Paio Moniz (alferes)

Who he is

Name

Paio Moniz

Title

Alferes-mor (signifer) of Sancho I; tenente of Lanhoso

Since

1199 (alferes)

Born

not pinned

Family

Identification disputed. Calderón Medina places him in the Cabreira-Ribeira kin. The Cantigas database identifies him as Paio Moniz Varela, of a Galician lineage active at the Leonese court, himself alférez and mayordomo of Alfonso IX, at Sancho I's court from 1197 to 1202, and father of the troubadour Fernão Pais de Tamalhancos. The genealogies make the king's mistress Maria Pais Ribeira the daughter of a Paio Moniz (de Ribeira); whether this is the same man is not pinned.

Confidence

medium

Alferes from 1199 to 1202 and tenente of Lanhoso from 1200 to 1202 (Calderón Medina); in Portugal 1197-1202 (Cantigas database).

Overlord

Sancho I of Portugal

What it holds

• The office of alferes-mor (1199-1202)
• Tenência of Lanhoso: castle and district (attested 1200-1202; from 1 January not pinned)

How it was acquired

Royal appointment, succeeding Rodrigo Mendes de Sousa (alferes 1196-1198).

Allies and rivals

A newcomer among the native kindreds; if he is Maria Pais Ribeira's father, he owes his rise to the king's new liaison (not pinned).

How things stand that morning

Alferes-mor at court.

Wealth

The profits of office and the Lanhoso district.

Military

Leads the royal host under the king. No figures.

Threats

• Return to León when the war ends (he leaves Portuguese records after 1202)

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Office dates are firm in two independent sources; his identity and Lanhoso on 1 January are not.

On the map: Lanhoso drawn as the modern concelho of Póvoa de Lanhoso.

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.