[163] Although this was not formally confirmed until 1095, the seat of the bishop had been transferred from Iria to Compostela at some point in the first half of the tenth century. However, it is clear that there had been some sort of religious community at the shrine of St. James under the authority of the bishop from a much earlier date -- possibly from the time of bishop Theodemir himself. From the latter part of the ninth century -- and presumably the initiative for this was bishop Sisnando I's -- this community seems to have been a monastic one. A series of charters from 885 until the late 920s consists of grants made 'for the maintenance of the monks serving God there' (pro victu et vestitu monachorum Dei deserviencium), or similar phrases.⁽¹⁾ The community numbered at least twenty-eight persons in the year 898.⁽²⁾ We do not know which rule they followed, though we may be reasonably confident that it was not the Benedictine. At some point in the tenth century the community seems to have reverted to a secular life, for we find its members referred to neutrally as 'servants of God' (servi Dei) or simply 'clergy' (clerici).⁽³⁾ Although no less than three monks occupied the see during this period -- Rosendo (968-74?), Pelayo Rodríguez (977-85?) and Pedro de Mesonzo (985-1003) -- we have no reason to believe that any of them tried to revive the regular religious life at Compostela. In addition to the disappearance of monastic life, numbers sharply declined. We are told that there were only seven canons to serve the basilica of St. James during the episcopate of Cresconio (c.1035-66). Diego Peláez attempted to increase the number to twenty-four: but these men were, in the words of one of Diego Gelmírez's [164] henchmen, 'utterly ignorant of the ecclesiastical office' (ecclesiastici officii penitus ignaros) -- which may simply mean that it was very difficult in Galicia in the 1070s to find clergy who were acquainted with the Roman liturgy.⁽⁴⁾

In attempting to assess the state of the cathedral chapter (as we may now call it) when Diego Gelmírez became bishop, we are dependent very nearly exclusively on the Historia Compostellana.We should remind ourselves yet again that this is a partisan compilation. It presents the views of the reformers and it was designed to extol the achievements of Diego Gelmírez. It is not likely that its authors underestimated the shortcomings of the unreformed chapter. Due allowance being made for this, it yet remains clear that three different kinds of shortcoming existed.⁽⁵⁾ In the first place, the economic arrangements for the support of the chapter were haphazard. Its members evidently possessed certain revenues in common, for we hear of a refectory where, in theory, a common meal was provided. But these shared revenues were insufficient; they scarcely sufficed for six months of the year. In consequence we are told, some of the clergy 'had departed from their church', which is presumably to be interpreted as meaning that there was a fair amount of non-residence. Furthermore, individual canons had to look to their own private incomes to provide for themselves what the common revenues could not. The Historia tells us, doubtless with some exaggeration, that because there were inequalities of wealth some canons starved while others lived off the fat of the land. Hence, perhaps, the jealousies and tensions of which we hear, some even erupting into bloodshed. Secondly, the manner of life of the chapter was unseemly. The hints at violence apart, it is not of the grosser vices that we hear. It was simply that the canons lived as such men should not (minus canonice), in a fashion that ill-befitted the guardians of the shrine of St. James, the corporation in whose trusteeship reposed one of the great churches of Christendom. They were dirty and unshaven; they dressed like laymen of the knightly classes, affecting the fashionable shoes with long pointed [165] toes which attracted the denunciations of ecclesiastical moralists in other parts of Europe about this time; their vestments, if they bothered to wear them at all, were too various to please men of reforming temper who wanted to see the clergy in uniform. Thirdly, the canons were intellectually undistinguished. Cathedral schools of this period were notoriously volatile: the presence of a gifted teacher could bring a school celebrity almost overnight, his departure or death effectively close it down. Diego evidently judged that the quality of the education to be had in Compostela had deteriorated since the days when he and bishop Pelayo of León had received their grounding there. It is difficult to test his judgement. The Cronicon Iriense, which was composed about 1090 by an author who may well have been a member of the chapter, is not the work of an ill-educated man. Perhaps Diego's main anxiety was that such learning as was to be had at Compostela was out of date. We have already seen that this was his view of the learning available in the field of canon law.⁽⁶⁾

There is nothing surprising about these shortcomings. We meet complaints about them frequently in the polemical literature of the day. In this connection as in others it is useful to see Diego's activities against the wider backdrop of similar episcopal concern in other parts of western Christendom. It was not that the Compostela chapter of the 1090s was composed of mountebanks whose manner of life gave cause for scandal; just as the married members of the chapter at, say, Bayeux were not reckless debauchees (a comparison which reminds us that no accusations of sexual irregularity were brought against the canons of Compostela). The rhetoric of reformers is often -- and is often meant to be -- misleading. The ladies of the close at Bayeux and elsewhere were as respectable as those of Barchester, but that did not prevent the zealots from referring to them crudely as 'tarts' (meretrices). This is why it is so hard to see exactly what it was that the reformers wanted to do away with; too often we have only a caricature. The canons of Compostela were probably an easy-going lot; a bit seedy and shabby [166] and down-at-heel; out of the swim of things; set in their old-fashioned ways; and, as was suggested in an earlier chapter, perhaps feeling rather sorry for themselves in the 1090s. Diego wanted to smarten them up, make them distinctive, give them esprit de corps -- in short to make something of them. He did.

'He ploughed his clergy with the share of discipline.' In these words did one of his admirers, who had himself experienced them, characterize Diego's reforms. His impact on the cathedral community was immediate and far-reaching, for the principal reforms had been completed by the spring of 1102, and they endured (with some modifications) until well beyond his own day. He vastly enlarged the size of the chapter by regrouping absentees and recruiting new members 'from various places' until he had established a body of seventy-two canons. (This number was of course suggested by the seventy-two disciples of the Lord.) This was a prodigious size, and it is some indication, however vague, of the wealth of the see of Compostela that it could afford to support so many. Toledo's chapter was only thirty strong in the 1130s, and even the big cathedral chapters of northern France and England did not approach the size of Santiago; Lincoln had forty-two prebendaries in the early twelfth century, and Rouen probably under fifty. To support his new chapter Diego overhauled the existing economic arrangements. He took steps to ensure that the canons 'should not lack for food throughout the year', tells the Historia. Precisely what these steps were is not quite clear, but the words used in another context, by a different author of the Historia, imply that Diego divided the endowments of the see between bishop and chapter.⁽⁷⁾ We are also told that he prevented 'the usual bickering' (consuetum schisma) by ensuring equal shares for all the canons: this suggests the creation of individual prebends of roughly equal value.⁽⁸⁾ The final measure attributable to the [167] years 1100-2 was his rebuilding of the canons' refectory. At the same time as the economy of the cathedral community was put on a sounder footing, Diego reformed the manner of life of the canons. In the face of opposition he insisted upon stricter rules of dress: the canons were no longer to enter the choir unless decently clad in surplices. He also made provision to better their learning. He hired a master to teach rhetoric (magister de doctrina eloquentiae), who taught 'us', says Pedro Anáyaz, by which he presumably meant those who were already canons in 1100. (We should much like to know where Diego found him and who he was.) The newly appointed canons were said to be 'learned in the study of letters' and 'skilled in the church's liturgy'.⁽⁹⁾

