[279] During the reign of Urraca the local government of the kingdom can mean only government that can be perceived as functioning in the great subdivisions of León, Galicia, Asturias, the trans-Duero, and that portion of Castilla not removed from her control by the occupation of Alfonso of Aragón. Portugal, from Braga south to Coimbra, had become effectively independent on the death of her father and could have been reunited with the remainder of the realm only by the accession of Count Henry to the crown of León. Rioja, like a portion of Castilla, had passed under the control of Aragón.

To the south the new acquisition of Toledo remained just barely within the realm. Buffeted by the Murâbit attempts at reconquest and claimed by Alfonso of Aragón, it maintained an uneasy, practical independence under Alvar Fáñez until the latter's death in 1114. After his death Toledo recognized the nominal overlordship of Aragón until 1117. Late in that year Alfonso Raimúndez was received in the imperial city. His control there, at first slight, was to grow until it formed a virtual appanage from 1121 until his mother's death in 1126. Assuredly local government in Toledo was irregular.

Within the realm that remained to her, the local government of Urraca was dominated by the figure of the count. Any assessment of its actual working must therefore begin with a consideration of the significance of the countship.

Many problems emerge in the examination of the office of count in the early twelfth century. Perhaps the most useful [280] first observation is that the title was quite rare. Examination of roughly five hundred fifty royal and private documents of the period 1109-1126 yields a little more than twelve hundred distinguishable, nonclerical male names, only thirty-four of whom are ever designated as "count." If we accept the total population of Urraca's territories as roughly one million,⁽¹⁾ it becomes even more obvious how important a person the count was.

Even when individuals who may be identified securely as counts confirm documents they do not invariably appear with that title. Often they are mentioned merely as "mandante in" or "imperante in" or "tenens" or simply as "in." If such designations are taken always and simply to imply comital position, then the number of persons holding that dignity during Urraca's reign increases by another thirty-two. For reasons to be considered later, I do not believe that such a simple equivalence is tenable.⁽²⁾

The character of the documents raises, but does not settle, another question. Eleven of the thirty-one counts identifiable in the records of Urraca's reign are never connected at all with any territorial unit. Has the countship become by this time a heritable dignity, separable from any necessary public jurisdiction?

In two documents of Pedro Ansúrez of 1114 his grandson, Armengol, was accorded the comital title not because of any public charge he fulfilled but, in all probability, because of his descent from the line of the counts of Urgel.⁽³⁾ Bertran, nephew of Alfonso of Aragón, was styled count in four documents of Urraca in the years 1113 to 1115, but it was not [281] until the Council of Burgos in 1117 that she recognized his jurisdiction in Carrión de los Condes.⁽⁴⁾ The fact that both instances involve strangers to the realm may indicate a purely courteous use of the title. A survey of the structure of counties may be more revealing.

First, the old county of Castilla has been resolved into a welter of lesser units. In the first known document of Urraca's reign, Gómez González confirms as "castellanorum comes,"⁽⁵⁾ a title that had occasionally been accorded him during the reign of Alfonso VI. For a dozen years, between 1087 and 1099, Count Gómez had been the alférez of Alfonso VI. According to thirteenth-century chronicles he had been the first choice of the nobility as a husband for Urraca in 1109 and was later her lover.⁽⁶⁾ He died at Candespina in the fall of 1111 leading the queen's forces against Alfonso of Aragón.

But except insofar as he was then the leading member of the house of Lara, he was in no way count of all Castilla.⁽⁷⁾ The territories that he actually governed lay about sixty kilometers east of Burgos, on the border of Rioja, around Pancorbo and Cerezo de Riotirón in the Bureba.⁽⁸⁾ As a magnate and official of the frontier, his own ambitions in the valley of the Ebro may well account for his hostility to the union with Aragón.

[282] At the same time his cousin and supplanter as Urraca's favorite, Pedro González, was count in Lara de los Infantes, some thirty kilometers to the southeast of Burgos. Until the end of the reign Pedro appears as count of Lara,⁽⁹⁾ but he is also occasionally styled count in Castilla. All these latter designations appear in private documents and should again be understood as indicating a kind of general preeminence only.⁽¹⁰⁾ It is certain, however, that his jurisdiction extended westward some distance from Lara de los Infantes, at least later in the reign, for in April 1122 a private document cited him as count in both Lara and "Palentia del Comite."⁽¹¹⁾ In June of 1124 a donation of the Infanta Sancha to Cluny mentions him as count of Lara and of Torremormojón, the latter being roughly twenty kilometers west southwest of the city of Palencia. ⁽¹²⁾

Probably this extreme western extension of Count Pedro González's territory was an extraordinary measure taken to parallel the long corridor that Alfonso el Batallador had thrust into the kingdom from Burgos through Castrojeriz to Carrión de los Condes. Like Peñafiel, where Pedro was mentioned as count in 1113,⁽¹³⁾ Torremormojón was essentially a castle but not ordinarily the center of a county.

North of Burgos, in the valley of the Río Miera and in Asturias de Santillana along the edges of the Basque country, another branch of the Lara held sway, first in the person of [283] Count Rodrigo Múñoz. He had been count there at least as early as 1104 and continued to be probably as late as August 11, 1111.⁽¹⁴⁾ By February 28, 1112 he had been relegated to a lesser role, though still a count, in the lands beyond the Miera by his cousin, Rodrigo González, brother of Count Pedro González de Lara.⁽¹⁵⁾

Count Rodrigo too was able to retain this authority until the end of Urraca's reign and to extend it west also as far as Aguilar de Campoó by 1125.⁽¹⁶⁾ Sometime before that date he had married the Infanta Sancha, half sister of Queen Urraca, and by May 10, 1125 two daughters had been born of the marriage.⁽¹⁷⁾ The marriage was no hindrance to the growth of his jurisdiction. He or his cousin, Rodrigo Múñoz, may have been the Count Rodrigo "in castella" who appears in two of Urraca's donations in May 1112.⁽¹⁸⁾ In any event, the title should not be taken literally.

Between these jurisdictions of the house of Lara stretched the territories successfully held by Alfonso of Aragón through virtually the entirety of Urraca's reign: along the artery of the Camino de Santiago from Logroño in Rioja to Burgos, and beyond to Castrojeriz and Carrión de los Condes. There had been a county centered on Nájera in the time of Alfonso VI. In Burgos the bishop may have held comital powers or something like their equivalent during the same reign.

There is no documentary record of a countship at Castrojeriz [284] in the time of Alfonso VI, but Fernando Ruiz, head of house of Castro, may have been royal castellan of the fortress there. Opponent of the house of Lara, Fernando was married to the sister of Count Pedro Ansúrez.⁽¹⁹⁾ From that marriage came Guter Fernández, majordomo of Urraca from 1110 to the beginning of 1117, that is, from the beginning of the latter's hostility toward her former husband until just that time when she accepted his de facto rule in central Castilla so as to pursue the consolidation of her authority in Galicia.

Guter Fernández married Toda Díaz, daughter of that Diego Alvárez whose holdings in eastern Castilla around Oca had also passed into Aragonese hands. He was therefore understandably at least the most visible leader of the revolt in the spring and summer of 1119 directed unsuccessfully against Urraca's policy of peace with Aragón. The restoration of his fortunes was not accomplished, however, until after Urraca's death and the reversal of her Aragonese policy by her son.⁽²⁰⁾

At the western end of the Aragonese salient lay Carrión de los Condes. In the reign of Alfonso VI this seems to have been the center of a countship in the hands of Pedro Ansúrez that stretched twenty-five kilometers northward along the Río Carrión to Saldaña and some thirty kilometers eastward along the Camino de Santiago to Melgar de Fernamental.⁽²¹⁾ [285] Whether these lands should be considered as part of the county of Castilla or of the Campo Gótico is a somewhat tangled question.

After the rupture of the marriage between Urraca and Alfonso of Aragón, Carrión and Melgar de Fernamental were lost to León except for a brief period in 1113 when Burgos was recaptured.⁽²²⁾ Pedro Ansúrez maintained his countship in the area until his disappearance from public life after December 9, 1117, but it was now effectively limited to the area around Saldaña.⁽²³⁾ In November 1119 Pedro López of the Riojan house of Haro appeared "in saldania" and continued so until March of 1125.⁽²⁴⁾ He was never styled count and probably served merely as royal castellan there.

After reaching her understanding with Alfonso of Aragón at the Council of Burgos in February 1117, Urraca seems to have recognized the former's cousin, Bertran, as count of a restored county centered at Carrión. So would her son and successor.⁽²⁵⁾ Count Bertran's jurisdiction was at that time recognized as legitimate by both Aragón and León. In 1117 his [286] effective superior would have been the Aragonese monarch, but he gradually gravitated toward the Leonese court.

For practical purposes, then, during the reign of Urraca three major counts and one minor one held actual jurisdiction within the boundaries of the old county of Castilla. In Asturias the situation was somewhat simpler. In the east the jurisdiction of Rodrigo González of Lara overlapped into Asturias de Santillana, as we have seen.

