -- were a familiar stage in the business of bishop-making in twelfth-century Europe, and most historians are agreed that they were usually rather less innocent than they appear. Clearly it would be improper to generalize upon so slender a factual basis as four episcopal elections; nevertheless the evidence that we have is suggestive. There is, as we shall see, further and less direct evidence which points in the same direction.

How many of the bishops of the kingdom of León were not of Spanish birth? Four were certainly Frenchmen -- Jerónimo of Avila-Salamanca-Zamora, Bernardo of Zamora, Guido of Lugo and Bernardo of Sigüenza-Compostela; the appointments of the first three fell in 1102, 1121 and c.1135 respectively, while Bernardo was appointed to Sigüenza in 1121 or 1122 and translated to Compostela in 1151. We have seen that there is a not implausible tradition that Pedro Seguin of Orense, appointed in 1157, was a Frenchman. Arnaldo I of Astorga, appointed in 1144, may have been [78] French; his name is French, and he was employed on an embassy to the count of Montpellier. Several other bishops have French names, and though this is not necessarily an indication of French birth it is worth listing them: Giraldo of Salamanca (appointed 1120), Roberto of Astorga (1131), Esteban (Stephanus) of Zamora (1150) and his nephew and successor Guillermo (Guillelmus, 1175), Arnaldo I and Arnaldo II of Coria (1181, 1198-9), Giraldo of Coria (1212). Bernardo of Sigüenza-Compostela belonged to what may be called a French episcopal dynasty, for his uncle was bishop of Segovia and his brother bishop of Palencia, while his nephew succeeded him at Sigüenza. It is worth remarking again, in this context, that the see of Zamora was in the hands of a single family whose traceable members all had French names for most of the second half of the century (1150-93). It is but rarely that we hear from what part of France these men came. Jerónimo and the two Bernardos brought to Spain by Bernardo of Toledo, came from the Périgord-Agenais area of south-western France, which was his own homeland. Pedro Seguin of Orense may have come from Poitou. Of the origins of the others we know nothing.

These facts -- and speculations -- should be considered against the background of an influx of Frenchmen into Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, already alluded to in chapter 1. We note first that all the appointments of 'certain' Frenchmen occurred during the first half of the century, and most of the appointments of 'probable' Frenchmen too. Alfonso VII, in particular, seems to have been a great promoter of Frenchmen to bishoprics, in the Leonese half of his dominions as in the Castilian. In Castile the sees of Burgos, Osma, Palencia and Tarazona each received at least one French bishop during his reign, Segovia and Toledo at least two, and Sigüenza three. This is broadly speaking in accordance with the findings of Défourneaux, who argued that French participation in Spanish affairs slackened after the middle of the century. We cannot, indeed, be absolutely certain that a single Frenchmen was appointed under Fernando II or Alfonso IX. Second, these appointments were all -- with the single exception of Pedro Seguin of Orense -- to bishoprics which included lands where French repobladores had settled [79] (e.g. Salamanca, Zamora, Coria) or which lay on the pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela (e.g. Astorga, Lugo), along which so many Frenchmen travelled and in whose towns so many of them made their homes. In contrast no Frenchman seems ever to have been appointed to the remoter, and poorer, sees like Tuy or Mondoñedo.

Frenchmen were not the only foreigners to try their luck in León. Lombardo of Ciudad Rodrigo may have been an Italian. It is just possible that he got a foothold in Spain as the result of a papal provision.⁽²²⁵⁾ Navarro of Coria-Salamanca looks like a native of Navarre. Berengar of Salamanca-Compostela may have been a Catalan. Manrique of León was a Castilian. Isidoro and Beltrán, both of Tuy, were possibly natives of Portugal. The small numbers of these other foreigners serves mainly to give greater prominence to the French. But the total numbers should remind us that Spain in general and León-Castile and Portugal⁽²²⁶⁾ in particular, was seen as a land of opportunity in the twelfth century -- and that not only for secular churchmen; French monks were flocking to Spain in large numbers and rising to positions of importance in Spanish monasteries. One wonders how many ambitious Spanish clerics found their hopes of preferment dashed by the promotion over their heads of a foreigner. Our sources do not tell us, of course, but one would not be surprised to learn that there was some resentment.