The capitular reforms were comprehensive and thorough, their rapid completion a tribute to Diego's energetic will and administrative talents. They would seem to have been completed to his own satisfaction by 22 April 1102, on which day he took an oath of loyalty from each member of the chapter. (The document recording the text of the oath and the names of the canons was later incorporated into the Historia Compostellana.⁽¹⁰⁾) One of the authors of the Historia, the Frenchman Gerald, commented later that Diego tried to implant 'the customs of the churches of France' at Compostela.⁽¹¹⁾ To an extent this observation was true of his capitular reforms. The broad lines of the economic organization which sustained the community -- division of temporalities, individual prebends for the canons -- was of French derivation. Earlier cathedral organization in Spain is a very dark matter, but it does seem to have involved certain elements of a common life, characteristic of a regular as opposed to a secular capitular framework. [168] Thus, for instance, the council of Compostela of 1056 had stipulated that cathedral chapters should have a single refectory and a single dormitory.⁽¹²⁾ These usages did not entirely disappear in the wake of Diego's reforms. We have already seen that he rebuilt the canons' refectory. That there was also a dormitory is revealed by the Historia's account of Diego's movements when he was in danger of his life during the disturbances of 1117: he avoided the mob by a moonlight escape over the roof-tops into the canons' dormitory. On the other hand, it is clear that many of the canons had dwellings in the town: Pedro Anáyaz, for example, lived on the north side of the cathedral next to the monastery of San Martín Pinario.⁽¹³⁾ So the capitular organization was a hybrid, owing something to Spanish tradition and something to foreign example. This puzzled outside observers. It may account for the curious statement by the French author of the guidebook for pilgrims that the canons of Compostela observed the 'Rule of St. Isidore'.⁽¹⁴⁾ Isidore composed no rule for canons but he was the fountainhead of Spanish Christian tradition, and the writer may have used the word regula in the loose sense of 'customs', rather than 'rule' strictly so called. At all events, this hybrid form was the product of deliberate, not of muddled thinking; for it was reproduced at some of the newly established cathedrals in the province of Santiago during the twelfth century, for example at Avila and Salamanca.

Another French feature of the Compostela chapter was the new nomenclature used to describe the cathedral dignitaries. The head of the chapter had traditionally been entitled abbas. This title may have come down from the time of bishop Sisnando I when the monks who composed the community were indeed headed by an abbot- - by abbot Spanosindo in 898, for example -- though the word was widely used in western Christendom in the early middle ages to denote an ecclesiastic who was not necessarily the head of a monastic community. The last of the line of abbates was Gundesindo, first traceable as such in 1087, last so styled [169] at the time of the oath-takings of 1102. Five years later, in 1107, he was referred to as prior canonice, 'prior of the chapter'.⁽¹⁵⁾ This style, an importation from southern France, was generally used for the next dozen years or so to describe the head of the chapter. Gundesindo was succeeded by Pedro, the bishop's nephew, in about 1111. He too normally referred to himself, in his subscriptions to charters, as prior canonice.⁽¹⁶⁾However, Gerald of Beauvais referred to him in the Historia, when recounting certain events of 1121, by a new title, also derived from France: decanus, 'dean'.⁽¹⁷⁾ He in his turn was succeeded shortly after this by another Pedro -- Pedro Helias, later archbishop (1143-49) -- who regularly used the new title.⁽¹⁸⁾ The head of the chapter was always thereafter styled dean. Likewise the title primiclerus or primicerius was replaced by its French equivalent cantor, 'precentor'. The last of a long line of primicleri was Pedro Gundesíndez, who held office from c.1119 until c.1136. His successor Pelayo styled himself cantor in an inscription recorded by López Ferreiro.⁽¹⁹⁾ Thesaurarius,'treasurer', started to replace the traditional Spanish term sacrista at an earlier date, before Diego's episcopate: Segeredo tesauranus subscribed a charter of 1087.⁽²⁰⁾ The fourth cathedral dignitary was the magister scolarum, another title borrowed from southern France, traceable from c. 1118.⁽²¹⁾ (Despite the fact that the first holder of this dignity was a native of Beauvais, the northern French equivalent title, 'chancellor', never found favour at Compostela.)

Not all Diego's capitular innovations had a French ancestry. The institution of cardinals at Santiago de Compostela was modelled on Roman practice.⁽²²⁾ In seeking this distinction for certain members of his chapter Diego was following, wittingly or not, the example set by some of the more [170] distinguished churches of Germany. By special papal concession, cardinals 'after the fashion of the church of Rome' were instituted at, among other places, Aachen (in 997) and Cologne (in 1052). By a papal bull which in the form in which we have it is undated, but appears to come from soon after Diego's consecration in 1101, Paschal II allowed Diego to create cardinals at Compostela. The surprisingly vague terms of the concession were clarified a few years later. There were to be never more nor less than seven cardinals (as at Cologne); on solemn feast-days they were to be permitted to wear mitres adorned with gems, like the cardinals of the Roman church; and the only persons to be allowed to say mass at the altar of St. James were they, together with bishops and papal legates. This was a notable addition to the dignity of Diego's chapter. It was only one of several ways in which Diego tried to make the church of Compostela look 'Roman'.

At all times during Diego's long tenure of the see, the chapter of Compostela contained what might be called 'honorary' members. Three of Diego's episcopal colleagues were numbered among the canons in 1102, the archbishop of Braga and the bishops of Tuy and Orense. Two later archbishops of Braga, Maurice and Paio, held canonries at Compostela. A visiting papal legate, cardinal Deusdedit, was enrolled among the canons in 1119; in 1127, no less a person than king Alfonso VII.⁽²³⁾ But the great majority of the seventy-two must always have been 'working' canons. Their primary task was to carry out the elaborate liturgical and ceremonial duties associated with the worship of God and the cult of St. James. (Because our sources tend to take this orderly routine for granted, so do we. It is only the interruptions to routine that get remembered: as for instance in 1110 when an Italian knight proved his exceptional devotion by riding his charger, 'than which I hold nothing more precious', right into the cathedral to present himself and his horse to St. James.⁽²⁴⁾) But we must always try to remember that the life of the community was dominated by the rhythms and demands of an annually recurrent [171] devotional cycle. Secondly, there was a network of administrative business to attend to. The bishop's assistants in the running of the diocese, notably the archdeacons, were all members of the chapter. Temporalities had to be administered. The building programme had to be supervised. Arrangements had to be made for the reception of pilgrims. The courts through which the bishop's lordship of the town was exercised had to be staffed. Finally, there was service of a more specialized type to the bishop. During this period there was still no sharp distinction between cathedral and episcopal establishments. The men who transacted business on the bishop's behalf were normally members of the chapter. They could rise to great heights in his service.

