Fernando Yáñez

This article is about the medieval nobleman. For the Renaissance painter, see Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina.

Fernando Yáñez[lower-alpha 1] was a minor Galician nobleman—a miles, or mere knight—who rose in rank in the service of Queen Urraca (1109–26) and King Alfonso VII (1126–57).[lower-alpha 2] He eventually became lord of the Limia in Galicia.[1]

Early service under Urraca

Although he is much praised in the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris (Chronicle of Emperor Alfonso") and the Prefatio de Almaria ("Poem of Almería"), nothing is known of his parents with certainty and he was probably born into the lower class of nobility.[2] His mother may have been Toda Raimúndez, according to a document of the monastery of San Pedro de Rocas.[3] He initially rose to prominence as one of the only Galician nobles to support Urraca when her influence there was at low ebb.[2] Despite his royal preferment, Fernando is never recorded with the title of count (Latin comes), the highest rank attainable in León.[lower-alpha 3]

According to the Historia compostellana ("History of Compostela"), Fernando was a witness to the alliance between Urraca and Archbishop Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela in 1116.[4] In 1126, "incited," according to the Historia, "by tyrannical ferocity and stimulated by avarice," he imprisoned some citizens of Santiago.[5] The archbishop, who claimed secular jurisdiction in the city, thereupon excommunicated him and pillaged his lordship of Puente Sampayo, which lay on the border between the diocese of Tuy and Santiago de Compostela.[5][6][7] In April 1127, with the other Galician and Extremaduran nobles, made formal submission to Alfonso as Urraca's successor at Zamora. In the long list of men who came to Zamora in the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, the last two names are those of Fernando and his father-in-law, Count Gómez Núñez: "... and Count Gómez Núñez and Fernando Yáñez ... came to the king in Zamora and with humble devotion placed themselves under his authority."[8] Together Gómez and Fernando dominated the south Galician borderlands.[9]

Military service to Alfonso

Fernando was one of the Galicians most trusted by the crown, and he attended court frequently under Alfonso VII, confirming roughly one hundred of Alfonso's over nine hundred charters, or ten percent.[10] Nevertheless, he was not a courtier, but a military man and the majority of royal charters he witnessed were issued while the king was on campaign.[10] In 1133 Alfonso used Fernando as a go-between during negotiations with Diego Gelmírez, when the latter wanted to dismiss his chancellor.[11] When Alfonso visited Galicia in 1137, Fernando's presence with him is attested by his witnessing the royal charters of 26–7 June at Tuy and 17 and 29 July at Santiago.[12]

In royal service he was primarily a soldier. In the 1130s he resisted the Portuguese invasion of Galicia.[2] In 1139 he was at the siege of Oreja, where he witnessed a royal charter on 25 July along with several other Galician noblemen.[13] In 1141 Fernando joined the royal court at Zamora, simultaneous with Alfonso's grant of the castle of Sandi to the abbey of Celanova. This grant was intended to ensure the loyalty of the abbey, since it was near the Portuguese border at a time when Count Afonso Henriques of Portugal had begun his royal pretensions. Fernando's visit was probably likewise related to the defence of Galicia from Portuguese invasion.[14]

In 1144, after rebellion broke out in the Almoravid Emirate, Fernando took part in Alfonso's expedition south to take advantage of the discord.[15] In 1146 he was sent with reinforcements to shore up Ibn Ḥamdīn's resistance to the Almoravids at siege of Andújar.[15] At his arrival, Ibn Gāniya lifted the siege.[14] Later that year he joined the siege of Córdoba and on 17 July 1147 was with the royal army at Andújar when he witnessed a charter of Alfonso VII.[16] In 1147 he was present at the siege of Almería.[15] The anonymous author of the Prefatio de Almaria, a heroic roll-call (dénombrement épique) of the participants at Almería, claims that Fernando Yáñez was never defeated in battle.[17] Fernando witnessed the last royal charter issued at Baeza before the army set out on 19 August 1147, and again witnessed the royal charter issued on the army's victorious return on 25 November, demonstrating that he was with the army throughout the campaign.[18] In 1151 he was at the siege of Jaén and in 1152 at that of Guadix.[15] He thus played a conspicuous role in the Christian reconquista of the mid-twelfth century.

