Bragança (Fernão Fernandes)

Who he is

Name

Fernão Fernandes de Bragança

Title

Rico-homem; tenente of Bragança, Panóias and Penaguião

Since

1191 (Bragança)

Born

not pinned

Family

Of the Bragança kindred (the Bragançãos), the old lords of the north-east; his parentage is not given in the source checked.

Confidence

high

In Portugal: tenente of Bragança 1191-1204 and again 1217-1232; of Panóias 1197-1202 (and 1218, 1226-1229); of Penaguião 1197-1202; of Baião in 1197; alferes in 1225. He changes allegiance about 1204 and serves León until 1222: there he holds Villafranca, Villafáfila, Zamora, Castronuevo and Alcañices (1204), Extremadura and Transierra (1206-1211), Limia (1211-1215), Castrotorafe, Sanabria, Benavente, Astorga and others, and is alférez (1211-1212) and mayordomo (1219-1222) of Alfonso IX.

Overlord

Sancho I of Portugal

What it holds

• Tenência of Bragança: castle, walled town (foral and walls 1187) and district (1191-1204)
• Tenência of Panóias (1197-1202)
• Tenência of Penaguião (1197-1202)
• Baião (attested 1197 only; not pinned for 1200)

How it was acquired

Royal appointments from 1191; Bragança was the old seat of his kindred.

Allies and rivals

Faces the Leonese commanders of Sanabria and Aliste; his later Leonese career suggests friends at Alfonso IX's court. The Sousa later take his Trás-os-Montes commands (Vasco Mendes holds Bragança and Panóias after him).

How things stand that morning

Holds Bragança after the failed Leonese siege of 1199.

Wealth

Dues, justice and pasture of Trás-os-Montes; the town of Bragança's rents; tolls on the roads into León.

Military

The walled town and castle of Bragança, the men of the district and the concelho's militia. No figures.

Threats

• A renewed Leonese attack before the peace
• The pull of León, where he will serve from about 1204

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. 1200 (month not pinned)Peace between Portugal and León ends the war on his frontier.Depends on: Both kings willing. Stopped by: Renewed raids or a player's war.

Places of note

• Castle of Bragança: Frontier castle and walled town; besieged by Alfonso IX in 1199

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Calderón Medina gives the tenência dates from charter confirmations; 1 January 1200 lies inside each bracket except Baião.

On the map: The medieval terras of Bragança, Panóias and Penaguião are drawn as the modern concelhos at their core; their true bounds are not pinned.

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.