Several members of the Compostela chapter became bishops: to name only a few, Nuño Alfonso was promoted to the see of Mondoñedo in 1112, Hugo to that of Porto in 1113, Alfonso Pérez to Salamanca in 1130 and Pedro Anáyaz to León in 1135. For reasons that will become clear in due course, service to Diego could lead to service in the royal chancery; and we shall meet, among others, Bernardo, treasurer of Compostela, chancellor to Alfonso VII between 1127 and 1131. Other canons were employed as Diego's agents for negotiating delicate pieces of business. Geoffrey, canon and archdeacon, was but one of several members of the chapter who visited the papal curia for Diego more than once, in 1101, 1107 (?) and 1109-10; he also accompanied Diego thither in 1104. It is purely by chance that we hear of two canons who spent some time in Apulia and Sicily in the early 1120s to raise funds for the building operations at Compostela. When in 1130 Diego wanted to secure a grant of olive groves near Talavera from Alfonso VII, it was one of his canons who was sent to conduct the negotiations at the royal court.⁽²⁵⁾

Diego could thus make available to the members of his chapter -- at least to those among it who were the recipients of his patronage -- a wide range of opportunities. They were evidently not slow to grasp them. The rewards -- in terms of responsibility, command, patronage, access to the great, and [172] so forth -- accessible to a bishop or a royal chancellor are obvious enough. But the crude material rewards available to the canons of Compostela should not be underestimated. There were, for example, other plums of ecclesiastical preferment to be had. Take Fernando Pérez, another canon who moved into the royal chancery, where he served queen Urraca as a notary. In addition to his canonry at Compostela he picked up another at León; the León prebend seems to have been a fat one.⁽²⁶⁾ He was not the only pluralist. Munio Gelmírez enjoyed the obviously rather unusual opportunities for self-enrichment available to a brother of the bishop. To the authors of the Historia he was one of the 'big men' (optimates, proceres) of Galicia. He had a retinue of knights, in his leisure he could relax in his castle, and, engagingly, he gave his fellow canons his revenues from five proprietary churches to be employed after his death to commemorate him annually in a slap-up feast (ut . . . canonici splendide procurentur).⁽²⁷⁾ There was nothing mealy-mouthed about the chapter of Compostela under Diego Gelmírez.

It was said in an earlier chapter that the canons of Compostela at the time of Diego's succession to the bishopric were a demoralized bunch of men; that it was Diego's task to revive their flagging spirits. The busy, boisterous society revealed by the record of the Historia is our witness to the re-animation which he effected. How did he do it? Any glimmer at an answer must be tempered by the recognition that here we encounter the intangibles of mood, feeling, style and personality which by definition must elude us. But we can at least try to pick up some of the nuances. Diego's relic-stealing expedition to Braga in 1102 has already been mentioned. The passage relating to the reception of the relics at Compostela deserves quoting at length.⁽²⁸⁾

The bishop heard that the holy bodies had already crossed the river [173] Miño, which is the boundary between Portugal and Galicia, and had been deposited in a safe place. All necessary preparations having been made, he hurried to the monastery where the relics had been placed. Taking them up he began to make his way back publicly by way of the estates of St. James with great reverence and rejoicing to the city of Compostela. When he reached the village of Gogilde he sent messengers ahead to the clergy and people of Compostela to warn them of the arrival of the saints and to tell them how he wished that they should be received. The clergy and people heard with great joy what divine providence had ordained, that the bodies of the saints should be transferred from Braga to Compostela. They understood that they were to be preserved from plague and weakening fever by their merits and intercessions as well as by the protection of the most blessed apostle James (the presence of whose most holy body gives renown to the city of Compostela). The clergy went out in a seemly procession, followed by the population of the whole city, barefoot, as far as the place known as Milladoiro, to meet them. When the bishop arrived he ordered those who were with him to take off their shoes as he had done. The clergy, clad in their holy vestments and barefooted, took up the glorious bodies of the saints. The crowds of people followed them. Then, led by the bishop and clergy singing hymns and psalms, with pious devotion they bore the relics into their city and lodged them in the church of the holy apostle James.

We can glimpse in the ceremonial which framed Diego's 'holy theft' something of his technique, and sense the optimism which succeeded the chilly desolation of the 1090s. But it would be rash to assume that all was plain sailing for Diego. The relations between a bishop and his cathedral [174] chapter have always been a focus for certain tensions. The cathedral community at Compostela in the early twelfth century was no exception to this general rule. We have seen that there may have been some opposition to Diego's promotion to the bishopric, and that some of his capitular reforms aroused resentment. The oath-swearings of 1102 were indeed an admission on the bishop's part of his misgivings about the loyalty of some members of his chapter; misgivings which were (as we shall see) only too justified. We are also told that the destruction of the old and revered high altar of the cathedral in the course of Diego's building operations was hurtful to conservative opinion within the chapter.⁽²⁹⁾

Straightforward conservative instincts may not have been the only reason for opposition to Diego's building programme. Our sources never tell us this, but it would be surprising if some among the chapter did not view the very ambitious scope of this programme with apprehension. Building operations at the cathedral complex of Santiago de Compostela were continuous throughout Diego's long episcopate. Just as we must try to remember the daily liturgical round, so too we must recapture its setting: dust and rubble; scaffolding, rope and pulleys; canvas and leather; the tang of pitch and timber, and the smell of wet cement; the squealing of the carts as they brought their loads of granite, and the chink of the masons' chisels as slowly, laboriously, it was cut to shape.

The church built at the end of the ninth century by Alfonso III and bishop Sisnando I -- Compostela II -- still stood in Diego's youth. It had been repaired early in the eleventh century after the destruction caused by Almanzor in 997. Bishop Cresconio had added towers at its western end about the mid-century. Otherwise it was unchanged. It was bishop Diego Peláez who conceived the idea of rebuilding St. James's church on a vastly bigger scale.⁽³⁰⁾ The most [175] notable feature of the plan of the new church was its east end: the choir containing the high altar was to be ringed to the east by an ambulatory furnished with five radiating absidal chapels. This feature indicates the thinking behind the rebuilding: the new basilica was designed to accommodate large numbers of pilgrims. Controversy surrounds both the date at which the work was begun and its architectural ancestry. This is not the place to attempt to resolve questions which may indeed, on the evidence to hand, be insoluble. Suffice it to say that though preliminary works may have started as early as 1074-5, in the early twelfth century it was commonly though not unanimously held that building had begun in 1078. National prejudice has clouded discussion of its architectural ancestry. However, we have no reason to disbelieve the statement that the architects were two men bearing French names, Bernard and Robert; and the stylistic analogies of Compostela III are with the big pilgrimage churches of western France (especially Tours, Limoges and Toulouse) and with the abbey church of Cluny. Before his deposition in 1088 Diego Peláez saw the east end of the new church arise -- choir, ambulatory,' radiating chapels and probably at least the eastern parts of the transept (also provided with protruding chapels, two to each arm of the transept). It would seem that at this point work was interrupted, during the troubled last decade of the century. Slight changes in the design of the triforium, and a break in construction indicated by the masonry, constitute the evidence for this hiatus. It is likely that the building team was dispersed for a time. So much is suggested by the presence of Stephen, magister operis sancti Jacobi, at Pamplona in 1101, where he was engaged on the building of a new cathedral.⁽³¹⁾