In the center of the old province, Asturias de Oviedo, there was no count; at least, there was no one who bore that title. Instead, one man, Gonzalo Peláez, appears from almost the beginning of Urraca's reign until its end under a variety of designations but never that of count. On July 2, 1110, in his first appearances, he is cited as "in Oveto";⁽²⁶⁾ on June 13, 1113, as "dominante Asturias";⁽²⁷⁾ on December 22, 1113, as "caput terra";⁽²⁸⁾ in May 1120, as "regnante Asturias";⁽²⁹⁾ on May 26, 1120, as "Asturias presidente";⁽³⁰⁾ and in 1123, in the most frequently used terminology, as "potestas in Asturias."⁽³¹⁾ If all these variants are to be taken as simple equivalents of the comital dignity, why is he never, in some thirty-six known documents, simply styled "count"?

In fact, the last known reference to a count in Asturias is dated March 19, 1106.⁽³²⁾ All of this suggests that during the last years of Alfonso VI, or at the very beginning of Urraca's reign, a decision was made by the crown not to appoint a new count. Probably in the interests of the increased authority [287] of Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo only a castellan was named in the county. The bearer of that essentially military jurisdiction was a new man, unrelated to the old comital house so far as we know.

On November 18, 1118 Urraca made a donation of some fisc lands in the province of León to one Gonzalo Peláez, "fideli meo." If this is the same man, and I am inclined to suspect that it is, then it is possible that the castellan was Leonese rather than Asturian by birth.⁽³³⁾ In any event his authority grew steadily through his long tenure. During the reign of Alfonso VII he was eventually awarded the countship, subsequently rebelled against Alfonso, and ended his life in exile in Portugal.⁽³⁴⁾

The evidence is that toward the middle of Urraca's reign the queen found it necessary to limit Gonzalo Peláez's authority in western Asturias. As early as 1115 one Gonzalo Sánchez appeared as castellan in Tineo, forty kilometers west of Oviedo.⁽³⁵⁾ Then in 1120 and again in 1125 a Suero appeared as count there.⁽³⁶⁾ The latter is to be identified with that Suero who was also mentioned as count in Luna, the district in the extreme northwest of the province of León from which two passes led over the Cordillera Cantabrica and down into western Asturias near Tineo.⁽³⁷⁾

This count is the magnate Suero Vermúdez, an important [288] figure at the court of Urraca, related to the royal family, to the Ansúrez, and to the Trastamaras of Galicia.⁽³⁸⁾ Floriano Cumbreño makes of him a largely Asturian figure, gives him a different wife and genealogy, and characterizes him as an antagonist of Gonzalo Peláez in Asturias from the beginning of Urraca's reign.⁽³⁹⁾ There is little actual evidence for Suero's influence in Asturias before 1117, but after that date it increased very rapidly, and his house was instrumental in Gonzalo's downfall during the reign of Alfonso VII.⁽⁴⁰⁾

The administrative scheme that emerges, then, for the old province of Asturias during the reign of Urraca is the dissolution of the single countship. In the center, his authority has been divided between the bishop of Oviedo and a castellan. In the east the Laras of Castilla hold sway. In the west the power of a Leonese count is extended northward by 1120 at the latest.

In Galicia a situation roughly analogous to that in Castilla and Asturias prevails. In twelve documents between 1110 and 1122, Pedro Froilaz of the house of Trastamara is called count in Galicia.⁽⁴¹⁾ But even before his imprisonment by Urraca in 1123 at no time did his authority extend to all of Galicia. It is obvious, first, that in the lands between the Ullan and Tambre in west central Galicia, Bishop/Archbishop Diego Gelmírez held independent public authority. A charter of [289] Urraca dated May 23, 1121 and citing Pedro Froilaz as count "in maritimis" provides a better description of the realities.⁽⁴²⁾

Actually Count Pedro's authority as count, as distinct from his authority as leader of a party, seems never to have reached beyond the extreme northwest of Galicia. It comprised the districts lying north of the Río Tambre and extending eastward from the Atlantic beyond La Coruña. But there was another count in the district of Montenegro, north of Lugo and west of Mondoñedo.

The count of Montenegro was Guter Vermúdez, married to a daughter of Pedro Froilaz but also a brother of Suero Vermúdez, Count of Luna and Tineo.⁽⁴³⁾ He appears as count of Montenegro as early as May 1112 and as late as March 1117.⁽⁴⁴⁾ But he was also one of those counts who made their submission to Alfonso VII at Zamora in April of 1126, so that he probably continued in that jurisdiction until the end of Urraca's reign.⁽⁴⁵⁾

South of the county of Montenegro, below Lugo and west of the upper Miño, straddling the Camino de Santiago, lay the county of Monteroso. Its count was Munio Peláez, who first appears in that capacity in May 1112.⁽⁴⁶⁾ He was born of a local family descended from the founders of the monastery of Santa María de Ferreira in Pallares, and he himself had [290] married Lupa, daughter of Count Pedro Froilaz.⁽⁴⁷⁾ According to the "Historia Compostelana," Count Munio generally played a conciliatory role in the factional struggles in Galicia but in the spring of 1120 was briefly imprisoned and deprived of his lands by Urraca.⁽⁴⁸⁾ By 1121, however, he was again supporting the queen against Archbishop Gelmírez.⁽⁴⁹⁾ On March 8, 1123 Urraca confirmed a donation that the count made to the church of Lugo.⁽⁵⁰⁾ He was still count in 1134.⁽⁵¹⁾

Just east across the Miño and north of the Río Sil lay the county of Lemos-Sarria. There Urraca's staunchest supporter in Galicia, Rodrigo Vélaz, held the countship at least as early as May 1112 and as late as 1142.⁽⁵²⁾ This count appears most frequently both in the documents of Urraca and in the "Historia Compostelana." But none of his own documents seems to have survived and his family connections are obscure. Probably he should be identified as the son of Count Vela Ovéquiz, who appears with some frequency in the early documents of Alfonso VI. In 1078 the count lost a royal judgment to the see of Lugo.⁽⁵³⁾ Count Rodrigo Vélaz was cited in 1113 as harassing the church of Lugo, which suggests a continuing friction between the family and the see of Lugo over their respective jurisdictions.⁽⁵⁴⁾

South of the Sil and the Miño after their confluence, beyond Orense, was the county of Limia. There Alfonso Nuñez was count perhaps as early as May 1112, and as late as June 1, 1125.⁽⁵⁵⁾ Again we have an important noble who appears [291] with some frequency in the documents and in the "Historia Compostelana" but whose family relationships are currently unknown. He supported the party of Urraca in Galicia despite the fact that he had been alférez of Count Raymond of Burgundy and would have felt some loyalty to the latter's son as well.⁽⁵⁶⁾

The remaining county in Galicia was that held by Gómez Núñez in Toroño, a district bounded by the Atlantic on the west and the Miño on the south and roughly corresponding to the diocesan limits of Túy. In 1112 he was majordomo of Count Henry. His career was one of shifts between the sovereigns of an emerging Portugal and those of León-Castilla into the reign of Alfonso VII.⁽⁵⁷⁾ He appears as count in a charter of Urraca in 1115.⁽⁵⁸⁾ By 1118 he served the young Alfonso Raimúndez briefly as alcalde of Talavera de la Reina on the Tajo.⁽⁵⁹⁾

Count Gómez was also married to a daughter of Count Pedro Froilaz by at least 1117.⁽⁶⁰⁾ At some point the influential noble Fernando Yañez, señor in Puente Sampayo on the route to Compostela, became Gómez's son-in-law.⁽⁶¹⁾ Though often in opposition and sometimes in open rebellion against Urraca, Gómez never went so far as to forfeit his countship.

Of the six counties in Galicia during Urraca's reign, Count Pedro Froilaz held but one. The counties of Montenegro, Monteroso, and Toroño were nonetheless connected to the house of Trastamara by marriage to daughters of Count Pedro, and his preeminence in the province was reflected and [292] strengthened in that fact. It was fortunate for Urraca that the Trastamaras had lost control of the bishopric of Mondoñedo with the death of Bishop Gonzalo in 1109 and never regained it. Also understandable is her desire to install her own chaplain as bishop in Lugo in 1113. Without these two to bolster her position in the east, she would have been in danger of being in effect excluded from the province.

In the very center of the realm, the office of count is much less prominent and its significance correspondingly difficult to understand. The greatest figure here is that of Froila Díaz. Already a count in the reign of Alfonso VI and associated with Count Raymond of Burgundy,⁽⁶²⁾ his jurisdiction was variously expressed but most often located in the territory of Valdeorras, some thirty kilometers southwest of Ponferrada.⁽⁶³⁾ By 1107 he seems already to have been count in Astorga,⁽⁶⁴⁾ a designation that both then and later most likely meant the extensive terra of Astorga.

