DAVIES - Acts of giving.pdf

AC TS OF G IV IN G

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Acts of Giving Individual, Community, and Church in Tenth-Century Christian Spain WENDY DAV IES

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford   Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York  Wendy Davies 2007

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–928340–8 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Carmen and Clara


Preface This book began in Padua, at a conference on donation post mortem; I am indebted to the organizers and participants for the stimulation of the occasion. It was one of a series of conferences on the transfer of property rights in early medieval Europe organized, with others, by François Bougard, Laurent Feller, and Régine Le Jan; participation in them all was more than usually enlightening and this book is pretty much a direct outcome of the experience. Spanish friends will not like my focus on the tenth century and they will point out that I miss the crucial significance of this or that by failing to note what happens later. They will doubtless be right. However, I think it important to look at tenth-century text in its own terms, without the benefit of hindsight; some developments were not inevitable; and it is easier to probe comparisons and contrasts with other parts of Europe without the later lens, and also easier to focus on the process of change. Many of my other friends will be surprised that I have rarely used archaeological evidence. This is because, although there is important work in hand, it is extremely difficult to synthesize from existing work within a purely tenth-century context. We will undoubtedly get greater understanding as current work feeds into the wider syntheses. Of course, some people may be surprised that I am writing about early medieval Spain at all. I do so because it is exceptionally interesting; because opportunities opened up just as some other big projects came to a close; and because of the coincident stimulus of the Transferts series. Although a new field of study for me, I hope that the perspective of an outsider, with experience of other parts of the early medieval world, can be fruitful; and I hope I can do something to bring Spain into view in the wider pattern of early medieval European development: it is so often omitted from English-language European surveys. Since this book went to press there has been a valuable addition to the Spanish bibliography in Amancio Isla Frez’s, Memoria, Culto y Monarquía hispánica entre los siglos X y XII (Jaén, 2006). Although its focus is quite different, parts are relevant to the discussion that follows, especially that in chapter three. I have many debts of gratitude. There are all the people who listened to papers as I worked out some ideas, in Leeds, Birmingham, London, Padua, Rome, and Madrid. Ann Christys, David d’Avray, Julio Escalona,

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Paul Fouracre, David Ganz, Jinty Nelson, Riet van Bremen, Liesbeth van Houts, Chris Wickham, Ian Wood, and Susan Wood, all read chapters and made incisive and astute comments. I have also been lucky to have had help on specific points (not least by providing me with books and offprints) from: Isabel Alfonso, Ignacio Álvarez, Roger Collins, Carlos Estepa, Margarita Fernández Mier, Sarah Halton, Jonathan Jarrett, Cristina Jular, Iñaki Martín, Ana Rodríguez, Julia Smith, and Roger Wright. I am deeply grateful to all these friends and colleagues for their generosity with their time and knowledge—and especially to Ann, Liesbeth, Riet, Chris, and Julio for reading and responding to the whole work. I really could not have finished it without them; Julio’s energetic criticism, coupled with encouragement, has been particularly helpful over a long period. Obviously, none of them bears any responsibility for the things I say: the errors are my own and I have sometimes obstinately stuck to my views against their advice. I am also grateful to the several bodies which have awarded funding in the course of this work, especially for allowing me the opportunity for essential field trips to think about landscape and land-use: UCL History department, UCL Dean’s Travel Fund, the British Academy, and the Spanish ‘Foundations of European Space’ project. UCL also gave me six months of essential sabbatical leave. Richard Foster gave muchappreciated help with the final stages, and Brian Williams drew the maps, putting in considerable effort at very short notice. I am extremely grateful to the following Spanish libraries for giving me permission to reproduce manuscript pages: to the Biblioteca Nacional de España (Madrid) for BN MS Vit. 14–2, fol. 209, for the cover illustration; to the Patrimonio Nacional de España (Madrid) for the Biblioteca de El Escorial MS D.I.2, Códice Vigilano o Albeldense, fol. 428r, for Fig. 7.1; and to the Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, for Códice de San Millán de la Cogolla 25, fol. 145v, for Fig. 3.1. Woolstone December 2006

Contents List of Figures List of Tables Abbreviations Note on Terms for Regions Note on Spelling 1. Setting the Scene

x xi xii xiv xvi 1

2. San Pedro and Santa Comba: Churches and their Proprietors

36

3. Dividing and Sharing Property

65

4. The Language of Donation

88

5. Donation to Churches: Purpose and Expectations

113

6. Gesmira, Recosinda, and Nuño Sarracíniz: Donation to Lay Persons

139

7. Men and Women

164

8. Peasant Society

189

9. Rhetoric and Action

214

Bibliography Index

223 237

List of Figures 0.1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 3.1

6.1 7.1

8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

Terms used for regions Spain—relief and regions of the North The Picos de Europa and Santa María de Lebeña Galicia: looking west from Vila de Cruces Principal political regions of northern Iberia in the tenth century Location of sources of the main charter collections used The meseta: the Campos south of Sahagún The river Limia, near Santa Comba Santa Comba Selected churches and monasteries of north-western Iberia The Liébana valley Distribution of corpus et anima formulas The proximity of clientship networks to their patrons Family tree diagram from a tenth-century Riojan manuscript, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, Códice de San Millán 25, fol. 145v Location of properties of Munio Fernández and Flaino Muñoz Sancho II and Urraca, with Visigothic kings and a tenth-century king and scribes, in the Codex Albeldense, Biblioteca de El Escorial, MS D.I.2, fol. 428r The territory of Rabal (after M. del C. Pallares Méndez) Small fields and orchards in Rabal Traces of former fields beneath the Porma reservoir in northern León Zones of different recording practice in respect of peasant transactions

xv 2 4 7 13 25 27 37 37 39 43 55 60

71 147

176 191 192 193 211

List of Tables 2.1 5.1 6.1 7.1 8.1

Transactions in churches and monasteries Expressions of piety in records of donation to the church Ninth- and tenth-century gifts to lay beneficiaries Percentage of alienators of property, by gender Peasant donation to the church

42 118 141 172 209

Abbreviations

A Ar C

Cel Forum Iudicum

Li, Lii, Liii

LL OD

Ov

Portugaliae Monumenta Historica S

Cartulario de Albelda, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta (Valencia, 1960). Cartulario de San Pedro de Arlanza, antiguo monasterio benedictino, ed. L. Serrano (Madrid, 1925). Colección documental del monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña, ed. G. Martínez Díez (Cardeña/Burgos, 1998) (older edition: Becerro Gótico de Cardeña, ed. L. Serrano (Silos/Valladolid, 1910) = Historia de Castilla por los PP. Benedictinos de Silos, vol. 3) ). O Tombo de Celanova, ed. J. M. Andrade, 2 vols. (Santiago, 1995). Leges Visigothorum, ed. K. Zeumer, MGH LL, sectio 1, Leges nationum Germanicarum (Hanover, 1902), i. 35–456; English translation: The Visigothic Code (Forum judicum), ed. S. P. Scott (Boston, 1910). Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, vol. 1 (775–952), ed. E. Sáez, vol. 2 (953–85), ed. E. Sáez and C. Sáez, vol. 3 (986–1031), ed. J. M. Ruiz Asencio (León, 1987, 1990, 1987). The Text of the Book of Llan Dâv, ed. J. G. Evans with J. Rhys (Oxford, 1893). Colección documental del monasterio de Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas, ed. J. A. Fernández Flórez and M. Herrero de la Fuente, vol. 1 (León, 1999). Colección diplomática del monasterio de San Vicente de Oviedo (años 781–1200), ed. P. Floriano Llorente (Oviedo, 1968). Portugaliae Monumenta Historica a saeculo octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, 3, Diplomata et Chartae, ed. A. Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo and J. J. da Silva Mendes Leal, vol. 1 (Lisbon, 1868). Colección diplomática del monasterio de Sahagún, ed. J. M. Mínguez Fernández, vol. 1 (León, 1976).

Abbreviations Sam

SJP SM Sob

T V

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El Tumbo de San Julián de Samos (siglos VIII–XII). Estudio introductorio. Edición diplomatica. Apéndices e índices, ed. M. Lucas Álvarez (Santiago de Compostela, 1986). Cartulario de San Juan de la Peña, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta, 2 vols. (Valencia, 1962–63), vol. 1. Cartulario de San Millán de la Cogolla, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta (Valencia, 1976). Tumbos del Monasterio de Sobrado de los Monjes, ed. P. Loscertales de García de Valdeavellano, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1976). Cartulario de Santo Toribio de Liébana, ed. L. Sánchez Belda (Madrid, 1948). Cartulario de Valpuesta, ed. M. Desamparados Perez Soler (Valencia, 1970).

Note on Terms for Regions The political geography of Spain was extremely unstable throughout the central middle ages and it is therefore difficult to find consistent terms for regions that have some meaning but do not give a misleading impression. The seventeen modern autonomous regions of Spain in part reflect regional identities of the central middle ages but in part do not do so at all. See Chapter 1, 11–16, for some discussion of the changing political geography of the tenth century. For convenience and consistency I have used the following terms when referring to tenth-century regions (Fig. 0.1): ‘Portugal’, as used in tenth-century text, that is referring to the northern part of the modern state of Portugal; ‘Galicia’, much the same as the modern autonomous region of Galicia; ‘western meseta’ for those parts of the kingdom of AsturiasLeón lying south of the Cantabrian mountains, east of Galicia, and north of the Duero river (essentially the modern provinces of León, Palencia, and northern Zamora); ‘Asturias’ and ‘Cantabria’, much the same as the modern autonomous regions; ‘Castile’ for the modern province of Burgos, extended north to the sea and east into the modern autonomous regions of País Vasco and La Rioja; ‘Navarre’, centred on the modern autonomous region of Navarra but extending west into País Vasco, south into La Rioja, and east into modern autonomous Aragón; ‘Catalonia’ for the northern half of the modern autonomous region of Cataluña, extending north over the eastern Pyrenees and west into northern Aragón. I have also often referred to the geographical units of the Duero basin and the Ebro valley (see Fig. 1.1).

Note on Terms for Regions

Figure 0.1 Terms used for regions

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Note on Spelling There are wide variants in orthographic practice in tenth-century texts, as is the case in most parts of western Europe at that time. I have usually modernized proper names to the modern Spanish (Castilian) form, where that is obvious. Where it is not, I have retained the spelling of the texts used. The spelling of Latin words is particularly variant, much more so than in texts from many other parts of Europe at that date. These variants are often linguistically significant and often have a significant bearing on textual transmission. I have therefore always quoted text as published in the most recent editions (many earlier editions ‘tidied up’ the Latin) and have not attempted ‘improvements’. Readers familiar with classical Latin will find many of these forms very strange; they are not ‘errors’ but a precious insight into the way authors and scribes used the language in the tenth century; see below, pp. 102–5, for further discussion.

1 Setting the Scene This book is about northern Spain—so-called ‘Christian’ Spain—in the tenth century. This is not a period chosen by chance. The tenth century is particularly significant for the region: it is the time when suddenly, after centuries spattered with only fragments of source material, written texts become very plentiful and we begin to glimpse the working of local society; we can thereby look at rural relationships at the point when they were emerging from obscurity. The tenth century is also significant because it spans some of the earlier stages of the so-called ‘Reconquest’ of Spain, a time when Christian communities of the north are thought to have won back ground from invading Muslims of the south. Before engaging with the texts, the transactions that they detail, and the relationships which they illuminate, some scene-setting is essential. First, the broad outlines of time, person, and place: the land and its use; kings and kingdoms; and the status of ordinary people. Second, the intellectual frameworks through which we can consider the period: the availability of the texts themselves; the analytical models used by recent generations of Spanish historians; and recent approaches to early medieval texts of these kinds in other parts of western Europe.

L A N D A N D PE O P L E

Land, land-use, and landscape What was the land of northern Spain like in the tenth century? On 15 June 959 five people from central Galicia (Goia, Iudila, Vicco, Rudila, and Ovveco) were taken to court by the monastery of Celanova (see Fig. 1.5).¹ They admitted entering the villa (i.e. farm) of Santa Olalla near the River Miño (north of Orense)—a Celanova property—and ¹ Cel446.

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Setting the Scene

admitted planting vines, cultivating fields, and building houses there.² In court the bounds of the villa were confirmed and the five accused people agreed to pay to Celanova, every year, a quarter of the produce from their vines and chestnut trees; they were allowed to keep all the bread and lentils they grew. Here is a text about land-use—it speaks of vineyards, arable fields for growing cereals and legumes, chestnut trees, and rural settlements; and it gives an indication of expanding agriculture and of jealously guarded property rights, notwithstanding the clear availability of space for development. Does it provide a useful model, from which we can generalize? Are the data useful and transferable?

Figure 1.1 Spain—relief and regions of the North ² See below, pp. 196–7 for the word ‘villa’.

Setting the Scene

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By comparison with Britain, Spain is a huge country, and it has a very diverse landscape. It is a land of much high plateau, with high mountain ranges projecting above the plateau, although the ranges are broken by the two great river systems of the north—that of the Duero and the Ebro. There are the Pyrenees in the north-east, cutting off Spain from France; the Cantabrian mountains in the north, separating the narrow coastal strip of the north coast from the Duero and Ebro basins; the León mountains in the north-west, separating Galicia from central Spain; the Iberian system bounding the Ebro valley on its southern and western sides; and the Central system fringing the southern side of the Duero basin (Fig. 1.1). All this makes for regional isolation and regional difference, although the mountains were certainly not unused: one Galician woman gave the monastery of San Juan near Lugo a farm ‘in the mountains separating Asturias and Galicia’ and we will encounter other mountain farms, as also individuals who made their power base in the mountains.³ The narrow northern coastal strip looks northwards to the sea and is in many senses separate. The high rainfall of the north-west makes Galicia wet and green, while much of the Duero basin (modern Castile-León) lies on the plateau, the meseta, which is hot and arid in summer, although it is crossed by long river valleys running south from the mountains to the Duero (see Figs. 1.3, 1.6). Between the basin and the coastal strip the Cantabrian mountains—high and sometimes desolate—have some sheltered workable high plateau within; the Liébana is a good, though atypical, example of a workable valley in Cantabria, literally in the shadow of the completely unworkable Picos de Europa mountains, but sheltering both farmers and learned men in the tenth century and earlier (see Figs. 1.2, 2.4). To the east of both the meseta and the Cantabrian mountains lie the high sierras of the Rioja, with ‘old’ Castile running north across the hills and mountains from the upper reaches of the Duero to the sea (see Fig. 1.4), then farther east the long-used shelter of the Ebro valley, and yet farther east the foothills of the Pyrenees (modern and medieval Catalonia). North and north-east of the sierras lie the mountains of Navarre and the hilly green land of the Basque country. Although there is nothing like a Frankish polyptyque or the English Domesday Book to give us an overall survey of properties and their attributes, nevertheless something useful can be derived from charter ³ Sob38 (985); see below, p. 8 and pp. 146–8.

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Setting the Scene

Figure 1.2 The Picos de Europa and Santa María de Lebeña

Setting the Scene

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texts about landscape and land-use in tenth-century Spain.⁴ At one level, despite such variation in the landscape, farming practices seem remarkably similar from east to west and north to south of our area. Mixed farming seems to have been the norm, with both arable and pastoral elements wherever one looks. Mixed livestock was a norm too, with cattle, sheep, and horses nearly always mentioned when stock was listed; pigs, goats, and poultry also occur, although they are less frequently enumerated (geese once formed part of a price payment).⁵ The stock that went with a church property on the Sorga brook, near Celanova, in 927, amounted to 10 cows, 20 sheep, 10 pigs, and 10 geese; a small estate in the north, in Asturias, which changed hands in 980, had 4 oxen, 50 sheep, and unnumbered pigs, hens, and geese.⁶ These numbers are relatively small. Numbers of livestock on great estates, however, could be vast: an early grant to San Félix of Oca cites 268 cows, 85 pigs, 83 goats, 16 pack horses, 7 mules, and an ass, besides riding horses and a flock of sheep; 15 yokes of oxen, 40 horses and a stallion, 10 donkeys, 56 cattle and 2 bulls, and 720 sheep were counted on one episcopal estate on the meseta; 100 mules, 150 good horses, 18 herds of cows (in different locations, including more than 400 full-grown beasts), 50 yokes of oxen, and innumerable sheep, goats, and poultry are noted on the lands given to Celanova by Bishop Rosendo.⁷ Arable cultivation put the emphasis on cereal crops more than any other (wheat, barley, and millet are all specified in one Portuguese rent; wheat, barley, and rye feature in a Sobrado formula). Arable land was in fact measured in terms of its cereal productive capacity in many parts: land was sold in Rabal near Celanova in 961 that could be sown with two ‘sacks’ (modii) of grain; land was given by the king of Navarre in ?941 that could be sown with four sacks of grain; in 950 land was given near Buezo, in Castile, that could be sown with four quarters.⁸ Grain also frequently featured in statements of price, as did animals, again in ⁴ There is a recent, brief, economic survey of early medieval Spain in A. Isla Frez, La alta edad media. Siglos VIII-XI (Madrid, 2002), 219–37, while T. F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages (Princeton, 1979) contains some stimulating economic analysis; there are several good analyses of the agrarian economy in regional studies, such as, for example, M. del C. Pallares Méndez, El monasterio de Sobrado: un ejemplo del protagonismo monástico en la Galicia medieval (La Coruña, 1979), 29–53, and J. J. Larrea, La Navarre du IV e au XII e siècle (Paris and Brussels, 1998), passim, although these are limited in geographical range. For charters, see below, pp. 22–6. ⁵ Sob94 (963). ⁶ Cel247; S308. ⁷ SM7 (864); Li220 (950); Cel2 (942); cf. Sob2 (955). ⁸ Cel84 (986), Sob98 (952); Cel380, A8, V27.

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Setting the Scene

all regions: for example, arable was sold in 930 in Fontasquesa, on the northern edge of the meseta, for two quarters of grain and two rams; half a vineyard was sold in 963 in Marmellar (Castile) for grain to the value of five solidi (a unit of account, notionally a silver ‘shilling’); arable was sold in Cexo (southern Galicia) in 981 for a cow, a sack of wheat, and two quarters of peas.⁹ The cultivation of vines was also important and transactions in vineyards were almost as common—in all parts, east or west, hill or plateau—as those in arable. The land that went with the small monastery of San Miguel de Támara (Castile) comprised three arable plots, three enclosures, a pasture, no less than five vineyards, a terraced plot (faza), and two plots for houses, with two gardens.¹⁰ In fact, records of transactions in individual vineyards increased two- or three-fold in mid-century; the impression that viticulture was expanding is reinforced by the many references, in the second half of the century, to the vineyard ‘I planted myself ’; new vines, like new orchards, were clearly established at this time across the whole region, like those in the far North in the Liébana in the generation before 963, those in Galicia a couple of decades later, or the orchards planted near León in the generation before 977.¹¹ We can also derive some sense of land-use by looking at the formulaic language used in charters. While some texts use a descriptive noun like ‘vineyard’ or ‘meadow’ or ‘wood’ to identify the subject of a transaction or a dispute, others give a name to a property and list its appurtenances; hence, standard phrases like ‘the villa at Carvajal, with its homesteads, vineyards, and arable fields’.¹² One might be tempted to dismiss the latter lists as mere formulas, of no significance for on-the-ground description. However, such lists can be useful in two different ways: firstly, there ⁹ S34, C112, Cel571. In fact Galician prices are much more likely to be cited in terms of grain, bread, and wine, than are those on the meseta, which preference payment in cattle and sheep. One might be tempted to argue from this that there was more arable in Galicia and more pasture on the meseta, but Galicians also commonly used a cattle standard of value (for example, a horse worth fifteen oxen), and it is as likely that people paid in scarce commodities as in what was common (note that pigs, which were clearly common, hardly ever feature in prices; Ov9 (946), Ov12 (948) are exceptions); see further below, pp. 157–9, for discussion of price. For solidi, see Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation in Galicia and Castile-León’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 149–74, at 160–5, and below, p. 184. ¹⁰ C134 (968). ¹¹ T69, Cel197 (975–1011), Lii450; cf. OD12 (961), the orchard planted by an uncle, Cel70 (962), the orchard planted with a husband, Sob69 (946); some of the Sobrado examples are much earlier: Sob124 (860), Sob104 (918), Sob105 (921). ¹² For the former, S44 (932), Cel218 (936), for example; Liii571 (995).

Setting the Scene

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is value in the formulas because they tell us about expectations; while the list may well not be an actual description of the attributes of the particular piece of land transacted, it is very likely to be a description of the normal attributes in the area. When a 932 bequest to a priest of land in the Porma valley specifies that it has arable fields, vineyards, orchards, fruiting and non-fruiting trees, hills, springs, meadows, pastures, and water courses, it is a reasonable assumption that land in the Porma valley usually had those features at that time.¹³ All the more so because the formulas vary by region: while the Porma formula is very characteristic of land on the meseta, in Galicia formulas tend to specify a much wider range of trees (arable, vineyards, orchards, cherry trees, hazelnut and other nut trees, figs, (sweet) chestnuts, fruiting and non-fruiting trees) and in Castile there are more formulaic references to mills, fishing rights, and gardens, reflecting the much greater prevalence of reference to water rights in those texts.¹⁴ Here we do begin to see some regional variation. Secondly, from time to time lists of appurtenances move away from the standard formula and become specific to a particular property: the lists of fields and vineyards accompanying the church of San Miguel of Támara, cited above, is specific to that place; similarly particular are

Figure 1.3 Galicia: looking west from Vila de Cruces ¹³ S45.

¹⁴ Cel163 (932), C109 (963), SM89 (971), SM95 (979), for example.

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Setting the Scene

the (relatively rare) specifications of stock and the (relatively common) specific descriptions of land in terms of planting capacity, also cited above. When the lay owners of the estate at Piasca gave it to the monastery of Piasca (way to the north in the Cantabrian mountains), in 930, it was transferred with a long list of chattels (books and liturgical vessels) and a very precise specification of stock—two named serfs and their children, 7 horses and a stallion, 10 cows and a bull, 20 sheep, 20 goats, and 30 pigs.¹⁵ This tells us something specific about the stock of a small farm. Specification of actual appurtenances is relatively rare; by contrast, statements of boundaries are commonly and characteristically specific. These come in two forms: ‘land beside the land of Gomiz Belaza, with the land of John the priest on another side, that of Tellu Feles on the third, and the Cardeña monks’ hill on the fourth’, on the one hand;¹⁶ or on the other, boundaries running ‘below the fort as far as the ford above Erizila’s weir and from there … along the road which goes to Quiroga as far as Gandera above Gualamiru’s field; from there across Scaurieto’s field and above the enclosure which Adulf and his wife gave you’.¹⁷ The former (which are by far the most common) are important in indicating intensity of land-use: in such landscapes worked properties were packed close together, side by side. The latter are more occasional but, with their hills, fields, trees, woods, streams, springs, crosses, and stones, usually indicate both topographic and man-made features specific to the property.¹⁸ Given the presence of both specific material and usable sets of formulas, some changes in land-use can be detected across the course of the tenth century. While it is reasonable to think of almost all land being used in one way or another, some land was clearly much more intensively exploited than that used for hunting and gathering; the areas of close-packed arable, with plots side by side, such as characterize the valleys of the meseta and much of southern Galicia, were farmed like this throughout the century. Necessarily, more is recorded about that kind of land-use, but less intensively exploited land also comes into the record: this is land that might well be transacted as montes, hills or mountains, large expanses which were not farmed so directly; in the formulas the distinction between intensive and extensive exploitation is often made by differentiating ‘tamed’ and ‘untamed’ land ¹⁵ See above, pp. 5–6; S39. ¹⁶ C119 (964). ¹⁷ Cel224 (934). ¹⁸ Cf. Cel173 (922), SJP15 (943), OD6 (947), A20 (953), Ov19 (978), Sam40 (993).

