Froilaz (Froila Ramírez)

Who he is

Name

Froila Ramírez

Title

Count (by August 1189); former alférez (1182-84)

Since

Count by 11 August 1189

Born

Not pinned; first seen 1150 as a boy, so born in the 1140s; about 55-60

Family

Second son of Count Ramiro Fróilaz (died 1169/70); brother of Alfonso Ramírez (died 1185). Wives: Urraca González (died 1 August 1190), then by May 1198 Sancha Fernández, daughter of Fernando Arias and Teresa Bermúdez. Children: Teresa, Nuño, María, Diego, Ramiro, Rodrigo, Bermudo, Bernardo. His daughter Teresa very probably married Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos.

Confidence

high

English Wikipedia after Barton (1997).

Overlord

Alfonso IX

What it holds

• Salientes (granted 9 April 1192), in the upper Sil
• Cifuentes de Rueda on the Esla, whose settlers received his fuero in May 1198
• The towers of León (honorary tenancy from 1191; by 8 December 1199 they belong to the queen's arras, and who keeps them for her is not pinned)
• Royal tenancies: Toro (1197) is the latest pinned; the Bierzo ended in 1198; Asturias de Oviedo was in Fernando Núñez de Lara's hands by 1200. Tenancies on 1 January 1200: not pinned

How it was acquired

Royal grants under Ferdinand II and Alfonso IX; family lands.

Allies and rivals

Father-in-law (very probably) of Rodrigo Pérez de Villalobos; his second marriage ties him to the Galician Arias kin.

How things stand that morning

A count with family lands on the Esla and the Sil and a long record of royal service; what he governs on 1 January 1200 is not pinned.

Wealth

Mountain and river estates; rents of whatever tenancy he holds.

Military

Household and the men of his lands; no figures.

Threats

• Age
• Displacement from his tenancies by Castilians and newcomers

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. 18 December 1202 (later)Last seen in a charter; probably dies early 1203.Depends on: Natural course Stopped by: Play

Places of note

• Toro: Tenant in 1197 (1200 not pinned)
• Ponferrada (the Bierzo): Tenant of the Bierzo to 1198

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Career dated from charters; nothing pinned for 1199-1200.

On the map: Only his family lands are drawn; his royal tenancies of 1200 are 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.