Until his death in 1119 Count Froila is most frequently identified with Astorga. However, on July 22, 1109 he was cited as "legionensium comes," which title may well be honorific.⁽⁶⁵⁾ On November 17, 1110 he was styled "count in terra de legione et in gralare," which may indicate an emergency authority connected with the circumstances of the rupture between Urraca and Alfonso of Aragón.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Again in June of 1115 he was called count in Ceia, probably at the height of the struggle between the partisans of Urraca and those of her Aragonese husband for control of Sahagún just to the south.⁽⁶⁷⁾ Three times Froila appeared as count in Aguilar. Of the many [293] places so called, the most likely is a district in the northwest of the territory of Bierzo.⁽⁶⁸⁾

The extreme west of the province of León, the gateway to and from Galicia, was secure in the hands of Count Froila Díaz until his death in 1119. After that, no other count of Astorga is recorded in the documents for the remainder of the reign. His son Ramiro Froilaz appears merely as castellan of the fortress of Ulver in the Bierzo,⁽⁶⁹⁾ and later he may have been alcalde in Toledo.⁽⁷⁰⁾ Ramiro was to figure importantly in the reign of Alfonso VII and achieved the comital dignity then.⁽⁷¹⁾ Another son, Diego Froilaz, never achieved comital rank but eventually became alférez of Alfonso VII.⁽⁷²⁾

To the north and west of the county of Astorga lay the county of Luna, which may well have been a new jurisdiction organized in 1117. We hear nothing of it in the reign of Alfonso VI nor in the reign of Urraca up to that time, although there had long been a royal castle there. It first appears in the hands of Count Suero Vermúdez in February 1117 and so continued until at least 1124.⁽⁷³⁾ As mentioned above, his jurisdiction was extended into western Asturias by 1120.

In 1114 and again in 1116 Suero Vermúdez also appeared as "legionensium comes," but the title is more likely to be descriptive than a literal designation of authority over either the city or province of León.⁽⁷⁴⁾ When he made his obedience [294] to Alfonso VII at the very beginning of the latter's reign he was described as count holding "Astoricam, Lunam, Gordonam cum Bergidi parte, necnon Babadiam et Flatianam, totum que vallem usque ad ripam fluminis qui dicitur Ova et usque ad Cabrunianam."⁽⁷⁵⁾ If the chronicler has not been carried away by his own enthusiasm, Count Suero by then controlled all of the mountainous area between León and Galicia north to the Bay of Biscay and a long salient, north of León and south of Oviedo, running eastward almost to the borders of Asturias de Santillana.

In the crucial areas of the city of León itself and the broad lands east and south of it where so much of the fisc was concentrated, no comital authority was needed because of the very frequent presence of the sovereign herself. In addition to those instances, already discussed, when Froila Díaz and Suero Vermúdez were styled counts in León or counts of the Leonese, a private document of Valladolid, dated February 18, 1110 cites Pedro Ansúrez as count in León.⁽⁷⁶⁾ But all of these instances are ambiguous or clearly exceptional.

Pedro González was called count of Peñafiel in 1113, probably only in reference to his then immediate tenancy of that castle on the Duero.⁽⁷⁷⁾ There is a single notice of one Froila Vicéntez as count in "fontes" (cifuentes?) in 1117.⁽⁷⁸⁾ In 1119 one Fernando was called count of "campos" but the document is a forgery.⁽⁷⁹⁾ But two documents of 1124 called a Fernando count in Malgrado.⁽⁸⁰⁾ One additional document, dated July 31, 1126, shortly after Urraca's death, refers to a [295] Count Munio in Mayorga.⁽⁸¹⁾ Nowhere is there the sort of continuing record such as that supporting the identification of counties in Castilla, Asturias, and Galicia. It appears wisest to see these scattered notices as instances of exceptional and occasional delegations of royal authority.

Only well to the south on the Duero, at Simancas and Cabezón, is there some evidence of the existence of a county. Count Pedro Ansúrez and his family were great proprietors in this area around Valladolid in addition to their holdings in the vicinity of Saldaña. In four documents, all of 1115, he is described as count in Cabezón and Simancas.⁽⁸²⁾ But after the death of Pedro Ansúrez no further evidence of such a count or county exists for the duration of Urraca's reign. The count's surviving son, Fernando, played but a limited role in Leonese affairs after his father's demise.⁽⁸³⁾ His grandson, Armengol of Urgel, does not emerge as an important figure until well into the reign of Alfonso VII.⁽⁸⁴⁾

Beyond the Duero and the Sierra de Guadarrama, however, in a long triangle extending from Osma in the east to Zamora in the west, south to Talavera de la Reina, east along the Tagus, and then irregularly northeast back to Osma, lay another third of the realm. Contested by Teresa of Portugal in the west, by the Muslim along the south, and by Alfonso of Aragón in the east, it was nevertheless finally retained by Urraca. Almost at the end of her reign, in 1124, it was actually extended in the east to include Atienza and Sigüenza. From 1117 it was entrusted as a virtual appanage to her son Alfonso Raimúndez under the tutelage of Archbishop Bernard [297] of Toledo until the latter's death in April of 1125. But it was never organized into counties during her lifetime.

Unevenly and sparsely settled by her sometime subjects, this land remained a frontier area throughout her reign. There the landless, the adventurous, the outlawed could take up the land at their own hazard. North of the Guadarramas this process had been going on since the time of her grandfather, Fernando I, and had been extended south of that barrier by Alfonso VI. The dominant occupations of the area were stockraising and the closely related enterprise of raiding the herds of the rarely distant enemy.⁽⁸⁵⁾ Even the coinage of the region seems to have been more often that of the southern, Muslim world than that of León-Castilla.⁽⁸⁶⁾

In this environment the unit of government, with few exceptions, was the town rather than the county. Towns like Sepúlveda, Segovia, Ávila, and Salamanca had jurisdiction over wide stretches of the countryside, the alfoz, whose boundaries were not infrequently open-ended toward the Muslim south. The legal framework of their government was contained in their fueros. Their officials were most often of local provenance and sometimes of their own choosing or, at least, nomination.⁽⁸⁷⁾

Above that strictly local level, government was in the hands of a señor or a bishop as representative of the royal power. From the Christian disaster at Zalaca in 1086 through the [297] entire reign of Urraca until 1126, such authority must have been tenuous indeed and we hear relatively little of it. From 1109 until his death in 1114, Alvar Fáñez seems to have functioned as a virtual viceroy in this whole region. Urraca's first royal charter, in July 1109, styled him "Toletule Dux."⁽⁸⁸⁾ Allied by marriage to the still-great house of the Ansúrez,⁽⁸⁹⁾ he defended the new realm of Toledo against a resurgent Islam until he met his death in a popular rebellion in Segovia in 1114.

No one else enjoyed such wide authority thereafter unless it was Archbishop Bernard of Toledo, who led more than one military expedition against the Muslim. From the entry of Alfonso Raimúndez into Toledo in November 1117, the real challenge of Alfonso I of Aragón to rule in this area was ended. Again, such general, royal authority as prevailed was in the archbishop's hands when Urraca herself was not south of the Duero. But doubtless the most important advances in the effective authority of the crown in this sprawling area were made between 1120 and 1125, when Zamora, Ávila, Segovia, and Sigüenza were provided with bishops. Much as that process advanced the ecclesiastical empire of Toledo, one suspects that it profited the royal power yet more.

Purely secular royal authority is almost invisible. To be sure, a line of strong points existed on the Duero itself. Starting in the west at Zamora, it included Toro, Tordesillas, Valladolid, Peñafiel, Aranda del Duero, Peñaranda del Duero, San Esteban de Gormaz, and ended at Osma in the east. In some of these places we can sometimes identify a castellan or a count. It is possible that their authority extended south beyond the river itself for some indeterminate distance into the trans-Duero, but we cannot be sure. The notices themselves are most occasional.

In 1117 one Fernandus Meléndez was cited as "mandante" in Zamora and Toro.⁽⁹⁰⁾ We know no more about him. In [298] 1115, we are told, though not on the basis of what authority, a Gómez Pelayo governed Toro.⁽⁹¹⁾ He is relatively obscure but the same name appears in five documents of the period. Fernando Fernández, the husband of Urraca's half sister the Infanta Elvira, is given as "de Toro" in an Urracan charter of January 20, 1116.⁽⁹²⁾ It is possible that he is also the Femandus Melendez of 1117.

Another thirty-five kilometers upriver at Tordesillas, Martín Pérez is cited as "de Otero de Sellas" in four documents of 1114.⁽⁹³⁾ He is a noble of some importance, married to Mayor Pérez, daughter of Count Pedro Ansúrez and recent widow of Alvar Fáñez.⁽⁹⁴⁾ Count Pedro Ansúrez himself held the central county of Simancas and Cabezón around Valladolid, as mentioned above. Farther east Count Pedro González of Lara held Peñafiel in 1113, but again it is a single notice.⁽⁹⁵⁾ Of Aranda del Duero, Peñaranda del Duero, and San Esteban de Gormaz there is no mention for the period. In the easternmost outpost of Osma we know only of the faithful bishop and future primate, Raymond.

