Traba (Gómez González)

Who he is

Name

Gómez González de Traba

Title

Count (comes) since 1169; royal tenant of Trastámara, Montenegro, Monterroso and Sarria; mayordomo of Alfonso IX from 1193

Since

Head of the house of Traba since his brother's death (1165/66)

Born

Not pinned; first seen 1164, so born before about 1150

Family

Second son of Count Gonzalo Fernández de Traba and Elvira Rodríguez; grandson of Fernando Pérez de Traba, founder of Sobrado. Wives: Elvira Pérez, then by 1182 Miracle (Miraglia), daughter of Ermengol VII of Urgell (last seen alive 1195). Sons Fernando, Gonzalo, Rodrigo (later count of Trastámara) and Velasco; a brother, Rodrigo González de Traba, is named in the sources (his holdings in 1200 not pinned). Fernando Núñez de Lara is his cousin through the Traba.

Confidence

high

English Wikipedia after Barton, The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (1997).

Overlord

Alfonso IX

What it holds

• Trastámara: held from 1165 to at least 1208
• Montenegro: held from 1183 to 1200 (gaps 1188-89 and 1190-92)
• Monterroso: 1179 to 1200 (again in 1204)
• Sarria: 1189 to 1200
• Patron of Sobrado (family foundation), Caabeiro (1196), Carracedo (1191), Lourenzá (1201) and Santiago cathedral (1186)

How it was acquired

Royal tenancies held in the family since the 1120s (Trastámara) and granted by Ferdinand II and Alfonso IX.

Allies and rivals

Kin by marriage to the counts of Urgell; cousin of the Castilian Laras; rival at court of the Castros. Out of step with the king around 1200.

How things stand that morning

On 1 January 1200 he still holds all four districts; the three he loses in 1200 are drawn as held.

Wealth

Rents and justice of four Galician districts; family lands in Bergantiños and around Sobrado.

Military

The levies of his districts and his household; no figures.

Threats

• The king's displeasure (cause unknown)
• Rivals for the Galician tenancies

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.

In 1200

1. During 1200 (not pinned)Loses Montenegro, Monterroso and Sarria; out of favour, seen at court only once (1201) until restored in summer 1204.Depends on: The breach with the king Stopped by: Reconciliation

Later, on the likely course

1. January 1205 to March 1206 (later)Alférez of Alfonso IX; dies about 1211.Depends on: Restoration in 1204 Stopped by: Play

Places of note

• Sobrado dos Monxes: Cistercian abbey founded by his grandfather; family burial

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Tenancies dated from charter confirmations (Barton).

On the map: The Galician tierras are drawn from modern municipalities around their heads; the medieval limits are approximate.

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.