Pedro Fróilaz de Traba (fl. 1086–1126) was the most powerful secular magnate in the Kingdom of Galicia during the first quarter of the twelfth century. According to the Historia compostelana, he was "spirited ... warlike ... of great power ... a man who feared God and hated iniquity," for Diego Gelmírez himself had "fed him, like a spiritual son, with the nutriment of holy teaching."Fletcher (1984), 37–38. Brought up at the court of the Emperor Alfonso VI, Pedro raised the future Emperor Alfonso VII in his household. Around the latter he and Diego formed a "Galician party" that dominated that region during the turbulent reign of Urraca (1109–26). In September 1111 they even had the child Alfonso crowned king at Santiago de Compostela, but it was Pedro who was imperator in orbe Galletiae ("emperor in the ambit of Galicia").Monteagudo García (1952), 490. Pallarés and Portela (1993), 833, reads orbem Galletie imperante, "ruling the ambit of Galicia".
Widely travelled and well-connected, especially through the prestigious marriages of his many daughters—he had at least sixteen legitimate children by his two wives—Pedro was, besides a political and military figure, a religious one. Sometime before 1109 he founded the first religious house for women in Galicia. As a result of his generosity to the Cathedral of Saint James in Compostela, Pedro is the best known Spanish nobleman of his era. One modern historian has written that he "needs a modern biography, and the materials are adequate for one."Reilly (1982), 360–62. Most existing coverage is outdated or too heavily reliant on the Historia compostelana.
Family
Pedro was the son of Froila Vermúdez de Traba and his wife, Elvira de Faro.Barton (1997), 278–79.For Pedro's full, known ancestry, cf. Torres Sevilla-Quiñones de León (1998), 304–05. The first reference to Pedro is from 9 November 1086, when he subscribed to his father's donation to the monastery of San Martín de Jubia, now Couto.Fletcher (1984), 36. According to the Historia compostelana, Pedro was raised from childhood at the court of Alfonso VI of León.Barton (1997), 47–48. His first wife was Urraca Fróilaz, daughter of Froila Arias and Ardio Díaz.For Urraca's ancestry, cf. Torres Sevilla-Quiñones de León (1998), 302–04. They were married sometime before 12 August 1088, although a document surviving only in an eighteenth-century copy records their marriage on 11 August 1102.On that date Urraca comes domnus Petrus in coniugem accepit. By 6 May 1105 Pedro had remarried to Mayor (Guntroda) Rodríguez (de Bárcena), daughter of Rodrigo Muñoz.Canal Sánchez-Pagín (1989), 124; Canal Sánchez-Pagín (1991), 23–24, where she is called Gontrodo Roiz. She had no relation to Ermengol V of Urgell, as sometimes alleged. Cf. also Alonso Álvarez (2007), 668. Mayor was a major benefactress of Lugo Cathedral (14 June 1112) and the monasteries of Jubia (26 December 1114) and Sahagún (26 March 1125). She is last recorded alive on 6 January 1129 and probably died not long afterwards.
By his first wife Pedro had three sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Bermudo, would eventually be overshadowed, politically, by the second, Fernando. His other son was Froila and his daughters Jimena and Lupa (married Munio Peláez). By his second wife Pedro had six daughters—Elvira (married Gómez Núñez), Estefanía, Ilduara (married Arias Pérez and, as her second husband, the Portuguese nobleman Afonso Egas), Sancha, Toda (married Gutierre Vermúdez), and Urraca—and five sons—Rodrigo, García, Martín, Sancho, and Velasco. The assignment of any one of Pedro's children to one of his two wives is in many cases uncertain. The record of the cartulary of the monastery of Sobrado lists only five sons and a daughter without naming a mother, for instance.Quoted in Alonso Álvarez (2007), 700: De domno Petro Froyle natus est comes domnus Fernandus et domnus Ueremudus et domnus Garssia et domnus Uelascus et comes domnus Rodericus dictus Uelusu et domna Luba.
There may have been a second daughter named Toda who married Gutierre Osorio, from the province of León, as well as a daughter named Eva, wife of García Garcés de Aza.Fletcher (1984), 41.Alonso Álvarez (2007), 668, denies that Eva is a daughter of Pedro and Mayor. This Eva is sometimes identified with a wife of Pedro González de Lara and García Ordóñez de Nájera. The historian Enrique Flórez named Gómez Núñez as another son-in-law by at the latest 1117.Reilly (1982), 290. Pedro's son García may have married Elvira, illegitimate daughter of Queen Urraca and her lover Pedro González de Lara.The first record of Elvira dates to 1117, cf. Reilly (1982), 217. This marriage would have taken place, if at all, between 1120 and 1126, and would have been designed to reconcile the Galician faction and the court faction.
Political career
Follower of Raymond of Galicia (1090–1107) In January 1090 Pedro was governing Ferreira in Galicia and is described in a royal charter as dominator Ferrarie (lord of Ferreira, today part of Coristanco). The only contemporary reference to Pedro which names him in the way by which he is now generally known is an undated fragment of a charter of Alfonso VI, which calls him Petro Froillaz de Traua.Pallarés and Portela (1993), 829. It was the thirteenth-century historian Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada some hundred years later who initiated the historiographic tradition, still followed today, which names Pedro and his descendants "de Traba". His wording—Comes Petrus de Trava in Gallecia—may be derived from the corresponding passage in the Historio compostelana, where Pedro is named Petrus Froylaz Comes de Trava.