Setting the Scene

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(terrae domitae and indomitae); in fact, the long perambulations (the second type of boundary statement) often defined tracts of this kind rather than the more intensively exploited plots. There are changes in their occurrence. Transactions in these large areas tended to decrease across the century: there were far more in the 930s than there were by the 960s; accordingly, the standard formulas changed across the century and formulaic references to untamed land tend to disappear; in Galicia, references to cleared land (terra calva) came in, with increasing specification of stands of fruit trees and nut trees.¹⁹ The flurry of planting new vineyards and orchards by mid-century has already been mentioned. There is a strong sense of increasingly intensive exploitation, by institutions as well as by individuals; and, by the end of the century, as has been much discussed, major ecclesiastical landowners had become highly entrepreneurial in the way they handled proprietorship—of this we will hear more in due course.²⁰ Increasing exploitation at the turn of the millennium raises the question of towns. That there were some towns in tenth-century northern Spain is suggested by a good number of written references to settlements that contemporaries identified as distinct from the countryside. They are most consistently called civitates, cities, although León was increasingly civis or cives in the later decades of the century and was sometimes called urbs.²¹ The land for some distance round many of these settlements was known as the suburb, suburbio, with churches and agricultural land located therein; indeed, the word signified something more like ‘district’, larger or smaller, than the modern concept of suburb.²² Of ¹⁹ For example, montes: S42 (931), C27 (935), Cel218 (936); untamed land: S40 (930), S41(930), S209 (963); terra calva: Cel398 (963), Cel165 (963), Cel174 (964), Cel338 (989). ²⁰ See below, pp. 61–4, 208–13. The point is made well in several excellent studies of the growth of monastic lordship; see, for example, J. A. García de Cortázar y Ruiz de Aguirre, El dominio del monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla (siglos X a XIII). Introducción a la historia rural de Castilla altomedieval (Salamanca, 1969); S. Moreta Velayos, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña. Historia de un dominio monástico castellano (902–1338) (Salamanca, 1971); J. M. Mínguez Fernández, El dominio del monasterio de Sahagún en el siglo X (Salamanca, 1980). ²¹ Civitas was usually primarily an episcopal see in the early middle ages, but in most of the cases noted below the contexts indicate more than a purely episcopal settlement. Zamora and Coyanza were also called civis in the late tenth century, Cel428 (983), Lii360 (963). Urbs was also occasionally used of monastic settlements, like Sobrado, Sob1 (952). ²² A suburb could stretch some distance: Cardeña, often located formulaically in the suburb of Burgos, is 8 km away from the town; by contrast see C43 (944) ‘in suburbio quod dicunt Agusini’, the relatively small district of Ausín, for a suburb with no focal

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course, whether or not these places had an urban character and distinctive economic function, rather than simply being physically different, is much more difficult to assess. There are brief references to Lugo, Oca, Coyanza, Salamanca, Simancas, and Zamora, just enough to indicate that they came within the consciousness of some record-makers as distinctive places.²³ Astorga, Dueñas, Cea, and Burgos are more solid in the record: Astorga and Dueñas had urban plots and houses; Cea did too, as well as a fortification and market; while Burgos had its own distinctive population and shops.²⁴ In fact, however, it is only León for which we have sufficient detail to be sure of its urban physical character and urban economic function.²⁵ We hear of its walls, gates, and towers; the many roads that led to it; the monasteries, churches, and cemeteries within it; the city as royal centre and as locus of judicial hearings; and the many town plots, often known as cortes.²⁶ Town plots were quite substantial and had something of the character of a rural homestead in the town.²⁷ They often seem to have been fenced off; they could have several buildings on the plot, apparently including different residences—some had as many as five smallish houses (casas); they occasionally had a church; they might have gardens and granaries; and they also tended to have associated lands, located in the suburb.²⁸ ‘town’. Cf. also Li17 (904), ‘suburbio de kastro’ of Monzón, and S270 (973), the suburb of Melgar (also with castrum). See further C. Estepa Díez, ‘El alfoz castellano en los siglos IX al XII’, in España Medieval, IV, Estudios dedicados al professor D. Angel Ferrari Núñez (Madrid, 1984), 305–41, at 311–14. ²³ Lugo: Cel179 (927); Oca: SM9 (869), perhaps no more than a bishop’s see at that date; Coyanza: Lii360, Liii530 (989); Salamanca: Li149 (941); Simancas: Lii469 (979); Zamora: Cel430 (951), Lii409 (968), Cel428. ²⁴ Astorga: Sam115 (982), cf. Liii548 (991) and Liii578 (997); Dueñas: S171 (960), Lii478 (980); Cea: S130 (951), Lii311 (959), S315 (983), S327 (984), S349 (994); Burgos: C5 (912), C46 (944), C151 (972), C189 (982), C203 (992). ²⁵ The classic picture of tenth-century León of C. Sánchez-Albornoz, Una ciudad Hispano-cristiana hace un milenio. Estampas de la vida en León (4th edn., Buenos Aires, 1947 [originally published 1926]), may perhaps overstate the urban quality, but its essential point remains very reasonable. There is helpful relevant material in C. Estepa Díez, Estructura social de la ciudad de León (siglos XI—XIII) (León, 1977), passim, but especially 113–21, 153–64, 199–215. ²⁶ For example: Li43 (917), Li230 (950), Lii296 (956), Lii426 (973), Lii489 (982); Li168 (943), Liii586 (999); Li42 (917), Lii311 (959), Lii425 (973), Liii520 (987); Lii416 (972). ²⁷ Modern English ‘court’ has too many aristocratic overtones to be a useful translation. Some rural homesteads, i.e. farmsteads, are also referred to as cortes, e.g. S368 (956). ²⁸ Li109 (936), S64 (937), Lii412 (970); Li83 (929), Li180 (944), Li230 (950), Lii296 (956); Lii462 (978); Li76 (928), Liii611 (994–1001); Li180, Lii279 (954).

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Overall then, although the landscape of northern Spain was in itself very diverse, there were broad similarities in land-use, with some regional difference within that broad pattern, such as the greater consciousness, and perhaps exploitation, of fruiting trees in Galicia and of water rights in Castile. The overall trend across the century was for increasingly intensive exploitation of the land, as also for greater interaction with growing urban foci—straightforward references to markets, like that at Cea, increased, while the monastery of Cardeña had its shops or warehouses in Burgos by 982 and that of San Millán was buying vineyards to supply its guesthouse in 999.²⁹ This more intensive land-use, and by implication growing productivity and perhaps growing population, and this increasing propensity to produce for the market, means that northern Spain shared the economic trends evident elsewhere in western Europe at this time. The 959 case about Santa Olalla, with which this section began, is indeed quite a useful cameo.

Kings, counts, and kingdoms While broad economic trends are relatively easy to discern, the political system of northern Spain in this period is quite difficult to describe: political geography was unstable; several different polities were in the course of forming; and the internal political process was complicated by military campaigns by and against Muslim leaders based in al-Andalus, that is in southern Spain. Perspectives are inevitably influenced by our knowledge of what happened subsequently, with the separation of the Portuguese state, the emergence of powerful kingdoms of Castile and of Aragón, and ultimately the ‘union’ of the Iberian peninsula (excepting Portugal) in the decades on either side of 1500. So important are these trends in European, and indeed world, history, it has been customary to trace a growing process of political consolidation, which involved the territorial expansion of minute Christian kingdoms of the north, the ultimate expulsion of Muslim leaders, and the institutionalization of processes of government within the kingdoms; traditionally this was seen to have begun already in the late eighth century, not so long after the ‘collapse’ of the former Visigothic state, and to have proceeded very

²⁹ SM116.

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slowly at first but rapidly from the early tenth century and very rapidly across the eleventh and twelfth centuries.³⁰ It would be possible to write the political history of the tenth century within a completely different framework, paying more attention to the complex interplay of aristocratic conflicts within northern Spain, the fragility of the dynasties that came to dominate, and the inconsistent relationship between rulers and population; or it would be possible, as has recently been the case, to frame it within a context of increasing seigneurialization (the growth of private lordly power).³¹ A number of different approaches are viable. For present purposes, it is important to remember that political consolidation was not inevitable and that conflict between high aristocrats was frequent. It is simplest to deal with the fluctuating political geography by thinking in terms of four political zones, of very unequal size. First, the kingdom of Asturias-León (increasingly called simply the kingdom of León) constituted by the tenth century by far the largest political zone, occupying—almost literally—the whole of the north-west quarter of Spain. With its ultimate origins in the far north, in Asturias, its political centre had been focussed at Oviedo in the late eighth century; over the course of the ninth century its kings extended their political control to the south and west, such that from 911 the city of León became their new political centre. Within this kingdom regions such as Portugal, Galicia, and Asturias were sometimes nominally controlled by royal sons or brothers as distinct entities, although tenth-century León kings are very noticeable in the major Galician charter collections and it is debatable to what extent any distinct political identities—as apart from geographical identities—were sustained.³² Within this kingdom lay a second zone, the County of Castile, running north to the sea on the kingdom’s eastern side, lying between the heartland of the kingdom of León on the one hand and the kingdom of Navarre and the Muslimdominated Ebro valley on the other (see Fig. 1.4). Counts of Castile are notable from the early tenth century and played an increasingly independent role from the middle of the century; by the turn of the millennium it was the relationships between the kings of León and ³⁰ For a recent survey in English of political developments, see R. Collins, ‘The Spanish kingdoms’, in T. Reuter (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, III, c.900-c.1024 (Cambridge, 1999), 670–91. ³¹ For seigneurialization, see below, pp. 28–9. ³² For an overview in Spanish, see Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 87–103.

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Figure 1.4 Principal political regions of northern Iberia in the tenth century

Navarre and the count of Castile that were to constitute one of the principal themes of political development.³³ Third, to the north-east of Castile lay the kingdom of Pamplona or Navarre, its kings recorded from the ninth century and engaging successfully with other Spanish rulers during the tenth, notably during the long reign of García Sanchez I (925–70). This remained a small kingdom during our period, with its Pamplona focus in the mountains that are a western extension of the Pyrenees (including much of the present-day Basque country), although tenth-century kings had interests in the Ebro valley to the south and effectively incorporated the county of Aragón to the east.³⁴ Last, in the north-east (and beyond the scope of this book), in the Pyrenees and their southern and western hinterland, lay Catalonia, subject to Frankish expeditions in the late eighth century and established as a ‘march’ (border zone) of the Carolingian Empire in the early ninth.³⁵ Initially comprising seven counties, more were added ³³ Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 103–9. ³⁴ For detailed consideration, see Larrea, La Navarre. ³⁵ Catalonia does not form part of the subject matter of this book since it was in many ways distinctive in the early middle ages: there was the close association with Frankish culture; it has also been the subject of major studies during the last generation,

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before the more prominent counts began to absorb the lesser counties; nevertheless, the counts continued to look to the north-east, towards the Frankish state, for more than a century. In the later tenth century one count, the Count of Barcelona, emerged predominant and the Frankish orientation rapidly dissolved.³⁶ For the purposes of this work, then, the large kingdom of León provides the wider political context for most of the transactions recorded in the charter collections, although an important set of these lay in the County of Castile, which was within the kingdom. Some transactions related to property in the kingdom of Navarre, or within the range of the kings of Navarre, but there are far fewer of these. Kingdoms there may have been, but the extent to which kings governed their territories or their people is arguable. There was certainly an expectation of government—many charter texts are suffused with the language of governance and of the supremacy of kings—but evidence for machinery of government in the tenth century is relatively thin.³⁷ However, there is some. Kings held court, and attracted powerful people, lay and clerical, to their courts; it is clear that for much of the tenth century the city of León, as permanent focus of the royal court of Asturias-León, was a busy political centre. Beyond the royal family and the coming and going around the king, the best-evidenced mechanism of government lay in the royal delegation of territorial control to powerful individuals or religious communities. Aristocrats and corporate bodies could be given charge of territories, a responsibility variously called comissum, comitatus, and mandatio: the territorial authority exercised by the monastery of Sobrado was called all three in successive decades of the later tenth century.³⁸ Such territories might be as large as the County and these studies are well-known beyond the Iberian peninsula. See the comments of A. J. Kosto, Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia. Power, Order, and the Written Word (Cambridge, 2001), 5–6. ³⁶ The recent classic study of Catalonia in this period is P. Bonnassie, La Catalogne du milieu du Xe à la fin du XIe siècle: croissance et mutations d’une société, 2 vols. ( Toulouse, 1975–76); see also his shorter assessment, P. Bonnassie, La Catalogne au tournant de l’an mil. Croissance et mutations d’une société (Paris, 1990). ³⁷ See further below, pp. 93–5, for kings and charters. ³⁸ Sob106 (958), Sob107 (968), Sob108 (978). Cf. Sam170 (930) ‘comisso de Lausata’ but Sam44 (975) ‘territorio Lausata’, whereas Liii548 (991) has the more hierarchical ‘villa in mandatione N in territorio N’. The word comitatus has quite a wide range of meaning: usually translated ‘county’, it might simply signify a physically defined territory, but it could also signify ‘sphere of authority’—one of the Sobrado texts

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of Castile (of the order of 200 km from north to south) or a more practicable 30 or 40 km across; the holders of such authority might be called count (comes) or less frequently duke (dux) or master (magister) or they might have no distinctive title. Although they tended to try to hang on to authority (and there are some well-documented cases of family succession), there were certainly occasions when kings resumed and redistributed property, particularly after ‘rebellions’, which suggests that they could retain some control.³⁹ These issues are contentious, however: scholars debate how far a count’s powers, and especially that of the count of Castile, really stemmed from delegated royal authority, rather than from independent or local community origins;⁴⁰ they explore the extent to which royal power was in effect constrained by the interests of some hereditary comital families;⁴¹ they question whether monasteries really could exercise delegated royal power; and it is in any case clear that all land did not necessarily fall within a comissum/mandatio: there was no comprehensive, administrative ‘system’. Of course, many royal grants to aristocrats were straightforward gifts of property, with no implication of delegated royal authority across a territory; we have to be careful to distinguish the purely proprietary grant from the grant ad imperandum (for the purposes of command), as Carlos Estepa has shown.⁴² Despite the textual subtleties, some grants of the latter type were undoubtedly made and unambiguous acts of delegation become more evident as the tenth century proceeded: in 929, for example, King Alfonso IV gave the powerful Galician, Gutier (elsewhere ‘count’), the comissum of Quiroga and five other places to govern, repeated in part by Alfonso’s brother, King Ramiro II, to Gutier’s son Fruela in 942; in the early 950s King Ordoño III gave the bishop of León the ‘castle’ of San Salvador to govern, with two attached mandationes, an act repeated in 999 by his relates a dispute about whether a local community fell within the comitatus of one bishop or another, Sob109 (986–99). Cf. Sam78 (948) ‘villa Stephani, comitatu de Froian, territorio lucensi’. ³⁹ Political confiscations: Liii541 (990), Cel104 (994), Cel266 (996), Liii581 (998), for example. ⁴⁰ I. Álvarez Borge, ‘Estructuras de poder en Castilla en la alta edad media: señores, siervos, vasallos’, in Señores, siervos, vasallos en la alta edad media. XXVIII Semana de estudios medievales, Estella, 16 a 20 de julio de 2001 (Pamplona, 2002), 269–308, at 300, 304; J. M. Salrach, ‘Les féodalités méridionales: des Alpes à la Galice’, in E. Bournazel and J.-P. Poly (eds.), Les féodalités (Paris, 1998), 313–88, at 363. ⁴¹ Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 288. ⁴² C. Estepa Díez, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo en Castilla y León’, in En torno al feudalismo hispánico. I congreso de estudios medievales (León, 1989), 157–256, at 169–79.

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grandson, King Alfonso V.⁴³ There are in fact some good examples of the exercise of mandationes in the very late tenth century.⁴⁴ When the holder of delegated authority had something called a castle to control, some military function is clearly implied, although we do not know much about the physical character of such places at this time, and it was the eleventh century before the detail of arrangements for military provision became clear.⁴⁵ Maintaining and provisioning some kind of strongpoint is one aspect of power exercised in the name of the king. The nature of the power exercised in other cases is not nearly so clear, although general statements that holders could give commands and expect obedience are not uncommon.⁴⁶ What, if any, substance lay behind such statements is largely a matter for speculation. However, holders of delegated authority clearly derived income from such positions and they clearly operated judicial courts.⁴⁷ Indeed, maintenance of a public court system is the best evidenced of the duties such persons performed in the tenth century. One could argue that some of these were private courts, but the fines taken are better interpreted as due payment and the texts that record detailed cases convey a strong sense of the public, of regular and standard procedures, and of the participation of other public officers such as the saio.⁴⁸ Holding a public court and hearing ‘criminal’ cases was part of the job. And it was in the judicial court that ordinary people could most obviously relate to the ruler, through representatives such as these.

Ordinary people As ordinary people go, it is difficult to get a sense of the character of the ordinary townsperson in tenth-century contexts. There were clearly many monks, nuns, and clergy about the town of León, as also ⁴³ Cel207, Cel499; Lii300 (951–6), Liii588, Liii589; cf. Li257 (952), Cel54 (955), Liii577 (997). ⁴⁴ See C. Estepa Díez, ‘Poder y propiedad feudales en el período astur: las mandaciones de los Flaínez en la montaña leonesa’, in Miscel-lània en homenatge al P. Agustí Altisent ( Tarragona, 1991), 285–327; and see further below, pp. 144–9. ⁴⁵ Salrach, ‘Les féodalités méridionales’, 322–8. ⁴⁶ e.g. Sam38 (937), Sob108 (978), Lii461 (978), Liii549 (991). ⁴⁷ See below, pp. 143–6, for examples and discussion. ⁴⁸ See further below, pp. 145–6, 182. The saio was a ‘kind of executive officer of the court’, to borrow Roger Collins’s phrase, ‘ ‘‘Sicut lex Gothorum continet’’: law and charters in ninth- and tenth-century León and Catalonia’, English Historical Review, 100 (1985), 489–512, at 505; this paper is helpful on court procedure.

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the magistrates who presided at judicial cases; we occasionally hear of tradespeople, like the furrier who witnessed a grant in 950;⁴⁹ and then there were the donors and vendors of the urban homesteads, many of whom must have been relatively wealthy. Indeed, some of the latter resided outside the town,⁵⁰ although some were resident too, as their texts saying ‘here in León’ imply; some may well have been comparable to rich peasants in status. The illegible marks and signatures that conclude the record of a sale from one lay couple to another in 972 probably touch this level.⁵¹ The minor clergy, monks, and nuns, and the people serving the royal and episcopal courts, however, may well have constituted the greater part of the ordinary townspeople. We cannot see the actions of the people who lived in the casas within the urban homesteads, for these elements are hidden. References to this or that happening in the araballdes, poorer parts, hint at an unseen other, but we have no way of knowing if this was a large or small proportion of the town population at this time.⁵² We know much more about the countryside in this period and about peasants—that is, people who worked on the land themselves, as tenants and/or small-scale proprietors. The image of the free peasant proprietor is prominent in Spanish historiography of the twentieth century, in many ways more than in the historiography of other early medieval western European societies. This is because the small proprietor—pequeño propietario—was central to Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz’s vision of repopulation and colonization of north-central Spain, as we shall see, and has often featured in twentieth-century discussion of tenth- and eleventh-century developments.⁵³ Although these ideas have undergone much revision during the last generation, nevertheless the figure of the small, free, proprietor remains familiar in the Spanish landscape of the tenth century. In the light of all that has been written since Sánchez-Albornoz wrote, is it still reasonable to be thinking of free peasants in this area at this time? Looking at tenth-century evidence, the corpus of charters has hundreds of examples of small-scale dealing in property—buying, selling, and exchanging; it also has many anecdotes of petty disputes and offences—stealing one or two sheep, arguing over the boundary of a field—of a type that characterizes peasant-level rural society; and it has many people who did not travel far, living their lives within a single ⁴⁹ Li230. ⁵⁰ Lii279. ⁵¹ Lii416. ⁵² Lii270 (954). ⁵³ See further below, pp. 26–9.

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community. The scale of the property interests of many of the actors in the charters is small—like the two pieces (pedacolos) of land sold by three couples to another couple, or the twenty cherry trees and two apple trees planted, and sold, in Nigueiroá—far less than that of the villas and widely scattered estates associated with aristocrats; properties were confined, usually bounded by the plots of others; where values are stated, they tend to be low, like those bought for slices of bacon and small quantities of grain.⁵⁴ It makes no sense to view such landowners as anything other than members of peasant society. Some will have been relatively rich and some will have had relatively high status in their local communities; others will have been relatively poor. It does not follow from this that everyone who worked the land was a free peasant. There were free proprietors and there were also free tenants: we can see groups of peasants agreeing rents, as the peasants of Santa Olalla did in 959; and we can see peasant proprietors who managed their own lands as well as taking on stock and property for a landlord.⁵⁵ But there were clearly also some slaves and some servile dependents. We should not imagine a landscape of uninterrupted freedom in the countryside—some rural paradise—and we should not expect peasant status to have been homogeneous. The loss of peasant freedom is a major theme in European history of the early and central middle ages.⁵⁶ It is also a theme in Spanish history. Despite Bonnassie’s demonstration that Catalan slavery declined but continued into the eleventh century,⁵⁷ slavery is conventionally seen to have ended well before the tenth century. There were clearly slaves, however, in some parts of northern Spain in the tenth century, in Galicia in particular though not exclusively. We see them being bought and ⁵⁴ Lii460 (978), Cel421 (997); for boundaries, see above, p. 8; Li158 (942). ⁵⁵ Cel446 (see above, pp. 1–2); OD40 (995), OD41 (995); cf. incidental references to rents, Cel243 (974), Cel353 (999). Some of the references to heredes may well have denoted free tenants, e.g. S188 (961), Lii401 (967). ⁵⁶ Central among the many works is M. Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. A. Manyon (London, 1965 [first published in French 1939–40]), especially 241–79, as also his Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française (Oslo, 1931); more recently G. Bois, The Transformation of the Year One Thousand: The Village of Lournand from Antiquity to Feudalism, trans. J. Birrell (Manchester, 1992) (first published 1989), and the ‘debate’ in Past and Present: T. N. Bisson, ‘The ‘‘feudal revolution’’ ’, Past and Present, 142 (1994), 6–42; D. Barthélemy and S. D. White, ‘The ‘‘feudal revolution’’ ’, Past and Present, 152 (1996), 196–223; T. Reuter, C. Wickham, T. N. Bisson, ‘The ‘‘feudal revolution’’ ’, Past and Present, 155 (1997), 177–225. The recent debate has been much concerned with the point and rate of change. See further below, pp. 19–22. ⁵⁷ P. Bonnassie, La Catalogne, i. 298–302, ii. 828–9.