Building at Compostela was resumed early in the episcopate of Diego Gelmírez. As is usual with romanesque cathedrals, precision in the dating of its various phases is [176] unattainable, though we have a fairly good idea of the sequence. The eastern parts of the church were evidently in use by 1105-6, for it was during Diego's fifth year as bishop that the new high altar received its silver frontal, and it was presumably at about the same time (if not earlier) that the five absidal and four transeptal chapels were consecrated.⁽³²⁾ The remains of Alfonso III's church were demolished in 1112, by which date we may presume that the crossing and at least the eastern parts of the nave had arisen.⁽³³⁾ 'A large part' (non modica pars) of the basilica had a roof of beams and thatch which was burnt in the disturbances of 1117. Afterwards it was repaired, and perhaps it was at this time that a solid stone roof was laid.⁽³⁴⁾ Our best-informed witness tells us that 'the greater part' (maior pars) of the new church was completed by 1124.⁽³⁵⁾

The cathedral itself, however, was only a part, albeit the largest part, of Diego's building operations. We have already seen that he rebuilt the canons' refectory. He also provided them with a cloister. This fulfilled an ambition he had long cherished. In a revealing passage the Historia tells us that Diego was embarrassed by the gibes of pilgrims who commented infavourably on the lack of a cloister: he wanted his church to have one, 'like the churches beyond the Pyrenees', even though 'they were poorer and less distinguished' than his own. Work on the cloister seems to have started between 1124 and 1128, but was still incomplete in 1137.⁽³⁶⁾ The conventual buildings of the canons, the cloister and related offices, all lay on the south side of the cathedral. On its north side Diego constructed an episcopal palace for himself. Existing accommodation being less than satisfactory, [177] he built early in his episcopate what the Historia describes as 'a three-chambered complex of rooms at first-floor level, with a tower' (tricameratum solium cum turri) to serve as his own residence. This was seriously damaged in 1117. Although it was repaired soon afterwards, Diego determined in 1120 to extend it into something more fitting to his new dignity as archbishop and papal legate. He threw out a long arm running eastwards, parallel to the nave of the cathedral, as far as the north transept (on to whose doorway one of its entrances gave). It was big enough to house large numbers of important guests, and his biographers could describe it as fit for a king. It had its own water-supply and was thereby well-placed -- and with good reason -- to stand a siege.⁽³⁷⁾

Between the eastern end of the palace and the entrance to the north transept there stood in a small court one of the wonders of Compostela -- an enormous fountain completed in 1122 to the designs of Bernardo, the cathedral treasurer. The pilgrims' guidebook describes it in some detail. Its bowl was big enough for fifteen people to bathe in at once. In its midst rose a bronze column surmounted by four lions from whose mouths gushed water freely available for citizens and pilgrims. You couldn't see, remarks our author, where the water came from nor where it went to. The Historia tells us. Bernardo had had conduits laid, sometimes above and sometimes below the level of the ground, from about a mile outside the city, to convey the water towards the cathedral where its use was shared between the fountain and the monks of the nearby monastery of San Martín Pinario. These conduits were roofed in stone to ensure that the water should be both pure and cool. It was a notable work of engineering.⁽³⁸⁾

Cathedral, chapter buildings, cloister, palace, public works: these constituted the cathedral complex brought to fruition by Diego Gelmírez. They by no means exhaust the list of buildings attributable to his initiative and erected at his expense within or without the town of Santiago de Compostela. But they suffice for the present to give some [178] notion of the sweep of his architectural ambitions. They also raise uncomfortable questions about the cost of fulfilling them.

Precise figures do not exist. But we may suppose it impossible to exaggerate the demands made upon the resources of bishop and chapter by the building programme. A large labour force must have been needed throughout the year: we are told that Bernard and Robert had fifty men working under their direction in the time of Diego Peláez.⁽³⁹⁾ Occasional windfalls might provide additional labour: in 1115 Diego was able to set Moorish captives to work.⁽⁴⁰⁾ Some labour and materials were provided gratis by pilgrims. It was customary for each pilgrim on passing through Triacastela to take up a piece of limestone and carry it with him as far as Castaniolla -- probably Castañeda, between Mellid and Arzúa -- where it was burnt for lime which was then transported to Compostela.⁽⁴¹⁾ Skilled craftsmen of various kinds were needed too. The sculpture about the Puerta de las Platerías and in the cathedral museum is still there to witness to this. Diego summoned a founder from France to cast bells. We hear of glaziers and painters.⁽⁴²⁾ Skilled carpenters must have been needed. We have already seen that there were men to hand who could work in silver and bronze.

Some of the money needed came from Diego's personal fortune. When, for example, work started on the cloister he offered 100 silver marks, and made provision for the income from a herd of a hundred cows to be devoted to the project after his death.⁽⁴³⁾ Like his contemporary abbot Suger of St. Denis, Diego was skilled at conjuring gifts from the great. In 1137 Alfonso VII promised to give 200 gold pieces annually towards the building of the cloister. Alfonso I of Aragon presented the great silver chandelier which hung before the high altar.⁽⁴⁴⁾ Fund-raisers were sent to distant places. The two canons sent to seek contributions in southern Italy have [179] already been mentioned. It would be surprising indeed if Diego sent no appeals to France, though we hear of none. (He was capable of asking an archbishop of Canterbury to send him troops.⁽⁴⁵⁾) One of the miracles of St. James tells a revealing story. In 1103 a ship conveying passengers from the Holy Land to Apulia was overtaken by a storm. The travellers called on St. James, some vowing to go as pilgrims to Compostela, others offering money towards the building of the cathedral. A knight who was on board, himself in the course of a pilgrimage to Compostela, collected the money. Immediately, St. James appeared to them and promised that they would be saved. The storm died down and they came safe to harbour. The knight went to Compostela and offered the money to the building fund.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Evidence of this sort, which could be multiplied, gives us some idea of how revenues that might be called extraordinary were sought for the construction and embellishment of the cathedral and its related buildings. We must presume, however, that the bulk of the money needed had to come from ordinary revenues; that is to say, from the see's endowments.

Information about the endowments is patchy. Royal diplomas by which lands, churches and privileges were granted to the church of St. James have been preserved in the cathedral cartulary known as Tumbo A, copied in the years 1129-31.⁽⁴⁷⁾ No systematic record exists of the benefactions of other donors, though stray references in the Historia and elsewhere make it plain that these were -- as one would expect -- very considerable. The laborious exercise of plotting all recorded landed possessions on a map yields little beyond the unsurprising information that they were far-flung. Already by the end of the ninth century they were strung out between Coimbra in the south and Oviedo in the north, from the Atlantic islands of Ons and Salvora in the west to Villasabariego, near Mansilla de las Mulas, to the east of León.⁽⁴⁸⁾ By Diego's day they had come to include properties still more widely distributed: urban property in Huesca, [180] estates between Auch and Toulouse in southern France, land in the valley of the Duero near Toro, olive groves at Talavera on the Tagus, the castle at Faro on the outskirts of the modern Corunna, to give only a few examples.⁽⁴⁹⁾