South of this line, we are told, a Don Vela held Salamanca from 1107 to 1124 and a Hermigio Martínez during the last two years of Urraca's reign.⁽⁹⁶⁾ I can find neither in the documents. It is just possible that the Leonese noble Vermudo Pérez held Alba de Tormes some twenty kilometers southeast even of Salamanca in 1112, but the notice is not unequivocal.⁽⁹⁷⁾

In the center of the trans-Duero there are no notices at all. [299] Beyond the eastern flank of the Guadarramas the southernmost outpost of royal authority mentioned is Hita, on the upper Tajo, just ten kilometers north of Guadalajara and some twenty kilometers southwest of Sigüenza. Fernando Garciaz, husband of Estefanía of Armengol and perhaps cousin to Urraca and son of the unfortunate King García of Galicia, appears in eleven documents of the period between 1110 and 1125 as "de Hita."⁽⁹⁸⁾ As early as the time of Alfonso VI, Fernando was styled alcalde of Medina and Guadalajara.⁽⁹⁹⁾ We cannot call him a count, for in none of his thirty-three appearances in the documents of Urraca's reign is he so designated. Nevertheless, it is obvious that he was the leading representative of royal authority in the territory of the upper Tajo basin from at least the time of the death of Alvar Fáñez.

At Medinaceli, twenty-five kilometers northeast of Sigüenza, Pedro González is cited as count on three different occasions in 1110.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ Probably the citation should be understood as implying his direct control of that important fortress. In the myriad of his subsequent notices the title never recurs, for Medinaceli itself could not be held. In the extreme east of the realm, fifty kilometers northeast of Medinaceli and the same distance southeast of Soria, at Deza, there is a single notice of one Froila Arias in 1112. He is styled "de Deza" in a charter of Urraca.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Whatever the significance of that notation, Deza never reappears in Urraca's documents.

Given the state of the existing evidence, the entire region between the Duero and the Tagus should be seen as in fact [300] largely autonomous. The authority of the crown was not denied there, for no alternative authority could be imagined. Between 1114 and 1117 the authority of Alfonso of Aragón was sought, at least in some areas like Segovia and Toledo, in the hope of more effective protection against the Muslim.

When the attention of the Aragonese focused on the conquest of Zaragoza in 1117, the reassertion of Leonese overlordship was easily negotiated in the name of Alfonso Raimúndez. In fact, however, the bishops of the area remained steadfastly loyal to Urraca, and their influence was essential to the loose control she exerted in the region. After the death of Bishop Jerome of Salamanca in 1120, the network of bishoprics was elaborated and filled with her supporters through the mediation of Archbishop Bernard of Toledo. In 1124 the eastern flank of the zone was consolidated with the capture of Sigüenza and the erection of a bishopric there. But as we have seen, the Leonese queen was necessarily often preoccupied with the maintenance of her authority in the west. When she traveled in the trans-Duero her authority was admitted, but one can hardly speak of regular, royal government there and certainly not of organized counties.

Elsewhere in the realm, as we have already seen, the countship was not the sole pillar of royal government In the center of the lands of León there was no count. The city of León itself may, in some few cases of emergency, have come under the authority of Pedro Ansúrez, Froila Díaz, or Suero Vermúdez, all of them counts elsewhere. Ordinarily, however, royal authority in the city was in the hands of the castellan of the royal towers, or fortress, at the southern gate of the city. The known holders of this dignity are Pelayo Muñoz in 1110, Pedro Catha Mosca in 1112, Pedro Díaz in 1118 and perhaps 1119, Jimeno López in 1120, Pedro Bravólez in 1123-1124, and perhaps Guter Fernández in 1125.⁽¹⁰²⁾

[301] Although these men are known from other documents, none ever bore the title of count. Pedro Catha Mosca was the Aragonese agent of Alfonso I, Jimeno López was a Riojan of the house of Haro and sometime majordomo of Urraca, and Guter Fernández was a Castilian whom we have met before, if it is he indeed. Pedro Díaz and Pedro Bravólez were of the local Leonese nobility. Their chief duty was the military defense of the city, but no doubt they exercised some judicial and fiscal power within the city as well. Their power was limited to the city and, at most, its immediate environs.⁽¹⁰³⁾

Within the city the castellan was assisted in all of these tasks by that all-purpose official, the merino. Although the merino, like the English sheriff or the French baillí, seems originally to have been primarily an administrator of the royal fisc lands, the slight distinction between personal and public administration had inevitably given him public functions as well.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ We do not know whether he was appointed by the castellan and directly subject to him or an independent appointee directly responsible to the crown. The latter seems more likely, at least in the royal city itself. In any event the question seems moot, for the overlapping of their jurisdictions [302] and the necessity of their cooperation would have made his acceptability to both crown and castellan imperative.

For the city of León there is a fairly regular list of merinos. Diego Sarracínez held the post in 1109 at the outset of the reign, Domingo Rodríguez in 1114, Saturnino Cídez in 1122, Rodrigo Martínez perhaps at the end of 1122, Isidore Nepónez in 1123, and Munio González in 1124.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ Those who can be positively identified seem to have been members of the minor Leonese nobility. In the Leonese countryside, royal administration seems to have been alternately in the hands of castellans and of merinos. They appear relatively infrequently in the documents, and it is difficult to make a regular connection between the two offices that would imply an ordinary relationship of subordination of the latter to the former. Thirty-five kilometers south of León on the Río Esla stood the important fortress of Coyanza at Valencia de Don Juan. In 1113 it was in the hands of Fernando Téllez.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ He appears often in the documents of Urraca, and in 1112 she had granted him and his brother an immunity for a Leonese village.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ He does not subsequently figure in that particular capacity, however, and we have no notices of other castellans or of any merino in Coyanza.

Fernando Pérez held the castle of San Roman, perhaps San [303] Roman de la Cuba twenty kilometers southeast of Sahagún, from 1119 to 1125.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ Both his and the place name are so common that it is difficult to identify either. In any event we have no notices of a merino associated with San Roman. Rodrigo Díaz commanded at Castrotierra de Valduena, twenty kilometers west of Sahagún in 1120 and 1123.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ There is no mention of a merino there.

Melgar de Arriba, fifteen kilometers south of Sahagún, was in the hands of Rodrigo Martínez from 1120 until apparently as late as July of 1126.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ In 1113 at least, one Salvador Cídez was merino in Melgar.⁽¹¹¹⁾

Forty-five kilometers farther south, Alfonso Téllez held Montealegre in 1116, while fifteen kilometers northeast of him Tello Fernández held the castle of Mormojón.⁽¹¹²⁾ At neither place is there mention of a merino. In Villalobos, fifty kilometers to the west, Fernandus Menéndez commanded in 1113, but there are no notices of a merino here either.⁽¹¹³⁾

In the center of the Leonese countryside, around the royal city itself, one Diego Froilaz is mentioned at Cifuentes, on the Río Esla twenty-five kilometers east of León, in 1125. Estepa Díez identifies him as the son of Count Diego Froilaz of Astorga.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ It is the only notice of a castellan, and again there are no notices of a merino there.

Farther east, in 1113 the castellan of the royal castle at Cea [304] above Sahagún, Sancho Yañez, was in rebellion, but he was more likely the appointee of Alfonso of Aragón than of Urraca.⁽¹¹⁵⁾ When Urraca recovered the stronghold in 1115 she entrusted it to Count Froila Díaz of Astorga, probably on an emergency basis.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ In 1120 it was held by Guter Peláez, who appears as a confirmant in a few other Urracan documents of the time.⁽¹¹⁷⁾

Cea, of course, had a merino from at least 1120 to 1125 in the person of García López.⁽¹¹⁸⁾ In 1120 his authority appears to have encompassed Grajal as well.⁽¹¹⁹⁾ Both localities were in the heart of the Leonese fisc lands. García was perhaps related to the Riojan family of Haro, often allied with Urraca against Aragón, for in earlier documents of the realm he is associated with the castle at Marañon, twenty-three kilometers north of Logroño.⁽¹²⁰⁾ From Cea in 1115 there is even the name of the sayon, an official subordinate to the merino who rarely appears in contemporary documents.⁽¹²¹⁾

Finally, there was in 1109 and 1110 a merino of San Pelayo, Diego Alvítez, who probably looked after the fisc lands of the infantado centered about León.⁽¹²²⁾ He was a member of the Leonese nobility and appears in five of Urraca's charters before 1119.

