Santiago

Who holds it

Name

Pedro Suárez de Deza

Title

Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela

Since

1173 (bishop of Salamanca from 1166)

Confidence

high

From Deza or closely tied to it. Canon of Santiago, doctor of law and chancellor to Archbishop Martín Martínez; consecrated bishop of Salamanca by Alexander III in Rome in 1166; elected to Santiago by the chapter in 1173. He divided the archdiocese into five archdeaconries, gave the chapter new statutes, fought hard in the courts for his metropolitan rights over his suffragans, attended the councils of Salamanca (1175, 1178) and the Third Lateran Council (1179), promoted the study of law, and saw Master Mateo finish the Pórtico de la Gloria (lintel dated 1188).

He dies at Santiago in 1206. His stance on Alfonso IX's forbidden marriage is not pinned in the sources checked.

What it holds

• Santiago de Compostela: full city lordship, courts, market and the cathedral's offerings
• The Tierra de Santiago between the Tambre and the Ulla, with Iria (Padrón), the old see, and the villages of the archbishop's circuit (exact bounds in 1200 not pinned)
• Torres de Oeste at Catoira, the fortress on the Ulla estuary, held by the church since Alfonso V
• Pontevedra with its castle (the later 'Torres Arzobispais'), given by Fernando II (date not pinned)
• The Voto de Santiago: yearly dues in grain and wine claimed from much of León and Castile
• Noia, refounded on its present site by Fernando II on 9 April 1168 and the sea gate of Santiago (archiepiscopal status in 1200 not pinned)

How it was acquired

Royal grants from the ninth century onward, widened by Ordoño II to twelve miles round the shrine; the great building of the lordship by Diego Gelmírez (1100-1140); Torres de Oeste from Alfonso V; Pontevedra from Fernando II (1157-1188).

How things stand that morning

Held. The archbishop is old, long in office, and León's leading prelate. The kingdom is under papal pressure over Alfonso IX's marriage to Berenguela of Castile.

Wealth

Pilgrim offerings and pilgrim trade; the Voto de Santiago in grain and wine; rents, tolls and justice of the city and Tierra; the ports of the Arousa and Noia rias; fisheries and salt.

Threats

• Interdict and excommunication over the León marriage reaching the archbishop's churches
• Unrest among the burghers of Compostela
• Norse and Muslim sea raids on the rias, the old reason for the Torres de Oeste
• Disputes with Braga and Toledo over metropolitan rights

Advocates and rivals

The burghers of Compostela, who rose against Gelmírez in 1116-1117 and 1136; the cathedral chapter, rich and jealous of its own rights; the Galician nobility (the Traba and their kin); the king of León, who needs the archbishop's money and men. At Rome, Toledo's primacy and Braga's metropolitan claims.

Places of note

• Torres de Oeste: Seven-towered fortress on the Ulla estuary guarding the approach to Santiago; held by the archbishops
• Iria Flavia: The old see of Iria, the archbishop's town at the head of the Arousa
• Pórtico de la Gloria: Master Mateo's portal, lintel dated 1188

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The archbishop's career and the core of the lordship are well attested; the exact bounds of the Tierra de Santiago in 1200 and the date of the Pontevedra grant are not pinned in the sources checked.

On the map: The Tierra de Santiago is drawn as the core block between the Tambre and the Ulla. The archbishop's late medieval lordship reached much further (Barcala, Xallas, Muros, the Arousa coast), but its extent on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Primary sources for León

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.