Eight of the bishops of the kingdom of León during the century were regular religious.⁽²²⁷⁾ Four were black monks: Jerónimo again (appointed 1102), Pelayo I of Mondoñedo (1136), Juan of Lugo (1152) and Pedro of Oviedo (1156). Two were Cistercians: Pedro Cristiano of Astorga (1153) and Suero of Coria (1156). Two were Augustinian canons: Navarro of Coria and later of Salamanca (1142) and Pedro Gudestéiz of Mondoñedo-Compostela (1155). One of these [80] appointments fell under Alfonso VI, none under Urraca, seven under Alfonso VII, none under Fernando II (though he did promote his old tutor from Mondoñedo to Compostela) and none under Alfonso IX. Five of Alfonso VII's appointments of regulars fell in the last few years of his reign, when he was an old and ailing man⁽²²⁸⁾ perhaps specially concerned to appoint those as bishops who were best placed to provide intercession for his soul. The high number of appointments of regulars in his reign generally may go some way to explain his good posthumous reputation with monastic chroniclers like Lucas of Tuy. It is interesting to note that within thirteen years of the arrival of the Cistercians in the kingdom of León two of their number had been promoted to the episcopate. It is interesting too, and in keeping with the trend elsewhere in Europe that the last forty years of the century should have seen no promotions of regulars to the episcopate.

Royal servants or associates, curial bishops, formed at all periods of the century a far higher proportion of the episcopate than either of the groups hitherto considered. Those who worked in the royal household and chancery are most easily identified as royal servants; and we may extend the group by including those who performed special tasks for a ruler (e.g. going on diplomatic missions) or who were spoken of by him in terms of warm approbation such as to suggest a close relationship of service and trust. Thus, for instance, Berengar of Salamanca and later of Compostela was Alfonso VII's chancellor in 1134-5; Arnaldo I of Astorga served on diplomatic missions in 1146; Fernando II of Astorga was fulsomely praised by King Fernando II. Bishops who fall into one of these three categories number twenty-three out of seventy-seven appointments to bishoprics made in the course of the century.

This figure, of nearly one-third of all appointments, is a remarkably high one -- and we should do well in this context to bear in mind both the generally meagre nature of the sources [81] at our disposal, and the scraps of more tenuous evidence for connecting some other bishops with royal circles. Of eight episcopal appointments in Urraca's reign, three went to curialists; eight out of thirty-three under Alfonso VII; nine or perhaps ten out of twenty-four under Fernando II; and one or perhaps two out of seventeen in Alfonso IX's reign down to 1215. These figures have to be treated with caution: all too frequently we do not know exactly when appointments were made, nor can we be certain which ruler (if any) was promoting a candidate at any particular moment -- Alfonso VII might have had a hand in some of Urraca's later appointments, the young Fernando II in some of his father's later Galician appointments. Nevertheless it does seem to be broadly true to say that Urraca and Fernando II were more ready to reward their servants with bishoprics than either Alfonso VII or Alfonso IX. No fewer than five ex-chancellors and at least two royal notaries received bishoprics under Fernando II, and it was another ex-chancellor, Fernando Curialis, whom the king tried to substitute for Archbishop Martín of Compostela in the 1160s. It is sufficiently clear that, as in other areas of Europe at the same date, service to the crown was the high road to ecclesiastical preferment.