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being given away, especially in lists of property with which women were endowed on marriage; we read that servitude was the appropriate penalty for adultery (although the woman in a recorded case avoided the penalty by making a gift of land); we read of slaves being freed; and we hear of male and female slaves among the labouring population of estates, where they are differentiated from the freed and the free labourers.⁵⁸ The bequest of the deacon Ermegildo is particularly striking (and extremely unusual): he made provision for his freed men, so that they would remain free, owing nothing to anyone except for the obligation to light a candle for him every year; and he confirmed the gifts he had made to his house boys, with a similar provision of freedom from future obligations.⁵⁹ Slavery clearly encompassed both rural and domestic slavery. Many cases are located in Galicia and the northern regions of Asturias and Cantabria, although they occur on the meseta too; however, even in the west and the north, we cannot begin to estimate what proportions of the populations were slaves. Putting slaves to one side, was the status of free peasants secure? In the longer term, some decline in status seems clear and has, reasonably enough, been associated with developing powers of lordship.⁶⁰ How far, however, can any decline be located in the tenth century? Servile tenure—in which tenants, though of legally free status, had no freedom to move away and were increasingly subject to onerous, often manual, obligations—can be difficult to identify before the year 1000: there are some clear cases but also many ambiguities.⁶¹ The texts note plenty of tenants who owed ‘service’ to landlords; this may look like servitude, but, in the language of these records, it usually means regular dues and does not necessarily have servile overtones: in May 977 the confessor Manni Ovécoz gave the bishop of León his villa on the banks of ⁵⁸ T19 (914), Cel477 (961); Cel576 (916), Cel577 (926), S207 (962), OD50 (s.d.); Liii561 (994); T7 (831), Sob123 (867), Cel172 (943), SamS-3 (961); Sob77 (817), S39 (930), Sob64 (984), S328 (985). ⁵⁹ Li109 (936). ⁶⁰ See, for example, Estepa Díez, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo’; R. Pastor, ‘Sur la genèse du féodalisme en Castille et dans le León, Xe –XIIe siècles. Point de départ pour une histoire comparative’, in H. Atsma, A. Burguière (eds.), Marc Bloch aujourd’hui. Histoire comparée et sciences sociales (Paris, 1990), 259–70; J. A. García de Cortázar and E. Peña Bocos, ‘Poder condal ¿y ‘‘mutación feudal’’? en la Castilla del año mil’, in M. I. Loring García (ed.), Historia social, pensamiento historiográfico y edad media (Madrid, 1997), 273–98; Salrach, ‘Les féodalités méridionales’. See further below, pp. 28–30. ⁶¹ The terms used in the texts are often ambiguous; see A. Isla Frez, La sociedad gallega en la alta edad media (Madrid, 1992), 208–14, for discussion of terminological problems.

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the river Carrión, in the territory of Palencia, so that the inhabitants should in future ‘serve’ (i.e. pay rent to) the monks of San Pedro and San Paulo in Palencia; and the lengthy record of the dispute about ‘obedience’ from the church of Santa María of Bonimento in 992 is essentially about the destination of its income and not about people obeying orders.⁶² When charters record the transfer of people along with land, this sometimes means slaves, sometimes servile dependents, and sometimes free rent-paying tenants.⁶³ Less ambiguously, King Ramiro III’s gift of a villa on the river Esla to the monastery of San Cipriano, in 978, specifies that the residents should do ‘whatever work (opera) was necessary’; when the peasants who lived near the Pardomino mountain agreed with the monks of Pardomino to labour there, in 955, they were close to establishing a servile obligation; a Portuguese text of 991 records that a couple promised not to leave their land, and were subject to payment of a fine if they did; and records of land donated ‘together with all the then inhabitants and anyone else who should come to live there’ (like King Ordoño II’s gift to his man Tajón of his villa of San Miguel, near Boadilla de Rioseco, as early as May 920) repeat a formula, but the formula makes a point about automatically expected obligations.⁶⁴ Further, the responsibility for paying dues was sometimes assessed by birth, rather than by property, like those of some dependents of Celanova, offering a clear case of hereditary obligations; King Vermudo II’s gift of ten named men and their families to the monks of Pardomino, while insisting that the men should serve as free men, nevertheless equally insisted that the commitment should extend to their offspring; and some texts imply that freedmen had hereditary obligations, like the dispute over dues that was determined by establishing that tenants were descendants of freed men.⁶⁵ Hereditary obligations smack of servility. In Galicia, in particular, people with hereditary obligations are named and listed in a manner which suggests that they had no option but to maintain their obligations; there were those who ⁶² Lii451; Sob130; see also below, pp. 57–60, for client agreements to serve a church. ⁶³ Ambiguous cases, for example: Sob75 (858), Cel233 (886), SM89 (971), Sam44 (975). ⁶⁴ Lii461, Lii290 (see further below, p. 198, for Pardomino); Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, CLXIV (991) (cf. Li43 (917), in which residents of one episcopal estate were free to leave but had to leave half of their goods if they did); S19 (cf. Lii298 (956), another royal gift). ⁶⁵ Cel144 (s.d.), cf. Cel84 (986); Liii574 (996); SamS-8 (985). SM30 (943) explicitly allows the free inhabitants of a villa given to San Millán de la Cogolla by the king of Navarre to leave if they wished, but others were tied to the service of San Millán.

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ground the corn and those who looked after the pigs; those who provided the wax for church lighting; those who worked the saltpans.⁶⁶ The examples run at least from the early tenth century and most obligations were clearly not new at the time of recording. In some parts (and not exclusively in the north-west), there were servile dependents as well as free tenants for much of the tenth century, not forgetting the slaves and the peasant proprietors. In other words, the patterns are more complex than a simple picture of servile obligations imposed in increasing weight from round about the year 1000: some customary obligations were in place long before that date; there are occasional indications of new obligations in the second half of the tenth century, while it is the case that far more of the unambiguous cases fall in the second half of the tenth century than the first. We should therefore think of a rural landscape composed variously, in different regions, of different proportions of slaves, servile dependents, and free peasants, the latter including both tenants and proprietors, and also of different rates of change. We cannot quantify those proportions because we do not have comprehensive data and because of the ambiguities, but we need to remember both the complexities and the likely differences from place to place. It is evidently the case that we cannot always be clear about who was a peasant and who was not, as also who was a free peasant and who was not. Some groups can be easily excluded from the free peasant category: as in other European cultures at this time, the servile did not often speak;⁶⁷ although individuals might be named in lists of people with obligations, servile residents tended to move in a block; we rarely see them as individual actors. Great aristocrats too—kings, counts, bishops, wealthy property owners—are clear enough, whether by label, behaviour, or scale. Neither serfs nor high aristocrats are likely to be confused with free peasants. However, there is a wide social range between these two strata and the texts are not explicit about the social status of many actors. That being the case, there have to be guidelines for assigning status and in what follows I adopt the following convention: where properties of small scale were conveyed, where prices were low, where their donors and vendors ⁶⁶ Cel158 (942–77), Cel5 (986), Cel272 (993); cf. Cel92 (968), Cel154 (s.d.), and probably, in Castile, C188 (981). Cf. Documentación medieval de Leire (siglos IX a XII), ed. A. J. Martín Duque, no. 12 (arguably 991, but perhaps later) for ploughing, sowing, and harvesting services due from thirty-three named individuals, as well as light dues payable in cakes, bread, grain, or meat. ⁶⁷ See W. Davies, ‘On servile status in the early middle ages’, in M. L. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage (London, 1996), 225–46, at 243.

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were only associated with properties in one community, where these donors and vendors did not themselves appear across a wide area, and/or where the witness lists do not include identifiable aristocrats, then it is a reasonable assumption that these actors were peasants. In what follows I shall treat such characters as ordinary, non-noble, free people. Areas of doubt will inevitably remain, particularly over isolated individuals; sometimes one does not know and one cannot make a reasonable guess.

H I S TO RY

Charters The texts that become so plentiful in the tenth century are charters, as we have already begun to see. Although there are other kinds of text available, many hundreds of charters survive from tenth-century northern Spain.⁶⁸ These texts include records of sales, exchanges, disputes, and donations (the latter comprising both lifetime gifts and bequests). The charters are preserved as copies in some well-known, often large, monastic and episcopal cartulary collections, and sometimes as single sheets, many of which are originals.⁶⁹ The transactions which they record peaked in the middle of the century, with far more in the 950s and 960s than in earlier or later decades; indeed, numbers before 920 total less than a hundred; from 930 the increase was steep until the 950s (during which there were several hundred transactions), partly because of a significant increase in the proportion of small-scale business; and from 970 numbers drop off quite steeply.⁷⁰ Different collections have different profiles, however, and there is considerable variation in regional distribution. In the following couple of pages, I indicate the basic statistics of the collections which have been most used in this book, with their regional associations.⁷¹ In fact, ⁶⁸ There are a few narrative sources, though their content is quite sparse. The major chronicle covering the tenth century is an early eleventh-century work, only recoverable from later compilations: J. Perez de Urbel, Sampiro. Su cronica y la monarquía leonesa en el siglo X (Madrid, 1952). See further below, pp. 183–4, on narrative sources. ⁶⁹ See below, p. 92, for single sheets and originals. ⁷⁰ For detail of transactions in the largest collections, see W. Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation’, 154–5. See below, pp. 209–13, for small-scale transactions and the significance of the sudden increase. ⁷¹ Numbers given for transactions are necessarily approximate, and I wish to avoid giving any spurious sense of precision. Numbers of transactions do not precisely mirror

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most collections include material from different sources, for a cartulary is often the result of a complex process of accumulation. The late twelfth-century cartulary of the monastery of Celanova, in Galicia in the west, not far from the present northern border of Portugal, includes about 225 recorded tenth-century transactions (Fig. 1.5).⁷² Other important Galician collections, though smaller for the tenth century, are those from the monastery of Sobrado de los Monjes, 45 km north-east of Santiago de Compostela, and from that of San Julián at Samos, 65 km to the south-east of Sobrado, in the western foothills of the Cantabrian mountains; they record just under 100 and 60 transactions respectively.⁷³ The next major group involves the several collections in the archive of the bishopric of León, to the east of Galicia, one of the most important foci in the Duero basin; this episcopal collection includes records from urban and rural monasteries which subsequently came into the hands of the bishopric and has over 580 recorded tenth-century transactions, of which about 200 are on single sheets.⁷⁴ There is also a very large collection from the monastery of Sahagún, on the plateau, 50 km to the south-east of León itself, with over 430 tenth-century transactions.⁷⁵ Also from the same region, the numbers of records: what was or was not a transaction is sometimes arguable; some charters record more than one transaction; some record texts such as inventories or sworn witness statements and do not record any transactions; some records duplicate transactions recorded elsewhere. For this count I have excluded obviously corrupt documents; included boundary statements, records of disputes, and exchanges (as transactions other than sale or donation); and included confirmations with donation figures. Where there are minor discrepancies with previously cited numbers, it is because for present purposes I have used a different classification. ⁷² O Tombo de Celanova, ed. J. M. Andrade, 2 vols. (Santiago, 1995) — a late twelfthcentury cartulary comprising, in the opinion of this editor, three earlier collections; charters cited by number as Cel1, Cel2, etc. There has been much criticism of this edition (see J. I. Fernández de Viana y Vieites in Commission Internationale de Diplomatique, Vocabulaire International de la Diplomatique (Valencia, 1997), 45, n. 23), but it is the one that has been available to me and I have found it helpful. ⁷³ El Tumbo de San Julián de Samos (siglos VIII–XII), ed. M. Lucas Álvarez (Santiago de Compostela, 1986); a cartulary of c.1200, charters cited by number as Sam1, Sam2, etc. Tumbos del monasterio de Sobrado de los Monjes, ed. P. Loscertales de García de Valdeavellano, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1976)—two twelfth-century cartularies, charters cited as Sob1, Sob2, etc. ⁷⁴ Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, vol. 1 (775–952) ed. E. Sáez, vol. 2 (953–85), ed. E. Sáez and C. Sáez; vol. 3 (986–1031), ed. J. M. Ruiz Asencio (León, 1987, 1990, 1987)—the core of the edition is a large cartulary of the first third of the twelfth century; charters cited as Li1, Li2, Lii259, Liii512, etc. ⁷⁵ Colección diplomática del monasterio de Sahagún, vol. 1, ed. J. M. Mínguez Fernández, vol. 2, ed. M. Herrero de la Fuente (León, 1976, 1988)—from two

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a small but important group of 50 charters, mostly on single sheets, comes from Otero de las Dueñas, 25 km north-west of León, in the southern foothills of the Cantabrian mountains, including a lay archive of the eleventh century.⁷⁶ Farther to the east, in Castile, lies the monastery of Cardeña, in the western foothills of the Sierra de la Demanda, on the edge of the plateau, lying just to the south of the city of Burgos, beside one of the main routes from central Spain to France, then as now; this late eleventh-century cartulary includes over 200 recorded tenth-century transactions.⁷⁷ Although they have fewer tenth-century records than the large sets, there is useful Castilian material in some of the smaller collections, particularly from Valpuesta, in the mountains to the north of Burgos, and from San Millán de la Cogolla in the rich agricultural lands of the modern Rioja, to the east (comparative numbers of transactions for Valpuesta are 36, San Millán 121).⁷⁸ There are in addition a few from Arlanza, also in Castile, a few from Albelda, within the orbit of both Castile and Navarre, and even fewer from San Juan de la Peña, farther east in Aragón (comparative numbers for Arlanza are 25, Albelda 28, San Juan 11).⁷⁹ Two small but very important collections come from much farther to the north: one, including a wide range of early material, comes from Santo Toribio in the Liébana, in Cantabria on the northern side of the Cantabrian mountains, and the other comes from San Vicente in Oviedo, again on the northern side of the Cantabrian mountains, but farther west, in Asturias, to the north of León (62 and 24 transactions respectively).⁸⁰ collections, one a copy of a cartulary of the early twelfth century and the other a cartulary of 1110; charters cited as S1, S2, etc. ⁷⁶ Colección documental del monasterio de Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas, ed. J. A. Fernández Flórez and M. Herrero de la Fuente, vol. 1 (León, 1999), cited as OD1, OD2, etc. ⁷⁷ Colección documental del monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña, ed. G. Martínez Díez (Cardeña/Burgos, 1998), (older edition: Becerro Gótico de Cardeña, ed. L. Serrano (Silos/Valladolid, 1910)); 1998 edition cited as C1, C2, etc. ⁷⁸ Cartulario de San Millán de la Cogolla, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta (Valencia, 1976)—an early twelfth-century collection, from several sources, cited as SM1, SM2, etc. Cartulario de Valpuesta, ed. M. Desamparados Perez Soler (Valencia, 1970)—a late eleventh-century cartulary, cited as V1, V2, etc. ⁷⁹ Cartulario de Albelda, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta (Valencia, 1960), cited as A1, A2, etc.; Cartulario de San Pedro de Arlanza, antiguo monasterio benedictino, ed. L. Serrano (Madrid, 1925), cited as Ar1, Ar2, etc.; Cartulario de San Juan de la Peña, ed. A. Ubieto Arteta, 2 vols. (Valencia, 1962–63), charters (in vol. 1) cited as SJP1, SJP2, etc. ⁸⁰ Cartulario de Santo Toribio de Liébana, ed. L. Sánchez Belda (Madrid, 1948), cited as T1, T2, etc.; Colección diplomática del monasterio de San Vicente de Oviedo (años 781–1200), ed. P. Floriano Llorente (Oviedo, 1968), cited as Ov1, Ov2, etc.

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Figure 1.5 Location of sources of the main charter collections used

There are sometimes small numbers of tenth-century charters in other collections, such as that from Leire; I have occasionally noted their contents but have not included them in statistical analyses—as also applies to the rather more considerable corpus from Portugal.⁸¹ There are also many hundreds of charters from Catalonia, in the region of the Pyrenees, in north-east Spain, but that region lies beyond the scope of this work.⁸² Altogether records of approximately 1,960 transactions survive from the region here considered, of which 980 are gifts and 850 are sales—very large numbers by northern European standards; by comparison, just under 100 survive for the same region from the ninth century. This charter material has often been discussed and there is a rich historiography ⁸¹ Documentación medieval de Leire (siglos IX a XII), ed. A. J. Martín Duque (Pamplona, 1983); there are 13 charters of pre-1000, some of doubtful authenticity. Portugaliae Monumenta Historica a saeculo octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, 3, Diplomata et Chartae, ed. A. Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo and J. J. da Silva Mendes Leal, vol. 1 (Lisbon, 1868); there are 184 charters of pre-1000, again, some of doubtful authenticity. ⁸² See references above, nn. 35, 36.

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of more than a century of Spanish comment;⁸³ despite that work, there are still aspects to explore, particularly in the context of recent research on other parts of western Europe, and in the context of the several illuminating studies of donation published in the past two generations; there is also much still to do to bring the work of Spanish historians to the attention of early medieval scholars elsewhere.

History and historians: medieval Spain Early medieval Spain has a rich historiography. The past century of historical writing has been dominated by the powerful idea of the Muslim conquest of 711 and its perceived consequences. It is thought that this conquest was overturned across many centuries by the long struggle between Christians and Muslims, the so-called Reconquest, the final conquest of the Muslims coming in 1492. In this model, ideas of depopulation and repopulation play a major part. In response to the initial Muslim incursion, it was argued by several historians, but especially by Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, that King Alfonso I of Asturias (739–57) adopted a policy of strategic depopulation in Galicia and in the large expanse of the Duero basin. Muslim conquest provoked further Christian migration, particularly from the Duero valley (see Fig. 1.1), the Christian population of Spain fleeing north to the inhospitable Cantabrian mountains and north-west to the farthest corner of Galicia, leaving vast expanses of unoccupied and depopulated land. As Christian kings slowly won back territory in the late ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, it is argued, the Hispanic population gradually returned from the north to the deserted lands, reinforced by Mozarabic settlers from the south, and together they restored settlement and agriculture.⁸⁴ Like the ⁸³ For example, influential papers such as: C. Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Las behetrías: la encomendación en Asturias, León y Castilla’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 1 (1924), 158–336; J. A. Rubio, ‘ ‘‘Donationes post obitum’’ y ‘‘donationes reservato usufructu’’ en la alta edad media de León y Castilla’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 9 (1932), 1–32; L. G. de Valdeavellano, ‘La cuota de libre disposición en el derecho hereditario de León y Castilla en la alta edad media’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 9 (1932), 129–76; E. Sáez, ‘Nuevos datos sobre el coste de la vida en Galicia durante la Alta Edad Media’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 17 (1946), 865–88; J. Orlandis, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’. Laicos y monasterios en la alta edad media española’, in J. Orlandis, Estudios sobre instituciones monásticas medievales (Pamplona, 1971 [first published 1954]); J. Gautier Dalché, ‘Le domaine du monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana: formation, structure et modes d’exploitation’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 2 (1965), 63–117. ⁸⁴ Mozarabic: Arabized Hispanics, often Christian.

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Figure 1.6 The meseta: the Campos south of Sahagún

American pioneers, the colonizers brought a spirit of freedom to central Spain and their settlements became free communities of small-scale proprietors.⁸⁵ Belief in depopulation and repopulation was highly influential, at scholarly and popular levels, until very recently (and still is, in some quarters); the concept has affected most aspects of the interpretation of social and political change in the early middle ages. Of course, some scholars reacted against the ideas of Sánchez-Albornoz, and other ideas increasingly became prominent in the later twentieth century. To begin with, ‘feudalism’, which Sánchez-Albornoz and others had thought inappropriate for Spain, was re-instated. In the mid-1960s Barbero and Vigil began to publish their work on the formation of Spanish feudalism, arguing that although in part it evolved directly from late and ⁸⁵ C. Sánchez-Albornoz, Despoblación y repoblación del valle del Duero (Buenos Aires, 1966); idem, ‘Repoblación del Reino Asturleonés’, in his Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1976–80), ii. 581–790 (first published 1971, but see his comments already in id., ‘Las behetrías: la encomendación en Asturias, León y Castilla’, at 198–203); idem, ‘Pequeños propietarios libres en el reino Asturleonés. Su realidad histórica’, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 13 (1966), 183–222. See A. Ubieto Arteta, Atlas Histórico. Como se formó España, 2nd edn. (Valencia, 1970), 38–49, 59, for visual representations of maximum depopulation in the eighth century and gradual repopulation thereafter.

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post-Roman society, that is from the fifth and sixth centuries, those parts of northern Spain which were little touched by Romanization sustained a tribal society whose transformation from collective property-owning kin groups to villages of individual owners constituted a different and later route to feudal society.⁸⁶ Most historians of the subsequent generation accepted a basic principle of feudal development, with variant approaches; in other words, they accepted the emergence of a world characterized by the domination of private lords over the persons, labour, and surplus of a largely servile peasant population, the near absence of slavery, the fragmentation of the public power of the state and its dispersal among the greater private lords. The development of private lordly power (i.e. the process of seigneurialization) has been more central to the historiography than detail of fiefs, vassals, and varieties of aristocratic service, although the latter do of course feature. Most scholars identified the central middle ages as the key period of feudalization, charting the development at different rates within a tenthto twelfth-century bracket, although often quite late in the bracket, and pointing to differences between the Spanish development and that of the classical Frankish manor.⁸⁷ Discussion still continues.⁸⁸ The language of feudalism, however, is today embedded in Spanish historiography. Alongside the acceptance of feudalism, other themes have emerged. Regional history became prominent from the 1970s, with close attention to local development through systematic study of, in particular, monastic seigneuries —like the hugely influential works of García de Cortázar on San Millán de la Cogolla and of Mínguez on Sahagún.⁸⁹ Other issues emerged in the context of the feudal discussion, taking on a life of their own: the collapse of community collectivities in the face of growing seigneurial power, for example; the emergence of a class of mounted ⁸⁶ M. Vigil and A. Barbero, ‘Sobre los orígenes sociales de la Reconquista. Cántabros y vascones desde fines del Imperio romano hasta la invasión musulmana’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 156 (1965), 271–339; their main work is A. Barbero and M. Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la península Ibérica (Barcelona, 1978), especially 155–200, 354–404, and particularly 370–1, 401, in this respect. See further below, pp. 65–71, for family property. ⁸⁷ See especially Estepa Díez, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo’. For a useful survey of approaches, see J. A. García de Cortázar, ‘La formación de la sociedad feudal en el cuadrante noroccidental de la península ibérica en los siglos viii a xii’, Initium, 4 (1999), 57–121, especially at 69–75. ⁸⁸ See for example Señores, siervos, vasallos en la alta edad media. XXVIII Semana de estudios medievales, Estella, 16 a 20 de julio de 2001 (Pamplona, 2002). ⁸⁹ García de Cortázar, El dominio del monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla; Mínguez Fernández, El dominio del monasterio de Sahagún; see above, p. 9.