By 11 January 1096 Pedro had received the title of "count" (comes in Latin), the highest title bestowed in the kingdoms of León and Castile. In that year he appealed to the king to intervene to settle a dispute he had with the Abbey of Samos, which the king did.Reilly (1968), 480, surmises that this may indicate a weakening of the authority of Raymond of Galicia at this time. By March 1098 he was governing Traba, from which his family was to derive its recurring toponym. In royal charters he is sometimes called comes de Ferraria (count of Ferreira)E.g., on 21 August 1096. and sometimes comes de Traba (count of Traba).E.g., on 28 March 1098. Pedro was a supporter and vassal of Raymond of Galicia and his wife, Urraca, whom he probably knew from his time in the household of her father, Alfonso VI. Shortly after his birth in 1105, Raymond and Urraca's son, Alfonso Raimúndez, was placed in the care of Count Pedro. It was not uncommon for the scions of noble houses to be raised in others, commonly in those of higher standing.
Formation of a "Raimundist party" (1107–1109)
After the death of Raymond, his widow Urraca donated a Galician monastery to the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela, signing the charter, dated 13 December 1107, as imperatoris filia et totius gallecie domina. The important Galician bishops of Lugo, Mondoñedo, Tui, and Ourense, along with Pedro Fróilaz and the Asturian magnate Suero Vermúdez were present to confirm the donation, which was probably designed to secure the support of Diego Gelmírez for Urraca's rule in Galicia.Reilly (1988), 341–42. In 1107 Pedro also confirmed a royal donation to the monastery of Caabeiro, signing as "Count Pedro of Galicia", with his two eldest sons beside him, although the comital title (count) and the territorial designation (Galicia) were not directly connected.Comes Petrus de Gallecia. It is not clear whether he was named as Raymond's successor in Galicia by Alfonso VI. The authors of the Historia compostelana certainly did not recognise it, but perhaps for partisan reasons.Pallarés and Portela (1993), 833. Beginning in 1109, however, Pedro's power and influence in Galicia was such that he was calling himself "Count of Galicia" (Gallecie comes), although he did not control the entire province. This had occurred by 22 July, shortly after the death of Alfonso VI and the succession of Urraca, who was his heiress after the death of Sancho Alfónsez at the Battle of Uclés (1108). He continued using this title until 1122.Reilly (1982), 288 n41, cites as the last known reference to this title a document of 22 March 1122. However, contrary to Barton (1997), 278, he cites 29 March 1110 as the first known instance of the title. A judicial document, and thus one not having royal approval in its particulars, dated 1 November 1109 refers to "duke Don Pedro Fróilaz who [is] ruling the nearby territory of Sobrado".dux domnus Petrus Froile qui territorio citerio Superaddo imperanti. A royal charter dated 23 May 1121 and calling Pedro a count in maritimis ("in the maritime province") is probably an accurate description of the realm of his public authority: the Atlantic coastlands of Galicia, specifically those north of the river Tambre and encompassing A Coruña.Reilly (1982), 288–89. It is a sign of his fame that he was referred to as Petro Galliciensi comite ("Pedro, Galician count") in a letter from William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, to Diego Gelmírez on the occasion of his pilgrimage to Santiago.
War with Alfonso the Battler (1110–1112) “Galicia, behind its mountain shield, had become almost a third power rather than a province, ruled in uneasy alliance by the bishop of Compostela and Count Pedro Fróilaz. [The queen's] son, Alfonso Raimúndez, was the ward of those two and the ultimate basis of their practical ability to govern there in near independence of her.”Reilly (1982), 87. When, in the autumn of 1109, Urraca married Alfonso the Battler, the King of Aragon and Navarre, Pedro opposed the marriage, which might have interfered with the succession of Urraca's son by Raymond. Within months of the wedding Pedro had rebelled in Galicia against Urraca's authority. Early in May 1110 Alfonso the Battler entered Galicia with an army. At some point before early July he ravaged the lands of Pedro Fróilaz, but without much effect.Reilly (1982), 66. Our sources for this campaign are the Historia compostelana and the Crónicas anónimas de Sahagún. Late that summer, a faction of Galicians, led by Pedro with the young Alfonso in tow, visited Urraca at Castrojeriz and there became convinced that she was making peace with her estranged husband. This prompted Pedro to seek the advice of Henry, Count of Portugal, a relative of Raymond of Galicia and the most powerful man in the west of the kingdom.Reilly (1982), 69–70. On Henry's advice Pedro arrested the partisans of the queen who had journeyed with him and returned to Galicia, where he opened negotiations with the queen. In exchange for the freedom of her supporters she surrendered the castle of Santa María de Castrelo on the Galician border with Portugal. This acquisition secured communication with Henry for the future.
In the fall of 1110 Pedro placed his wife, Mayor Rodríguez, and his ward, Alfonso, in his newly acquired castle. One of the queen's supporters, a minor nobleman named Arias Pérez, attacked suddenly and forced Pedro to retreat, leaving his wife and charge besieged in the castle. Pedro pleaded with Diego Gelmírez to negotiate terms, but no sooner had he done so and the siege had been lifted than Urraca imprisoned Pedro, Diego, Alfonso, and Mayor.Barton (1997), 50–51. The bishop was soon released so that negotiations could begin with Count Pedro directly. He was released probably in January 1111.