Sousa (Gonçalo Mendes)

Who he is

Name

Gonçalo Mendes de Sousa

Title

Mordomo-mor of the royal court; rico-homem; tenente of Basto

Since

1192 (head of the house and mordomo-mor)

Born

about 1170 (an adult by 1192); died 25 April 1243

Family

Son of Count Mendo Gonçalves I de Sousa, 'o Sousão' (died 1192; alferes-mor 1173-1176, mordomo-mor 1186-1192, who led the crusader allies at Silves in 1189), and Maria Rodrigues Veloso; grandson of Gonçalo Mendes 'o Bom'. Married Teresa Soares de Ribadouro, sister of Lourenço Soares de Ribadouro. Brothers: Garcia Mendes II (died 1239), Vasco Mendes (died 1242, later tenente of Bragança and Panóias), Rodrigo Mendes (alferes-mor in 1192 and 1196-1198; at various dates tenente of Aguiar de Pena, Baião, Maia, Panóias and Penaguião) and Henrique Mendes; sister Urraca Mendes, wife of Nuno Peres de Guzmán. Cousin of Gil Vasques de Soverosa.

Confidence

high

Mordomo-mor from 1192 to June 1211; tenente of Basto 1195-1211 and of Celorico da Beira in 1196 (Calderón Medina). About 1200 he is called princeps of Basto. Loyal to Sancho I through the crisis of 1209-1210 and an executor of his will; leader of the opposition to Afonso II from 1211, fighting the royal party near Coimbra in November 1211; back in office 1224. Buried at Alcobaça.

Overlord

Sancho I of Portugal

What it holds

• The office of mordomo-mor of the royal court (since 1192)
• Tenência of Basto (attested 1195-1211): the king's castle, justice and dues in the Terra de Basto
• Tenência of Celorico da Beira (attested 1196; not pinned for 1 January 1200)
• Family honras, quintãs and patronage of churches and monasteries in the Terra de Sousa and round Felgueiras, with the patronage of the monastery of Pombeiro

How it was acquired

Headship and the office of mordomo-mor on his father's death in 1192. Basto is a Sousa-linked tenência: his uncle by marriage Vasco Fernandes de Soverosa held it to 1186 and his father from 1186 to 1192.

Allies and rivals

Allied by marriage with the Ribadouro (Lourenço Soares) and the Soverosa (Gil Vasques). The rising rival lineage is the Riba de Vizela, whose Martim Fernandes replaces him as mordomo-mor in June 1211. In 1200 the Sousa are wholly the king's men.

How things stand that morning

At the head of the royal household and holding Basto; the strongest family at court.

Wealth

Dues, rents and justice of the Basto district; the family honras, free of royal officers; church patronage in the Sousa valley; the profits of the mordomia.

Military

The Sousa household knights and the men of Basto. No figures.

Threats

• A shift of royal favour toward the Riba de Vizela
• Raids on the Beira frontier if he still holds Celorico
• The heir Afonso, who will break with the Sousa in 1211

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)During the heir's grave illness Sancho I visits Santa Senhorinha de Basto and grants the surrounding land to that church; Gonçalo Mendes, as lord of Basto, sets the boundary stones.Depends on: The heir's illness as recorded. Stopped by: Nothing in play.

Places of note

• Monastery of Pombeiro: Sousa family monastery (patronage), burial church of the house

Where the sources disagree

• Mendo Gonçalves de Sousa, often named as head of the house, died in 1192 (pt.wikipedia after Sottomayor-Pizarro); his son Gonçalo Mendes II is head on 1 January 1200.

Evidence: Office and tenências from Calderón Medina's charter lists and the Sousa genealogies. Basto is firm; Celorico da Beira is attested for 1196 only; the honras are known by name, not by bounds.

On the map: Basto follows the two modern concelhos named for it; the Sousa honras were scattered estates, not a block.

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.