Service to the crown did not end with promotion to the episcopate, far from it. There is plentiful evidence that bishops, like other great men, were bound to provide troops for service in the royal army, and indeed to serve in person. That they both were required to, and disliked it, is evidenced by the fact that they condemned the practice at the council of Palencia in 1129:⁽²²⁹⁾ but there is no evidence that the kings paid any attention to this condemnation. Diego Gelmírez in 1113 secured from Queen Urraca an exemption from serving personally, though he was still required to send his knights (milites) to serve more solito; and he did himself serve on at least three later occasions.⁽²³⁰⁾ Bishops served on the Almería campaign of 1147.⁽²³¹⁾ Bishop Juan of León referred casually to military service, quando episcopus ibat in fossato, in an act [82] of 1165.⁽²³²⁾ Charter evidence reveals that Archbishop Pedro Suárez served on the Jérez campaign of 1176 and that Rodrigo of Oviedo served at the siege of Cáceres in 1184.⁽²³³⁾ Likewise it strongly suggests that other bishops served at least from time to time; we might instance Bernardo of Zamora, Pelayo Menéndez of Tuy, Pelayo of Mondoñedo and Ordoño of Salamanca.⁽²³⁴⁾ Unhappily we have no evidence about how the performance of service was organized -- how quotas were fixed (let alone what they were), how long the annual period of service was, whether the custom of taking a money payment (fonsadera) by way of commutation was commonly adopted.

We find bishops performing other services which may be called in a general sense administrative and political. It is clear that the king looked to his bishops to perform certain functions which were a necessary part of the business of government, and it must be supposed that this consideration was not lost sight of when episcopal appointments were being made. They acted as royal judges; we find four bishops hearing a land-plea between the monasteries of Antealtares and Melón in 1161 on the orders of Fernando II..⁽²³⁵⁾ As pesquisadores they conducted royal inquisitions, as did Bernardo of Zamora in 1149.⁽²³⁶⁾ They assisted in royal schemes of resettlement (repoblación) of reconquered territories.⁽²³⁷⁾ Episcopal lordship of towns, which could be troublesome as well as profitable, relieved the crown of onerous administrative responsibilities -- for the towns of Santiago de Compostela, Tuy, Orense, Lugo and (for varying periods of time) Oviedo, Ciudad Rodrigo and Coria. If many bishops-to-be served in the royal chancery before their promotion, some did so afterwards; Nuño Alfonso of Mondoñedo is an example.⁽²³⁸⁾ We have already seen them going on embassies -- to the papal curia, to the king of Aragon, to the princes of southern France -- and [83] preaching recruiting sermons for royal military campaigns. They tended to support their king against the pope; and if they didn't, they suffered, like Juan of Oviedo.

Leonese government finance during the twelfth century is wrapped in almost impenetrable obscurity. It seems reasonably clear, however, that rulers exacted a proportion of their revenues from the episcopal sees of their kingdom, at least in a sporadic way, by fair means or foul. The foul were, predictably, straightforward spoliations: in times of war when pressed for money, or simply as a punitive measure; Urraca was several times guilty of the first, while the second is instanced in Fernando II's treatment of the see of Tuy in 1170 or Alfonso IX's of that of Astorga in 1189-90. The fair consisted of the invocation of certain rights which gave a veneer of legality to the business of royal exactions; regalian rights during vacancies and the right to receive hospitality or dues in lieu thereof from the bishoprics. The exercise of regalian right at the see of Compostela is well-attested.⁽²³⁹⁾ That it was widely invoked at least towards the latter end of the century, presumably by the impecunious Fernando II, is suggested by the general renunciation of it which Alfonso IX was compelled to make in 1194, and compelled to make again in 1208.⁽²⁴⁰⁾ Hospitality is a darker matter: yet, once more in the reign of Alfonso IX, we find bishops trying to escape from it or to reduce its burden; Bishop Manrique of León, significantly enough, twice thought it worth his while to seek exemption from rendering hospitality to his king.⁽²⁴¹⁾

The signs are that the king found his bishops useful. They may have found him indispensable. His power protected their endowments; his authority gave effect to their decisions. As the drafter of one of Alfonso VII's charters observed, rule over the churches had been entrusted to the king by God.⁽²⁴²⁾ As far as we can see, the Leonese bishops acquiesced. There was only one serious battle between 'church' and 'state' during the century, the quarrel between Fernando II and [84] Archbishop Martín of Compostela in the years 1160-7;⁽²⁴³⁾ Martin's episcopal colleagues seem to have shown precious little support for him. When kings got into trouble for marrying within the prohibited degrees they could usually rely upon their bishops to back them up.