East of the lands of León, between the rivers Cea and Pisuerga and north of Palencia in the modern province of [305] Palencia, the organization of government seems to have been similar, although we have even fewer notices of it. As we have already seen, the center of these territories as far west as Carrión and, until 1115, sometimes even to Sahagún was in the effective control of Alfonso of Aragón. From the period before the rupture of Urraca and Alfonso's marriage there are notices of two merinos in Carrión. The first of them, Martín Ordóñez, served in 1109.⁽¹²³⁾ He confirmed four of Urraca's charters between 1110 and 1113 and was probably a minor Leonese noble. The second, in 1110, was Gonzalo Ansúrez, presumably the brother of Count Pedro Ansúrez.⁽¹²⁴⁾ His appearance in this capacity marks the period when Pedro Ansúrez had negotiated the marriage and had been restored to favor in León. But by the end of the year the struggle between the spouses had begun and Carrión was soon lost to Urraca. In the same area one Salvador Cídez appears as merino mayor at Melgar de Fernamental in 1113, but this was an ephemeral product of Urraca's briefly successful campaign in that year.⁽¹²⁵⁾

As already mentioned, from his countship in Castilla south of the line from Burgos through Castrojeriz to Carrión, Count Pedro González's authority seems to have extended far west and we have no notices of royal castellans or merinos from his territories. North of that line Count Pedro Ansúrez held a less extensive county around Saldaña, which disappeared at his death, however. Thereafter, as noted earlier, a royal castellan presided there.

In the northern reaches of this territory a single document of the monastery of San Toribio, dated November 1, 1125, reveals a number of individuals in command. Diego Fernández held Cereseda, which lies in the modern province of Asturias, as does the monastery itself. Fernando Pérez held Mudabe and Cernera on the upper reaches of the Pisuerga, [306] and Pedro González held Villaescusa de Ecla and San Martín in the same region.⁽¹²⁶⁾ Diego Fernández may be the person of that name who was majordomo of Alfonso VI in the period 1103 to 1105. Fernando Pérez and Pedro González are impossible to identify further, and the latter seems surely not to be Pedro González of Lara. I have found no notices of royal merinos in this region, which perhaps indicates a dearth of fisc land there.

In the lands of Astorga and Bierzo, often so crucial to Urraca, Froila Díaz held the countship from the reign of Alfonso VI until his own death in 1119. During this period there are few notices of royal castellans there. A passing reference in the "Historia Compostelana" mentions a Nezano Gudestéiz holding the castle of Autares, in the territory of Villafranca del Bierzo, in 1113.⁽¹²⁷⁾ The most important exception, however, is Juan Pérez, who held Cabrera in January of 1117, the castle of Ulver in 1118 and 1122, and seems to have controlled most of the Bierzo from 1119 to 1123.⁽¹²⁸⁾

Juan Pérez cannot be positively identified further, but someone of that name confirmed two of Urraca's charters in 1120. Given that no count was appointed for the territory of Astorga after the death of Froila Díaz in 1119, there may have been here the same tendency to prefer to rule through more subordinate officials as operated in Asturias, León, and northern Palencia. One Guter Eriz also appeared dominating Aguilar de Lastro in 1123.⁽¹²⁹⁾ Still, the record is not entirely clear, and perhaps the move was contested, for Froila Díaz's [307] son, Ramiro Froilaz, is given as holding the castles of Ulver and Cabrera in 1122 and the Bierzo in 1123 and 1124.⁽¹³⁰⁾

But royal control was traditionally strong in this region, with the crown keeping close control of the bishopric of Astorga, and royal fisc lands were widespread, especially in Bierzo.⁽¹³¹⁾ Royal merinos are well documented back into the reign of Alfonso VI. For that of Urraca herself we find Jimeno Díaz around Palacios del Sil in 1115, and two years later he is said to hold Astorga.⁽¹³²⁾ In 1117 Fructuoso Cídez was merino in Cabrera, although it is unclear whether the reference is to a royal or private official.⁽¹³³⁾ Michael Mondeyro is merino in Benizo in 1122, Martín Pérez in Ulver the same year, and Pedro Otauzino in Iorres in 1123.⁽¹³⁴⁾ The phrasing of most of these references suggests the regular subordination of the merino to the castellan.

Galicia was, as noted earlier, the territory of the most fully developed countship. Its six counties seem to have encompassed nearly the entire land mass of the province, with the notable exception of the honor of the bishop of Santiago between the Ulla and Tambre. The royal fisc lands were also extensive there. Surviving documents suggest that royal administration was adapted to these two facts.

Although six royal castles are identifiable in the province during the reign of Urraca, the name of only one castellan survives. This is Juan Díaz, who held the castle of Orzilione, fifteen kilometers northwest of Orense, in 1121 and that of [308] Cira, twenty kilometers southeast of Santiago de Compostela, in 1126.⁽¹³⁵⁾ He seems to have been faithful aide of Urraca, confirming five of her charters between 1116 and 1123, and a determined opponent of Bishop Gelmirez.

It may be that the names of the castellans of the other five royal castles are simply as yet unknown to us, or possibly the castles were instead in the hands of the royal merinos there who looked after the fisc surrounding them. In 1116 a Muño Peláez was merino in Lobeira, site of a castle and extensive fisc lands.⁽¹³⁶⁾ He is certainly to be distinguished from the Count in Monteroso of the same name.

Diego Mauréliz was merino in Sobrado in the extreme upper reaches of the Tambre in 1109.⁽¹³⁷⁾ His identity is otherwise unknown. In 1120 Pelayo Garcíaz is mentioned as merino in Sarria of both the queen and Count Rodrigo Vélaz.⁽¹³⁸⁾ He seems to have been a local figure. A Juan Martínez confirmed Urraca's charter to Count Pedro Froilaz in May 1112 as "maiorinus regine," but there is no territorial specification.⁽¹³⁹⁾ He seems not otherwise to appear in the documents. Finally, Andulfus Oduárez confirms a private document of Bishop Gelmírez on April 15, 1115 as merino of Iria Flavia, but he may have been an episcopal rather than a royal official.⁽¹⁴⁰⁾

For Asturias the royal castellans have already been examined in one connection or another. The office of merino there seems so tied to the city of Oviedo itself that it is best treated in the next chapter. In old Castilla proper there is no evidence of which I am aware that royal merinos functioned in the lands of the two counts of Lara.

[309] This survey of local administration in the realm of Urraca, outside the cities, reveals three broad, rather different patterns. None of them is completely regular or absolutely consistent over the entire seventeen years of her reign. Nevertheless, the differences are sufficiently substantial and consistent to justify our regarding them as conscious attempts on the part of the crown to adapt to historical opportunities and political necessities and to pursue a set of distinct royal policies. These policies were designed to make royal governance effective within pragmatic parameters and to increase its local effectiveness when the chance offered. None of these policies is new; they had already become traditional and dated back at least to the reign of Alfonso VI.

The first pattern characterizes the new, frontier lands of the trans-Duero, including the even newer realm of the former taifa of Toledo. There the institution of countship had not taken root. Royal fisc lands were vast but comparatively empty, so that their organization under even royal merinos seems not to have begun. The assertion of royal authority rested on the allegiance of three powers. One of these was the adherence of frontier magnates such as Alvar Fáñez and Fernández Garciaz of Hita, based on personal and family relationships to the crown. The reign of Alfonso Raimúndez there after November 1117 is at once an extension and transformation of this policy. The second was the support of the bishops, first secured by Alfonso VI with the provision of Bernard at Toledo in 1085 and Jerome at Zamora in 1102. Urraca was to establish Bernard of Perigord at Zamora about 1120, Pedro at Segovia in 1120, Sancho at Ávila in 1121, and Bernard of Agen at Sigüenza in 1121 or 1122. Finally, royal control depended on the loyalty of the fortress towns of the region, each with its alfoz extending far into the surrounding countryside and often undefined to the south, largely self-governing under its royal fuero.

The second pattern of royal administration is observable in the widely separated border regions of Castilla and Galicia. In these lands royal government was comital government.[310] Royal castellans or merinos are sometimes in evidence, but the power resides in the count. Urraca's authority and influence in Castilla were maintained by her liaison with Pedro González de Lara and the marriage of her half sister Sancha to Pedro's brother, Count Rodrigo González. At Burgos in February 1117 a delicate balance was struck with Aragón that allowed her government, through the Laras, to function in a large part of Castilla until 1126. But the humbling of the Lara counts and the expulsion of the Aragonese were to become the first task of her son, Alfonso VII.

In Galicia, just because the countship was so pervasive, the problems it posed for royal government were somewhat less critical. Count Pedro Froilaz of the house of Trastamara was able to put himself at the head of the party of her heir and possible supplanter, Alfonso Raimúndez, to ally himself by turns with Teresa of Portugal and Bishop Gelmírez, and to contract marriage alliances with three other counts in Galicia. Nonetheless, his own county was small and poor, his allies fickle, and Urraca had the superior bargaining power inherent in the possession of the crown. Pedro Froilaz ended in prison. Beyond her ability to play the counts of Galicia off against one another, Urraca continued in direct control of a considerable network of castles and extensive fisc lands that made her a Galician magnate of major importance in her own right.

There were, then, no feudal princes in the realm of Urraca. In Castilla and in Galicia the count was the most important governmental figure but neither of those great provinces was consolidated under a single count. In the trans-Duero, perhaps not entirely by simple inadvertence, a county did not exist. In the third great administrative division of the realm, its heart of León, Asturias, Astorga, and Palencia, the countship was relegated to the past as the occasion offered.