Even did we possess complete listings of Compostelan properties, which we do not, there would still be questions we should ask in vain. How were these properties managed? What was their annual value to the church of St. James? It was considered indicative of Diego's straits during the disturbances of 1116-17 that the episcopal table could be supplied only through purchase of foodstuffs in the market of Compostela.⁽⁵⁰⁾ So we may assume that the bishop's household, and probably the cathedral community at large, relied upon regular revenues in kind from their estates. The men of Cacabelos owed an annual render of six modii of barley, three of wheat, one cow, three pigs, three measures of wine, four sheep, twenty chickens, one hundred eggs, two pounds of wax and one of pepper; all to be paid over at Martinmas to Diego's steward.⁽⁵¹⁾ What proportion of Compostelan properties were managed directly in this fashion we cannot tell. It is however certain that other endowments were leased. Diego had to keep a watchful eye on these to prevent their slipping away altogether. The handsome estate at Cornelhã, for instance, in the valley of the Limia in what is now northern Portugal, had been granted to Santiago as long ago as 915.⁽⁵²⁾ Half of it was leased to archbishop Maurice of Braga in 1109; his successor Paio seized the other half in about 1118, and it was only with great difficulty that Diego managed to repossess it in 1121.⁽⁵³⁾

Diego and his chapter had other sources of revenue beyond the see's endowments. The income from spiritualities will [181] be considered in a later chapter.⁽⁵⁴⁾ Pilgrims obviously constituted an enormously important source of revenue, but we have no means of estimating its size.⁽⁵⁵⁾ Seigneurial revenues such as fonsadera (=scutage) and luctuosa (=relief) were available to Diego, also the mysterious tax called tributum quadragesimale; under the same heading we should count the profits of justice.⁽⁵⁶⁾ It was also in his capacity as the lordly sponsor of campaigns against pirates that Diego received a share, usually a fifth, of any booty taken.⁽⁵⁷⁾

A further source of wealth was the town of Compostela itself, for the bishop enjoyed the lordship (señorío) of the town. Urban life in northern Spain was booming in Diego's lifetime, and the almost townless Galicia of an earlier period was being transformed.⁽⁵⁸⁾ Compostela shared in this transformation. What did the town look like in Diego's day? Our starting-point has to be the description in the pilgrims' guidebook.⁽⁵⁹⁾ The site on which the town is built lies between two streams, the Sar to the south-east and the Sarela to the north-west. The ground slopes gently downhill from east to west, the cathedral lying at what was in Diego's time the western edge of the city; so that the pilgrim arriving from the east would look down towards the cathedral as he entered the walls by the Porta Francigena (now Puerta del Camino). The city walls had been built in the time of bishop Cresconio, about the middle of the eleventh century.⁽⁶⁰⁾ They were pierced by seven gates and enclosed within their circuit of some 2,400 yards -- about the same size as Roman Lugo -- a roughly rectangular area. Within there lay, apart from [182] the cathedral, two large ecclesiastical establishments, the monasteries of San Martín Pinario and San Pelayo de Antealtares: the latter certainly had a walled precinct and the former may have done. Unlike some other towns of northern Spain -- León, Oviedo, Burgos, for example -- Compostela had no royal palace or castle.⁽⁶¹⁾ Our sources give the impression that the walled area was fairly densely settled and built over.⁽⁶²⁾ It contained four churches in addition to those already mentioned; two further churches stood outside the walls. In 1136 a house of Augustinian canons, Sta Maria la Real del Sar, was founded outside the walls by the banks of the Sar. Some of the houses in the town had upper storeys: a charter of 1112 contrasts kasas terrenas with sobrados.⁽⁶³⁾ Since in the sixteenth century it seems that most of the dwelling houses were of wood, we may safely assume that this was also the case in the twelfth: it is suggestive that their walls were easy to break down.⁽⁶⁴⁾ The vast cathedral complex will have stood out all the more imposingly above the modest houses which surrounded it. The visitor could have been in no doubt about who mattered most in Compostela.

A charter of 1147 refers to a spot where 'announcements are made in the market-place'.⁽⁶⁵⁾ The word for announcements -- preconia -- has given its name to the street now called Preguntoiro, to the east of San Pelayo de Antealtares, and this is our only clue to the whereabouts of the marketplace. It is not far from the Porta de Macerellis, 'through which the precious juice of Bacchus enters the town'.⁽⁶⁶⁾ The name of this gate, evidently something to do with butchery, also hints at commerce. The goods for sale in the market are listed in Diego's edict of prices.⁽⁶⁷⁾ There is nothing exotic there: food and drink, shoes and clothing, pottery and tools; these are goods one may see in the Compostela market today, [183] the staples of an urban community not very far removed, in an economic sense, from its rural background. But there was more sophisticated trafficking too. The Maurinus with whom Diego found refuge while fleeing from the mob in 1117 seems to have been a cloth merchant. When king Alfonso VII wanted to dispose of a valuable gold chalice he sent it to Compostela to be sold 'because he knew of no place in the whole of Spain where it would sell better'.⁽⁶⁸⁾ There was money in Compostela. Some of it was struck there. The Compostela mint is first heard of towards the end of the eleventh century. By a characteristically unscrupulous piece of bullying Diego managed to wrest control of it from the reluctant hands of Alfonso VI.⁽⁶⁹⁾ Far more money must have been brought by pilgrims. From an economic point of view, the most important single consequence of the habit of pilgrimage was the movement and spending of what in the aggregate must have amounted to very considerable sums of money. The pilgrims spent it on footwear; on food and lodging; on souvenirs, especially the scallop-shells which pilgrims to Santiago took home with them as pilgrims to Jerusalem took home palms.⁽⁷⁰⁾ They spent it on being swindled by fraudulent money-changers.⁽⁷¹⁾ It seems that they also spent it on prostitutes, despite Diego's attempts to run these enterprising ladies out of town.⁽⁷²⁾

One of the miracles of St. James tells of some German pilgrims to Compostela in 1090 who were the victims of a cruel fraud in Toulouse.⁽⁷³⁾ There were wealthy people and they travelled 'with plentiful quantities of rich goods'. Were they merchants? It is hard otherwise to see why they should have encumbered themselves in this way. Sources from this period have a good deal to tell us about merchants who masqueraded as pilgrims to avoid paying tolls.⁽⁷⁴⁾ Irrespective of whether they behaved in this manner, foreign merchants [184] were coming, it seems frequently and in some numbers, to Compostela or to its port, Padrón. We hear in the Historia of English, Lotharingian and Norman merchants; and one of the many striking revelations of the English account of the conquest of Lisbon in 1147 is that the skippers on both sides of the narrow seas were evidently conversant with the lanes that led across Biscay to northern Spain.⁽⁷⁵⁾ Others came overland, like the Barcelona business man who was the beneficiary of no less than thirteen of St. James's miracles.⁽⁷⁶⁾ The ecclesiastical legislation of the period displays steady concern for the protection of merchants on their travels.⁽⁷⁷⁾ Some settled in Compostela. There were certainly Frenchmen there.⁽⁷⁸⁾ John the Lombard, a moneyer, was Italian, and so perhaps was his partner Tandulf. Adhémar the moneyer perhaps came from southern France.⁽⁷⁹⁾ Of the native merchant community we know nothing, but it is impossible to believe that it did not exist.