Willingness to acquiesce may have been caused by self-interest; to it may also have contributed the strands that went into a bishop's social, moral, and intellectual constitution. It is not easy to discover much about the social origins of the bishops, for the simple reason that it is curiously rare to learn their patronymics. Since in the absence of local chronicles the historian relies heavily on the evidence of patronymics in tracing family connections, it is very difficult indeed to discover anything about the relatives of the bishops and thus to make any reliable inferences about the social background of the episcopate. We might have made a guess about Bishop Manrique of León's distinguished family connections on the basis of his name, for it was common in the Lara family, rare elsewhere. But we learn of them solely through the survival of a document which records a loan he made to his sister, the wife of Count Armengol VIII of Urgel, in 1182;⁽²⁴⁴⁾ in this document the sister's full name is mentioned, Elvira Pérez de Lara. So slender are the threads by which our knowledge hangs.

When we are in a position to learn anything, we usually find that the bishops were men of some standing in society. Occasionally they were of the highest social rank, like Gonzalo of Mondoñedo or Manrique of León. Sometimes they were of distinguished but less exalted birth, like Jimeno Eriz of Astorga or Pelayo Menéndez of Tuy. Sometimes they were not much more than well-to-do and well-connected, like Diego Gelmírez or Juan Albertino of León. We never hear of men who were raised up from nothing to the episcopate.

It is a little surprising to find so few of the members of the higher nobility of León occupying bishoprics. The Traba family was big; its members basked in the sun of royal favour throughout the century; yet its only venture into the [85] episcopate came with Gonzalo's long tenure of the see of Mondoñedo. The fact that Manrique of León became blind should alert us to the possibility, it can be no more, that a career was found for him in the church because a physical defect, failing eyesight, rendered him unfit for the life of a secular nobleman. Certainly his family showed as little interest in acquiring bishoprics in Castile as did the Traba in León. Was the aristocracy uninterested because the bishoprics were on the whole (as we shall see later) rather poor? Or was the royal hold so strong that aristocrats were excluded, passed over in favour of the incoming Frenchmen or the ubiquitous chancery servants? Arguments could be marshalled to support either of these possibilities, but they would be rather a display of ingenuity than any real advancement of our understanding. We may be nearer an answer when historians address themselves to that most urgent of desidereta, a study of the Spanish nobility in the early Middle Ages.

None of the bishops seems to have been remarkable for intellectual attainments. The schools of western Spain were undistinguished until the rise of Salamanca in the second half of the century. The French bishops seem to have come mainly from the south-west of France, not from the intellectually precocious north and east. Pelayo of Oviedo was a man of antiquarian interests who put his learning -- and his invention -- at the service of his see. (Would he have bothered if that see's position had not been threatened?). Diego Gelmírez knew some canon law. He could quote the phrase, a little later to be so notorious, Non iudicabitur bis in idipsum, and there were some canon law texts at Compostela in his day.⁽²⁴⁵⁾ The canonical collection known as Polycarpus was dedicated to him.⁽²⁴⁶⁾ But he, cannot be called a scholar; nor can those who came after him, of whom we may be reasonably certain that they were not unacquainted with the canon law, like Pedro Suárez de Deza or Martín I of Zamora. (The two latter, along with Navarro of Coria-Salamanca and perhaps Pedro Seguin of Orense, were magistri.) Apart from Pedro Suárez there was not a single theologian among the bishops, nor a [86] single patron of theological studies. In the sources at our disposal there are strikingly few references to learning among Leonese churchmen, This serves to confirm the impression of general mediocrity which is forced upon us by the records of the Leonese episcopate in the twelfth century. These records, we must reiterate, are singularly meagre. Yet even when every allowance is made for this, it has to be said that there is never a moment between 1100 and 1215 when we may say of the Leonese episcopate, taken as a whole, that it formed a distinguished body of men -- as Dom David Knowles could justly say of Becket's episcopal colleagues in England. But this is to anticipate. We must let the bishops speak for themselves. In so far as they speak to us at all, they do so through their acta.

