Ribadouro (Lourenço Soares)

Who he is

Name

Lourenço Soares de Ribadouro

Title

Rico-homem; tenente of Lamego

Since

before 1199 (Lamego)

Born

before 1189; died 28 September 1222, childless

Family

Son of Soeiro Viegas de Ribadouro, youngest son of Egas Moniz 'o Aio' (the tutor of Afonso Henriques), and Sancha Bermudes de Trava, a niece of Afonso Henriques. His elder brother Bermudo probably died at Ervas Tenras about 1190-1191. His sister Teresa is the wife of Gonçalo Mendes de Sousa. He married Urraca Sanches, Sancho I's illegitimate daughter (date not pinned).

Confidence

high

Inherited Lamego from his father and brother; a rico-homem by 1199, confirming the king's Idanha grant to the Templars and the foral of Guarda (27 November 1199). At dates not pinned he gathered Trancoso, Marialva, Pinhel and Guarda (a Salzedas document), and under Afonso II Viseu; by 1211 his castles also included Penedono, Sernancelhe, Paredes da Beira, Moreira de Rei, Sebadelhe, Castreição and São Martinho de Mouros. Loyal to Sancho I in 1209-1210.

Buried at Salzedas.

Overlord

Sancho I of Portugal

What it holds

• Tenência of Lamego: castle and district (before 1199)
• Family honras in the Lamego country and on the Douro; properties in Galicia from his mother
• Not pinned for 1 January 1200: Trancoso, Marialva, Pinhel and Guarda, which he holds later

How it was acquired

Lamego by inheritance of the family's tenência from his father and brother.

Allies and rivals

Brother-in-law of Gonçalo Mendes de Sousa; son-in-law (by his illegitimate daughter) of the king. Neighbour of the Leonese captains of Riba-Côa.

How things stand that morning

Holds Lamego; a rising frontier magnate.

Wealth

Rents and justice of Lamego, Douro vineyards and the family honras.

Military

The castle of Lamego and the men of its district; his household knights. No figures.

Threats

• Leonese raids into the Beira from Riba-Côa until the peace

Places of note

• Abbey of Salzedas: Cistercian abbey of the Ribadouro kin; his burial place

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Lamego before 1199 and his presence at the Guarda foral are firm; the other Beira castles are undated.

On the map: Lamego drawn as the modern concelho; the honras as a token disc.

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.