Évora knights

Who holds it

Name

Paio (Pelágio)

Title

Master of the Knights of Évora

Since

after 1195

Confidence

medium

Gonçalo Viegas, the first master (from about 1175-1176), died at Alarcos in 1195. Master Paio, also written Pelágio, gives Benavente its foral on 25 March 1200, so he is very likely master on 1 January. He is followed by Fernando Anes (1201-1227).

What it holds

• The order's house and garrison duty at Évora (the city itself is a royal concelho)
• Coruche on the Sorraia, entrusted to the knights in 1176 (foral 1182)
• Alcanede and its castle, granted by Sancho I in 1187
• Benavente, which the master is settling (foral of 25 March 1200)
• Not yet held: Avis (1211)

How it was acquired

Royal grants of Afonso Henriques (1176) and Sancho I (1187); the affiliation to Calatrava in 1187.

How things stand that morning

Évora is held but isolated; Coruche and Alcanede are held on the Tagus line.

Wealth

Grazing in the Alentejo and the Sorraia valley; rents of new settlements; booty.

Threats

• Almohad attack on Évora or the Sorraia castles
• Losses of men, as at Alarcos

Advocates and rivals

The king; the bishop of Évora; the Templars and Hospitallers further north; the Almohads all round the Évora enclave.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 25 March 1200Master Paio grants Benavente its foral, settling it under the order.Depends on: Peace on the lower Tagus. Stopped by: An Almohad raid on the lower Tagus or the master's death.

Places of note

• Évora: The order's first house, in a royal city isolated south of the Tagus

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Coruche (1176), Alcanede (1187) and the Benavente foral (1200) are dated in local histories; the 1162 foundation story is a later fable.

On the map: Évora itself is a royal city and is shown only as a point. Coruche and Benavente are drawn as modern concelhos, larger than the settled land of 1200.

Primary sources for Portugal

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Chronicle of the World (Lucas of Tuy), Lucas de Tuy (1236, for Queen Berenguela). The Leonese counterpart to Rodrigo, written at San Isidoro for Berenguela. Read online
• Historical Monuments of Portugal: Writers (Annals of King Afonso, Chronicon Conimbricense, Chronica Gothorum and others) (12th to 15th centuries). The Portuguese annals in one volume. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Gift of the Imamate, Ibn Sahib al-Sala (Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad al-Baji) (late twelfth century; the surviving part covers 1159 to 1173). The only Almohad court chronicle written from inside the administration, by a chancery secretary who travelled with the caliphs Abd al-Mu'min and Abu Yaqub Yusuf.

5 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.