The exile of Count Pedro Ansúrez in 1103 was reversed by the precarious circumstances of Urraca's accession, but after his death about 1118 the county of Simancas and Cabezón [311] disappeared from the documents of the reign. So did his county of Saldaña in the province of Palencia, although the settlement with Aragón in 1117 had forced Urraca to recognize his old countship of Carrión in new hands. In Asturias de Oviedo, the countship had disappeared late in the reign of her father, and although Gonzalo Peláez was certainly an instrument of Urraca's policy there, she never made him count. Nevertheless his position became hegemonic there, and Urraca was forced about 1120 to extend the comital power of Suero Vermúdez into the western portion of the old province around Tineo.

In Astorga it seems that the countship was left vacant after the death of Froila Díaz in 1119. Finally, in the province of León the countship of Simancas and Cabezón disappears after 1118 and Suero Vermúdez's county of Luna is limited to the extreme north, although it seems to have been growing toward both the north and east at the very end of the reign.

All in all, the documents strongly suggest that the preferred instruments of royal administration in this central portion of the realm were the less exalted figures of the castellan and the merino. These were drawn from noble houses of somewhat lesser rank and their jurisdiction was more limited. Despite the traditional belief that counts in the kingdom of León-Castilla were officials removable at the royal pleasure,⁽¹⁴¹⁾ the evidence from the reign of Urraca indicates that inheritance of the title had been usual and that it was likely to be terminated only by death. Urraca inherited most of her counts from the reign of her father. They were therefore likely to be somewhat too independent for the purposes of royal administration.

[312]At the same time, the evidence is too scant to infer that the term "mandante" indicates a public, official relationship and the term "tenante" a private, feudal one.⁽¹⁴²⁾ In the documents of the period "imperante," "mandante," and "tenante" are used interchangeably. Certainly, as the oaths and pacts of Urraca and Gelmírez set out so clearly in the "Historia Compostelana" reveal, the realm was feudal if feudalism means that public and private jurisdictions were often confused and that private agreements often secured what public law could not. But the observed terminology will not support the generalization that "tenante" indicates an invariable, new, and vassal arrangement.

For this reason I have chosen to call this group of administrators of territorially more restricted jurisdictions "castellans." More than anything else, it seems to me, their essential characteristics were precisely their lesser social rank and their more limited territorial authority. Their combination of military responsibility, civil jurisdiction, and personal prestige seems to have mirrored, on a lesser scale, that of the counts themselves.

As to the merinos, it cannot be satisfactorily determined whether their appointment lay with the crown, the counts, or the castellans. As they can be perceived to function, they seem often to be subordinate to all three. It is certainly going too far to assert that they governed definite territorial jurisdictions, distinct from and replacing the counties as the ordinary units of royal government.⁽¹⁴³⁾ More likely, to judge by the locations in which they ordinarily appear, they were still primarily officials charged with the supervision of lands of the fisc although certain public functions would be, and would need to be, joined to that responsibility with regard to adjoining districts. The origin of the later organization of [313] merindades certainly lies here, but the term itself is unknown in the documents of Urraca's time.

This survey of local royal administration during the reign of Urraca has been in large measure detached from a consideration of the relationship between the towns and the crown. But the towns were of vital importance to any monarch of the period. They experienced a burgeoning growth accompanied by an increasing restiveness and even by spectacular revolts at Sahagún and Santiago de Compostela. The means by which the royal government controlled and regulated the towns must be considered next in the context of what has been said above.

1. I follow the figures of José Ángel García de Cortázar, Historia de España alfaguera, vol. 2, La época medieval (Madrid, 1973), p. 206.

2. This discussion presumes the account of Luis García de Valdeavellano, Historia de las instituciones españolas (Madrid, 1968), pp. 501-507, although the latter is much too general to do more than raise the questions addressed here.

3. Manuel Mañueco Villalobos and José Zurita Nieto, eds. Documentos de la Iglesia Colegial de Santa María la Mayor de Valladolid, 2 vols. (Valladolid, 1917-20), 1:91-98.

4. The first of these was dated August 28, 1113; published in Francisco de Berganza, Antigüedades de España, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1719-21), 2:454.

5. Manuel Risco, ES, vols. 28-42 (Madrid, 1774-1801), 36:94-96 app.

6. Francisco Simon y Nieto, Los antiguos Campos Góticos (Madrid, 1895), p. 41, says that earlier in the eleventh century the counties of Carrión and Melgar were distinct.

7. Gregorio de Balparda y las Herreiras, Historia crítica de Vizcaya y sus fueros, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1924 and Bilbao, 1933-34), 2:302-303.

8. Ibid. In a donation of his own to the church of Burgos on May 6, 1107, he styled himself "dominante comite Gomez Gonsalvo Burebam"; Luciano Serrano, El obispado de Burgos y Castilla primitiva desde el siglo V al XIII, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1935), 3:129-131. In the joint donation of Urraca and Alfonso of Aragón to the monastery of Valbanera in 1110, he is doubtless that "Gomessanus comes Pont Corvum et Ceresum"; Manuel Lucas Alvárez, ed., "Libro becerro del monasterio de Valbanera," EEMCA 4 (1951):602-603.

9. He is "comes laram et medinam" in Urraca and Alfonso's charter to Valbanera in 1110; see preceding note. On September 2, 1125, as count of Lara, he makes a donation to the monastery of Silos; Marius Férotin, ed., Recueil des chartes de l'Abbaye de Silos (Paris, 1897), pp. 51-53.

10. February 20, 1117; AD León, Monasterio de Gradefes, no. 16; March 29, 1118; Gradefes, no. 17; and July 18, 1123; Gradefes, no. 21. Romualdo Escalona, Historia del real monasterio de Sahagún (Madrid, 1782), pp. 516-518, a document of Sahagún dated March 26, 1125.

11. Luis Sánchez Belda, ed., Cartulario de Santo Toribio de Liébana (Madrid, 1948), pp. 171-173; also published in Luciano Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Pedro de Arlanza (Madrid, 1925), pp. 171-173.

12. Alexandre Bruel, ed., Recueil des chartes de l'Abbaye de Cluny, 6 vols. (Paris, 1876-1903), 5:327-328.

13. AHN, Sección de Clero, carp. 893, no. 10.

14. A donation of Urraca to the monastery of Santillana del Mar is confirmed by a "Comes Dopnus Rodericus Asturiensis"; Eduardo Jusué, ed., Libro de regla o cartulario de la antigua abadía de Santillana del Mar (Madrid, 1912), p. 68.

15. AHN, Clero, carp. 378, no. 1: "Potestate in Mera et in Asturias Rodrigo Gonsalvez...in Trasmiera Comite Rodrigo Munnioz."

16. March 26, 1125; Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, pp. 516-518. November 1, 1125; Sánchez Belda, Cartulario de Santo Toribio, pp. 127-128.

17. Luciano Serrano, ed., Cartulario de monasterio de San Pelayo y Vega de Oviedo (Madrid, 1927), pp. 46-48.

18. May 1112; Antonio López Ferreiro, Historia de la Santa Apostólica Metropolitana Iglesia de Santiago de Compostela, 11 vols. (Santiago de Compostela, 1898-1911), 3:81-83 app. May 9, 1112, AHN, Sección de Códices, 15B, fol. 80r.

19. Salvador de Moxo, "De la nobleza vieja a la nobleza nueva," CH 3 (1969): 61.

20. For a résumé of the family relationships of Guter Fernández see Luciano Serrano, ed., Colección diplomática de San Salvador de El Moral (Madrid, 1906), pp. xi-xvi. For his subsequent career see Luis Sánchez Belda, ed., Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris (Madrid, 1950), pp. 236-238. There is a fuero granted by Guter Fernández to the men of San Cebrián dated March 25, 1125, in which he claims authority in Castro (Castrojeriz) and Monzón; Eduardo de Hinojosa, ed., Documentos para la historia de las instituciones de León y de Castilla (Madrid, 1919), pp. 51-53. However, it exists only in an eighteenth-century copy, cites Alfonso as ruling in León, Toledo, and Castilla, and makes no mention of Urraca. I suspect it should be redated to sometime after the Peace of Tamara in 1127.

21. Francisco Simon y Nieto, Los antiguos Campos Góticos (Madrid, 1895), p. 41, says that earlier in the eleventh century the counties of Carrión and Melgar were distinct.

22. January 23, 1113; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 8; and April 23, 1113, no.9.

23. AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 18.

24. November 20, 1119; Sánchez Belda, Cartulario de Santo Toribio, pp.167-169. March 26, 1125; Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, pp. 516-518. There is also a series of notices, beginning in 1120, of Rodrigo Martínez "in Melgar." This may be Melgar de Fernamental but one cannot be sure. He was the son of Count Martin Osorio but the notices do not style him count. September 27, 1120; AHN, Clero, carp. 961, no. 7. June 20, 1124; AHN, Clero, carp. 894, no. 13. June 23, 1124; Bruel, Recueil de Silos, 5:327-328. On the other hand, the reference could equally well be to Melgar de Arriba, on the Río Cea fifteen kilometers southwest of Sahagún, where there was a royal castle.