The Compostela bourgeoisie was a force to be reckoned with. Its members could exert pressure on their rulers to exact valuable privileges for themselves. In 1095, for example, count Raymond granted the merchants of Compostela freedom from distraint except with the sanction of a tribunal which sat in their home town.⁽⁸⁰⁾ In 1120 queen Urraca exempted the citizens from the payment of toll (portaticum, portazgo) throughout her kingdom.⁽⁸¹⁾ The surviving evidence conjures up a prosperous, self-confident, assertive urban community, possessed of shrewd political sense. Ecclesiastics who were lords of towns in other parts of Europe found such communities hard to control. It is not surprising that Diego should have encountered difficulties. His authority was twice challenged, first and most seriously in 1116-17, and again in 1136. Some historians have argued that the unrest which occurred was the expression of a simple and straightforward contest between a 'progressive' bourgeoisie [185] and a 'reactionary' episcopal seigneur.⁽⁸²⁾ But it was a good deal more complicated than this. For this reason, and also because the story sheds so welcome a light upon the uncertainties and tensions inherent in Diego's relations with crown and nobility, town and chapter, it is worth spending a little time upon the first of these encounters.

The first series of disturbances began in the spring of 1116 and lasted until the summer of 1117.⁽⁸³⁾ Their immediate occasion was a political manúuvre by queen Urraca. Gerald's narrative in the Historia, narrow of vision as ever, sees only a woman's irresponsibility. But in the larger context of the political situation in Spain as a whole, the queen's actions appear intelligible and shrewd. As we saw in the last chapter, relations between Diego and the queen were extremely strained in the spring and summer of 1116. Neither should we forget that Almoravide pressure on the southern frontier of the kingdom of León-Castile was still being maintained; nor that Alfonso I of Aragon remained an unwelcome presence in eastern Castile. Urraca could most effectively embarrass the bishop of Compostela and protect her rear by kindling the latent opposition to Diego in his own cathedral city.

With the queen's encouragement a party among the citizens was brought to rebel against Diego's authority. They were successful. Diego lost all power over the town. He was virtually imprisoned. His excommunications went unheeded. His rents were cut off and his episcopal palace destroyed. After about six months he gave in to the queen; the fruit of his submission was the peace of Sahagún in October 1116. But what followed was even more alarming. Although the queen's orders had been that Diego be restored to his authority in Compostela; and although he had staged a [186] spectacular translation of relics given to him by the queen in order to rally support to himself (somewhat as in 1102 with St. Fructuosus); it quickly became clear that some among the opposition were in no mood to give up what they had gained. In the spring of 1117 Urraca came to Galicia. Some sort of armed confrontation was unavoidable. An attempt by the royalists to disarm the rebels was bungled and at this point the situation passed out of control. Diego and the queen with a small following were cornered in the upper storeys of the bell-tower at the west end of the cathedral (presumably one of the towers built by bishop Cresconio). Their besiegers set fire to the lower storeys, doubtless availing themselves for fuel of the abundant building materials which were to hand. The queen, leaving under what she thought was a safe conduct, was roughly handled by the mob; Diego escaped through the mediation, it seems, of the abbot of San Martín Pinario.⁽⁸⁴⁾ Others were less fortunate; at least four prominent people were killed. With difficulty and in some danger, Diego and Urraca escaped from the town and rallied their forces. No less than five armies converged on Compostela, and the insurgents gave in. The queen was all for retribution; but Diego, who would have had to live with the results, counselled moderation. The ringleaders were exiled, the remainder got off with an immense fine. Such, in very summary form, were the events at Santiago de Compostela in the years 1116 and 1117.

The most intriguing question is that of the nature of the opposition to Diego. The leaders initially stirred up by queen Urraca were 'certain citizens more powerful than the rest'. Diego had long suspected their loyalty and had tried to bind them to him by an oath. This is as much as we are told. In addition to these men there were certain members of the cathedral chapter among the opposition. This is implied at several points in Gerald's narrative, and once stated unambiguously. Three leaders are singled out in the Historia, but only one among them is named. Arias Núñez forced Diego to make him an archdeacon; at one point he took refuge in the monastery of San Martín Pinario, but emerged [187] later to take part in the last days of the rebellion. We are not told that he was a member of the chapter; we are not even told whether or not he was a clerk. It is prudent to resist the temptation to identify him with the canon named Arias Núñez who was an archdeacon in the 1120s and 1130s. (Arias and Nuño were very common names in early twelfth-century Galicia.) Another leader, unnamed, is described in terms which make it clear that he was not a native of the town; it is hinted that he wanted to lay hands on some of the landed endowments of the see; and he evidently knew something of warfare. The third leader mentioned, again unnamed, was a cleric and almost certainly a member of the chapter. He was a man for whom Diego had great affection: he had been brought up in the bishop's household, educated in France at the bishop's expense, granted lands by the bishop, and listened to as a trusted counsellor. All three were natives of Galicia. Gerald, usually so prodigal of information, is oddly reluctant to name them. Arias is not named in the text, only in rubrics which are not to be found in all manuscripts (which is why they are missing in Flórez's edition). The implication is that some or all of them were still about when he composed his account.⁽⁸⁵⁾ The rebels as a whole were regarded by our author as being below the social rank of those accustomed to exercise power. They behaved 'like serfs and peasants when they were given power to rule', commented Gerald. (Was it at home in Beauvais at the time of the communal uprising of 1099 that he had seen 'serfs and peasants' ruling?) Queen Urraca's robust comment on them is best left in the decent obscurity of a learned language (sterquilinium). But the leaders were obviously men of some social position.

What were their grievances? The only thing we may be certain about was their dislike of Diego's administration of the town. They seem especially to have resented that this was so much a family affair. When the movement began, Diego's brother was villicus of the town, that is to say the official principally charged with its administration, and his nephew Pedro was prior of the chapter. Among the earliest [188] demands of the rebels was that they should be dismissed. The brother, Gundesindo, was later murdered, and Pedro narrowly escaped the same fate. Another who was killed was Diego the Squinter, whom the bishop had appointed villicus when he was trying to restore his authority early in 1117. This hatred for his connections extended to Diego himself, as he well knew: 'It's me they're really after, not you', he told the queen when they were trapped together in the blazing tower. The more extreme among the ringleaders wanted him deposed. People and objects near and dear to him were treated with savage malice: his palace destroyed; his principal household officers butchered.

Behind these expressions of resentment we cannot get. We do not know precisely what it was about the running of the town that the opposition found so hateful. Perhaps it was simply that it was run by and for a clique of family and clients of which Diego was the boss. All the ringleaders were Galicians. Diego loved French ways, gave ecclesiastical preferment to French clergy, entrusted the keeping of the official record of his pontificate to a Frenchman -- and was sheltered by French townspeople in the course of his escape from Compostela. Might we have here a clue to another of the underlying causes of the rising? Perhaps: but we cannot be sure. The leader who was not a native of the town sounds like a man of similar social background to Diego. His ambitions over the temporalities of the see are suggestive. Was he a landowner who considered that he had been cheated of his rights by the church of Santiago? Was he a member of a rival family -- in rivalry for the same kind of jobs -- to the family of Gelmirio? Again, perhaps: as we saw in the last chapter, there were plenty of people of precisely this type among the Galician squirearchy. We cannot now recover the dense tissue of family feuds in the Tierra de Santiago.

'They made an agreement which they called a brotherhood' (conspirationem quam vocant germanitatem), wrote Gerald. It was fortified by an oath. We know only two of its several heads. But these were evidently written down, for when the revolt was suppressed it was stipulated that 'their charter (chirographum)should be given to the bishop to be destroyed'. When Diego's administrators had been [189] edged out, the rebels set up officers of their own to run the city. Daily meetings were held, at which 'they concerned themselves with laws and judgements' (leges et iudicia pertractabant) -- whatever that may mean. 'They made new laws and decrees' (renovant leges et plebiscita). This is tantalizing stuff. We should much like to know more of such things. Regrettably we cannot.