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soldiers, termed milites and caballeros, and its social consequences; and the strength, or the privatization, of public power.⁹⁰ Recently a new trend has emerged, a trend that questions the fact of depopulation itself and therefore of repopulation and colonization, especially in the Duero valley. Muslim invasion and campaigning may not after all have sent the Hispanic population of the meseta fleeing north into the mountains; most, it is now argued, stayed where they were, continuing to farm, their settlements in some parts connected through networks of supra-local units.⁹¹ This is not entirely new, for qualifications to the stark depopulation model had been proposed long before the recent trend;⁹² Menéndez Pidal had clearly made the point that the word populare in early medieval texts, literally ‘to populate’, could refer to the imposition of new political and administrative structures rather than to new settlements. Some (more modest) decline in population now tends to be invoked in place of total desertion, as is—as we have seen—new colonization arising out of sheer peasant dynamism in the tenth and eleventh centuries, in a context of demographic growth.⁹³ In other words, the intensification of agricultural production that is clearly signalled by the texts seems to have been associated with new kinds of proprietary rights, alongside new expectations of regular and increasing ⁹⁰ See for example J. Escalona Monge, ‘De ‘‘señores y campesinos’’ a ‘‘poderes feudales y comunidades’’. Elementos para definir la articulación entre territorio y clases sociales en la alta edad media castellana’, in I. Álvarez Borge (co-ord.), Comunidades locales y poderes feudales en la edad media (Logroño, 2001), 115–55; J. A. García de Cortázar, La sociedad rural en la España medieval (Madrid, 1988), 27–36; Estepa Díez, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo’, 164–74; Salrach, ‘Les féodalités méridionales’, 373. ⁹¹ J. Escalona Monge, Sociedad y territorio en la alta edad media castellana. La formación del alfoz de Lara, BAR International Series no. 1079 (Oxford, 2002) and idem, ‘Unidades territoriales supralocales: una propuesta sobre los orígenes del señorío de behetría’, in C. Estepa Díez and C. Jular Pérez-Alfaro (co-ord.), Los señoríos de behetría (Madrid, 2001), 21–46; I. Martín Viso, Fragmentos del Leviatán. La articulación política del espacio zamorano en la alta edad media (Zamora, 2002); S. Castellanos and I. Martín Viso, ‘The local articulation of central power in the north of the Iberian peninsula (500–1000)’, Early Medieval Europe, 13 (2005), 1–42, especially 21–41. For a helpful survey in English see J. Escalona Monge, ‘Mapping scale change: hierarchization and fission in Castilian rural communities during the tenth and eleventh centuries’, in W. Davies, G. Halsall, A. J. Reynolds (eds.), People and Space in the Middle Ages, 300–1300 ( Turnhout, 2007), 143–66, at 143–49. ⁹² R. Menéndez Pidal, ‘Repoblación y tradición en la cuenca del Duero’, in M. Alvar, A. Badía, R. de Balbín, L. F. Lindley Cintra (eds.), Enciclopedia Lingüística Hispánica, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1960–67), i. xxix-lvii; cf. Barbero y Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 226–7, and cf. García de Cortázar, La sociedad rural, 21–2. ⁹³ Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 293–4; Larrea, La Navarre, 196, 589–91; Martín Viso, Fragmentos del Leviatán, especially 43–59; peasant colonization with comital control, Bonnassie, La Catalogne au tournant de l’an mil, 39–57.

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returns to major landlords. Again, the Santa Olalla cameo of 959 is relevant, the monastic lord establishing rights to some of the product of the peasant colonizers. Historical approaches have changed a lot in the last generation. Raids from the south of Spain, and expeditions to the south, did happen, even if we now acknowledge that several northern kings had diplomatic relations with Muslim leaders in the later tenth century and even if the raids had less cataclysmic consequences than once supposed—one example of the kind of disruption that might ensue is the action of a minor monastery near León which, when raided by Muslims in 988 and stripped of all its animals, sold off land in order to have the means to restock.⁹⁴ Raiding was a reality, but for the most part it does not seem to have interrupted the settled farming regime which the vast majority of texts describes; if Christian society was frontier society in the tenth century, there is relatively little trace of it north of the Duero, be it either a frontier of pioneers or a militarized frontier. The work of Sánchez-Albornoz nevertheless remains central; his work endures through the very fact of reaction against it. One cannot navigate a way through even the most recent Spanish literature without an awareness of the dominant model and its influence.

History and historians: early medieval giving Historians of other parts of western Europe have not been so influenced by a single dominant model. One theme shared across several national traditions during the past couple of generations, however, has been a sustained interest in early medieval gifts and giving; many aspects of donation have been explored with detailed attention and subtlety. Most of this work has focused on Germany, France, Italy, and England, with relatively little attention to the rich corpus of northern Spanish material. Central to the recent study of donation has been the work of Karl Schmid and his colleagues in Münster and Freiburg, whose systematic work on Libri memoriales in the 1960s and 1970s opened up new ways of investigating aristocratic family structures and aristocratic patronage networks.⁹⁵ Here careful analysis of the names of donors to ⁹⁴ S340. ⁹⁵ K. Schmid, ‘Neue Quellen zum Verständnis des Adels im 10. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, 108 (1960), 185–232; idem (ed.), Die Klostergemeinschaft von Fulda im früheren Mittelalter, 3 vols. (vol. 2 in 3 parts) (Munich,

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churches, recorded in books of commemoration, not only demonstrated the important social role of monastic communities in preserving the memory of dead patrons but also revealed family commitments to particular foundations and patterns of alliance-making, as well as a host of material on the structure and particularities of relationships between kin. Donation to the church was obviously an important social phenomenon in itself, with enormous economic consequences, but it was more than that: donation practice belongs within a spectrum of wider social relationships. The German work has been particularly important in establishing that fact and in illuminating aristocratic strata within society, especially in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.⁹⁶ American scholars working on French material in the 1980s, in part drawing on the long French tradition of research into the nobility, extended the scope of enquiry into donation practice.⁹⁷ Stephen White’s major study, relating to western France and extending into the later twelfth century, is an exploration of the social meaning of transactions.⁹⁸ Beginning with kinship groups, it focuses on the laudatio parentum, family approval of grants, and takes the study of family structure and family networks into new areas by looking at the (irregular) composition 1978); and the collection of his key papers in idem, Gebetsgedenken und adliges Selbstverständnis im Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1983). See Karl Leyser’s discussion, ‘The German aristocracy from the ninth to the early twelfth century: a historical and cultural sketch’, Past and Present, 41 (1968), 25–53, and his words of warning in K. J. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society (London, 1979), 50–1. Many of the papers in Frühmittelalterliche Studien of the 1970s derive from the work of Schmid’s team, members of which remain influential. G. Althoff, Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung: Studien zum Totengedenken der Billunger und Ottonen (Munich, 1984); and O. G. Oexle (ed.), Memoria als Kultur (Göttingen, 1995) represent important and influential developments within this tradition; for a survey of developments, see M. Borgolte, ‘ ‘‘Memoria’’. Bilan intermédiaire d’un projet de recherche sur le moyen âge’, in J.-C. Schmitt and O. G. Oexle (eds.), Les tendances actuelles de l’histoire du moyen âge en France et en Allemagne (Paris, 2002), 53–69. ⁹⁶ The social range extends, however, in work such as M. Borgolte’s study of records of donation pro anima, ‘Gedenkstiftungen in St. Galler Urkunden’, in K. Schmid and J. Wollasch (eds.), Memoria. Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter (Munich, 1984), 578–602. ⁹⁷ The tradition goes back to P. Guilhiermoz, Essai sur l’origine de la noblesse en France au moyen âge (Paris, 1902); more recently, G. Duby, La société aux XI e et XII e siècles dans la région mâconnaise (Paris, 1953), is seminal, and most of his subsequent work has relevance; cf. many of the papers collected in his Hommes et structures du moyen âge. Recueil d’articles (Paris, 1973). The French historiography of féodalité has been very influential in Spain; see above, pp. 27–8. ⁹⁸ S. D. White, Custom, Kinship and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150 (Chapel Hill, 1988).

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of such groups and the principles of inclusion within them. In the course of this work he makes a valuable assessment of what giving for the sake of the soul, pro anima mea or pro remedio animae N, might have meant in practice:⁹⁹ in effect he explored some of the motivation that lay behind giving, while at the same time emphasizing the significance of the ‘spiritual capital’ acquired by the act.¹⁰⁰ Drawing on the Münster and French traditions, but also on the earlier, anthropologically influenced, historiography of gift exchange, Barbara Rosenwein’s To Be the Neighbor of St Peter focused on the exceptionally large collection of charters from Cluny, in Burgundy, and investigated the transactional aspects of giving within the context of local society.¹⁰¹ Giving did not mean disposing of one’s goods and divesting oneself of assets; donors always got something in return for their gifts, maybe a place in heaven but—more immediately—access to a network of continuing relationships in life; and their connections with the property they had donated were often sustained.¹⁰² Richer peasants came into view in her study, along with the complex of social relationships at local level, for donation was more of a group than an individual activity and property was a kind of ‘social glue’.¹⁰³ Both White’s and Rosenwein’s works, while obviously making important contributions on the symbolic significance of donation, also made a valuable point about the temporality of giving—phases of giving rose and fell; there was no simple, steady, increase; there were distinct periods in which donation to the church predominated over other recorded transactions. ⁹⁹ There are important Spanish studies of donation pro anima: J. Orlandis, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’ ’, and also his ‘La elección de sepultura en la España medieval’, in his La iglesia en la España visigotica y medieval (Pamplona, 1976 [first published 1950]), 257–306. ¹⁰⁰ White, Custom, Kinship, 152–4. ¹⁰¹ B. H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, 1989). For gift exchange, M. Mauss’s Essai sur le don (Paris, 1925) was the essential stimulus; its influence on early medievalists has been widespread but the following papers have been particularly influential: P. Grierson, ‘Commerce in the Dark Ages: a critique of the evidence’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 9 (1959), 123–40, and W. Miller, ‘Gift, sale, payment, raid: case studies in the negotiation and classification of exchange in medieval Iceland’, Speculum, 61 (1986), 18–50; cf. R. Le Jan, Femmes, pouvoir et société dans le haut moyen âge (Paris, 2001), 119–31. ¹⁰² Although it relates to a later period, R. Pastor, E. Pascua Echegaray, A. Rodríguez López, P. Sánchez León, Transacciones sin mercado: instituciones, propiedad y redes sociales en la Galicia monástica, 1200–1300 (Madrid, 1999), is a notable Spanish work which has drawn on this tradition; available in English as Beyond the Market (Leiden, 2002). ¹⁰³ Rosenwein, To be the Neighbor, 202.

Setting the Scene

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Patrick Geary’s Phantoms of Remembrance, published in 1994, explored motivation for giving in the context of a wide-ranging study of memory—family memory, institutional memory, political memory—in the tenth and eleventh centuries; using German and French material especially, and drawing strongly on the German tradition, he explored the ritual commemoration of death, emphasizing the significance of commemoration of the family—this was donation to ensure that the family of the donor be remembered and indeed its memory perpetuated.¹⁰⁴ He also explored the gender associations of giving, by region, concluding that women were central to the preservation of family memoria in the East Frankish (German) kingdom while, although they had comparable functions in the Western Frankish (French) kingdom, the role of women was not emphasized in the record in a comparable way; indeed, often explicitly, the men of the reformed monastic orders took over the function of keeping memory alive.¹⁰⁵ This book was extremely influential during the 1990s and stimulated a range of complementary studies, of which those by Elisabeth van Houts are particularly important.¹⁰⁶ She demonstrated, bringing more English and ¹⁰⁴ P. J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994). Cf. Althoff, Adels- und Königsfamilien, especially, on the liturgical commemoration of the high aristocracy in Germany; though focused on eleventh to thirteenth centuries, M. Lauwers, La mémoire des ancêtres, le souci des morts. Mort, rite et société au moyen âge (Paris, 1997) contains much pre-eleventh-century material on liturgical commemoration in western Europe. Note the brief comments of García de Cortázar, La sociedad rural, 43, on sustaining historic memory, and with that family titles to property, by writing, in eleventh- and twelfth-century Spain. ¹⁰⁵ For royal women in Germany, the (French) work of P. Corbet, is crucial: Les saints ottoniens. Sainteté dynastique, sainteté royale et sainteté feminine autour de l’an Mil (Sigmaringen, 1986); see also, extending the discussion to include royal women in France, M. Parisse (ed.), Veuves et veuvage dans le haut moyen âge (Paris, 1993), which includes the Catalan paper by M. Aurell i Cardona, ‘Les avatars de la viduité princière: Ermessende (ca. 975–1058), comtesse de Barcelone’, 201–32. Also R. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc (VII e —Xe siècle). Essai d’anthropologie sociale (Paris, 1995), passim but especially 54–7, 333–79; the latter’s themes are developed in Le Jan, Femmes, pouvoir et société. M. del C. Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, una Aristócrata del Siglo X (La Coruña, 1998), especially 125–34, deals with some relevant Spanish material, at comital level, from Galicia. ¹⁰⁶ E. van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 (London, 1999); E. van Houts (ed.), Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past, 700–1300 (Harlow, 2001). See also the useful survey in J. L. Nelson, ‘Gender and genre in women historians of the early middle ages’, in J. L. Nelson, The Frankish World, 750–900 (London, 1996), 183–97. Also, for more criticisms, B. Jussen, ‘Challenging the culture of memoria. Dead men, oblivion, and the ‘‘Faithless Widow’’ in the middle ages’, in G. Althoff, J. Fried, P. J. Geary (eds.), Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography (Cambridge, 2002), 215–31.

34

Setting the Scene

Italian material into the discussion, that donation for commemoration was not so bluntly gendered as Geary had suggested and that both men and women had specific, and complementary, roles in remembering the past. All of this work, which focuses more on aristocratic than on other parts of society, is of course important for developing the gender perspective. However, it is also significant in extending understanding of the nature of noble families, of their mechanisms for self-perpetuation, and especially of their perspectives of themselves; family consciousness was a pervasive theme: memorialization was a kind of self-reflection, an aspect, therefore, of the history of mentalités. Most recently, in the context of a comparative study of the transfer of family property in Europe in the early middle ages (within the sixth to the eleventh centuries), an international group of scholars took a detailed look at post mortem donation, picking up Georges Duby’s ‘link between remembering the ancestors and transmitting the patrimony’ and paying particular attention to the relationship between grants to save the soul, family remembrance, and strategies to preserve the patrimony.¹⁰⁷ Preservation mechanisms like the founding of proprietary churches, the repetition from generation to generation of precarial gifts, the habit of reserving the usufruct for the donor’s family, were explored in different European contexts. In her introduction to the ensuing publication Régine Le Jan emphasized some ambiguities and tensions—tensions between collective and individual donation, ambiguities over the disposability of inherited land, the tension between preserving the inheritance from fragmentation and risking its ultimate loss by making a gift to the church.¹⁰⁸ François Bougard, in concluding, provided some salutary warnings: how many families in fact disappeared as a result of alienating property to the church, and did not preserve the patrimony at all? how many families used completely different strategies to preserve memory, like freeing slaves or erecting stone monuments? how many families, particularly outside the aristocracy, simply made no attempt to preserve the patrimony?¹⁰⁹ ¹⁰⁷ G. Duby, Le chevalier, la femme et le prêtre. Le mariage dans la France féodale (Paris, 1981), 50; Duby’s point, commenting on the mid-ninth-century Manual of Dhuoda, was actually about patrilineality: Dhuoda’s son must pray for her husband’s family, not her own, he suggested. F. Bougard, C. La Rocca, R. Le Jan (eds.), Sauver son âme et se perpétuer. Transmission du patrimoine et mémoire au haut moyen âge (Rome, 2005); this book includes a valuable paper on family memory in Catalonia: Ll. To Figueras, ‘Fondations monastiques et mémoire familiale en Catalogne (IXe -XIe siècle)’, ibid., 293–329. ¹⁰⁸ Ibid., 1–6. ¹⁰⁹ Ibid., 485–94.

Setting the Scene

35

This book, then, is an exploration of some of those themes in the Spanish context, and a search for points of similarity and contrast with European trends. It is about donation—the giving of property, since that is the kind of donation that is recorded, usually landed property. It is about who gives and who receives; about what is given; about reasons for giving; and about the place of giving within the complex of social and economic relationships in society as a whole. The gender and status of donors are important themes that run throughout, and I am interested in probing as much of the practice of peasant society as is possible. Commemoration takes its place too; one important question which arises from earlier work is not so much the obvious question about gender specificity and memorialization but the less obvious question about status specificity: were acts which were undertaken to perpetuate memory a symptom of distinctively aristocratic social behaviour or did they spread more widely through society? The book is also about donation as a type of transaction: other kinds of transaction are sometimes presented as donation while gifts can be concealed under the guise of some other mode of exchange; indeed, to what extent, in this Spanish world, was donation itself separable and distinctive? Did the act of giving have such specificity that it could be differentiated from other kinds of exchange? People transferred property in vitam and post mortem, to take effect during their lives or after their deaths. Donation of both types in fact had consequences for the rest of the donors’ lives—it never simply kicked in at the point of death. Giving was therefore very much a part of living.

2 San Pedro and Santa Comba: Churches and their Proprietors Round about 956 the monk Odoíno ran off with a woman called Onega, someone his mother had brought to their family monastery of Santa Comba on the gentle banks of the River Limia in southern Galicia (see Figs. 2.1, 2.2). This was but one colourful episode in Odoíno’s more than usually colourful story, at least the way he told it himself. Not long after, he was back at Santa Comba, only to be thrown out when Onega accused him of plotting against Count Rodrigo in the stormy days of the late 950s. The monastery was thereupon handed over to a woman called Guntroda, in response to her request, but a change of heart by the count—on his deathbed—allowed Odoíno to recover it again. At that point Odoíno’s relative, Elvira, abbess of the nearby San Martín of Grau, appeared on the scene and took over Santa Comba by force (per vim), although by 982 Odoíno was insisting that he had transferred ownership of Santa Comba from himself to the much larger Galician monastery of Celanova, together with liturgical vessels and vestments, appurtenant lands, a nearby farm, and another church.¹ This very complicated story hangs on the ups and downs of family interest. Odoíno had acquired Santa Comba from his father, Abbot Vermudo, probably round about 930, and Vermudo in his turn had got it from his own father, a deacon also called Odoíno. The first Odoíno had received it, as a ruin, from his relative Count Odoario who, according to tradition, had been given large tracts of land to ‘colonize’ in Portugal and Galicia by King Alfonso III of Asturias round about 872—one of the major stories of recent ‘repopulation’ that characterize ¹ Cel265; for Celanova, see above, p. 23. For a rather similar story, see Sob122 (960).

San Pedro and Santa Comba

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Figure 2.1 The river Limia, near Santa Comba

Figure 2.2 Santa Comba

tenth-century northern Spanish texts.² In fact, the woman Guntroda had appeared some time before the 950s, holding the title deeds of ² See above, pp. 26–9: we do not have to suppose that the land had been completely deserted; rather that it changed hands and was put to new uses. For the story, cf.

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Santa Comba, which she refused to hand over to the monk Odoíno when he took up his inheritance. She was eventually persuaded to do so by Bishop Rosendo of Celanova, at the request of King Ramiro II, to whom Odoíno had given very substantial gifts (mules, cloth, silver, and 520 cattle), alongside his petition for a resolution of this dispute with Guntroda. Although the dispute was apparently settled in favour of Odoíno, she re-appeared in order to claim the monastery at the time of his defection with Onega and clearly sustained an interest in it for several decades. We know this story from a very long and rambling account, supposedly in the words of Odoíno, preserved in the Celanova archive. Parts of this account are obscure but the chronology is credible and fits with the broad picture of politics in north-west Spain that can be derived from other sources. Whether we should believe all the detail is another question but, whatever view we take on that, the story is a very strong statement of sustained interest in the ownership of a small religious house and its lands by a monk, his father, his grandfather, and a relative of the latter; his mother and at least one other female relative also demonstrated a sustained, indeed forceful, interest. As for Guntroda: she was the daughter of Count Gutier’s sister and hence the cousin of Bishop Rosendo (Gutier’s son); she was perhaps distantly related to Odoíno himself.³ If we had her story, things might look different: from her point of view, she may have attempted to sustain regular life at Santa Comba across the middle years of the tenth century, but have been constantly thwarted by the intrusions of the reckless and disobedient Odoíno. Unfortunately we do not have her story, but there is enough in Odoíno’s tale to see that control of religious houses, as well as appurtenant property, could be hotly contested between members of the Galician aristocracy in the tenth century. In this case, physical possession of the casa (the religious house) features again and again. That the conflicts were between aristocrats is evident from the C. Sánchez-Albornoz, Despoblación y repoblación del valle del Duero (Buenos Aires, 1966), 223–26; idem, ‘Repoblación del Reino Asturleonés’, in his Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1976–80), ii. 581–790, at 610–17. For the even earlier Bishop Odoario and el ciclo odoariano, see A. Isla Frez, La sociedad gallega en la alta edad media (Madrid, 1992), 54–61. ³ Otherwise, Abbess Guntroda of Pazó: Isla Frez, Sociedad gallega, 122; cf. M. del C. Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, una Aristócrata del Siglo X (La Coruña, 1998), 127–8, 131–2; Cel2 (942), Cel357 (949), Cel7 (950). Cf. Abbess Guntroda in Cel505 (935) and Cel416 (959).