25. His first subsequent confirmation of a document of Urraca occurred on June 30, 1119; Mañueco Villalobos and Zurita Nieto, Documentos de Valladolid, pp. 125-127: The last document of this period that he confirms is a charter of Alfonso Raimúndez dated January 19, 1125; AHN, Códices, 987B, fol. 43.

26. Pedro Floriano Llorente, ed., Colección diplomática del monasterio de San Vicente de Oviedo (Oviedo, 1968), pp. 228-229. He confirmed three other known documents in the last decade of the preceding century but without title.

27. Ibid., pp. 234-235.

28. Ibid. pp. 235-236.

29. Santos García Larragueta, ed., Colección de documentos de la catedral de Oviedo (Oviedo, 1962), pp. 365-366.

30. Ibid., pp. 364-365.

31. Floriano Llorente, Colección de San Vicente, p. 158.

32. García Larragueta, Colección de Oviedo, pp. 336-337, a document of Alfonso VI.

33. AHN, Clero, carp. 977, no. 3. Carlos Estepa Díez, Estructura social de la ciudad de León (León, 1977), p. 269, makes the identification but presumes Gonzalo to be Asturian.

34. Antonio C. Floriano Cumbreño, Estudios de historia de Asturias (Oviedo, 1962), pp. 153-169. Also, Elida García García, "El conde asturiano Gonzalo Peláez," Asturiensia medievalia 2 (1975):39-64.

35. May 22, 1115; BN, Sección de Manuscritos, 720, fols. 275v-276v. January 20, 1116; ibid., fols. 278r-279r.

36. May 26, 1120; García Larragueta, Colección de Oviedo, pp. 364-365. June 1125; ibid., pp. 372-373.

37. Suero appeared as count in Luna nine times between 1117 and 1124. The earliest is February 1117; Ildefonso Rodríguez de Lama, ed., Colección diplomática medieval de la Rioja, vol. 2, Documentos, 923-1168 (Logroño, 1976), pp. 111-112; the latest is June 23, 1124; Bruel, Recueil de Cluny, 5:327-328.

38. See his genealogy in Antonio C. Floriano Cumbreño, ed., Colección diplomática del monasterio de Belmonte (Oviedo, 1960), pp. 302-305, and, for much of his history, Estepa Díez, Estructura social, pp. 275-277.

39. Estudios de Asturias, pp. 149-151. He is following the genealogies worked out by Menéndez Pidal for the latter's hero, El Cid, and his wife, Jimena, which are unfortunately not very sound.

40. A "Suarium comitem" shares jurisdiction in a suit resolved before Bishop Pelayo and Gonzalo Peláez in 1114; Antonio C. Floriano Cumbreño, ed., El libro registro de Corias, 2 vols. (Oviedo, 1950), 1:56.

41. March 29, 1110, the first, in Mañueco Villalobos and Zurita Nieto, Documentos de Valladolid, pp. 78-81; March 22, 1122, the last, in ARG, Reales, no. 2.

42. Emilio Duro Peña, "El monasterio de San Miguel de Bóveda," AL 31 (1977):153-154. A judicial document of November 1, 1109 cites "dux domnus Petrus Froile qui territorio citerio Superaddo imperanti"; Pilar Loscertales de García de Valdeavellano, ed., Tumbos del monasterio de Sobrado de los Monjes, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1976), 1:184-185.

43. José Campelo, ed., Historia Compostelana, trans. Manuel Suárez (Santiago de Compostela, 1950), p. 216, n. 2; and Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, p. 238.

44. May 1112; López Ferreiro, Historia 3:81-83 app. March 1, 1117; Enrique Flórez, ES, vols. 1-27 (Madrid 1747-72), 18:342-344. He also appears as count of Monteroso on May 14, 1112, in what is probably an error of the scribe; López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:79-80 app.

45. Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefrnsi Imperatoris, p. 9.

46. Flórez, ed., HC, ES, 20:126.

47. Campelo, Historia Compostelana, pp. cviii; 121, n. 1; and 184, n. 5.

48. Flórez, ES, 20:312 and 315.

49. Ibid., p. 347

50. AHN, Clero, carp. 1.325C, no. 11.

51. Flórez, HC, ES, 20:559.

52. Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, p. 254. On January 5, 1111 a private document cites "tenante illam terrarn Lemabus Comite Dnus Froila"; BN, Manuscritos, 18.387, fol. 250v.

53. Manuel Risco, ES, vols. 28-42 (Madrid, 1774-1801), 40:417-422.

54. Flórez, HC, ES, 20:182.

55. In the first document he is cited merely as "dominans in lymia"; López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:81-83 app. The first document in which his comital title is explicit is dated July 5, 1118; AHN, Códices, 986B, fol. 180v. His last known appearance is in a document of Alfonso Raimúndez; BN, Manuscritos, 5.982, fols. 32v-33r.

56. April 1, 1101; AHN, Clero, carp. 1.749, no. 1.

57. Rui Pinto de Azevedo, ed., DMP (Lisbon, 1958), 1:40-41. For a brief résumé of his career see Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, pp. 234-235.

58. López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:104-105 app.

59. AHN, Códices, 987B, fol. 12r.

60. Flórez, HC, ES, 20:246.

61. Ibid., p. 503.

62. Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, p. 506.

63. Augusto Quintana Prieto, ed., Tumbo viejo de San Pedro de Montes (León, 1971), pp. 203-204: "comite imperante in lorres." Augusto Quintana Prieto, Monografia histórica del Bierzo (Madrid, 1956), pp. 166-167, identifies "lorres" as Valdeorras.

64. AC Salamanca, cajón 16, legajo 1, no. 30.

65. Risco, ES, 36:94-96 app.

66. AD León, Gradefes, no. 14.

67. Luis Fernández, ed., Colección diplomática de la abadia de Santa María de Benevivere, 1020-1561 (Madrid, 1967), pp. 9-10.

68. December 20, 1111; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 7. May 1112; López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:81-83 app. May 9, 1112; AHN, Códices, 15B, fol. 80r. See Quintana Prieto, Monografía del Bierzo, p. 181.

69. March 6, 1122; Quintana Prieto, Tumbo de San Pedro de Montes, pp. 230-231.

70. November 29, 1123; AHN, Códices, 987B, fol. 10. November 30, 1123; ibid., fol. 11.

71. Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, p. 249. Also, Estepa Díez, Estructura social, p. 280-281.

72. Estepa Díez, ibid.

73. February 1117; Rodríguez de Lama, Colección diplomática de Rioja, 2:111-112. June 23, 1124; Luisa García Calles, Doña Sancha (León, 1972), p. 132.

74. Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, pp. 255-256. January 20, 1116; BN, Manuscritos, 720, fols. 278r-279r.

75. Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, p. 6.

76. Serrano, Cartulario de San Pelayo y Vega, pp. 35-37.

77. June 13, 1113; Clero, carp. 893, no. 10.

78. December 9, 1117; ibid., no. 19. This document, however, lists the wrong name for the abbot of Sahagún.

79. September 26, 1119; López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:107-109 app. Also, the fuero of Guter Fernández discussed in note 20, probably misdated to March 25, 1125, cites a Count Ferando "in Cabia et in Carrione."

80. June 20, 1124; AHN, Clero, carp. 894, no. 13. June 23, 1124; García Calles, Doña Sancha, p. 132.

81. Luis Fernández Martín, ed., "Colección diplomática del monasterio de Santervás de Campos" AL 32 (1978):196.

82. February 4, 1115; Mañueco Villalobos and Zurita Nieto, Documentos de Valladolid, 1:99-102, is the earliest. December 11, 1115, ibid., pp. 109-112, is the latest. August 18, 1110; ibid., pp. 82-84, cites him as "Comes Mayordomus Petrus in Sancta Maria de Karrion et in Cabezon."

83. Justiniano Rodríguez Fernández, Pedro Ansúrez (León, 1966), p. 57.

84. Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, pp. 238-239.

85. José Maria Lacarra, "Les villes-frontière dans Espagne des XI^e et XII^e siècles," Le moyen âge 69 (1963):205-222. Charles Julian Bishko, "El Castellano, hombre de llanura," Homenaje a Jaime Vicens Vives (Barcelona, 1965), 1:201-218. For the newness and incomplete character of the repopulation of the trans-Duero, see Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, Despoblación y repoblación del valle del Duero (Buenos Aires, 1966), pp. 378-385, and Julio González, "Repoblación de la 'Extremadura' leonesa," Hispania 3 (1943):205.

86. Jean Gautier-Dalché, "L'histoire monetaire de l'Espagne septentrionale et centrale du IX^e au XII^e siècle,"AEM 6 (1969):61.

87. Lacarra, "Les villes-frontière," pp. 212-214. See also Luis García de Valdeavellano, Orígenes de la burguesía en la España medieval (Madrid, 1969), pp. 189-193, and Nilda Guglielmi, "La figura de juez en el concejo," Mélanges offerts à René Crozet (Poitiers, 1966), 2:1003-24.

