Valadares

Who he is

Name

Lourenço Soares de Valadares

Title

Galician-Portuguese magnate; alférez of León (1195-1196, 1203-1205)

Since

not pinned

Born

not pinned

Family

Of the Valadares, named from the land of Valadares on the south bank of the Minho by Melgaço; an earlier Soeiro Aires de Valadares sat in Afonso Henriques's curia (1169-1179). Kin of Soeiro Pais de Valadares, later tenente of Riba Minho.

Confidence

low

Alférez of Alfonso IX from 20 May 1195 to 12 February 1196 and from 1203 to 13 January 1205; mayordomo of León in 1205 and in 1219; in León tenente of Babia (1204), Extremadura (1219) and El Bierzo (1224); in Portugal of Valadares (1219, 1221-1223) and Valdevez (1222).

Overlord

Alfonso IX of León (in service); the family land lies in Portugal

What it holds

• Family lands in the land of Valadares on the Minho (in Portugal; whether held by the family while its head serves León is not pinned)
• Leonese offices and tenencias before and after 1200

How it was acquired

Inherited.

Allies and rivals

Alfonso IX's court; rivals of the Lima for the Minho districts.

How things stand that morning

Not pinned; most likely in León.

Wealth

Minho farmland; Leonese offices.

Military

Household knights. No figures.

Threats

• Confiscation of the Portuguese lands while he serves León

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: His Leonese offices are dated; his position on 1 January 1200 and the family's Portuguese holdings are not.

On the map: A token disc between Monção and Melgaço, shared with the Lima record.

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.