39

Figure 2.3 Selected churches and monasteries of north-western Iberia

parts played by king and count, as also from the size of the associated properties. Although this is a more than usually detailed story, the case is not unique. Hereditary interests stretching back to the time of Count Odoario’s ‘colonization’ were still the basis of credible, and successful, claims to property a century later. Only 25 km to the east of Santa Comba, the ownership of the church of San Pedro de Laroá was disputed between Brother Vimara and Count Menindo Gundisalviz shortly before 1054 (see Fig. 2.3). Eventually Vimara, together with twelve suitable witnesses, as directed by the judges of a local court, swore an oath that his ancestors had rebuilt the ruined church and that their children and grandchildren had endowed it, around 900, with 20 metres of land all round the church, for the purposes of burial, and a further 120 metres all round to generate income for the clerics resident there.⁴ This oath was successful and Vimara’s claim was ⁴ Cel267, Cel271 (909)—a highly suspect document; see Isla Frez, Sociedad gallega, 98. Strictly, 12 and 72 passus respectively all round the church, where a passus was a notional five Roman feet, and a Roman foot conventionally 33 cm. For the 72 passus,

40


sustained, although continuity of family interest across the intervening 150 years is certainly not demonstrated by the surviving texts.⁵ What is particularly striking is the fact that family interest was sufficient legitimation. It is also interesting that the ten named children and grandchildren of the founder were supposed to have been in control of San Pedro back in 900. In the meantime, during the tenth century, through processes which do not survive in the record, San Pedro had acquired a significant endowment of local farms; some of these were deserted by the turn of the century, but were restocked by Vimara, who arranged for the church and its property to be transferred to Celanova after the death of his successor, the son of a benefactor. However, there was still dealing in portions of these farms, by other parties, in the early twelfth century.⁶ The continuing market in this land may suggest that Vimara’s gift was far from total. What is important for our purposes, however, is that those in charge of the Celanova archive thought the eleventh-century demonstration of the donor’s family interest sufficient to establish Celanova’s own property title. Much farther to the east, in the very different landscape of the meseta, similarly long-standing interests are evidenced. On 1 May 974, King Ramiro III confirmed the powerful monastery of Sahagún in possession of the churches of San Esteban in Boadilla and Santa Columba in Melgar, in the valleys of the rivers Sequilo and Cea to the south and south-west of Sahagún (see Fig. 2.3).⁷ More than thirty years before, an abbot called Lubila had given San Esteban, which was part of his own family property, to the community of another church in Melgar, San Clemente; separately, in the 950s or 960s, a woman called Fakilo had then given the monastery of San Clemente itself, which she had acquired from her own family, to Sahagún. Meanwhile Lubila’s relative, Bishop Gundisalvo, claimed ownership of San Clemente for his own monastery of Santiago; as a result, a deal was done that San Clemente should belong to the bishop’s monastery of Santiago but its dependent church of San Esteban should be transferred to the monastery of Santa Columba. Gundisalvo’s successor then gave San Clemente to Sahagún, in 967, and the monks of Santa Columba gave their church and San Esteban to Sahagún in 973. see also, for example, Sam99 (?854), Sam226 (947); cf. Portugaliae Monumenta Historica a saeculo octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, 3, Diplomata et Chartae, ed. A. Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo and J. J. da Silva Mendes Leal, vol. 1 (Lisbon, 1868), LIV (944), LXIII (951). ⁵ See also Cel139 (1025–40), Cel272 (993), Cel270 (1045), Cel299 (1046). ⁶ Cel269 (1106). ⁷ See above, p. 23, for Sahagún.


41

Lubila’s brother Tajón also claimed—unsuccessfully—that his rightful inheritance had been diverted to Sahagún.⁸ This is a complicated series of events with two apparently different families with interests in a group of nearby churches. Again, we see family control of churches and monasteries, and continuing expectations of control, across the tenth century, only to be broken by the acquisitions and proprietary interests of a very powerful monastery like Sahagún. Much farther north, at Limanes near Oviedo, north of the Cantabrian mountains, a man called Aurelio built a church dedicated to Santa María in the early tenth century. He passed that church on to his cousin Dulcidio, who in his turn passed it on to Aurelio’s grandson, the priest Artemio. Artemio restored the church, and divided the attached property; he gave some of it to the church of Santos Pedro y Pablo, which was in the care of his son Esteban and daughter Teudildis, and the rest—all the houses and appurtenant land—to the priest Modesto, on 26 December 990, with the instruction that he should pass it on to someone following the monastic life, preferably from their families.⁹ Here again, this time in an area without the tradition of colonization, family interest in churches is explicit—although not always contested. In this case, however, we do not see tenth-century absorption by a more powerful religious federation, but just the continuing proprietary interests of small-scale clerics. Transactions in churches and monasteries constitute approximately 13% of known ninth- and tenth-century transactions (bearing in mind that the total number of transactions recorded in surviving ninth- and tenth-century northern Spanish collections is just over 2,000), although in practice the proportion of total transactions may well have been higher.¹⁰ These church transactions cluster in the period 940–970. This time-band certainly reflects the greater availability of records from that generation but the proportion in the decade of the 940s (which has nearly a quarter of all recorded transactions in churches or monasteries) is extremely high: it constitutes nearly a third of transactions of any ⁸ S276, S77 (941), S126 (950–67), S246 (967), S270 (973). ⁹ Ov24. ¹⁰ See above, pp. 22–5, for transaction numbers. Transactions in farms and estates with names like ‘Villa Sant N’, a characteristically Galician formulation, probably involved the transfer of churches too, which would increase the proportion, although they are not specified in the texts; for example, Cel33 (936) ‘villare de Sancto Martino’, Cel418 (941) ‘villa de Sancto Petro’, Cel357 (949) and Cel529 (953), both ‘villa de Sancta Eolalia’.

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Table 2.1 Transactions in churches and monasteries, in ninth and tenth centuries, by number, by source collection, per decade % of total transactions Cel Sob Sam L OD S C SM Ar A V T Ov per decade 9th Century 900–09 910–19 920–29 930–39 940–49 950–59 960–69 970–79 980–89 990–99

5 0 0 5 7 6 7 1 0 3 4

0 0 0 0 1 0 3 5 0 0 2

% of 9th- and 10thcentury transactions 16

8

3 1 0 1 1 2 1 1 3 3 2

3 3 6 1 2 8 3 3 4 3 4

28 7

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0

0 0 11 0 0 0 0 2 1 6 1 0 1 1 2 4 19 12 5 10 12 3 12 2 2 4 1 1 1 0 1 1 2

0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0

3 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0

5 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 1

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1

30 15 18 19 11 27 13 10 9 7 14

2 5 25 31 12 4 14 13 8

13

kind that were made in that decade, way above the 13% mean (see table 2.1). Transactions in churches were a little above the 13% mean in the 910s and 920s, while those in the 960s, 970s, and 980s were a little below; the 940s, for whatever reason, saw an increase in the transfer of ownership of churches and monasteries. There appear to be no especial regional differences in the chronology of these transactions. There is, however, a marked difference in the regional incidence of church transactions. The very large collection of Sahagún charters includes an exceptionally low proportion (5%, against the mean of 13%), and the proportion of León records is also well below the mean (7%). Proportions of church transactions in Cardeña, San Millán, and Samos collections are all well above the mean (25%, 31%, and 28% respectively).¹¹ These deviations are so striking that they are likely to be significant, and will be explored below.¹² Just as important as the fact of regional difference is the fact that virtually every collection of tenth-century charters across northern Spain, large or small, includes records of transactions in which non-royal, as well as royal, families are seen to be controlling churches and monasteries: ¹¹ See above, pp. 23–5, for these monasteries.

¹² See further below, p. 63.


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Figure 2.4 The Liébana valley

they founded them, they also dealt in them, in entirety and in portions, and they argued about rights of control. Family control is evident from as early as surviving records begin, and the implications are that it was no new thing then.¹³ Already in 829, in the mountains of Cantabria in the far north, a father and son transferred a monastery they owned: Valeriano and his father Teodario gave their monastery of San Salvador at Osina (off the gorge that leads into the Liébana valley) to the abbot and monks of Villeña, high on the hillsides of the Liébana (see Fig. 2.4).¹⁴ The narratives of other charters locate similar transactions in the 840s, 870s, and maybe 880s, in the different regions of Galicia and Castile; some of these are suspect records, but it is nevertheless significant that the writers chose to record such dealings as family dealings and to place them in the mid- and later ninth century.¹⁵ Christian culture of the ¹³ J. Orlandis, ‘Los monasterios familiares en España durante la alta edad media’, in J. Orlandis, Estudios sobre instituciones monásticas medievales (Pamplona, 1971 [first published 1956]), 125–64, at 131, 145, argued that the family monastery of the ninth and tenth centuries ultimately had Visigothic origins; this is probably too concerned with the distant past, particularly in view of the new foundations that can be tracked in the ninth and tenth centuries; however, some foundations were clearly several centuries old. ¹⁴ T6. ¹⁵ Cel208 (842), Cel271 (879), SM10 (871—a suspect record), Cel242 (884, perhaps more correctly dated in the 930s).

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tenth and eleventh centuries expected families to have had proprietary interests in churches, and believed that many interests had pre-tenthcentury origins. As surviving records increase, as they did in the tenth century, the examples multiply. In 934 the Galician Count Gutier and his wife divided their properties, which included churches, between their children; and in 931 a man called Pedro and his wife swapped with Velasco and his wife their villa of Verín (near the Portuguese border) for another at Cameledia with its church of San Pedro; one document from 976 formally records the transfer of several churches from father to son—perhaps this unusual use of the written instrument for transfer within the family indicates some concern that hereditary transmission might no longer be secure; in the following decade, another couple, Sandino and his wife Eiloni, were swapping churches, this time their villa and church of San Salvador for another in Quiroga with its church, also San Pedro.¹⁶ Transferring our glance from Galicia to the meseta, the priest Gonzalo failed to keep control of his family church of San Justo; a man called Mateo and his brothers argued about control of the church of San Esteban on the river Cea, and lost, in 946; another called García Refugano lost the battle to keep his family church in Tubilla del Lago in Castile in 957; but twenty years later a man and his daughter gave their villa in Palencia, with its monastery of San Pedro and San Pablo, to the bishop of León, a property which had come to them from the man’s father and grandfather.¹⁷ These family interests were ‘lay’, ‘clerical’, and both: we should not try to distinguish too precisely between the lay and the ecclesiastical. Families could well be both: Mantella and his wife Leocadia, together with their son Gundisalvo, who was a priest, gave away their church of Santa María, in 949, to the abbot of a small local monastery in Castile and the abbot’s brother.¹⁸

T H E C H U RC H : S T RU C T U R E A N D AU T H O R I T Y Given the plethora of anecdotes about proprietary interests, one might well ask about the shape of ecclesiastical authority in the tenth century in northern Spain. There was no neat system of parishes, each with its ¹⁶ Cel478, Cel460, Sam61 (cf. the disputes over control noted in Sam44 (975), Sob109 (986–99), Sob130 (992)), Cel487 (983)). ¹⁷ C35 (941), Li192, C90, Lii451 (977); cf. Lii330 (960), Lii432 (974). ¹⁸ C65.


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exclusive territory and with a parish priest to care for the souls of residents and to provide sacraments like the important rites of baptism and burial. Indeed, it looks as if it was the twelfth century before such a system began to be put in place.¹⁹ There seem, however, to have been plenty of churches and monasteries—quite a variety of religious institutions, as well as a large number. There were bishops too, about a dozen in the kingdom of Asturias/León by 900.²⁰ In these texts bishops usually appear as authority figures; we can see them consecrating new foundations and occasionally taking disciplinary action, as Bishop Sisnando did when he confiscated property from a monk who had committed sexual offences.²¹ With an urban or proto-urban base, these were men who consorted with kings and attended high-level political meetings, men with substantial personal property interests, men who disposed of churches to this or that incumbent.²² However, the extent to which the appointments they made arose from their episcopal responsibilities rather than from their personal property interests is extremely unclear.²³ When Adosinda founded the church of San Pedro (Sorga), she explicitly put it under the control of the bishop, so that, whatever priest or deacon should follow the holy life there, he should acknowledge that it was the bishop’s place.²⁴ The block of churches that Bishop Froilán assigned to Sahagún’s ¹⁹ J. Orlandis, ‘La elección de sepultura en la España medieval’, in J. Orlandis, La Iglesia en la España visigotica y medieval (Pamplona, 1976), 257–306, at 283–4; J. Orlandis, ‘Reforma eclesiastica en los siglos XI y XII’, in J. Orlandis, La Iglesia (first delivered 1974), 307–48. Cf. A. Isla Frez, La alta edad media. Siglos VIII-XI (Madrid, 2002), 248–51, on reforming councils in the eleventh century; and C. Estepa Díez, in ‘La discussione sulla lezione Sotomayor’, Cristianizzazione ed Organizzazione ecclesiastica delle Campagne nell’alto medioevo. Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo, 28 (1982), 670–83, at 679–80, on the fact that Christianization was still in progress in the Basque country c.1200. ²⁰ Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 239–43, cf. 247–8; see Isla Frez, Sociedad gallega, 75–93, 100, and S. Castellanos and I. Martín Viso, ‘The local articulation of central power in the north of the Iberian peninsula (500–1000)’, Early Medieval Europe, 13 (2005), 1–42, at 40–1, for shifting episcopal sees in Galicia and Castile respectively. ²¹ Sam128 (849), the suspect Cel271 (909); Lii479 (980). ²² Li16 (878–904), T17 (885), S30 (922), for example; but see Castellanos and Martín Viso, ‘The local articulation of central power’, 28, who refer to bishops without see on the Cantabrian coast. ²³ Cf. Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 243; and Estepa Díez, ‘La discussione’, 678–9: churches in the Liébana in the ninth century were ‘at the margins’ of episcopal organization. ²⁴ Cel247 (927): ‘sub manibus pontificis domni Rudesindi episcopi ita ut qui in ipso loco in vita sancta perseveraverint tam presbiter, confessor vel quem diaconus ibidem duxerit … ipsius pontificis sit in eadem prefato loco’. Isla Frez argued that she made the grant to Rosendo as abbot of Celanova rather than as bishop, Sociedad gallega, 83.

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control in 999 probably derived as much from his episcopal authority as from his proprietary interest.²⁵ But these cases are unusual; most ‘gifts’ of churches that bishops made to priests or monasteries could as easily have come from their personal, as from their episcopal, resources, as is sometimes explicitly indicated.²⁶ Contemporaries probably did not differentiate between episcopal and proprietary power on the ground, however. More to the point is the fact that, powerful as bishops were, clearly many other people, lay and ecclesiastical, exercised the power of distributing churches and making appointments too. Bishops do not seem to have exercised control over all establishments within their regions and it is common for Spanish historians nowadays to stress that the power of bishops was declining from the later Visigothic period and probably continued to decline until the eleventh-century reform took root.²⁷ The records note the existence of many churches (ecclesiae), often with an associated priest specified; such priests might hold their churches by agreement with the owner, passing them on to their own offspring or family.²⁸ The owner could be a bishop, or a monastic community, or a lay family, or even the priest himself, and the owner usually exercised an interest in any property that went with the church. Appurtenant property is frequently specified. The priest Cagito was ‘given’ the church of Santo Tomé to ‘live in’ by the owner, the monastery of Samos; when this priest neared the end of his life, he gave the church back to the monastery, together with gifts of his own, and also all the property he and the church had acquired through gifts made for the salvation of souls.²⁹ ‘Church’ in these cases often meant more than a single edifice; a church complex frequently seems to have included dwellings—casas; that of San Román y San Mamed at Mao in Teixeira had a church, houses, a food store, a cook house, a wine or cider press, and orchards, as well as further appurtenant property.³⁰ Many establishments were called ‘monasteries’; monasteries were of different sizes, large and small, and size must have affected their ²⁵ S359. The sanction of S29 (922) appears to refer to episcopal jurisdiction. ²⁶ A bishop’s personal interests: Ov11 (948), S253 (969), for example; the bishopric’s interests are sometimes in effect detailed in the ‘restorations’ of churches that kings made to bishops, e.g. Lii508 (985). ²⁷ Castellanos and Martín Viso, ‘The local articulation of central power’, 8–9, 40–1; Isla Frez, Sociedad gallega, 96–100, has an elegant demonstration that interpolations into tenth-century texts were included to suggest the exercise of episcopal powers. ²⁸ See, for example, Sob48 (994); and cf. Susan Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford, 2006), 541–3. ²⁹ Sam217 (973). ³⁰ Sam99 (?854).


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character. The major house of Cardeña had 204 monks named in 921, while the less substantial local monasteries of San Martín of Modúbar had 33 cited in 975 and that of Piasca in Cantabria had 36 nuns and an abbess in 941;³¹ one would expect a structured day at such institutions. However, very much smaller numbers are also often encountered: that of Santa Olalla de Airas had eleven in 976 (two priests, two brothers, five sisters, an abbot, and an abbess); that at Santa Columba (Melgar) had twelve, and that at San Sebastián y Santa Gadea had six.³² The word monasterium encompasses many different kinds of institution, from large and regular to small and informal, from the property-owning corporation to the family enterprise. Indeed, lay religious households, often headed by a confessus, must have been very difficult to differentiate from a small monastery.³³ For that matter, the extent to which the small monastery was actually any different from a ‘church’ is extremely uncertain—a point reinforced by the facts that the same foundation may sometimes be called a church and sometimes a monastery and that some (although not necessarily all) ‘churches’ appear to have had small resident communities.³⁴ The church at Limanes, discussed above, was explicitly to pass to someone who ‘followed the monastic life’.³⁵ The other side of the problem of differentiating ‘church’ from ‘monastery’ is the problem of establishing the extent to which a ³¹ C14, C167, S79. ³² OD20, S270 (973), S257 (970); see further below, pp. 176–81, for male and female communities. ³³ See below, pp. 107–8, 179–80, for discussion of these lay households. ³⁴ S77 and S126; S39 (930), S257; cf. ‘churches’ with associated abbots: Cel62 (935), Sam226 (947), C108 (963). Cf. the comments of Orlandis, ‘La elección’, 319, on the difficulty of differentiating between churches and monasteries; also Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 252; and M. I. Loring García, ‘Nobleza e iglesias propias en la Cantabria altomedieval’, Studia Historica. Historia Medieval, 5 (1987), 89–120, at 90–1. (For similar issues in the English church at a comparable period, see J. Blair and R. Sharpe, ‘Introduction’, in J. Blair and R. Sharpe (eds.), Pastoral Care before the Parish (Leicester, 1992), 1–10, and also the cautionary words of H. Pryce, ‘The Christianization of society’, in W. Davies (ed.), From the Vikings to the Normans (Oxford, 2003), 138–67, at 147–9.) Isla Frez points out that traditionally the distinction between churches and monasteries was that, unlike churches, monasteries did not have to give up a third of their income to the bishop, a distinction that was in fact very unlikely to have been operative in the ninth and tenth centuries, although Sob48 (994) refers to it; for the elusive third, Isla Frez, Sociedad gallega, 93–9. For debate on whether this third had in fact been operative in the Visigothic period, see M. Sotomayor, ‘Penetración de la iglesia en los medios rurales de la España tardorromana y Visigoda’, Cristianizzazione ed Organizzazione ecclesiastica delle Campagne nell’alto medioevo. Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo, 28 (1982), 639–70, at 650–2. ³⁵ See above, p. 41.

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priest might function independent of a residential community in this pre-parochial world. Given that many clearly lived within religious communities, large and small, and that some must have lived in great aristocratic households, was it ever the case that a single priest served a church? Clearly this is implied where appointments were made by a monastery owning a distant church, as in Cagito’s case above. But many transactions of gift or sale were made by or to priests apparently acting as independent agents, and a good proportion of those transactions related to churches. Some of the transacting priests clearly acted with or for small religious communities; some acted with wife and children; some acted with their wider family; and some acted alone.³⁶ While it remains possible that there was always an unmentioned resident community in the immediate neighbourhood, on balance it is extremely unlikely that this applies to every single transaction made by a sole priest or a priest with his nuclear family. It must be likely that some churches simply had one resident associated priest, even if there was sometimes a lay or religious owner in the more distant background. What we cannot know, however, is the number or proportion of such cases. One would expect priests, be they independent or part of a community, to have gone to the local bishop for ordination, but there is little direct evidence of this. That apart, authority over churches and monasteries seems to have been conditioned by proprietary interests. This impression is partly, of course, an effect of the available records, records which are overwhelmingly concerned with property interests. That may be so, but they nevertheless clearly provide evidence of hundreds of cases of primarily proprietary control. The owner gave away or sold church or monastery as he or she saw fit, or fractions of a church or monastery, as we have seen above. The owner received, or allocated to another body, the income associated with a religious foundation. The owner seems to have had a major influence over the appointment of incumbent priest or abbot. And for whom were the services of a church provided, and indeed what services? Clearly they were available for the owner, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that tenants might benefit where the owner had a nearby or surrounding estate. There are quite a few indications that others too might benefit, that is those who lived in the neighbourhood ³⁶ For examples: A19 (950); Li88 (930); SM52 (949); Cel222 (954), Sob8 (964), S350 (996).


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of a church or a monastery.³⁷ We know that priests and monks wrote documents on behalf of local proprietors, great and small, including documents recording transactions between purely lay persons.³⁸ This happened in all areas, and was already a common practice in the late ninth and early tenth centuries, that is before the flood of transactions of the 930s and thereafter. There are also occasional explicit comments, such as that invoking the duty of the sacerdos at the church of Santiago de Toldaos to proclaim the Gospel to the people; or that relating the need of the many lay heirs of a ‘founder’ for someone to teach them; or the involvement of the peasants of Villabáscones in Castile in endowing their local church—very much a community enterprise.³⁹ To some extent, priests and churches served local communities, just as small monasteries might also do. What services were provided for these nearby residents? Clearly practical services, sometimes, like writing. And teaching, as requested above—moral and spiritual guidance. There must also have been some element of pastoral care, even if it was a rather distant saying of prayers for the people, since there are many references to pastoral care within the charter texts: Felix and Riquilo made grants to San Cosme y San Damián in 943 and 955, respectively, specifically in order that the monastery should manage the care of their souls.⁴⁰ The particular rite of baptism, on the other hand, is rarely mentioned, and so we do not know how this was organized in the tenth century; reference to burial is relatively common, although it is clear that people had a free choice of burial place at this period and although we know much more about aristocratic burial than that of peasants.⁴¹ Endowment of both churches and monasteries with vestments and liturgical vessels ³⁷ I. Álvarez Borge, Poder y relaciones sociales en Castilla en la edad media (Valladolid, 1996), 54–5, 69–70, argues that early churches in Castile were local community churches, but that such churches increasingly became detached from the community as they gained in power. For communities, see below, pp. 193–202. ³⁸ See further below, pp. 95–6. ³⁹ Sam128 (849), Sam170 (930), C45 (944–50) and below, p. 52; cf. C52 (945), C54 (945); and cf. Álvarez Borge, Poder, 55, on the Villabáscones case. ⁴⁰ Li175: ‘ut pro animam meam curam gerant’; Lii293. ⁴¹ See further below, pp. 121–5. See Orlandis, ‘La elección’, especially 264–8, on freedom of choice. The several rock-cut cemeteries of the meseta may well have a bearing on peasant burial in the early middle ages, but their chronology is in need of re-assessment; Julio Escalona points out to me that a site like Revenga (Castile), with its associated traces of a church, must have a substantial tenth-century phase; see J. Escalona Monge, Sociedad y territorio en la alta edad media castellana (Oxford, 2002), 174. M. McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca,

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sufficient to allow celebration of festivals and the saying of mass was not uncommon, but how far there was regular Sunday celebration is unclear.⁴² Although this would obviously have been normal within the monasteries, how far, if at all, the laity could and did participate is unknown.

