A Royal Tap on the Wrist...

Finally! I'm back with more stories to tell.

Urraca had enough on the royal plate with the Battler without that upstart in Compostela challenging her authority and so she sought to humble her bishop with a little warning. She needed to look no further than the brotherhood who were more than happy to oblige. Diego was suitably “embarrassed”: in fact he lost all control over the town, virtually besieged in is own Episcopal palace.

Of course, he threatened the wrath of God, but his excommunications remained unheeded. Eventually, with rental income from the suffragens effectively cut off, and having suffered continued attacks upon his palace which was badly damaged, Diego Gelmirez saw that discretion was indeed the better part of valour. After 6 months he gave in to the queen, and to Arias Perez who it shall be seen, let this momentary victory go to his head. He forgot the fact that his help had been enlisted by Urraca.

In order to re-ingratiate himself with the people of Compostela, Diego made a big show of translating new relics given to him by the queen as a peace offering. His congregation may have been impressed. But the Brotherhood were not about to give up so easily what they had gained.

(P.S. It's a pumpkin!!!)
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Treachery...

"Unexpectedly available: Castle with nice views of Portugal and river, tastefully furnished in genuine mediaeval style and fully equipped, low maintenance security for immediate occupancy."

Well, what do you do when you have just acquired a nice piece of real estate in exchange for a few measly royal supporters? You move yourself and your wife in, that's what. And if you happen to have a royal prince around, you move him in too so that he'll be nice and close to his aunt and uncle.

What made the usually cautious Pedro decide to move his wife, Mayor, and little Prince Alfonso Raimundez into his newly captured castle is a bit of a mystery and we can only assume that he thought that Teresa and Henry were a safer bet when it came to establishing the prince's right to the throne.

Urraca was no longer allowing the Battler to lay waste to her dominions, but she showed no sign of handing Galicia over to her son who was, after all, only six at the time. To do so was to give part and parcel to Pedro Froilaz whose ambitions for himself as regent were only too clear.

Instead she sent one of her staunchest supporters, a Galician noble by the name of Arias Pérez, to lay siege to the castle. Pedro presumably came out on his best charger leaving his wife and the prince in the castle.

Diego Gelmirez by this time was beginning his flip-flopping between whoever appeared to be on the winning side. At this point and for some time, he had aligned himself with Urraca's supporters: in this case Arias Pérez and the so-called Brotherhood. But Urraca knew that Diego could just as easily have re-joined his old ally Pedro Froílaz and didn't trust him at all. Be that as it may, Pedro prevailed upon Diego to plead with the queen on his behalf. Diego did just that, but perhaps was already having his doubts about which horse to back; as soon as the seige was lifted, Urraca captured and imprisoned not only Pedro and his wife, but Diego Gelmirez himself, and even her own son!

Somehow or another, the four were released because by the autumn of 1111 we read in the Historia Compostelana that Diego and Pedro - who presumably having been cell mates were friends again - had young Alfonso crowned King of Galicia in Compostela.
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Pedro Froílez de Traba

Had the marriage of Urraca and Alfonso the Battler been successful there is little doubt that the "Reconquista" would likely have taken place almost 400 years earlier. Both sovereigns were engaged in conflict with the Moorish kingdoms at their southern borders, and Urraca's fathers' advisors would have championed the marriage as the best way to avoid any further incursions into Christian territory. As it was it took Isabel of Castille's joining her kingdom to that of Fernando of Aragon's in marriage to accomplish that, the final blow to the Islamic rulers coming at the surrender of Granada in 1492 when the last Moorish king, Boabdil, was evicted from that glorious city and fled to Morocco.

Had Urraca have liked Alfonso even a little bit (and had Alfonso liked women at all) even the country we think of as Portugal would likely have had a different shape.

But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself.

Before we continue a little more with Urraca's marriage woes, it is time to look at another major player in this Feudal Drama, and that is Pedro Fróilez de Traba.

As we have already seen, with the disastrous attempt of Count Rodrigo d'Ovequiez and Bishop Diego Pelaez in 1085 to rebel against the rule of Alfonso VI (and perhaps create a little enclave of Normandy in Galicia?) many of the formerly noble houses seemed to disappear completely. By the time of which we have been writing (that is around 1110) the names of the aristocracy had changed. The first pre-requisite of maintaining favour in Galicia seemed to be friendship with Diego Gelmirez the Bishop. Second to that was currying favour with Urraca, and sometimes these two opportunities coincided. Often they did not.

Diego knew how to play both sides of the field. So did Count Pedro. They were not always on the same side and sometimes it is dizzying trying to sort out who was in bed with whom (so to speak). I'll try to save you the trouble here by not mentioning too much of the chops and changes.

If you go to Traba today, perhaps while walking from Finisterre to Muxia, you will see a glorious white sand beach, vast wetlands, and a tiny village on a low hill overlooking the Costa da Morte. There is little enough left of the great holdings of the great Counts of Traba.

But once, the landscape - both geographically and politically, was very different indeed.

For one thing, the little Prince Alfonso - Urraca and Raimundo's son who was to become the Emperor Alfonso VII - was brought up there.
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Trubble at 'mill...

The trouble is we don't know whether Alfonso VI - the about to be ex-king - had suggested, sanctioned, or commanded the move. However, what was proposed was that Alfonso I of Aragon was marriage material for the unfortunate Urraca, who clearly had no say in the matter. She may not have liked it. We aren't advised one way or the other. She was a 12th century woman, princess or not. 12th century women did as they were told.

Urraca was told to marry or.., and the "union" took place.

The church certainly didn't like it. Urraca and Alfonso of Aragon were distantly related: they shared the same great-grandfather. (Look back at earlier posts if you are really interested but I am assuming you are not, so...)

The whole enterprise was on shaky ground from the first.

In 1109, Alfonso VI, by now the somewhat ineffectual monarch, died.

This left the question as to what role his new son-in-law (had Alfonso VI lived to comment - this is getting complicated...) would play. Was The Battler to be "King Consort" to Urraca's Queen?

Once again we don't know. What does become clear, and very quickly, is that Alfonso of Aragon wasn't likely to play second fiddle to anyone, least of all a "defenseless" woman. The succession was rushed through in the same hurry that the Aragonese marriage had been conceived.

In the end it raised far more problems than it solved.

Queen Urraca wasn't the pushover everyone expected and before long everyone would know it...

...including Bishop Diego Gelmirez in Santiago de Compostela who was having problems of his own.
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