1. CAI paras. 159-61. The bishop was referred to as 'novo ordinato' in a royal charter of 30 August 1142: ES XIV, pp. 60-1.

2. D. de Colmenares, Historia de Segovia (Segovia, 1637), pp. 134-5.

3. On Segovia at this period, see M. de la Soterraña Martín Postigo, Alfonso el Batallador y Segovia (Segovia, 1967).

4. He witnesses only five among those known to me between 1142 and 1151.

5. MHV I no. 78 (= JL 9255).

6. His career has been studied by A. Andrés, 'Suero, obispo de Coria, (1156-1168)', Hispania Sacra xiii (1960), 397-400.

7. LFH IV, ap. lxii, p. 171.

8. GRF pp. 373, 401.

9. E. Escobar Prieto, 'Antigüedad y límites del obispado de Coria', BRAH lxi (1912), at 331-3.

10. This is referred to in a papal privilege of Lucius III dated 19 March 1185: Escobar Prieto, ibid., p. 335.

11. Printed and discussed by Escobar Prieto, ibid., pp. 335-41.

12. GRF p. 483.

13. The creation of the diocese of Plasencia may be followed in GRC nos. 454, 464, 494, 562 and AHN 18/4.

14. F. Fita 'La Diócesis y Fuero Eclesiástico de Ciudad Rodrigo', BRAH lxi (1912), 437-48 and 'El Papa Alejandro III y la Diócesis de Ciudad Rodrigo' BRAH lxii (1913), 142-57.

15. BN, MS. 712, fol. 227. The document has recently been edited by H. Grassotti 'Sobre una concesión de Alfonso VII a la iglesia salmantina' CHE xlix-l (1969), at 347-8.

16. LFH IV, ap. xxx, pp. 78-80.

17. GRF p. 402.

18. This is suggested by a grant he made to the distant Galician monastery of Sobrado in 1189: AHN cód. 976B, fol. 29^r.

19. GRF pp. 169-70, 376, 384, 417-18, etc.

20. JL 12486.

21. Mansi, Concilia, XXII, col. 216.

22. León, Archivo de San Isidoro, no. 358. Lombardo may perhaps have been previously archdeacon of Medina and Alba in the diocese of Salamanca: AC Salamanca no. 117. This is the only other occurrence of the name in the documents I have inspected.

23. Some of his legislation is embedded in the later fuero of Salamanca: Fueros Leoneses, ed. F. de Onis (Madrid, 1920), Fuero de Salamanca, § 295.

24. AC Salamanca no. 3. See also R. Menendez Pidal, La España del Cid (7th ed., Madrid, 1969), pp. 547-52.

25. Cartulario de San Millán de la Cogolla, ed. L. Serrano (Madrid, 1930), no. 291.

26. AC Zamora, Libro Negro, fol. 22^r.

27. AHD León, Fondo de Sta. María de Otero de las Dueñas, no. 216; Zamora, Archivo de la Delegación de la Hacienda, Pergaminos de Moreruela, unnumbered; AHN 893/7.

28. One of these was a charter of Teresa of Portugal of 1 August 1112: DMP no. 35. This is particularly interesting in view of the fact that Salamanca, Avila and Zamora may have formed part of the county of Portugal for a short period at about this time: cf. DMP no. 31.