C H A N G I N G R E L AT I O N S H I P S The situation was by no means static, however, during the tenth century: there were shifting patterns of proprietorship and there was growing competition for authority. Most of the recorded transactions in churches and monasteries are just that—transactions concerned with existing structures and communities. We do not hear much about the moment of foundation because that was usually in the distant past. As noted above, this moment was often located in the period of real or supposed colonization, something that happened in the time of King Alfonso III (866–911), or even earlier, when farms were being stocked and new buildings constructed. Such is the case of Abbot Senior, who founded several churches in Galicia before the 840s, and passed them to his cousin; or the case of Bishop Ataúlfo, who constructed a church of San Juan Bautista on the coast near Oviedo in the late ninth century as a family burial place, an establishment which was still changing hands within his family in 948.⁴³ There were, however, some new foundations in the first half of the tenth century, made by lay couples as well as by clerics. Adosinda and her husband founded the basilica of San Pedro in Sorga sometime before 927, and provided a very large endowment in order to establish regular prayers for herself, her husband, and her children. Bishop Diego built houses and churches near Valpuesta, in the mountains of Castile, and bought land from his brother as an endowment, all of which he transferred to the monastery of Valpuesta in 940. Fafila’s son Egas founded the church of San Vicente at Louredo on the River Miño north west of Celanova, sometime before 952, when his father gave it farms, vineyards, orchards, stock, a silver cross and liturgical vessels, a Psalter, and other books. Churches founded by the ‘men’ (homines) of 1994), 123, points out that it is very unclear if parish priests in France said prayers for the dead before the late eleventh century. ⁴² Cel247, for example. ⁴³ Cel208 (842), Cel271 (879), Ov11.


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Ermegildo and Eldonza in Galicia must have been established in the 950s or 960s.⁴⁴ People were still founding family churches and monasteries until mid-century (or at least we can still see them doing so); after the 950s, records of such foundations disappear. While there may of course be unrecorded cases, it looks as if families stopped expressing religious commitment in this way in the middle of the century. As we shall see, they were more likely to express it by making a donation to an existing major church or monastery.⁴⁵ Although there is a certain amount of information about the founding of churches and about dealing in them, in fact most records of transactions in family churches and monasteries are records of their alienation from the family. Although lay ownership of churches continued throughout the tenth century into the eleventh and beyond, from the 950s there was also a clear tendency for lay families to resign their interests, although they may well have tried to reinforce their own memorialization in the act of so doing, rather than abandon it.⁴⁶ Again and again, a married couple or siblings or a mother and son give away their church, or their villa with its church. Although there are records of lay and ecclesiastical families dealing in churches and monasteries right through the tenth century, what we hear about most is the donation of churches and monasteries to the greater churches or monasteries. For example, to take the decade of the 950s, San Millán records include that of two brothers and their mother giving their church to a local monastery, that of a married couple giving their church to the same monastery, and that of two siblings and a cousin giving their church to San Millán itself; Celanova records have a couple and their children giving their villa and its church to Celanova, as did a family group of six; Cardeña records have a man giving the inheritance that he acquired with his sister, including a church, to Cardeña, as did a married couple and a pair of sisters; Sahagún records have a woman giving her monastery to Sahagún itself, as did a high aristocrat, and a couple of (related) deacons who gave villas and associated churches; Sobrado records have a couple making the key gift of the church and appurtenant property ⁴⁴ Cel247, V16, Cel558, Sam132 (978). ⁴⁵ See below, pp. 124–6. ⁴⁶ Orlandis, ‘Reforma eclesiastica en los siglos XI y XII’, argues that the main movement of alienation came in the mid-eleventh century. This may well be the case, but there are plenty of instances of alienation in other parts of western Europe before the eleventh century; it was a long process and changed during its course; see C. J. Wickham, The Mountains and the City: The Tuscan Appennines in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), 43–7, 57, and Wood, Proprietary Church, e.g. 755.

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to the monastic community of Sobrado itself.⁴⁷ Clearly, we can only measure the records that happen to survive, and in those one might expect donations to churches to predominate, but it is notable not only that records of new private foundations disappear from the 950s, but that records of alienation from lay owners increase. The records that we have clearly suggest changes in practice. What of the status of these founders, dealers, and donors? In most cases we know their gender and we usually know whether they were lay or clerical and if lay whether royal, comital, or other aristocrat. On the basis of surviving material, the alienators were overwhelmingly men, but nearly a quarter of cases involved married couples. In fact, two thirds were religious of one sort or another, especially priests and abbots. Nearly a third of the rest were kings or other royalty, as might be expected; other lay aristocrats feature more frequently than counts, but not as much as kings. It is quite rare to be able to suggest unambiguous peasant participation in this movement—hardly surprisingly, since these are transactions concerning estates. One can sometimes glimpse peasant interest, however, as in the case of the villagers of Villabáscones, twenty-four of whom endowed their local monastery of San Martín with land in 944. Many of the twenty-four witnessed subsequent small transactions and by 956 the community, as a body, was negotiating with the abbot of San Martín about water rights—doubtless a pointer to the increasing power of the abbot.⁴⁸ Here the proprietary interest is that of the local community, or a section of it, not that of the family. There are other cases of community action in relation to local churches, although aristocratic interests are much more prominent in the texts.⁴⁹ CORPUS ET ANIMA Many of the family churches and monasteries that went out of private possession, then, were transferred by priests. It is interesting that a ⁴⁷ SM57 (950), SM70 (956), SM79 (959), Cel497 (950), Cel489 (953), C71/77 (950), C74 (950), C86 (954), S126 (950–67), S145 (955), S165 (959), Sob1 (952). ⁴⁸ See above, p. 49; C45, C87 (955), C89 (956), C108 (963); see also below, p. 204. Castellanos and Martín Viso, ‘The local articulation of central power’, 41, argue that many monasteries may have had pre-tenth-century peasant community origins. ⁴⁹ See further below, pp. 201–2. Note, however, that—both before 931 and in the period 926–1100—J. A. García de Cortázar y Ruiz de Aguirre, El dominio del monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla (siglos X a XIII) (Salamanca, 1969), 83–4, identified more peasant than noble proprietors transferring churches to monasteries other than San Millán.


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significant number of the charters recording alienation by priests include formulas which suggest that—literally—the donor gave himself to a monastery as well as any church and property that might be specified by the text. The most striking of these giving words are those of the common phrase trado animam et corpus (or corpus et animam), as for example occurs in the record of the priest Quíntila’s gift of 13 February 945: ‘trado in primis anima et corpus proprium; deinde ecclesie Sancte Marine et Sancti Iusti propria mea ratione’, ‘I give first [to Abbot Esteban and all the monks living in Cardeña] my own soul and body, and then my share of the church of Santa Marina and San Justo [in Pesquera]’.⁵⁰ Also common are variations on the formula trado memetipsum, as recorded of the priest Ariolfo on 30 March 945: ‘trado in primis memetypsum; deinde ecclesie Sancte Crucis et Sancti Iuliani’, ‘I give myself first, and then the church of Santa Cruz and San Julián’.⁵¹ There are over 150 occurrences of these formulas in these texts, with roughly equal numbers of each of the two main types. What are they about? Do they record the donor’s entry into the power of the receiving monastery, perhaps literally by entry into the monastery? Is this a way of recording that a person joined the monastic community?⁵² The association of these formulas with the transfer of churches by priests to monasteries is particularly striking, and requires some exploration. Orlandis characterized traditio corporis et animae as an indicator of a particular quality of lay relationship with a monastery. He argued that it denoted familiaritas, lay membership of the monastic family, the abbot supporting the relationship by providing either spiritual protection for the lay members, especially in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or socio-economic support.⁵³ The former is not dissimilar to the religious fraternities found in ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-century German contexts (although Orlandis was arguing that there was a specific quality to these relationships in Iberia that was not found ⁵⁰ C48; see above, p. xvi, for a warning that one should not expect classical Latin grammar in these texts. ⁵¹ C49. ⁵² Susan Wood advises me that tradere seipsum does indeed often imply entry to a monastic community in Bavaria and Italy in the eighth and ninth centuries (pers. comm.); cf. Wood, Proprietary Church, 643 n.33, 670 n.68, 758 n.28. ⁵³ J. Orlandis, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’. Laicos y monasterios en la alta edad media española’, in J. Orlandis, Estudios sobre instituciones monásticas medievales (Pamplona, 1971), 217–378, at 254–63 and 309–38 especially. Cf. S. Moreta Velayos, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña. Historia de un dominio monástico castellano (902–1338) (Salamanca, 1971), 102–4.

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elsewhere in western Europe).⁵⁴ A careful look at occurrences within our charter collections shows that, for tenth-century contexts, Orlandis overemphasized the essentially lay character of this relationship, and also that these apparently straightforward formulas conceal a range of different gifts and circumstances. First, corpus et anima, and then related formulas. Tenth-century occurrences of corpus et anima come overwhelmingly from the Cardeña collection, between 917 and 999 (a remarkable 75% of all cases in all the collections considered here); the others are from Valpuesta, Albelda, San Millán de la Cogolla (which include some pre-tenth-century examples), Arlanza, and Liébana material.⁵⁵ This looks like predominantly Castilian practice (see Fig. 2.5). The distribution is so skewed that it suggests that these words arise from diplomatic habits, that is from habits of writing, rather than that they indicate any distinctive kind of transaction. The latter point is also made by the fact that charters in the Cardeña collection which record gifts to other monasteries in the same period often use different formulas.⁵⁶ Trado memetipsum, and variants, also occurs in Cardeña material, of the second half of the tenth century, although much less commonly (20% of all cases); other occurrences (of which there are pre-tenth-century examples) are from San Millán, Valpuesta, Liébana, Sahagún, León, Samos, Sobrado, and Celanova collections. In other words, they come from the western meseta and Galicia as well as from Castile, although nearly a third occur in San Millán material and it would be fair to say that even this kind of formula is relatively rare in collections from outside Castile.⁵⁷ That point is especially notable given the very large numbers of charters from León, Sahagún, and Celanova. Second, the destination of gifts recorded in these ways. Recipients are virtually always abbots and never lay persons; the exceptions are gifts made to two priests and a bishop.⁵⁸ The point may seem obvious but ⁵⁴ Orlandis, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’ ’, 220–1, cf. 263–8; see above, pp. 30–1 for German spiritual networks, and below, pp. 107–8, 177–8 for lay commitment. ⁵⁵ V25, A19, A21, Ar8, Ar9, Ar21, Ar23, Ar24, T76, but cf. also Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, XXIII (919); Moreta Velayos, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña, 102, counted forty-seven Cardeña instances in the tenth century. The verb is usually trado; very occasionally one finds offero (e.g. C162) or commendo (e.g. C117). Further, arguable, cases are Sam210, of 907, from Samos in Galicia, which has the corpus element only; and SM79, of 959, from San Millán, which has the anima element only. ⁵⁶ For example, C80 and C84, within a run of 950s charters using corpus et anima. ⁵⁷ Cf. also the doubtful charter Ov1, of 781, which has anachronistic insertions. ⁵⁸ Priests: C117 (964) and Cel442 (826); bishop: V18 (945), V33 (929–57), V34 (957).


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Figure 2.5 Distribution of corpus et anima formulas

clearly these formulas are explicitly concerned with religious transactions, and are overwhelmingly concerned with gifts to monasteries. The gifts to the laity which feature in these collections are never recorded in this way. Hence, a priori, the expectation that they may record entry to a monastery is entirely reasonable. Next, ranges of meaning. The entry of an individual donor to a monastery is certainly on some occasions made explicit by the accompanying text. For example, the priest Lázaro, along with family members, gave his family church at Pedernales to Cardeña, and then gave himself (anima et corpus) and his share of family property, in 946; Salito, the founder of San Juan and San Millán (Henestra), sometime before 947, gave himself and all his goods to the monastery and became its abbot (tradi metipsum); the priest Citayo gave shares in his property to the monastery of Abellar (León) and agreed to live under its rule in 955 (dono me ipsum); the man Flaino gave all his goods to the monastery of Turieno in the Liébana in 959, and asked to be corrected, in the monastery, if he were thereafter disobedient (concedo me); the priest Vermudo was committed to the monastery of San Juan de Loyo by his parents and ultimately, in 969, gave himself and all his property

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to that community (me ipsum offero).⁵⁹ It is also sometimes explicitly recorded that small monasteries gave themselves to larger monasteries, using these formulas to express the gifts; in effect this must have meant the transfer of property rights from the smaller to the larger institution and presumably, ultimately but not immediately, the end of the smaller institution. Hence, the abbot and ten monks of the former community church of San Martín at Villabáscones gave themselves and properties to Cardeña in 963 (corpus et anima), as did the abbess Argilo and her family in 981 (also anima et corpus), and the abbot Adica and six monks to the monastery of Albelda in 950 (animas et corpora).⁶⁰ The several documents recording ‘pacts’ between an abbot or abbess and a group of men or women agreeing to lead the monastic life are similar; they tend to use these formulas to record their commitment. Agreement between twenty-seven women and Abbess Nonna (759, San Miguel de Pedroso), eleven women and two men with Abbess Urraka (959, Pedernales), another between thirty-three monks and Abbot Azenari (975, Modúbar), all use the corpus et anima formula; another between fifteen men and two women with Abbot Fulgaredo (871, Galicia) simply says tradimus.⁶¹ The last three stress the future obedience of those making the agreement to their abbots and abbess. The eleven people, including a priest, who gave themselves to the church of an unlocated San Pedro in 918, renouncing everything and all their property, may well be a comparable case.⁶² It is therefore perfectly clear that these formulas implying transfer of the person as well as the property were indeed used to record a person’s entry into a monastery, along with an accompanying property transaction, particularly in Castile. This is but one dimension of a wide range of material which shows that it was a normal expectation for monks and nuns who joined monasteries to join taking property with them. The monk Nunila gave all his property to his monastery in Marmellar de Arriba in 949; the monk Diego gave his private church to Cardeña; Abbot Lope of Bezares in the Oca mountains gave all his property to his monastery, sometime shortly after 964; the widow Electa gave to the monastery of Santos Justo y Pastor ⁵⁹ C57, SM46, Lii288, T56, SamS-7. ⁶⁰ C108 (see above, p. 52), C187, A19; cf. the early example (post 785) in Sam137. ⁶¹ SM1, C95, C167, Cel61. ⁶² T24 (perhaps Viñon, a dependency of San Martín of Turieno in the Liébana valley). Cf. the suspect Ov1, a similar pact between twenty-six monks with an abbot and a priest, which states that they renounced the world (abrenuntiamus seculum).


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(just south of León) some lands and vineyards on behalf of her two sons within that monastery.⁶³ The first three of these records use person-donation formulas (i.e. corpus et anima or trado me); the latter does not. Most of the cases cited above use person-donation formulas in sufficient numbers to demonstrate that they were clearly considered appropriate for recording gifts made on entry to a monastic community. However, it is equally clear that some such gifts were made that were not recorded in this particular way. In 950 a couple gave their only son to the monastery of Buezo, with a generous endowment; a priest gave his entire property to a León monastery in 954 in order that he might live there; a man called Airico provided for all his property to go to Abellar if he entered that monastery—the point is nicely made.⁶⁴ Small monasteries handed themselves over to larger monasteries too, without using the formulas: Abbot Crescencio made arrangements in 947 to give the brothers of the church of San Pedro and San Clemente, and all their property, whether real estate or chattels, to Cardeña, although this was to be after his own death; and the six monks of San Sebastián y Santa Gadea gave themselves and all their goods to the monastery of Santiago de Valdávida in 970.⁶⁵ It was not deemed essential to specify gift of self, body, or soul in such cases, particularly in areas outside Castile. By contrast, completely different contexts for the use of persondonation formulas are also apparent. Grants recorded in this way did not necessarily involve the gift of churches; in fact, a greater number (more than twice as many) records the transfer of other kinds of property. Such gifts were made in order to ensure that prayers were said for the donor or to ensure the burial of women and men at the monastery—the body literally placed there by others.⁶⁶ Or they were made in order to ensure practical support of some kind, like care in old age or in widowhood.⁶⁷ Rather more comparably to the Orlandis model, some cases seem to reflect the commitment of the laity—those who continued as laity—to local monasteries. A family, based in Melgar and Gordaliza (south of León), made grants and agreed to serve the bishop of León, as their parents had done (see Fig. 2.3); a series of people ⁶³ C63, C91 (957), C113, Liii528 (989). ⁶⁴ V20, Lii278 (cf. Li121), Li126 (938). ⁶⁵ C60, S257; cf. Liii535 (990). ⁶⁶ C90 (before 957), C39 (942), C117 (964), C211 (999), perhaps Cel81 ‘ubi corpus meum [sic] nunc quiescit’ (973). ⁶⁷ C117, Lii265 (954).

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in the Liébana made grants to Abbot Opila of San Martín (Turieno) between 946 and 962 and commended themselves to serve him; and a man gave his residence and a vineyard to Valpuesta in 957, and himself ten years later.⁶⁸ The women Riquilo and Simplicia and the couple David and Regina made grants and accepted the patrocinium, patronage, of the abbot of Abellar between 955 and 960.⁶⁹ All of these instances use person-donation formulas but the meaning here is quite different from the ecclesiastical cases. Rather than physically enter the monastery, the donors accept a continuing relationship with it: they become clients, accepting the abbot’s patronage and support within the context of local society, as well as undertaking to make regular returns to him.⁷⁰ Although they contain no comparably specific phrases of service or patronage, such an explanation would fit many of the otherwise unexplained occurrences of person-donation formulas very well, particularly those that refer to gifts made by women and by peasant couples, which account for 30% of Cardeña cases.⁷¹ It is clear, therefore, that these self-donation formulas cover a range of different circumstances, from individual priests or lay persons joining a monastic community and transferring their churches, through small monasteries handing themselves over to larger institutions, to lay people opting for monastic patronage (the texts stress that they chose—elegimus —it), and to lay people securing burial or support of some sort. The suggestion, therefore, that use of these formulas might simply be a pointer to arrangements for joining a monastery, or simply be a pointer to lay relationships with the community, will not work; the range is much wider. Although in some cases the context is clear, in many cases the material is just not specific enough ⁶⁸ Lii443 (976); T51–T55, T58, and perhaps T70 (964) and T71 (966); V35, V39. ⁶⁹ Lii293, Lii328, Lii326. ⁷⁰ Cf., without the formulas, Sam170 (930), in which the heirs transfer to an alternative patronage, or S78 (941) on the extensive patronage of a church given to two brothers; see further below, pp. 128–30, 149–54 for systematic discussion of these relationships. For extensive treatment of comparable rural patronage systems in ninth-, tenth-, and eleventh-century Italy, and of the way monastic patronage might ‘structure’ local relationships, see Wickham, The Mountains and the City, especially chapters 2, 7, 9; cf. also, in a study more focused on the monastery, B. H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, 1989), especially ch. 2, on ‘building family associations’. ⁷¹ Tiny proportions from most of the other collections, because these texts are much more likely to specify service or patronage, or because, as in the case of San Millán, donors tended to be priests or abbots, not small-scale laity.


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for us to know with certainty which context is appropriate; however, the relatively large proportion of gifts from couples and single women (sometimes explicitly widowed) must make it very likely that many of these otherwise-unexplained formulas conceal protection arrangements. The latter occur in material from the Cardeña, León, Santo Toribio, Valpuesta, Sahagún, Celanova, and arguably San Millán collections, with over half from the first of these, as might be expected.⁷² The beneficiaries are for the most part the monasteries of Cardeña, Abellar (transactions of which are a major feature of the León collections), Turieno (the origin of most of the tenth-century entries of the Santo Toribio collection), and Valpuesta (also a bishopric), but the Cardeña material includes comparable donations to six other, minor, monasteries, the San Millán material to four other monasteries, the León material to the bishopric and a monastery just outside the city, and the Sahagún material includes a group of donations to the far northern monastery of Piasca, as well as a donation to the monastery at Boñar. The date range of these transactions runs from the second quarter of the tenth century to the end of the century.⁷³ The likelihood that such arrangements result from the actions of abbots aiming to build local clientship networks is reinforced by the fact that the properties donated are local to the benefiting monasteries—for Cardeña they lie in Castile, but often very close to the monastery itself (Cardeñadijo, Castrillo, Orbaneja, and so on); for Abellar much lies in Marialba; for Turieno in the Liébana valley; and for Valpuesta in the immediate environs, such as Pobajas and Gruendes (see Figs. 2.3, 2.6).⁷⁴ It is also significant that the properties donated are of small scale rather than great estates (aristocratic donations did of course occur, but represent different kinds of relationship); hence, one couple gives water rights in ⁷² Cardeña 24, León 7 (including patrocinium cases), Santo Toribio 8 (including service cases), Valpuesta 5, Sahagún 2, Celanova 1, San Millán arguably 7 (though the case for most of these is weaker); 17 refer to donations by females, 13 to those by couples, 22 to those by males, and two refer to mixed groups. ⁷³ Cardeña 932–94, San Millán (?872) 942–97, León 927–89, Sahagún 957–96, Celanova 969, Turieno 946–62 during the abbacy of Opila, and Valpuesta 950–73, largely during the episcopate of Diego. Cf. the comments of J. Gautier Dalché, ‘Le domaine du monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana: formation, structure et modes d’exploitation’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 2 (1965), 63–117, at 65, 79–83. ⁷⁴ The Piasca material in the Sahagún collection (S153) is a different kind of case, and relates essentially to the local relationships of Piasca, itself ultimately absorbed by Sahagún in the early twelfth century.

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Figure 2.6 The proximity of clientship networks to their patrons

the river Arlanzón, a quarter of a mill, and a garden; a man gives half a field, half a vineyard, and a garden; another couple gives nine fields, two gardens, and some buildings; two women give vineyards; another couple gives animals; a man gives a cow, a calf, a goat, and six sacks of grain; a woman gives a field, two vineyards, and a weir, and so on.⁷⁵ These are small-scale, local, patronage networks, networks that are to do with the relationship between churches and peasants. The donors are certainly above subsistence level and have some means, but they are not wealthy people and they are certainly not aristocrats, a subject to which I will return in a later context.⁷⁶ ⁷⁵ C24 (932), C75 (950), C83 (953), Lii328 (960), V33 (929–57), T58 (961), V39 (967), SM102 (991). ⁷⁶ See further below, p. 207–13 for peasants; and for clientship, pp. 128–9, 160–3.


