Diego Gelmírez

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Diego Gelmírez or Xelmírez (ca 1069 – ca 1149) was the second bishop (from 1100) and first archbishop (from 1120) of Compostela in Galicia. He is a prominent figure in the history of Galicia and an important historiographer of the Spain of his day. Diego involved himself in many quarrels, ecclesiastical and secular, which were recounted in the Historia Compostelana, which coverred his episcopacy from 1100 to 1139 and serves as a sort of gesta of the bishop's life.^[1]

He was probably born at Catoira, where his father, Gelmiro or Xelmirio, was the custodian of the castle. He received an education at the court of Alfonso VI of Castile. In 1092, Raymond, count of Galicia, named him his notary and secretary and in 1093 he was the administrator of the Compostelan church. In 1094, Dalmatius was appointed the first bishop of Compostela. Dalmatius died the next year (1095) and the people of the see requested the king nominate Diego administrator again during the vacancy. In 1099, the pope authorised a new episcopal election and Diego was chosen the next year. He was anointed the second bishop of Compostela in 1101.

During his tenure, he was given secular rule of the city by Alfonso and he strove to make Compostela a major pilgrimage destination, which he did. He increased the prestige of his see and the volume of pilgrims on the road to Compostela. Queen Urraca deprived him of his secular authority at the request of the people, who agitated for communal rights, but she reinstated him in his temporal powers within a year and even exempted him from all military service to the crown and extended his charge over the whole diocese.

In 1111, Diego crowned Alfonso Raimúndez King of Galicia in opposition to Urraca and her husband, Alfonso the Battler.

In 1120, Pope Callistus II elevated him to archiepiscopal rank and appointed him papal legate to Spain.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Reilly, Speculum.

[edit] Sources

• Biggs, Gordon. Diego Xelmírez. Xerais, 1983. ISBN 84-7507-100-7
• Reilly, Bernard F. The Kingdom of León-Castilla under Queen Urraca.
• Reilly, Bernard F. "The 'Historia Compostelana: The Genesis and Composition of a Twelfth-Century Spanish 'Gesta," in Speculum 44 (1969): pp 78-85
• Vones,Ludwig , Die 'Historia Compostelana und die Kirchenpolitik des nordwestspanischen Raumes (Cologne, 1980)
• Falque, Emma, "The Manuscript Transmission of the 'Historia Compostellana," in Manuscripta (1985): pp 80-90