29. JL 6827; MHV I, no. 199.

30. HC pp. 404-5, 407-10.

31. JL 7208.

32. HC pp. 498-9.

33. HC pp. 281, 290, 400-1.

34. His attendance at Rheims is mentioned in his epitaph, quoted by B. Dorado, Historia de Salamanca (Salamanca, 1776), p. 114.

35. H. Grassotti, 'Dos problemas de historia castellano-leonesa (siglo XII)' CHE xlix-l (1969), at 149, n. 56.

36. León, Archivo de San Isidore, no. 143 (1 June 1134); Rassow, p. 423 (February 1135).

37. AC Salamanca, no. 17; MHV I no. 69.

38. AC Salamanca, nos. 8-15.

39. See LFH IV pp. 22 1-6, and the excellent account by C. J. Bishko, 'Peter the Venerable's journey to Spain' Studia Anselmiana xl (1956), 163-75.

40. AD Braga, Gaveta dos Arcebispos, no. 4.

41. J. González, 'Repoblación de la Extremadura leonesa' Hispania iii (1943), 195-273.

42. AC Salamanca no. 18.

43. AC Salamanca no. 27.

44. For Pedro Suárez's early life, see LFH IV, ap. xxxiii; GRE pp. 168, 392; J.F. Rivera Recio, La Iglesia de Toledo en el siglo XII (Rome-Madrid, 1966), pp. 374-5, n. 54 (the correct date of which is 1166); AC Salamanca nos. 34, 44, 47, 48. There is no good evidence that he had studied in Paris; but Innocent III addressed him in such a way as to make it certain that he had studied and taught theology at some stage of his life: MHV I, no. 237, at p. 264.

45. AC Salamanca no. 77 (capitular reforms); AC Avila no. 5 (confraternity agreement); AC Salamanca nos. 59, 61, 62 (boundary dispute with Ciudad Rodrigo); ibid., nos. 34-58 (relations with papacy); D.W. Lomax, La Orden de Santiago (Madrid, 1965), p.6; J.F. O'Callaghan, 'The foundation of the Order of Alcántara', Catholic Historical Review xlvii (1961-2), 471-86 (Military orders).

46. AC Salamanca nos. 26, 58.

47. AC Salamanca nos. 63, 64, 65, 85, 86.

48. GAL pp. 358, 481-92; AC Salamanca, nos. 80, 90.

49. MHV I nos. 138 (where 'Vitalem' should read 'Gundisalvem'), 196.

50. See below, ch. 5.

51. See above p. 38.

52. So he is described in his epitaph in the cathedral.

53. F. Fita, 'Bernardo de Périgord, arcediano de Toledo y obispo de Zamora', BRAH xiv (1889), 456-61.

54. AC Zamora, leg. 8, no. 5 (cathedral building, 1135); ibid., Libro Negro, fol. 20^v (cathedral chapter, 1124); ibid., Libro Negro fol. 17^v (archdeacon and two archpriests, 1133); ibid., Libro Negro fol. 15^v, leg. 13, no. 25, Libro Blanco, fol. 121^v (fueros).

55. The relationship is established by ANTT, Colecção Especial, Corporaçoes Diversas, Mitra de Braga, caixa 1, no. 2.

56. AC Zamora, Libro Negro, fol. 56^v (1161), 27^v-28^r (1170).

57. AC Zamora, leg. 13, nos. 6, 8, 26.

58. The study of canon law was certainly encouraged at Compostela. Martín Arias is to be distinguished from his successor Martín Rodriguez, bishop of Zamora 1217-38, bishop of León 1238-47, known to the canonists as Martinus Zamorensis, who wrote glosses on Gratian and Compilatio I.

59. P.A. Linchan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971), p. 292 and n. 7.

60. I know of thirty-one such documents, which is a large number by Leonese standards.

61. MHV I, nos. 172, 173, 176, 177, 254, 282, 293, 326, 333, 354, 366, 425 et passim.

62. See below, ch. 5.

63. For which see LFH V pp. 117-20.

64. PUP nos. 30, 47, 50, 57, 63; AD Braga, Liber Fidei, fol. 153^r (Alo, 1122), 152^v (Arnaldo, 1144), 138^v (Fernando I, 1156).