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But there are also different threads here. Priestly donations of churches to monasteries, particularly those made by priests in the Cardeña orbit, were more likely to be recorded by use of the corpus et anima formula than other formulas: using this formula, there are at least twentytwo cases of the absorption by Cardeña of churches and monasteries donated by priests and abbots in the period 917–81, particularly in mid-century.⁷⁷ The principal mechanism used seems to have been that of the priest or abbot formally joining the larger community. Something of the same process is also apparent for other powerful foundations: using these formulas, the church of San Pelayo at Desojo and that of San Bartolomé of Vartical went to San Millán in the 950s; the house of San Vicente went to Albelda in 950; a small monastery in Melgar was given by its members to Sahagún in 973; and there were donations of churches by priests and monks to Valpuesta, Sobrado, and Celanova between 945 and 985.⁷⁸ The formulas are a useful pointer to the fact that private churches and small monasteries were not simply being alienated by their private owners but were being absorbed by the larger monasteries during the tenth century.

P RO P R I E TA RY P O L I C I E S Family interest in churches, monasteries, and ecclesiastical property seems to have been the norm in northern Spain at the start of the tenth century. This is consistent with trends in western Europe as a whole before the eleventh century. Families founded churches and monasteries in Spain, sometimes explicitly in order to perpetuate their own memory, as they did in France, Germany, or Italy.⁷⁹ And they ⁷⁷ See also Moreta Velayos, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña, 46–9, who counted twenty-four churches and eight monasteries absorbed in the period 935–95—regardless of formulas. Cf. other monasteries which absorbed churches in the same part of Castile: Santa María at Rezmondo benefiting from two such grants in the late 960s; and monasteries at Taranco, Mardones, and Henestra as similar beneficiaries in the San Millán collection; C134, C139, (SM2, SM3, SM5—all ninth-century), SM18 (912), SM52 (949), SM83 (959), SM113 (997). ⁷⁸ SM66, SM79, A19, S270, V18, Sob8, Cel558, Cel265; cf. T76; priests gave themselves and their property to Arlanza in 982 but no churches are specified, Ar23, Ar24. See above, pp. 40–1, for the Melgar case. See García de Cortázar, El dominio de San Millán, 107–11. ⁷⁹ See F. Bougard, C. La Rocca, R. Le Jan (eds.), Sauver son âme et se perpétuer. Transmission du patrimoine et mémoire au haut moyen âge. Collection de l’école française de Rome, 351 (Rome, 2005), passim, and above, p. 34.

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often kept control of their foundations, or acquired an interest in others, for many generations subsequently. In northern Spain we can see the clear beginnings of the movement to transfer the ownership of such foundations away from private hands, as the establishment of new family churches came to a halt and the impulse to hand over private churches gathered speed in the mid-tenth-century, well before the influence of the eleventh-century reform movement.⁸⁰ The gift of a church to itself, with its furnishings and appurtenant property, is a characteristic kind of grant, especially in this mid-century phase—‘I give the church of San Pelayo to the church of San Pelayo’, as it were.⁸¹ Whether or not lay families were feeling uncomfortable about possession of religious property by the year 1000 we cannot know, for much was still in private hands at that date. However, the trend towards transfer was clearly well under way. Many of the beneficiary monasteries seem to have developed selfconscious proprietary policies: they acquired more and more property, but they also began to build up clientship networks among the local peasantry and to absorb churches and monasteries into their own communities; this process of establishing lay and ecclesiastical commitment to the monastery is signalled by the use of person-donation formulas, although it is recorded with and without them.⁸² By this latter process, networks of ecclesiastical dependencies were established, known as deganeas/decanias by the end of the century, in a trend that was not dissimilar to the establishment of federations of monasteries in Ireland in the ninth and tenth centuries or the great federation that became the family of Cluny in the tenth and eleventh centuries.⁸³ The monk Gaudinas, for example, gave Celanova the rent he got from Celanova’s dependency (deganea) of Santa Olalla of Berredo in 999—wheat, rye, and millet, to the value of 115 modii, and ⁸⁰ See Wood, Proprietary Church, for full discussion of the changes. ⁸¹ V5 (?870), Cel569 (922), C43 (944), S105 (946), Sam226 (947), Sam93 (951), Lii274 (954), Sob36 (964), for example. ⁸² In contrast, Sahagún is a classic case of accumulation of property in the tenth century, without the particular interest in accumulating ecclesiastical institutions; see J. M. Mínguez Fernández, El dominio del monasterio de Sahagún en el siglo X (Salamanca, 1980). ⁸³ For example, Cel503 (985), Liii576 (997), Cel353 (999); cf. Orlandis, ‘Los monasterios familiares’, 150–6, 159–64; García de Cortázar, El dominio de San Millán, 82–4; Isla Frez, La alta edad media, 256; Loring García, ‘Nobleza e iglesias propias’. For Irish federations, see K. Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society (London, 1966), 57–90, although more recent scholarship would assign the development of most federations a longer time-span than she did.


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more than 160 sesters of wine.⁸⁴ At the time this growth of monastic federations may have presented an even greater challenge to local bishops. These proprietary trends were widespread and occurred on relatively modest as well as grander scales. The disproportionately large number of transactions in churches that are recorded for the 940s is, however, very striking.⁸⁵ Most of these (91%) transferred ownership of the church or monastery from lay or ecclesiastical owner to a monastery, large or small. (Two of the other cases involved disputes over control of churches with monasteries—which makes a complementary point.⁸⁶) There seem to be deep, underlying trends here, towards the accumulation of ecclesiastical institutions by monasteries, for the pattern is as characteristic of Galicia as of Castile, and of Cantabria as of the western meseta, and applies almost as often to minor monasteries as to the great monastic houses. However, as we have seen, some tenth-century monastic collections include a very high proportion of church transactions, while others have far fewer. The unusually high commitment of Samos, Cardeña, and San Millán archives to recording their acquisition of churches and small monasteries in the mid- and later tenth century suggests that some of their abbots had a particular interest in encouraging the donation of churches at this time; if not, one would expect similar proportions in the contemporary records of nearby houses. We have already noted the actions of Abbot Esteban I at Cardeña, Abbot Opila at Turieno, and Bishop Diego at Valpuesta in mid-century; some individual abbots seem to have pursued proprietary policies with particular vigour, developing the local peasant clienteles at the same time as building up the networks of dependent churches. If we might savour a Braudelian moment, there is an extremely interesting complementarity here between the underlying trend and the vigorous actions of some individuals in favour of a few institutions. All of this may seem to fall within the restricted province of purely religious history. It is of course of great importance that certain monastic institutions were developing a particularly entrepreneurial spirit in the second half of the tenth century, not simply in relation to landed resources but in relation to ecclesiastical property in the widest sense; ⁸⁴ Cel353 (999); Gaudinas and his cousin had previously sold this villa to Celanova, Cel354 (989). ⁸⁵ See above, pp. 41–2, for proportions. ⁸⁶ The remaining cases in the 9% are gifts, respectively, to a priest and a deacon, S78 (941), Sam78 (948).

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and that the most successful of them were rivals for bishops. However, the development is of yet more significance than that, because the growth of extremely powerful religious property-holding communities forms the backdrop to local society and local politics throughout the tenth century.

3 Dividing and Sharing Property FA M I LY I N T E R E S TS The widespread occurrence of family churches and family monasteries is only one aspect of the distribution and exercise of property rights within and across families. There is plenty of evidence of shared family interests in all kinds of property in northern Spain at this time; this is demonstrated many times, in all parts, and from beginning to end of the century. For a flavour of this evidence, consider the following cases: four siblings together sold some of the Cea water meadows, on the meseta, to the monastery of Sahagún in 919; five brothers together sold some salt lands in Castile to Abbot Gomessano in 932; much farther to the west, in Galicia, a married couple sold Bishop Rosendo two ninths of their fisheries in the river Miño, one ninth inherited from a grandfather and the other from a grandmother, the text says; a man called Andreas, with his wife Ikilo and his wife’s sister Sarrazena, sold a portion of the hillside which had come to the two women from their late brother; and in 994 two brothers and their two cousins (one male and one female) sold Abbot Falconio (and his mother and sister) some arable inherited from their family.¹ With a greater degree of complication, a woman and her nephew sold her share of a garden to the monastery of Buezo in the Bureba, in 950, and gave away her brother’s share; the nephew was presumably the woman’s brother’s son and stood to inherit both portions, had he not resigned his interest by participating in his aunt’s transaction. Four years later, farther west near León, a priest and his cousin sold the abbot of Santos Justo y Pastor seven eighths of their millrace, leaving the final eighth in their uncle’s hands. In the following decade, Abbot Silo made substantial gifts to the Galician monastery of Sobrado, except for some of the land he ¹ S18, SM20, Cel494 (935), Li183 (944), C207 (congermani, that is, descended from the same ancestors; cf. modern Spanish primo hermano, first cousin).

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Dividing and Sharing Property

had inherited from his parents, which was reserved for his sisters and cousins. And in 986 four relations of a married couple, four children of different parents (called propingus et sobrinus [sic]), confirmed a grant of land on the river Esla to the nunnery of Santa Marina; this grant, which had been made by the couple ten years earlier, comprised a villa with substantial, scattered, appurtenances to the west and south.² Clearly brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, and aunts—and both small-scale and great proprietors—could sustain shared interests in property and knew very well that they did so.³ The control and transmission of property in these Spanish societies raises some difficult questions. However, there were notional rules about it, derived from sixth- and seventh-century Visigothic law, and these rules are occasionally alluded to in charter texts.⁴ Clearly some literate people maintained a sense of ancient legislation governing these matters, and indeed knowledge of precise texts, but it would be unreasonable to suppose that all proprietors (or even all record-makers) did so; in any case, practice in the tenth century clearly deviated from Visigothic prescription in many respects. In what follows, my intention is to indicate actual practice, in so far as it can be deduced from charter texts. Whatever the notional rules, customary practice in these societies clearly respected two main principles: first, landed property rights normally passed from parents to children, male and female, peasant and aristocrat;⁵ second, especially among aristocrats, husbands often made additional provision for their wives. Hence, there are many examples of portions reserved from the paternal inheritance for both sons and daughters, as they also were from common marital property; children of both sexes inherited from their mothers, who clearly in some circumstances could have much more than a life interest in landed ² V26; Lii283 (millrace: recum de molino); Sob7 (961, suprinos); OD26 and OD21. ‘Villa’ can signify farm, estate, a smaller unit of property, settlement; see below, pp. 196–7. ³ See E. Montanos Ferrin, La familia en la alta edad media española (Pamplona, 1980), especially 161–300, in a study covering eighth to thirteenth centuries, on the exercise of property rights by family groups and on the relative importance of different members of the family; action by parents and children is strongly emphasized. ⁴ S190 (961), Sam132 (978), Cel375 (997), for example. ⁵ Cf. the comments of M. I. Loring García, ‘Sistemas de parentesco y estructuras familiares en la edad media’, in J. I. de la Iglesia Duarte (ed.), La familia en la edad media. XI semana de estudios medievales. Nájera, del 31 de julio al 4 de agosto de 2000 (Logroño, 2001), 13–38, at 35.


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property; and children might act as executors for their father’s property.⁶ The marriage settlements of which we have detail, conveyed by husbands to wives, included extensive landed property, as well as slaves and stock. Count Gutier’s gift to his wife Ilduara included a long list of villas, while Gonzalo’s gift to Elvira included lands and houses in at least eight different locations.⁷ Family interest in property rights is common enough in western European medieval societies, involving wider or narrower circles of relatives; such interest most obviously came into play at the point of property transfer, whether by lifetime gift, sale, or exchange, or by inheritance at death. In this northern Spain was no different, but Spanish texts are unusual in also frequently invoking the concept of ownership ‘in common’, especially by the descendants of a common grandfather (‘in common’ here refers to joint ownership of a delimited plot or plots and not the very different case of common pasture rights or common wood-collecting rights⁸). Property could be owned in common by siblings, and by cousins, and the sharing could extend to the offspring of siblings.⁹ Common ownership of this type seems to have been more than the complex of family interests in the transmission of heritable land, such as found in many societies, for it is described in specific and distinctive terms; it seems to have been a special category of ownership, found earlier and later, from north to south and east to west.¹⁰ Hence, we find that in 943 Felix sold land to ⁶ Paternal inheritance: Sob59 (920), Cel498 (927), SM64 (952), Lii323 (959), Sam S-3 (961), Ov24 (990), for example; common property: Cel169 (962); maternal inheritance: Sob66 (917), Ov5 (917), Li225 (950), Lii282 (954), Cel440 (958), Cel492 (988); executors: Lii473 (980). A mother’s heritable property was not the same as the life interest a widow might exercise in respect of her husband’s heritable property, for which she held, as it were, a kind of guardianship on behalf of her children; see further below, p. 73. ⁷ Cel576 (916), S207 (962); cf. Cel577 (926), Cel75 (955), Ov18 (974), Sam239 (985); cf. also Sam198 (1013), in which a gift pro nuptiis had to be renegotiated when Guntroda left her husband for a life of confession and he took a new wife. For these arrangements, see further below, pp. 168–9. Although Gunterigo’s gift to another Guntroda (Cel577) reflects the provisions of Visigothic law in a remarkable way (Forum Iudicum III.i.6), marriage settlements were clearly much more varied than allowed for by the ancient law. Eleventh- and twelfth-century material provides more detail; see M. A. Bermejo Castrillo, ‘Transferencias patrimoniales entre los cónyuges por razón del matrimonio en el derecho medieval castellano’, in de la Iglesia Duarte (ed.), La familia en la edad media, 93–150, especially at 112–28. ⁸ As in SM39, SM40. ⁹ Cf. Forum Iudicum IV.ii, on the rights of collaterals. ¹⁰ The fact that common property existed is a point made many times in the scholarly literature; see, for example, F. de Arvizu y Galarraga, La disposición ‘mortis causa’ en el

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the monastery of Abellar that had come from his aunt Ponia, in a place where he had property in common (abemus comune) with his cousins.¹¹ At a much earlier date, in the far north, in the Liébana, the brothers Pepino and Petrunio gave a married couple half an orchard in Argüebanes which they had in common (abemus comune) with one Monesto. In Castile, in 966, Alvaro sold Munnio the vineyard he had in common with him in Pobajas (quem abeo tecum comune); and earlier another Munnio sold Anderquina half the vineyard in Rama he owned in common with his cousin (abeo comune cum meo coiermano). On the meseta, in 957, a man called Godesteo gave Abbot Julián of Santos Justo y Pastor half of the three vineyards in Matadeón he owned (cummune) with his brother, further land in Oteros, and a quarter of the chattels which he had in common (abeo comune) with his wife and mother-in-law. Over forty years later, two brothers did a deal with the priest Bellite by which the priest was given half of the farm which was the brothers’ inheritance in Matarromarigo, except for two pieces of land which they had in common (comunes) with their cousins, while the brothers got a shroud for their mother, another farm with two houses, and a vineyard.¹² Owning in common could also extend to include religious bodies, whether for reasons of family connection or otherwise: in 958 Egika and his wife sold the monastery of Sobrado their portion of a vineyard they owned in common (habebamus communiter) with the monastery; a few years later, Deutio gave Abbot Opila and San Martín of Turieno the vineyards he had in common with the church of San Pedro of Viñon (abuit comunes).¹³ It is quite clear from these examples that family members derecho español de la alta edad media (Pamplona, 1977), 57; and more recently, M. A. Bermejo Castrillo, Parentesco, matrimonio, propiedad y herencia en la Castilla altomedieval (Madrid, 1996), 321–402. ¹¹ Li167; cf. Cel65 (957), Sam32 (962), Lii439 (975), Cel462 (985), Ov24 (990). ¹² T13 (875); V38; C29 (937); Lii304; Liii585 (999). See, with reference to the early part of our period, G. Martínez Díez, ‘Las instituciones del reino astur a través de los diplomas (718–910)’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 35 (1965), 59–167, at 115–19 (also noting co-litigants); and, largely with reference to Cantabria, M. I. Loring García, ‘Dominios monásticos y parentelas en la Castilla altomedieval: el origen del derecho de retorno y su evolución’, in R. Pastor (ed.), Relaciones de poder, de producción y parentesco en la edad media y moderna (Madrid, 1990), 13–49, who deals with ‘collective’ property, and its division (18–22), but does not differentiate between heritable family property and that in common ownership. ¹³ Sob56; T61 (962—see above, p. 58); on sharing with monasteries, see further below, pp. 80–4.


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differentiated the parts they owned in common from the parts in which they had a simple family interest. We therefore need to think of family land in two categories, even if in practice the categories sometimes overlapped: that which was formally in common ownership and that which was not, though nevertheless subject to family involvement at the point of transmission.¹⁴ Whether or not common ownership involved common exploitation, we do not know, but it is possible, as it is also possible (indeed, perhaps likely) that it involved sharing produce; that is less likely with other family land, in which the family interest was in practice concerned with its heritability rather than its day-to-day management. The fact that there were shared, common, interests in land did not prevent division of common property. We should not think of it as an unchanging constant. The cases cited above show that parties could split their common properties and give away or sell parts of them; they also show that one individual, like Godesteo, could have shares in different sets of common property as well as have other heritable property. Alvaro’s and Egika’s cases also clearly demonstrate that one party to common ownership might buy out another’s interest. Individuals, even at a relatively low economic scale, could have a complex of different kinds of interest in landed property. Just as common property could be split, so could packages of heritable land: we can see the deliberate division of great estates in their transmission from generation to generation. Bishop Rosendo divided the huge estates of his parents, Gutier and Ilduara, with his two brothers and two sisters in 934, assigning the different portions in great detail. Rosendo himself benefited twenty years later when one Gundulf, on his deathbed, split his estate in four—between his wife, his niece, Rosendo, and the church of San Salvador and Santa Cruz of Portomarín.¹⁵ The first is an exceptional but unambiguous case of a five-way split of an inheritance between extremely wealthy siblings, but there are dozens of other cases of siblings agreeing on the division ¹⁴ Compare, for example, landholding in Egypt in the second and third centuries , where land was both owned (and worked) jointly and also ‘divided’ between heirs, at all social levels; J. Rowlandson, Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt: The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford, 1996), especially 172–5. I am indebted to Riet van Bremen for this reference. ¹⁵ Cel478, Cel75 (955). For other examples of formal division (the colmellum divisionis), see Sob63 (877), Sob2/4/5 (955–66), Sam23 (982).

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of their individual, small-scale, inheritances.¹⁶ They might do this by uncontested agreement, as three brothers did in the Páramo area in 947; they might do it unwillingly, as happened when Constancio went to court to claim his share from his brothers;¹⁷ and they would often do it by buying one another out of their interests. Valerio bought property from his brother Marcelino, as did Gemelo and Genetrigo; Nunila son of Ariulfo sold to his sister; and an uncle sold to a nephew, who sold to a female cousin, who sold on to another (male) cousin.¹⁸ Division occurred in the normal passage of property from one generation to another; it was part of the to-and-fro of regular lifetime transactions. The shares of individuals, then, were often identifiable, even if there was an overarching family interest. In 960 Nonelo sold to the powerful lay couple Taurelo and Principia a quarter of the orchards in Ujo that were inherited by himself, his brothers, and his heirs; the quarter was his personal portion, mea ratio. At the end of the century the widow Sendina gave Bishop Froilán half of her villa in Carvajal, a villa which she had acquired with her husband; she gave half only, for the other half had been given to the monastery of San Salvador of Cillanueva by her brother-in-law, who clearly had an interest in her husband’s share—the half she gave away was her share of a joint marital acquisition.¹⁹ Indeed, married couples might act together to sell a share of land which one of them had in common or had inherited with other parties, as did, respectively, Aldoret and Mariem in 944 and Aeiza and Rosacia in 960; the latter sold a quarter of the field they had inherited with brothers and other relatives from an uncle.²⁰ Respective shares might also sometimes be re-assigned: away in the west, the deacon Gunterigo, on behalf of his brother and sisters, split their villa of Filgueira, a property which had been their grandfather’s and then their mother’s, between themselves and Bishop Rosendo, assigning half each.²¹ So, division was possible; consolidation was possible; assembly ¹⁶ For example, Cel71 (916), Cel7 (950), SamS-3 (961), Lii444 (976). Note that, in this respect, aristocratic and peasant practice seem to have been essentially the same, even when aristocrats had power over the people on their lands, as some clearly did; large estates with dependents could be divided, just as small plots of arable could (S328 (985), for example). For tenants and dependents, see above pp. 17–21. ¹⁷ Li194; Li187 (944). ¹⁸ C1 (899), Li97 (933), Sam226 (947); cf. S1 (857), S206 (962). ¹⁹ Lii324; Liii571 (995). ²⁰ Li181, Lii327. ²¹ Cel506 (955).


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Figure 3.1 Family tree diagram from a tenth-century Riojan manuscript, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la Historia, Códice de San Millán 25, fol. 145v

and re-assembly was possible; and re-allocation of shares was also possible.

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FREEDOM OF DISPOSITION One outcome of the splitting of common and inherited property was some capacity for individuals to dispose of inherited land quite freely, without family constraints. The deacon Ermegildo ordered all his very substantial goods to be sold and the proceeds given to the poor; he was clearly not constrained by any family interests. On a much smaller scale, in 954 two brothers, acting as executors for a third brother who had died, gave Abbot Julián of Santos Justo y Pastor a third of some fields in Campo de Villavidel on the river Esla; they administered this alienation of family property on his behalf.²² There is a large literature, particularly of the central twentieth century, on family property in northern Spain. In this literature, the issue of freedom of alienation is much discussed, that is, of how far individuals could dispose of family land beyond the appropriate group of relatives, ignoring or denying family claims. Although large alienations from family property were clearly made in the tenth century, it is notable that portions were often retained for children, like the two thirds reserved by Sesmiro for his wife and children and the half reserved by Gigulfo for his daughters, from gifts made to Celanova;²³ and although the monk Gaudinas gave Celanova all the inheritance he had from his parents and grandparents, and everything he had bought from his aunt and from his uncle’s wife, portions were reserved for his sister and for his cousin as well—the implication is that he respected the reservations of the previous generation.²⁴ Throughout the period covered by our texts, some element of free disposition of family land is evident; however, the critical issue is whether it was possible to give all of it away, and particularly to cut out a child’s interests completely. The texts suggest that there was an expectation that, since inherited land normally passed to them, it should not be diverted from offspring; in other words, the totality of inherited land should not be freely disposable. This is demonstrated by the many cases in which a gift to a religious body was arranged for the future, provided that no children were born to the donor: Vermudo gave several plots in Mansilla and Grajalejo to the monastery of Santos Justo y Pastor, on the meseta, unless his wife were to produce a son, in which case the ²² Li109 (936); Lii273.

