Gonzalo Pérez Gudiel

Gonzalo Pérez 'Gudiel' (1238/9–1299), simply Gonzalo Pérez during his life (Gonzalbo Petrez, غنصالبه نيطرص, in his native mozarab Arabic), and wrongly Gonzalo García Gudiel in later church tradition, was a Castilian prelate and statesman in the service of kings Alfonso X and Sancho IV and of Pope Boniface VIII. He was Bishop of Cuenca and Burgos (1275) and then Archbishop of Toledo (1280), the first official Primate of Spain (1285) and finally Cardinal-Bishop of Albano (1298) in the Roman Curia. His early career was that of an international scholar, before he settled into royal service.

The future cardinal was born at Toledo in 1238 or 1239 into the city's mozarab gentry, to alguacil alcalde Pedro Juanes and his wife Teresa Juanes, daughter of alguacil alcalde Juan Ponce. The surname under which he is known, Gudiel, was attached to him by later church historians under the mistaken belief that he derived from a family of that name; his Toledo birth family had yet to adopt a surname. The historians also assigned to him an erroneous patronymic, calling him Gonzalo García instead of his true name, Gonzalo Pérez. On 27 September 1275 he was translated to the see of Burgos (vacant since 1269), and in May 1280 to the archdiocese of Toledo, the most important bishopric in Castile. In 1285 he was recognised as the primate of Spain (primas Hispaniae).

Under Sancho IV, Gonzalo was "great chancellor in all our realms" (chanceller mayor en todos nuestros regnos) and Ferrand Martínez his scribe, but with the king's death in 1295 the archbishop's influence decreased. In the cortes held at Valladolid in the summer of that year, it was declared that ecclesiastical control of the chancery should cease. Chancery notaries should be laymen (legos).

In the year 1300, in keeping with a promise he had made to the cardinal some years earlier, Ferrand Martínez went to Rome to fetch his body for burial in the cathedral of Toledo, in the front of the chapel of Santa María la Blanca. The return trip with the cardinal's body was extremely leisurely, making its way through Logroño to Burgos, where the corpse was received by King Ferdinand IV and his court, including Henry the Senator, Diego López V de Haro and Bishop Pedro Rodríguez of Burgos. This was probably between March and May 1301.