This was not the end of the story. In 1118 Diego feared that the exiles would obstruct his envoys to the papal court. They had sympathizers among the remaining members of the cathedral chapter.⁽⁸⁶⁾ The confluence of different groups of opponents, so apparent in 1116-17, was noted again by Gerald when he recorded certain events that occurred in 1127: Diego's enemies were composed of 'noble knights who dwelt outside the city, citizens of Compostela who were bound to him by oath, and clergy, canons of our church, whom he had himself brought up in his own household'.⁽⁸⁷⁾ This same coalescing of groups is evident once more during the disturbances of 1136.⁽⁸⁸⁾ These followed much the same pattern as those of 1116-17, and we need not dwell on them at such length. Once again we witness a challenge to Diego's authority mounted by disaffected canons and citizens. Again he lost control of the town, saw his officers displaced and his regulations discarded. Again he was the target for attack. A tired old man now, he was roused from his siesta on 10 August and again had to resort to ignominious flight from a mob who stoned him at the very high altar of his own cathedral. Again, order was restored and punishment meted out.⁽⁸⁹⁾ One feature of the goings-on of 1136 differentiated them from those of 1116-17. At one point the rebels tried to get king Alfonso VII on their side. They offered him a huge bribe -- 3,000 marks -- if he would deprive Diego of his temporalities and send him into exile. [190] (The size of the sum they offered is one indication that they were men of substance.) The king was tempted but resisted. Instead he sent to pope Innocent II and asked him to send a papal legate to Spain to look into the dispute. Cardinal Guido was dispatched in answer to this request, and the council of Burgos over which he presided in October was concerned, among much else, with the settlement of the summer's disturbances at Compostela.

Gerald tells us that the pilgrims present at Compostela in 1117 were shocked and dismayed by what they witnessed. But pilgrims themselves could be a source of trouble. When the count of Toulouse and his brother went on pilgrimage to Compostela at some point in the 1060s they were refused access to the shrine because it was after nightfall when they got to the town. Great men were not accustomed to being treated in this manner. They went off and gathered a gang of 200 other pilgrims and returned to the cathedral. Small wonder that when the flickering light of the torches they carried revealed this menacing posse the gates of the apostle's oratory miraculously burst open.⁽⁹⁰⁾ The brawling of pilgrims within the cathedral could lead to bloodshed, even to homicide.⁽⁹¹⁾ A man in Diego's position had to be accustomed to violence. In part he brought it on himself: it was the price he had to pay for his achievements. He transformed his chapter. He rebuilt his cathedral. He embellished his city. These were notable triumphs, but they were won only at a cost. The events of 1116-17 and 1136 were part of that cost. They shook Diego's authority to its foundations. But he rallied -- showing characteristic political skill -- and came through relatively unscathed.

One feature of the events of 1136 is worthy of remark. The disturbances were very quickly brought to the notice of pope Innocent II, both unofficially by a citizen of Pisa who witnessed them while in Compostela as a pilgrim,⁽⁹²⁾ and officially by Alfonso VII. The pope had harsh words for those who had presumed to molest an archbishop. There [191] was nothing surprising about this: just so had Urban II reacted to the deposition of Diego Peláez nearly half a century earlier. But the speed with which the news reached the pope in 1136, the resolution with which he ordered certain measures in the confidence that his commands would be carried out -- these features were new. What changes had been worked to make them possible?

1. Quoted from R. 20 April 911.

2. LFH II, ap. xxiii, pp. 42-3.

3. e.g. R. 21 May 958, 1 June 986.

4. HC, p. 544.

5. For what follows, see HC, pp. 54-7, 144, 243, 255-6, 543-4.

6. See above, ch. V, and below, appendix D. The Cronicon Iriense has been edited by M. R. García Alvarez, Memorial Histórico Español, 50 (1963), 1-240.

7. Compare HC, p. 55 (Pedro Anáyaz) with p. 544 (Gerald of Beauvais); but note that R. 16 January 1100 implies some division before Diego's episcopate. For the practice elsewhere in western Spain see Episcopate, pp. 148-9.

8. HC, p. 256. Arrangements for sharing the offerings made at the altar of St. James are explained in LSJ, pp. 387-8.

9. HC, pp. 55, 544; cf. the reference in LSJ, p. 379 to the door de gramaticorum scola on the north side of the cathedral. See also R. Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982), pp. 220-7, for the educational changes at Compostela: the implications of the argument, here and elsewhere in this important study, are far-reaching. In the light of Dr Wright's work it might be more appropriate to translate eloquentia in this context as 'pronunciation' or 'elocution', than as 'rhetoric'.

10. HC, pp. 56-7: for the correct date see the earliest extant manuscript of the Historia, Salamanca, Biblioteca de la Universidad, MS 2658, fo. 24r.

11. HC, p. 255.

12. For this council, see G. Martínez Díez, 'El concilio compostelano del reinado de Fernando I', Anuario de Estudios Medievales 1 (1964), 121-38.

13. HC, pp. 243, 370.

14. LSJ, p. 387.

15. R. 30 May 1087, 14 May 1107.

16. e.g. LFH III, ap. xxxiii, p. 102; R. 31 March 1116.

17. HC, p.346.

18. e.g. in his subscription to R. 18 March 1131.

19. LFH IV, p. 171.

20. R. 30 May 1087.

21. Gerald of Beauvais described himself as didascalus at HC, p. 265, elsewhere as magister scolarum.

22. For what follows, see HC, pp. 33-4, 93-4 (=JL 5881, 6042, 6208); LSJ, p 386; S. Kuttner, 'Cardinalis: the history of a canonical concept', Traditio 3 (1945), 129-215.

23. HC, pp. 57, 145, 268, 340, 458.

24. LSJ, pp. 275-6.

25. For these examples see HC, pp. 31, 44, 79, 84-5, 401, 499.

26. The matter is clinched by his subscription of R. 12 October 1113 as canon of both León and Compostela. For the León prebend see Episcopate, p. 234. There were other pickings too: see: AHN 512/13.

27. HC, pp. 126, 133, 153, 169, 188. Chapter feasts were evidently an important feature of the canons' life: see HC, p. 471.

28. HC, pp. 40-1. Gogilde (on which see also HC, pp. 59, 148) is a little to the north of Pontevedra; Milladoiro is about three miles south of Santiago de Compostela. The plague here referred to is not known from any other source.

29. HC, p. 5l.

30. For the architectural history of the cathedral see G. E. Street, Gothic Architecture in Spain (2nd edn., London, 1869); LFH III, pp. 47-150; K. J. Conant, The early architectural history of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Cambridge, Mass., 1926); W. M. Whitehill, Spanish Romanesque architecture of the eleventh century (Oxford, 1941); M. Chamoso Lamas, V. González and B. Regal, La España Románica: Galicia (2nd edn., Madrid, 1980).

