Kingdom of Galicia

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For the Kingdom of Galicia, now part of Poland and Ukraine, see Galicia (Central Europe).

History of Galicia


Prehistoric Galicia
Old Age
Celtic Gallaecia
Gallaecia
Suebi Kingdom
Middle Age
County of Galicia
Kingdom of León
Modern Age
Contemporary Galicia
20th Century Galicia
Present
Timeline of Galician History
Galicia Portal

The Kingdom of Galicia (anciently Gallaecia) was a medieval kingdom in Iberia for two distinct periods. In the first period, it was a barbarian state. In this sense it is the name for the land ruled by the Suebi, a Germanic people, in Hispania. Their kingdom corresponded to the Roman province of Gallaecia. This kingdom was annexed by the Visigoths. When the later Asturian kingdom was divided in 910, the region of Galicia gained independence. It had this independence off and on for over two centuries until it was finally united to León in the partition of the realm in 1157. It was thus united ever thereafter.

1 The Suebic Kingdom
- 1.1 Suebi Kings of Galicia
2 Galicia in the Middle Ages
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] The Suebic Kingdom

Main article: Suebi

The Suebic kingdom of Galicia lasted from 410 to 584 and seems to have enjoyed relatively stable government for most of that time. Historians like José Antonio López Silva, the translator of Idatius' chronicles, the primary written source for the period, find that the essential temper of Galician culture was established in the blending of Ibero-Roman culture with that of the Suebi [1].

As with most Germanic invasions, the number of the original Suebi invaders is estimated at fewer than 30,000, settling mainly in the zones around Braga (Bracara Augusta), Porto, Lugo (Lucus Augusta), and Astorga (Asturica Augusta). The valley of the Lima river is thought to have received the largest concentration of germanic settlers. Bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga, became the capital of the Suebi, as it was previously the capital of the Gallaecian province. Suebic Gallaecia was larger than the modern region: it extended south to the Douro and to Ávila in the east. At its heyday it extended as far as Mérida or Seville.

In 438, Hermeric ratified the peace with the Galaicos, the native Hispano-Roman people, and, tired of fighting, abdicated in favor of his son Rechila. In 448, Rechila died, leaving a state in expansion to his son Rechiar, who imposed his Roman Catholic faith on the pagan Suebi and Priscillianist Galaico population, having converted in 447. In 456, Rechiar died and Suebi glory began to fade. Multiple candidates for the throne appeared, grouped in two factions. A division marked by the river Minius (modern Minho or Miño) is noticed, probably a consequence of the two tribes, Quados and Marcomanos, who constituted the Suebi nation in the Iberian Peninsula.

There were occasional clashes with the Visigoths, who arrived in the Iberian peninsula in 416, having been sent from Aquitaine by the Western Roman Emperor to battle the Vandals and Alans. They came to dominate most of it, but the Suebi maintained their independence until 584, when the Visigothic King Leovigild, on the pretext of conflict over the succession, invaded the Suebic kingdom and finally defeated it. Andeca, the last king of the Suebi, held out for a year before surrendering in 585. With his surrender, this branch of the Suebi was absorbed into the Visigothic kingdom. The kingdom of Galicia, nevertheless, existed (off and on) officially on paper until 1833. The Suebi kingdom was not politically important; St Braulio of Zaragoza depicted it as "the extremity of the west in an illiterate country where naught is heard but the sound of gales". As with the Visigothic language, there are no traces of the Suebi tongue as the barbarians quickly adopted the local vulgar Latin.

The Suebi kingdom of Gallaecia should not be mistaken for the later medieval kingdom of Galicia, which existed (off and on) from 910 to 1070. The historiography of the Suebi, and of Galicia in general, was long marginalised in Spanish culture; it was left to a German scholar to write the first connected history of the Suebi in Galicia, as writer-historian Xoán Bernárdez Vilar has pointed out [2].

[edit] Suebi Kings of Galicia

Hermeric (409-438)
Rechila (438-448)
Rechiar (448-456)
Aioulf (456-457), in the south alone
Framta (456-457), in the north alone
Maldras (457-459), originally in the south alone, then over whole realm
Remismund (459-469), son of previous, opposed by Frumar from 459, reigned unopposed from 463
Frumar (459-463), in the south alone
Richimund (459-463), in the north alone
Obscurity (469-550), during this time one name alone is known: Theodemund, but perhaps also a Vermund, Rechila II, and Rechiar II
Carriaric (550-559)
Theodemar (559-570)
Miro (570-583)
Eboric (also called Euric) (583-584)
Andeca (584-585), deposed and put in a monastery by Leovigild
Malaric (585-586), opposed Leovigild and defeated

The Visigoths conquered the Suevi in 585.

[edit] Galicia in the Middle Ages

After the Visigothic collapse in 711, the remaining Gothic independents fled to the Asturias mountains and eventually set up a state of their own, electing as their leader Pelayo. The first leader who can assuredly be called king was Alfonso I, who was also the first to expand the kingdom of Asturias into Galicia. This kingdom continued to expand until the large "Desert of the Douro," a vast no-man's land created by Alfonso in the region between his kingdom and the Douro to keep out invaders, was repopulated (see Repoblación). On the death of Alfonso III (910), the kingdom was divided between the original Asturias (including Cantabria), Galicia, and the newest province of León (formed out of the Desert). This division disappeared and reappeared sporadically until Galicia was finally united completely to Castile in 1126.

[edit] Asturian Kings of Galicia

Ordoño II (910-924), also king of León from 914
Fruela II (924-925, also king of León from 924 and of Asturias from 910
Alfonso Froilaz the Hunchback (925-926)
Sancho I Ordóñez (926–929)
Alfonso IV (929–931), also king of León from 925

The kingdom was hereafter united to León, with the exception of a Viking raid by Gundered during 966 and:

Bermudo II (982-999), also king of León from 984

[edit] Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal

Main article: Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal

The Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal (as it is now known) was formed in 1065 after the County of Portugal declared independence following the death of Ferdinand I of Castile. In 1063, Ferdinand I had divided his kingdom among his sons. Galicia was allotted to García. The Count of Portugal, Nuno II Mendes, took advantage of the internal tension caused by the civil war between Ferdinand's sons to finally break off and declare himself an independent ruler. However, in 1071, King García defeated and killed him at the Battle of Pedroso and annexed his territory, adding the title of King of Portugal to his previous ones. In 1072, García himself was defeated by his brother Sancho II of Castile and fled. In that same year, after Sancho's murder Alphonso VI became king of León and Castile; he imprisoned García for life, proclaiming himself King of Galicia and Portugal as well, thus reuniting his father's realm. From that time Galicia remained part of the kingdom of Castile and León, although under differing degrees of self-government. Although it did not last for very long, the Kingdom set the stage for future Portuguese nationalism under Henry, Count of Portugal.

García II (1065-1072)

The kingdom was annexed by Alfonso VI of Castile. Alfonso's daughter gave Galicia to her eldest son in 1111.

[edit] Leonese Kings of Galicia

At the Battle of São Mamede (1128), Afonso I of Portugal overcame the troops under Count Fernando Peres de Trava of Galicia, making his mother his prisoner and exiling her forever to a monastery in León. Thus the possibility of incorporating Portugal into a kingdom of Galicia was eliminated and Afonso become sole ruler (Dux of Portugal).