88. Risco, ES, 36:94-96 app.

89. Rodríguez Fernández, Pedro Ansúrez, p. 55.

90. August 13, 1117; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 17.

91. Ursicino Alvárez Martínez, Historia general, civil, y eclesiástica de la provincia de Zamora (Madrid, 1965), p. 161.

92. BN, Manuscritos, 720, fols. 278r-279r.

93. January 18, 1114; BN, Manuscritos, 720, fols. 277v-278r, a charter of Urraca, is the first. September 18, 1114; Mañueco Villalobos and Zurita Nieto, Documentos de Valladolid, 1:95-98, a charter of Pedro Ansúrez, is the last.

94. Rodríguez Fernández, Pedro Ansúrez, p. 55.

95. June 13, 1113; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 10.

96. Julio González, "Repoblación de la 'Extremadura' leonesa," p. 268.

97. May 1112; López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:81-83 app.: "dominans in alva."

98. 1110; Manuel Lucas Alvárez, "Libro becerro del monasterio de Valbanera," EEMCA 4 (1951):602-603, in the first. July 21, 1125; Juan de Álamo, ed., Colección diplomática de San Salvador de Oña (Madrid, 1950), 1:189-191, in the last. Although this document is certainly suspect, Fernando's confirmation may well reflect the existing state of affairs.

99. May 8,1109; AHN, Códices, 1.242, fols. 51v-52r.

100. 1110; see note 98. 1110; Rodríguez de Lama, Colección diplomática Rioja, 2:106-107. August 15, 1110; Luciano Serrano, ed., Cartulario de San Millán de La Cogolla (Madrid 1930), pp. 298-299.

101. May 9, 1112; AHN, Códices, 15B, fol. 80r.

102. May 18, 1110; Luis Gonzaga de Azevedo, História de Portugal (Lisbon, 1940), 3:204: "tenente arces legionis." June 3,1112; ibid., p. 209: "vicario in legione petro catha mosca et qui tenebat illas turres de legione aurelia" the agent of Alfonso of Aragón in fact. March 18, 1118; AC León, Tumbo, fols. 239v-240r: "turres legionis obtinente." March 29, 1118; AD León, Gradefes, no. 17: "habitante in illas torres in legione." November 20, 1118; AHN, Códices, 987B, fol. 12r: "de legione." September 26, 1119; López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:107-109 app.: "de legione"; this document is a forgery. June 29, 1120; Risco, ES, 35:417-421: "majordomus reginae et princeps turnum legionis." February 24, 1123; AD León, Gradefes, no. 20: "tenente torres de legione." June 30, 1124; AC León, no. 1.386: "tenente illis torres." May 30, 1125; AD León, Gradefes, no. 22: "in illas torres de legionem." In this last case, the best reading I can make from the script is "guter f------ ." It may not have been Guter Fernández, for he was certainly not the castellan in March 1126, when Alfonso Raimúndez had to take the towers by storm on his mother's death. See Sánchez Belda, Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris, pp. 6-7 and 10-11.

103. Estepa Díez, Estructura social, pp. 437-440, summarizes these conditions. At least in the early portion of the reign of Alfonso VI the castellan's jurisdiction may have been more extensive outside the city.

104. García de Valdeavellano, Instituciones, pp. 503-504.

105. July 22, 1109; Risco, ES, 36:94-96 app.: "villicus regine in legione." 1114; Estepa Díez, Estructura social, p. 451: "majorino major in legione." December 13, 1122; Luis Vázquez de Parga, José María Lacarra, and Juan Una Ríu, Las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1948-49), 3:53-54: "maiordomus," and Estepa Díez, Estructura social, p. 264, who cites him as castellan. December 30, 1122; AHN, Clero, carp. 961, no. 8: "merino in illas torres comes rui martinez." This document, a copy, cites a Bishop Arias of León and so should probably be redated to after 1130. February 24, 1123; AD León, Gradefes, no. 20: "maiorinus in legione." June 30, 1124; AC León, no. 1.386: "majorino in legione."

106. April 23, 1113; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 9.June 11, 1113; Justiniano Rodríguez Fernández, Las juderías de la provincia de León (León, 1976), p. 266.

107. AC León, no. 294.

108. There are four notices. November 20, 1119 is the earliest; Sánchez Belda, Cartulario de Santo Toribio, pp. 167-169. April 30, 1125 is the last; AHN, Clero, carp. 1.740, no. 17.

109. September 27, 1120; García Calles, Doña Sancha, pp. 130-131. July 18, 1123; AD León, Gradefes, no. 21.

110. September 27, 1120; García Calles, Doña Sancha, pp. 130-131. July 31, 1126; Fernández Martín, "Colección diplomática de Santervás," p. 196.

111. Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, p. 510.

112. BN, Manuscritos, 720, fols. 278r-279r.

113. April 23, 1113; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 9. June 11, 1113; Rodríguez Fernández, Juderías de León, p. 266.

114. Estructura social, p. 281. May 30, 1125; AD León, Gradefes, no. 22.

115. January 23, 1113; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 8.

116. June, 1115; Fernández, Colección diplomática de Benevivere, pp. 9-10.

117. October 1, 1120; AHN, Clero, carp. 894, no. 2.

118. September 27, 1120; García Calles, Doña Sancha, pp. 130-131. June 20, 1120; Fernández Martin, "Colección diplomática de Santervás," p. 195: "vilicum in ceia." March 26, 1125; Escalona, Historia de Sahagún, pp. 516-518.

119. See note 117.

120. Lucas Alvárez, "Becerro de Valbanera," pp. 602-603.

121. "Vermudo Spata sagio"; see note 116.

122. July 22, 1109; AC León, no. 1002. September 10, 1109; AC León, Tumbo, fol. 103v. February 18, 1110; AHN, Clero, carp. 3427, no. 6. December 24, 1110; ASI, no. 135. For a description of this infantado see García Calles, Doña Sancha, pp. 113-116.

123. July 22, 1109; ACL, no. 1002. September 10, 1109; AC León, Tumbo, fol. 103v.

124. June 6, 1110; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 4.

125. January 23, 1113; AHN, Clero, carp. 893, no. 8.

126. Sánchez Belda, Cartulario de Santo Toribio, pp. 127-128.

127. Flórez, ES, 20:170.

128. January 6, 1117; Quintana Prieto, Tumbo de San Pedro de Montes, pp. 224-225: "potestas in Cabrera." May 15, 1118; ibid., pp. 225-226: "tenente Ulver." April 10, 1122; ibid., pp. 226-227: "dominante terra de Ulver." April 29, 1119; BN, Manuscritos, 4.357, fol. 40r: "gubernando la Rivera con la Cabrera." July 8, 1119; ibid., fol. 213v: "gobern. Juan Petriz in Burbia." February 20, 1123; ibid., fol. 214r: "ten en gob. la tierra de Somoza."

129. Quintana Prieto, Tumbo de San Pedro de Montes, pp. 227-229.

130. March 6, 1122; ibid., pp. 230-231: "imperante castello de Ulver Ramiro Froilaz. In simul terra de Cabrezra cum suo castello et majorinus ejus in eadem terra Menendo Pelaez." 1123; BN, Manuscritos, 4,357, fol. 199r: "ten. Bierzo." September 13, 1124; ibid., fol. 214: "en urbia Ramiro Froilaz."

131. García Calles, Doña Sancha, pp. 116-117.

132. January 7, 1115; BN, Manuscritos, 4.357, fol. 208r: "en tierra de Palacios." October 1, 1117; ibid., fols. 191v-192r: "imp. in Astorga."

133. January 7, 1117; Quintana Prieto, Tumbo de San Pedro de Montes, pp. 224-225: "potestas in Cabrera Johanne Petriz suo majorino Fructuoso Cidiz."

134. March 6, 1122; ibid., pp. 230-231. April 10, 1122; ibid., pp. 226-227. December 12, 1123; ibid., pp. 227-229.

135. May 23, 1121; AHN, Códices, 424B, fols. 650v-651r. 1126; Flórez, HC, ES, 20:435-440.

136. AHN, Clero, carp. 1.857, no. 13.

137. Loscertales de García de Valdeavellano, Tumbos de Sobrado, 1:184-185.

138. AHN, Clero, carp. 1.240, no. 8: "eiusdem regine et comitis roderici eo tempore maiorinus in sarria."

139. López Ferreiro, Historia, 3:81-83 app.

140. Ibid., pp. 102-103 app.

141. Because the mass of documentation from the eleventh and twelfth centuries has been so little studied, institutional historians have focused on the Asturian kingdom of the ninth and tenth centuries, where the texts are fewer and more easily digested, or on the thirteenth century, whose legal texts provide a usable guide. Such a process tends inevitably to exaggerate royal authority.

142. See the discussion in García de Valdeavellano, Instituciones españolas, p. 506.

143. García de Cortázar, La época medieval, pp. 299-300. Atanasio Sinués Ruiz, El merino (Saragossa, 1954), studied the office but treats it as almost a static institution between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.