31. J. Goñi Gaztambide, Catálogo del Archivo Catedral de Pamplona, I (829-1500), (Pamplona, 1965), nos. 86, 87. His wife Rerialdis (ibid., no. 104), like her husband, had a French name. Stephen is also traceable, in the company of the exiled bishop Diego Peláez, at Leire in the kingdom of Aragon-Navarre, in 1098: see F. Iñíguez Almech, 'El monasterio de San Salvador de Leyre', Príncipe de Viana 27 (1966), 189-220.

32. HC, pp. 51-3; LSJ, p. 384. The chapel of Ste Foi (reading Fidel for Sedis at HC, p. 53) was dedicated by bishop Pedro of Pamplona, previously a monk at Ste Foi de Conques: this is traditionally dated 1105, though there is no warrant for this date.

33. HC, pp. 137-8.

34. HC, pp. 229, 249. The pilgrims' guidebook (LSJ, p. 382) states incorrectly that the basilica was roofed in tiles. The granite of that area looks brown when freshly dressed, softening to grey only after a long period of exposure. Perhaps it was the colour which misled the author into taking the roofing material for tile.

35. HC, p. 473.

36. HC, pp. 371, 473-5, 545, 588. An earlier cloister is referred to at HC, p. 41: perhaps it had to be swept away in the course of the rebuilding of the cathedral.

37. HC, pp. 54, 217, 220, 249, 307-8: its garden is referred to HC, p. 472.

38. HC, pp. 369-72; LSJ, p. 379; Episcopate, pp. 235-6.

39. LSJ, p. 386. As the author elsewhere observed (ibid., p. 382) the local granite is 'very hard, like marble'.

40. HC, p. 199.

41. LSJ, p. 352. Fuel would have been hard to come by in the bare uplands round Triacastela, but the area near Castañeda is (as the name implies-'chestnut trees') well-wooded.

42. HC, pp. 426-7; LSJ, pp. 378, 382.

43. HC, p. 474.

44. HC, p. 588; LSJ, pp. 385-6.

45. Sancti Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt (London, 1938-61), IV, ep. 265.

46. LSJ, pp. 271-2.

47. For further discussion of this cartulary, see below, ch. X.

48. R. 6 May 899.

49. For these examples see respectively R. March 1098 (Pedro I of Aragon); HC, p. 44; R. 30 May 1087, and cf. also R. 13 February 1147 and LFH IV, ap. xvi, pp. 43-5; HC, pp. 498-9; R. 24 May 991, and cf. also HC, p. 86 (=JL 6264).

50. HC, p. 220.

51. R. 22 February 1130: cf. also HC, p. 499 for the arrangements for the annual transport of oil from Talavera to Compostela; so bulky a commodity must surely have gone by water, i.e. down the Tagus to Lisbon and then up the Atlantic coast.

52. R. 30 January 915; fonts bounds see R. 8 January 1061.

53. HC, pp. 145-6, 264-5, 327. The story was a good deal more complicated than appears from my summary in the text.

54. See below, ch. IX.

55. HC, pp. 590-5 recounts Alfonso VII's attempts to lay hold of a share of it towards the end of Diego's life.

56. HC, p. 178; C. Sánchez Albornoz, 'El tributum quadragesimale:supervivencias fiscales romanas en Galicia', in his Estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españoles (Mexico City, 1965), pp. 358-68.

57. HC, pp. 135, 199, 303, 527-8, 529; H. Grassotti, 'Para la historia del botín y de las parias en León y Castilla', Cuadernos de Historia de España 39-40 (1964), 48-132.

58. See, in general, L. G. de Valdeavellano, Sobre los burgos y los burgueses de la España medieval (Madrid, 1960); J. Gautier-Dalché, Historia urbana de León y Castilla en la edad media (Madrid, 1979).

59. LSJ, pp. 376-7.

60. This is debatable. The other contender, bishop Sisnando II (952-68), planned to build a wall but we are not told that he did so. We hear nothing of any wall at the time of Almanzor's expedition in 997.

61. But individual members of the royal family could and did own property there, for example Doña Elvira, daughter of Fernando I: R. 13 November 1100. When Alfonso VII visited Compostela in 1127 he stayed in the house of one of the citizens: HC, p. 452.

62. Extra-mural settlement is implied by the reference to the civitas et suburbium at HC, p. 335. The foundation charter for Sar makes clear that there was such settlement on that side of the city in 1136: LFH IV, ap. viii, at p. 22.

63. R. 14 May 1112, and cf. also HC, p. 125.

64. HC, pp. 234-5.

65. R. 11 July 1147.

66. LSJ, p. 377, and cf. also HC, p. 533.

67. HC, pp. 532-6.

68. HC, pp. 234, 488.

69. R. 13 November 1100, 14 May 1107; HC, pp. 65-8, 85-6, 307-8, 495. The mint was situated near the door of the north transept of the cathedral, its site recalled by the modern street-name Rua da Antigua Casa da Moeda.

70. LSJ, pp. 153, 273-4, 379-80.

71. LSJ, pp. 162-3.

72. HC, p. 533.

73. LSJ, pp. 267-8.

74. See for instance the tariff edited by J. M. Lacarra, Un arancel de aduanas del siglo XI (Zaragoza, 1950).

75. HC, pp. 291, 505-6; De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. C. W. David (New York, 1936).

76. LSJ, pp. 286-7.

77. e.g. HC, pp. 418, 485.

78. HC, p. 234.

79. HC, pp. 61, 65; R. 13 November 1100.

80. R. 24 September 1095.

81. R. 13 June 1120. In Spain as elsewhere such tolls were much resented: cf. HC, pp. 60-1 on the portazgo at Puente Sampayo.

82. See most recently R. Pastor de Togneri, 'Las primeras rebeliones burguesas en Castilla y León (siglo XII). Análisis histórico-social de una coyuntura', in her Conflictos sociales y estancamiento económico en la España medieval (Barcelona, 1973), pp. 13-102. The analogies with the communal movement of northern France, which exist but should not be pressed too far, have been recently restated by J. Gautier-Dalché, Historia urbana de León y Castilla en la edad media (Madrid, 1979), pp. 225-30.

83. For what follows, our only source is Gerald's vivid narrative in HC, pp. 211-49. The extent of his partisanship is indicated by his habit of likening Diego's opponents to Judas Iscariot. For the political background, see ch. VI.

84. The grant made to the abbot in 1118 (AHN 512/7) looks like an expression of gratitude.

85. The reference to the antipope on HC, p. 221 shows that this section was composed between 1118 and 1121.

86. HC, pp. 261, 265, 291.

87. HC, pp. 447-8.

88. For what follows see HC, pp. 567-82.

89. R. 17 July 1137. The ringleader named in this charter, Guillermo Seguin, was named in HC, p. 572 as huius proditionis maximus incentor. Can the Juan Lombardo whose confiscated goods were its subject possibly be identical with the moneyer of this name who was active a generation earlier? Guillermo Seguin was villicus of Compostela after Diego's death, in 1140-1 and again in 1149-50: AD Braga, Gaveta dos Arcebispos, no. 4.

90. LSJ, pp. 282-3.

91. La Documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III, ed. D. Mansilla (Rome, 1955), no. 269 (from the year 1207).

92. HC, p. 583; the papal court was at Pisa throughout 1136.