65. BN MS. 4357.

66. E.g., BN MS. 4357, Tumbo Negro nos. 249, 341, 575; AHN cód. 1197B fols. 253^r-255^r.

67. ES XVI, ap. xx, pp. 467-70.

68. Recueil de chartes de l'Abbaye de Cluny, ed. A. Bruel, vol. V (Paris, 1894) no. 3884; cf. also Docs. Oviedo no. 121.

69. ES XVI, ap. xxiii, pp. 474-6; AHN cód. 1197B fols. 253^r-255^r.

70. The family connections may be established from BN MS. 4357, Reales no. 147, Particulares no. 488, and Tumbo Negro nos. 383, 440; BN MS. 712, fols. 85, 88^v-89^v, 90^v-91^r; ES XVI, app. xx, xxiii, xxvi pp. 467-70, 474-6, 48 1-8; DMP no. 28; and 'El Tumbo del Monasterio de San Martín de Castañeda', ed. A. Rodríguez González, Archivos Leoneses xxxix-xl (1966), no. 14.

71. By its editor, L. Sánchez Belda: CAI pp. ix-xxi. It has been conjectured that he

was a Frenchman or a Catalan.

72. CAI para. 203; Poema de Almería vv. 361-71.

73. E.g., AHN cód 1197B, fols. 203^v-205^v.

74. The relationship is a tradition reported by Flórez, ES XVI, p. 214. It is not implausible, for Pedro clearly came of an extremely wealthy family (cf. P. Rodríguez López, Episcopologio Asturicense II (Astorga, 1907), p. 209), and Count Ponce and his family had close connections with the monastery of Castañeda.

75. GRF p. 481.

76. A. Quintana Prieto. 'Registro de Documentos Pontificios de la diócesis de Astorga (1139-1413)', Anthologica Annua xl (1963), nos. 19, 21, 22.

77. Tumbo Viejo de San Pedro de Montes, ed. A. Quintana Prieto (León, 1971), nos. 239, 240; AC León no. 1282; MHV I, no. 278.

78. AHD Astorga, Cartulario de Carracedo, fol. 109^r; AHN 3536/1.

79. He supported the king against the papal prohibition of both his marriages.

80. MHV I nos. 278, 284, 293.

81. He was dean of Astorga by 1200: AHD Astorga, Cámara Episcopal, I/32.

82. GAL nos. 204, 210, 319; GRC nos. 782, 845, 1005-6; MHV I, nos. 458, 566.

83. ES XVI, p. 503.

84. This dispute is discussed below, ch. 4.

85. HC pp. 56-7, 265.

86. HC pp. 141, 163, 172-4, 182-4.

87. AC Orense, Privilegios 1/21, 22, 26; D. de Colmenares, Historia de Segovia (Segovia, 1937), p. 117.

88. T. Minguella y Arnedo, Historia de la Diócesis de Sigüenza y de sus Obispos (Madrid, 1910), I, 359-60.

89. ES XVII, pp. 253-8.

90. Assuming his identity with the 'magister P. Seguini' of AHN 556/3; cf. also AHN 512/14.

91. ES XVII, pp. 89-90, for the tradition. There was a Poitevin colony in El Bierzo in the second half of the century, some of whose members shared Bishop Pedro's surname or patronymic: they may be traced in, e.g., AHN cod. 976B, fols. 113^r-119^v.

92. AD Braga, Liber Fidei, no. 504, fol. 137.

93. GRF pp. 168-9.

94. ES XVII, p. 94; the document is now AC Orense, Escrituras XIV/44.

95. AC Orense, Escrituras XIV/44; ARN 1481/16.

96. For his relationship with Celanova, see MHV I nos. 132, 203, 234, 264, 475. T