Fiefs and lands

Fernando's reward for his service to the crown was fiefs (tenencias): the Limia in his homeland; Maqueda and Talavera, which defended the approaches to the primatial city of Toledo; and the castle of Montoro on the river Guadalquivir in the far south of the realm. These, save Limia, were frontier fiefs of utmost military importance.[2] His most prominent post was Montoro, and he is cited as holding that fief in twenty-nine documents (two of them private charters).[10] He held it from no later than 22 May 1150,[19] although charters as early as 1148 and 1 December 1149 cite him as holding it. These are false, however, since Montoro had not yet been captured.[20][lower-alpha 4] Fernando held Talavera from 1143 to 1149, as three documents attest, and Maqueda from at least 1146, as one royal charters shows, until at least 1153, according to one private document.[21]

Fernando is recorded in several suspect charters as holding other fiefs in Galicia. A spurious royal charter of 1129 makes him lord of San Pelayo de Lado, in the extreme south of the realm. This tenancy is possible, as is that of Ginzo de Limia, also in the extreme south of Galicia, which he is recorded as holding in a private charter of 8 June 1136.[21] The private document of 19 April 1145 that cites him as sharing the lordship of Toroño (roughly coterminous with the diocese of Tuy) with a "Count Domingo Gómez" is highly suspect, but his lordship of this region is nonetheless probable.[21]

Having secured a heightened status by his deeds on behalf of the crown, Fernando married a daughter of the high-ranking count Gómez Núñez.[2][22] By her he had a son, Pelayo Curvo, who continued in the service of the Leonese crown under Alfonso and Alfonso's successor, Ferdinand II (1157–88).[2][lower-alpha 5] From 1149 Fernando gave up his fiefs around Tuy to his son, and in November 1152 his son was ruling Toroño, probably having succeeded his father.[21] Fernando is last recorded as holding Montoro on 6 February 1154. That month he had to give it up. The king had bestowed it on Nuño Pérez de Lara by 24 December 1154.[19]

On 9 June 1147, at Calatrava, while he was leading his army south to attack Almería, Alfonso VII judged a property dispute between Fernando and Bishop Martin I of Orense (1132–56).[23] The last recorded action of Fernando Yáñez was to donate his estate at Oliveira to the cathedral of Tuy for the good of his soul and that of Queen Urraca. He had a charter drawn up to this effect on 24 August 1154. He recorded that he had received Oliveira through the generosity of the queen, and he also praised the generosity of Alfonso.[24] Although the donation is not a will, it may have been issued at the end of his life or even on his deathbed. (In the opinion of Luis Sánchez Belda, it was probably a "death-bed testament".[25]) The original of this charter is preserved.[26] Archbishop Juan de Segovia and the canons of the cathedral of Toledo confirmed it.[27]

Notes

  1. ↑ Yáñez is a patronymic meaning "son of John".
  2. ↑ Alfonso was proclaimed king in Galicia in opposition to Urraca in 1111. After inheriting the whole kingdom in 1126, he generally preferred the title of "emperor" to that of "king". Fernando Yáñez was a partisan of Urraca until her death.
  3. ↑ Reilly 1982, p. 163, believes that the "Count Fernando" who confirmed a charter of Countess Theresa of Portugal to Bishop Diego III and the people of Orense on 17 February 1122 was Fernando Yáñez.
  4. ↑ The charter in which Nuño first appears as lord of Montoro is incorrectly dated to 1155 in the cartulary of the monastery of Sobrado.
  5. ↑ Alfonso divided his kingdom between his sons, Ferdinand, the younger, receiving León, which included Galicia, and Sancho III, the elder, receiving Castile. Fernando Yáñez's career was spent almost entirely in Galicia and León.

References

  1. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 130.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Barton 1997, pp. 36–37.
  3. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 36 n. 49.
  4. ↑ Falque Rey 1994, p. 244.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Falque Rey 1994, p. 456.
  6. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 217.
  7. ↑ Reilly 1982, p. 163.
  8. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 127: ... et comes Gomez Munici et Fredinandus Iohannis ... ad regem uenerunt et in Zamora suplici deuotione se illius imperiis subdiderunt.
  9. ↑ Reilly 1998, p. 17.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Reilly 1998, p. 188.
  11. ↑ Reilly 1998, p. 231.
  12. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 76.
  13. ↑ Barton 1997, pp. 77, 180.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Reilly 1998, p. 70.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Barton 1997, p. 37 n. 51.
  16. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 78.
  17. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 148.
  18. ↑ Barton 1997, pp. 78, 181.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Barton 1997, p. 108 and n. 29.
  20. ↑ Reilly 1998, pp. 188, 370.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Reilly 1998, pp. 188–89.
  22. ↑ Reilly 1982, p. 291.
  23. ↑ Barton 1997, pp. 78, 214.
  24. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 104, 207, whose edition of the chater is at Appendix 3, no. VIII, pp. 316–17.
  25. ↑ Reilly 1998, p. 188 n.17.
  26. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 316.
  27. ↑ Barton 1997, p. 317.

Sources