Fruela Díaz

Fruela (or Froila) Díaz (died 1119), known in contemporary sources as Froila Didaci or Didaz, was a nobleman in the Kingdom of León, the dominant figure in the centre of the realm during the late reign of Alfonso VI and the early reign of Urraca. A man of great private wealth who expanded his landholdings through numerous purchases, he was able to marry royalty and maintain good terms with his sovereigns of León as well as the rulers of Galicia and Portugal, whose territories lay immediately to the west of his area of influence. He also founded a hospital, a traveller's inn and a settlement that grew into a town. His lands raised some of the most valuable horses in Spain, he was buried in the royal pantheon of the kings of León, and his high rank—highest in the kingdom after the king and the rulers of Galicia and Portugal—is remembered in the most famous of cantares de gesta.

Origins and service to Raymond of Galicia

Fruela's origins lay in the Asturias, although his parentage is nowhere explicitly stated in surviving sources. Ramón Menéndez Pidal believed that Fruela was the brother of Jimena Díaz, wife of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, but this is unlikely. In fact Fruela's wife was the sister of Ramiro Sánchez, husband of Rodrigo's daughter Christina. It has been suggested that Fruela was a son of Diego Ansúrez and thus a nephew of Pedro Ansúrez, but this hypothesis has little to recommend it besides the patronymic Díaz ("son of Diego"). Fruela's father was probably Diego Pérez, a son of Pedro Flaínez and Bronilde. His mother was Mayor (María) Fróilaz, daughter of Froila Múñoz.

The earliest surviving record of Fruela dates to 1069. The archives of Fruela's branch of the Flagínez family were preserved in the monastery of Santa María de Oteros de las Dueñas, the only such case of a noble family's records being preserved from the Spanish high Middle Ages. On top of this is conserved in the tumbo of the Cathedral of Santa María in León (doc. 11, fol. 83) a brief genealogy of Antonio and Fruela, then children, as part of a diploma whereby their mother donated the monastery of San Pedro de Valdoré to the cathedral in December 1073.

Fruela served Count Raymond of Galicia as majordomo, the highest court official, from 1094 to 1096 at least, and perhaps as late as 1106. He may have held the post throughout Raymond's countship (1090–1107), but insufficient surviving documentation does not allow the case to be proven. In the count's disputes with the king, Fruela openly took Raymond's side. Fruela was prominent enough at the royal court, however, confirming a third of all royal charters given during the latter part of Alfonso's reign. Not long thereafter, in 1091, he was granted the fief (tenencia) of Valdeorras in Galicia, which he held until 1104. Such tenencias were held ad imperandum, to be governed and could be revoked by the monarch at any time. They were distinct from the count's private holdings, lands ad possidendum, which he owned and which the monarch could not alienate. The only other fiefs he held for more than a year or two were Sarria (1098–1103), Larín (1102–06), and the important episcopal city of Astorga (1107–17). It is with Astorga that Fruela is most commonly associated after 1107. This settlement became the town of Monforte de Lemos, which Fruela held as a tenencia until 1111, when it passed to Rodrigo Vélaz. (1111–12), Riba de Esla (1113), and Cifuentes de Rueda (1117–19). This land, in the mountains of the Asturias, was intended for the construction of a hostel for travellers, which operated until as late as 1835. The full text of the diploma has now been lost, and it is suspected that it may have included a fuller will and testament, since Fruela was then in his old age.

Marriage and private dealings Fruela married Estefanía Sánchez, daughter of Sancho Garcés, an illegitimate son of García Sánchez III of Navarre, and his wife Constance. She possessed lands in the Rioja, near Calahorra, but may have sold these in order to purchase land more near to her husband's estates. Her royal pedigree was mentioned in a grant of land in Astorga they received from Henry of Portugal on 1 March 1112, which included the Torre Cornellera and ten sections of the city wall. She outlived her husband by at least ten years: on 18 April 1129 she granted a fuero to Villarmildo. With twenty-three such exchanges having left records, their case is one of the best preserved of its kind: private land transactions, especially aristocratic purchases from peasants, increased dramatically in Spain between the late tenth and early twelfth century. Some of the couple's early, eleventh-century property gains were of the form of loan repayments, though this type of transaction disappears from the record altogether in the twelfth century.

In 1118 a certain Martín Eitaz, convicted of murdering one of Fruela's servants, was forced to become his servant for life or until released by a payment. This important document Fruela signs as legionensium comes (count of León), a high-sounding title that was probably honorific and had long been associated with the Flagínez. A horse worth so much could only be destined for the royal stables and royal rider, the queen herself, and it illustrates Fruela's enormous personal wealth. In 1115, when Urraca and Alfonso were fighting for control of the important monastic site of Sahagún, Fruela was acting as count in Ceia (Ceón) just to the north.

Death, burial and reputation The Panteón wherein Fruela is reportedly interred has been called the "Sistine Chapel of Spanish Romanesque" for its well-preserved, high-quality ceiling frescoes. When Fruela died in the summer of 1119 he passed Cifuentes on to his eldest son, Diego, who became alférez of Alfonso VII in 1137 and died prematurely in 1040, leaving a daughter, Estefanía Díaz, who was disinherited by her uncle, Ramiro, when she married without his will. Ramiro then received Cifuentes. In 1198 Cifuentes received a fuero from Ramiro's son, Froila Ramírez, and it remained with their family into the thirteenth century.

Fruela's posthumous reputation can be gauged from lines 3000–3006 of the Poema del Cid (c.1140), where he is placed in the second tier of nobility, immediately beneath Alfonso VI, Henry of Portugal, and Raymond of Galicia, all of whom he served in his long career. This is the beginning of the "Cortes de Carrión" passage: Llegaba el plazo, querien ir a la Cort, en los primeros va el buen rey don Alfonso, el conde don Anric y el conde don Remond: aqueste fue el padre del buen enperador: el conde don Fruella y el conde don Beltrán. Fueron y de su reino otros muchos Sabidores, de toda Castiella todos los meiores.The time arrived, they wished to go to Court, among the first went the good king Alfonso, the count don Henry and the don Raymond: that one was the father of the good emperor: the count don Fruela and the count don Bertrand. They went and from the realm many other Wise Men, from all Castile all the greatest.