²³ Cel70 (962), Cel338 (989).

²⁴ Cel353 (999).


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monastery was to have half; Count Rodrigo and his wife provided for extensive gifts to Sobrado, in Galicia, unless they were to have children, in which case churches and the poor were to get a fifth; Menendo Díaz did likewise for Samos, also in Galicia, the monastery only receiving a fifth in the event of offspring; comparably, Cida Aion gave away all her property, apart from that which was her husband’s, since the latter portion was destined for her children; while a woman called Jimena cut her son’s wife out of his inheritance but not their son.²⁵ The same certainty that children should expect to inherit is indicated when childlessness was the explicit reason for giving: Leticia gave because she and her husband had no children; Elarino and his wife Gundilo reached old age without children, and gave; Eulalia gave because her children were dead.²⁶ Associating children with their parents’ alienations, as also happened frequently, makes the same point in a different way: the children could be presumed to have resigned their interests by joining in making the gift.²⁷ Limiting—to her own lifetime—the interest a widow might enjoy in respect of her husband’s inheritance makes the point in yet another way.²⁸ Despite all those normal expectations, in some cases the inheritance was nevertheless diverted from children. It was not just that families divided common property. People sometimes gave away land from their paternal inheritance, without reservations in favour of children who might yet be born; people also made gifts that established a life interest for siblings or cousins, in effect reducing their capacity to pass on inherited land to their own heirs; and both women and men sold from maternal and paternal inheritances.²⁹ The very fact that some fathers chose to pass inherited property to their sons by written gift, sale, or profiliation (a kind of adoption, in this case literally taking on the son as son) emphasizes that some people were aware that normal rules might ²⁵ Lii303 (956), Sob4 (959—see below, pp. 76–8, for the fifth), Sam175 (973), Liii561 (994—see further below for this case p. 184), S342 (989); cf. Cel75 (955). ²⁶ Li73 (927), Sam119 (931), Li230 (950); cf. Sob122, referring to the generation previous to 960, Sob4 (959), A27 (978). Gifts could also be made to lay parties because of childlessness, as in Cel228 (936). ²⁷ Li195 (947), Lii351 (961), Ov22 (980), SM112 (?997), Liii585 (999), for example; in an alternative version of this kind of transaction, it was the children who made a gift, reserving the larger portion of the transfer until after their mother’s death, C116 (964). ²⁸ Lii399 (966) is a clear case. ²⁹ Lii304 (957); Li83 (929), Li106 (936), Li251 (952), Lii288 (955); sales from maternal inheritance: Sob73 (883), Ov5 (917), Cel440 (958), Lii431 (974), S330 (986); sales from paternal inheritance: Li15 (904), Sob59 (920), Li100 (934), S103 (945), OD9 (950), S195 (961), Cel377 (996).

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be diverted and that they had to take exceptional steps to ensure normal succession.³⁰ Women did this too: Fronilda sold to her daughter.³¹ After a long discussion, Arvizu y Galarraga argued that free disposition was indeed possible by the end of the tenth century;³² the points made above show that this must have been the case, earlier as well as later in the tenth century. Whatever the prevailing expectations, free disposition (i.e. cutting out the interests of offspring and family) was obviously possible. However, what we do not know is the extent to which this happened. This is a difficult issue because many of the texts are ambiguous: from what is written, it is often impossible to know if an entire inheritance was being alienated or simply a part of it. On the other hand, where texts appear to be unambiguous, clearly an inheritance could be alienated and equally clearly there could be reservations for family members; both things did happen, both early and late in the tenth century. In fact, many of the grants of total property after death were made by priests or religious persons and, given their religious status, these are likely to have negotiated separate provision from family property.³³ Moreover, when lay couples made unexplained grants of all their property, to come into effect after death, there must be a possibility that they were in fact childless; apart from the fact that this is sometimes explicitly stated, it must be implied when nephews or cousins were associated with the grant, as also when the gift was in return for care for the couple.³⁴ There are also explicit statements that relations were to have use of the land granted until the donor’s death, but not thereafter, again implying childlessness.³⁵ If so, such alienations did not damage the interests of children, since there were no children. Completely free disposition was obviously possible, but maybe it was not so freely invoked as sometimes appears to be the case. In view of the variety of practice that is evidenced in the tenth century, and of the complexity of property interests people could have, it is difficult to support the proposal that common property virtually ³⁰ Sam61 (976), Lii316 (959), Lii488 (944–82), for example. See further below, p. 84, for profiliation. ³¹ C192 (984). ³² Arvizu y Galarraga, La disposición ‘mortis causa’, 155–62; cf. 351–6. ³³ Priests, for example, Li121 (937), Lii279 (954); with relations associated Liii514 (986). ³⁴ For example, nephews: Lii332 (960); care: Li222 (950—see further below, pp. 139, 151–3. ³⁵ E.g. Li83 (929).


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disappeared at this stage. Barbero and Vigil argued that, in Cantabria and the Pyrenees, one could see a change from communal to individual property.³⁶ We have clearly seen the constant division of family property, in all parts, that is in far more areas than Cantabria and the Pyrenees. We have also seen cases of the disposal of inherited land.³⁷ However, it is not that individual property emerged in the tenth century from a world where everything was owned in common; rather, the evidence suggests a continuum of sharing, dividing, and pooling, in a process that went on for generations. Indeed, in parts of Asturias even today, common property is still shared out, re-assembled after a period, and shared out again in new configurations.³⁸ There is nothing to suggest a gradual change away from common to individual property in the tenth century. We can see families splitting and sharing their lands, and we can see individuals dealing in acquired land, in the earliest texts that survive, from the middle of the ninth century onwards;³⁹ by the end of the tenth century there was still common property, and that common property might occur as much on the meseta as in the far north.⁴⁰ That continuum of sharing, dividing, pooling, and re-dividing may well have been centuries old; what was different by the end of the tenth century was not the introduction of individual property as such but the impact of the proprietary policies of the great monasteries.⁴¹ Those policies meant that individual shares increasingly went out of the flexible family pool and into the hands of the permanent religious corporation—the classic ‘dead hand’. F R AC T I O N S Many of the transactions illustrated above deal in fractions of property; Gunterigo’s division of Filgueira split the villa into two halves, but also ³⁶ A. Barbero and M. Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la península Ibérica (Barcelona, 1978), 370. ³⁷ There was plenty of acquired property around, that is, property which had come to its owner by purchase or gift rather than by inheritance, like Sendina’s half-villa. All the implications are that acquired land was much more freely disposable than inherited land. ³⁸ I am extremely grateful to Margarita Fernández Mier for this observation. ³⁹ See above, T13, S1, Sob73, C1, Ov5, for example. ⁴⁰ Cf. Liii585 (999). We get the same kind of insight, where we have evidence of practice, into the year-by-year process of splitting and sharing in other early medieval societies in which property rights were conceptualized as a family matter; cf. W. Davies, Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany (London, 1988), 67–76. ⁴¹ See above, pp. 61–4.

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rather confusingly referred to the ensuing portions as ‘fifths’. In fact, the fractions that occur in these texts are essentially of two different kinds: on the one hand, anything from a half to a ninth; and, on the other, the ‘fifth’, traditionally that portion of family property which, according to Visigothic law, was available for free disposition.⁴² Each kind has a different significance. References to the fifth (quinta) are widespread, although they are noticeably rare in the tenth-century material of some collections (for example those from Oviedo, Valpuesta, and Otero de las Dueñas) and they are considerably more common in Cardeña material than in that from elsewhere. The term is more likely to be used to refer to things given than to things transferred by other mechanisms, but does not exclusively do so. References are found in credible texts from as early as the mid-ninth century, but most occur from the late 940s onwards and are a particular feature of the second half of the tenth century.⁴³ This tendency to concentrate in the later tenth century is disproportionate to the total spread of transactions. It is also notable in collections with a fair proportion of pre-940s material, such as those from Santo Toribio, Sahagún, and León—in other words, places that recorded transactions in the earlier tenth century evidently did not preference this word;⁴⁴ collections with a high proportion of originals also exhibit the pre- and post-940s difference, again supporting the suggestion that the mid-tenth century saw some change.⁴⁵ The selective use of this word, the association with gifts, and the mid-tenth-century spurt in usage, all make it likely that the appearance of the ‘fifth’ in charters reflects a writing fashion—diplomatic practice—rather than new kinds of donation; after ⁴² There is a vast literature on this. See especially the classic statement of L. G. de Valdeavellano, ‘La cuota de libre disposición en el derecho hereditario de León y Castilla en la alta edad media’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 9 (1932), 129–76; Martínez Díez, ‘Las instituciones del reino astur’, 109; J. Orlandis, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’. Laicos y monasterios en la alta edad media española’, in J. Orlandis, Estudios sobre instituciones monásticas medievales (Pamplona, 1971), 217–378, especially at 277, 279–83 (‘the most frequent’ form of gift); Arvizu y Galarraga, La disposición ‘mortis causa’, 62–3, 179. Orlandis, in ‘La elección de sepultura en la España medieval’, in J. Orlandis, La iglesia en la España visigotica y medieval (Pamplona, 1976), 257–306, remarks at 260–1 on views that the Visigothic fifth was converted into the pro anima quota—an understandable, but arguable, way of looking at its occurrence. ⁴³ 90% post 942; half of the remaining 10% occur in suspect ninth-century charters in the Sobrado collection. SM8, ostensibly but arguably of 867, records the donation of his fifth by an abbot endowing a monastery which he was founding. ⁴⁴ Although T10, of 852, provides an exception to this comment. ⁴⁵ See below, p. 92, for originals.


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all, plenty of gifts of part properties were made before the 940s. The likelihood is reinforced by the fact that a very high proportion of the beneficiaries of transactions in fifths were large monasteries—approximately 75%; this is higher than the monastic proportion of beneficiaries of all transactions, and significantly higher than the proportion of large monasteries that were beneficiaries of all transactions. Donors and vendors of fifths, by contrast, were of very mixed status—often aristocrats, often peasants, sometimes priests or bishops or abbots. Although the fifth, in strict legal terms, meant the alienable portion of family property, as used in these charters it often seems to mean ‘our portion’, ‘our share’, whatever the size and proportion of the donor’s or vendor’s land.⁴⁶ So, tradimus quintam nostram tam in terris quam et in vineis (we give our fifth, arable as well as vines); michi placet ut in mea vita … de terras quomodo de vineas medietate serviet … post meum obitum … illa quinta libera abeant potestatem (I agree that half of the land and vineyards should provide [for the monastery] during my lifetime and … they shall have power over the whole fifth after my death); placuit mihi … ut facerem vobis scriptura venditionis de quinta quam abeo de marido meum [sic] (I agreed to sell you the fifth I got from my husband).⁴⁷ However, sometimes the word conveys more of a sense of a fraction: ‘we give you half our villa, except for the fifth reserved for our daughters’; ‘we sell you a fifth of our portion of the saltpan’; ‘we sell two fifths of our quintana’.⁴⁸ Very occasionally it seems to retain its classic meaning, as it did when Elvira gave a fifth of her vast properties to the poor and to Sobrado in 959, reserving the rest for children, or when Bishop Pelayo’s father provided him with a fifth in order to enter monastic life.⁴⁹ In many cases, then, the ‘fifth’ is little more than a simple word for property and it does not retain much of the strict legal connotation beyond the fact that this kind of property was obviously alienable (there do not appear to be any significant differences in usage in this respect across time or space). It therefore looks as if those creating records for the larger monasteries in the later tenth century adopted the word as a particularly appropriate term for their acquisitions; it was especially appropriate ⁴⁶ Arvizu y Galarraga, La disposición ‘mortis causa’, 65, also makes this point re common goods. ⁴⁷ C116 (964), Liii528 (989), Cel163 (932). ⁴⁸ Cel169 (962), C99 (961), Li198 (947). ⁴⁹ Sob4, Cel461(982). Conversely, however, the part of Eirigu’s property that was not alienated to Bishop Rosendo as payment of a fine was the fifth retained for his three daughters (Cel169 (962)); the term clearly had lost precision of meaning.

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because it held the connotation of free disposability, bringing increased security to properties acquired from families. Other fractions also occur widely and their use is overall much more common than reference to the simple fifth—halves, thirds, quarters, sixths, sevenths, eighths, and ninths. Nor are references to them clustered in the later tenth century, although there are plenty at that time. As demonstrated above, there seems to have been a continuous process of giving, selling, and sometimes swapping, fractions of existing properties. Hence, in 918 a man gave two thirds of a villa in Galicia and one third of a saltpan; a couple of years later, another man sold a quarter of his inheritance from his grandparents, whose portion had been a ninth; later, on the meseta, a couple sold the priest Vincimalo a seventh of some water rights; Sancho gave Cardeña a third of the church at Cardeñadijo in 945; Gunterigo and his siblings gave half the Filgueira villa to Rosendo in 955 (the property already having been split for thirty years); and Nonelo sold a quarter of his family orchards in Ujo to Taurelo and Principia.⁵⁰ Here is an ongoing process of fission: when Sendina gave the bishop of León half a villa, the other half had already been given away by her brother-in-law; Rapinato’s uncle was able to hold on to an eighth of his millrace, but his nephew and his cousin sold the other seven eighths.⁵¹ So also the large estates which fragmented by bequest, like the long list of villas and churches which Gundulf split between his female relations, Bishop Rosendo, and the Portomarín church.⁵² Gifts and sales from very large estates might involve a complex of bits and pieces: a major gift to the monastery of Samos in 982 included fourteen halves of different properties, two different thirds, a quarter, and an eighth, in Bande and in other places.⁵³ The corollary, of course, as argued above, was that the pieces were assembled and reassembled. The process was a process of fission and accumulation not one of simple morcellation. The donors and vendors of these fractions of property were sometimes clerics, and sometimes aristocrats, but, where the portions were tiny, they often seem to have been people of small means—SánchezAlbornoz’s small proprietors themselves.⁵⁴ The beneficiaries of such transactions were overwhelmingly religious but not so exclusively so ⁵⁰ Cel493, Sob67 (920), Li172 (943—cf. Sob19 (931), in which a seventh was exchanged), C54, Cel506, Lii324 (960—see above, p. 70). ⁵¹ Liii571, Lii283; see above, pp. 70, 65. ⁵² Cel75; cf. Cel461. ⁵³ Sam23. ⁵⁴ See above, p. 17.


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as is the case with those who received fifths, and not so invariably monasteries, let alone large monasteries. They include a noticeable number of lay couples—nearly two fifths of such beneficiaries in the León collection and even more in that from Otero de las Dueñas, although proportions are much smaller in Celanova and Sahagún material. The reasons for this variation have more to do with the nature of different charter collections than with regional difference in practice.⁵⁵ Unambiguous differences in regional practice are difficult to identify but there has been some discussion about whether notional halves and thirds were the portions appropriate for conveying an inheritance in Galicia and León respectively.⁵⁶ It is certainly the case, as Carlos Estepa has shown, that grants of a third by profiliation are notable in and around León in the second half of the tenth century.⁵⁷ However, it was clearly a long way from being an invariable practice: there are profiliation grants which used neither of these fractions and León profiliation grants that used halves; there are plenty of alienations of half and third inheritances, in both regions, by transactions other than profiliation; thirds occurred quite frequently in the far west; and a ‘third’ was sometimes a word for a complete inheritance, as a fifth could be.⁵⁸ In fact, use of a half was far commoner, both in Galicia and on the meseta, than use of a third—about four times as common. Giving half to the church and keeping half for the family is a familiar pattern—like half to Celanova and half to the donor Gogino’s sons.⁵⁹ In many cases reference to these halves points to a further process, to something more than the regular, perhaps centuries-old, splitting and sharing between family members. Many half properties that were given away or sold were in effect an advance on the alienation of the whole property. When Brandila gave the monastery of Santos Cosme y Damián all his vines and garden, he kept a half to support himself; the monastery did ⁵⁵ For powerful lay couples, and for the rationales behind donation, see further below, pp. 149–63, 207–8, 126–30. ⁵⁶ C. Estepa Díez, Las Behetrías Castellanas, 2 vols. (Valladolid, 2003), i. 42. ⁵⁷ Profiliation: giving, as if to one’s child; in effect, choosing an heir, making a bequest. See further below, p. 84. ⁵⁸ Profiliation using neither, e.g. Cel228 (936), Lii354 (962); León profiliation using a half, Lii488 (944–82) (cf. Estepa’s note on Liii585, Behetrías, 42 n.12); other alienations of halves and thirds, Cel342 (885), Cel221 (939), Sob59 (920)—sale of half a paternal inheritance; thirds in Galician and Portuguese texts: Cel70 (962), Cel343 (995), and Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, XXIII (919), XXXIX (933), CXVII (976), CXXI (977), CXXXIII (981); third as whole: Lii455 (978). ⁵⁹ Cel575 (954).

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not pick up the full grant until his death. So also Vistrario’s gift to Celanova and Electa’s to the monastery of Santos Justo y Pastor.⁶⁰ Or one family member might give half and another give the other half, like Vizamondo’s sale of half a house to Celanova (his mother had already given the other half ) or Jimena’s gift of half a villa to Sobrado (her uncles had already given the other half ).⁶¹ This process—far from regular family splitting—was about making provision for the church, in effect diverting the inheritance away from the natural heirs. It is such cases that give power to the argument for increasing freedom of disposition.

SHARING Property might be split up but it was also owned in common, as discussed above.⁶² Not only that; it is clear that common ownership of property could sometimes be deliberately extended by the creation of new shares. There is a kind of transaction recorded in some charters called the incommuniatio, the act of including another body in the group of sharers. Hence we have references to cartulae incommuniationis (occasionally scriptura incommuniationis)—charters recording the extension of sharing—and references to making such transactions (faceremus vobis incommuniationem or incommuniamus); kartula inparzationis and inparcamus are occasional variants.⁶³ Most of the contexts for sharing are straightforward: usually couples (but sometimes the actor was a single individual or a parent and children) shared all or more commonly a fraction of their property (a half, a third, a fifth) with another party, most frequently a bishop or abbot.⁶⁴ The properties were often of small scale and portions could be reserved for heirs. Occasionally the transaction was in return for a price paid and sometimes it was in the expectation of help and support.⁶⁵ It is rare for detail to be included of how this sharing would work in practice but one text of 992, relating to Bubal in Galicia, relates how Ikila Fafilaniz and ⁶⁰ Li150 (942), Cel68 (989), Liii528 (see above, pp. 56–7). ⁶¹ Cel73 (954); Sob64 (984). ⁶² See above pp. 68–70. ⁶³ See what follows for references to the standard forms; for the variants: scriptura incommuniationis Cel231 (943); facere incommuniationem Cel424 (934); inparcare and kartula inparzationis Cel476 (941). ⁶⁴ Cel424 (934), Cel476 (941), Cel343 (995), Cel519 (998). ⁶⁵ Cel394 (956), Cel519; for help and support, see below, pp. 151–3.


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his wife Ocorabia shared half of their inheritance with the monastery of Celanova; they were thereafter to give the monastery half of their produce of wine and a quarter of their bread every year; however, if the monastery were to give them cattle and land for development, they would increase the bread render to a half.⁶⁶ It seems likely that this kind of arrangement underlies many of the transactions extending sharing. Whether for reasons of piety, or to gain some benefit, or because they were persuaded, peasant families might agree to make regular returns to a monastery by entering into such sharing (in effect, share-cropping) arrangements. That this was familiar in Galicia by the late tenth century is indicated by the fact that royal gifts and confirmations could mention people who were committed to share, homines incomuniatos, resident—amongst others—on land that was transferred, people who were obliged to make returns to the new owner.⁶⁷ It was expected that some such people might be present on great estates and that they would have a tributary relationship with the owner. Couples of relatively limited means were most often involved in such transactions, as far as our records go, but there were others too. An aristocrat extended shares to a countess in order to compensate her for killing one of her attendants; a priest shared half a church with another person, for reasons unknown.⁶⁸ On the other hand, sometimes references to sharing are so vague that the term barely seems to denote more than ‘transfer’: a list of small portions by the river Arnoia given by the couple Julián and Olalla to Celanova in 950 ends with a dating clause which refers to this cartula donationis et incommuniationis, charter of gift and sharing; and the widow of a duke referred to property she and her husband had acquired by purchase, gift, and incommuniatio.⁶⁹ While many of these references clearly record a distinctive kind of transaction, some may not. All of the above examples come from Galicia and from the Celanova collection. In the tenth century the terminology of sharing was overwhelmingly a feature of Celanova charters and the beneficiaries were overwhelmingly abbots of Celanova. There are four more examples from the Sobrado archive, where the beneficiaries were the couple ⁶⁶ Cel490. ⁶⁷ Cel5, cf. Cel53 (both Vermudo II, of 986 and 988 respectively); cf. Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LXXVI (959) and CXXXVIII (983), recording very large grants by high aristocrats. ⁶⁸ Cel456 (940), Cel231 (943). ⁶⁹ Cel497, Cel210 (991).

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Ermegildo and Paterna, whose property formed the core of the tenthcentury Sobrado estate, and King Ordoño.⁷⁰ There are also about half a dozen tenth-century occurrences in northern Portuguese charters, most of which relate to the monastery of Guimarães and neighbourhood.⁷¹ Very occasionally these words occur elsewhere, sufficient to indicate that this habit of thinking was not completely confined to the far west. There is a particularly suggestive charter in the León collection. The charter, surviving on a single sheet, is largely concerned to record a sale of some land, a house, a vineyard, and a ninth of a mill to the abbot of Abellar by a woman and her daughter Aurifila. This was their inheritance from the woman’s first husband, Aurifila’s father Abraham, who had previously divided it with his brother Juan. Clearly the woman had remarried, for a final section of the charter adds that Aurifila has agreed to this sale because her mother and stepfather had given her rights, alongside the children of their new marriage, by sharing her stepfather’s property with her (pro que me incomuniatis in vestra ereditatem [sic]).⁷² Here is a glimpse of the fact that this concept of extending membership of the common pool—incommuniare —was not confined to Galicia, and that, as in the Sobrado and some of the Portuguese cases, it could be used to refer to straightforward lay transactions. Were it not for these cases, this might simply look like a feature of Celanova’s diplomatic practice. However, the manner of reference, and the number of variants, suggest that it was probably more than that: the terminology seems to reflect a habit of thinking, a way of looking at things, and a kind of transaction, that was particularly characteristic of Galicia and northern Portugal. Notwithstanding all that, we should keep in mind the rarity of this word in tenth-century text: the total number of cases is small—little more than twenty in Galicia and a handful in Portugal—and three quarters of the Spanish cases come from the Celanova archive, recording grants to Celanova; a good case can also be made that the monastery of Guimarães, source of several of ⁷⁰ Sob29 (931), Sob14 (942), Sob32 (941), Sob30 (955); also Sob15 (945), but this charter is also twice carta donationis and once carta venditionis. See below, pp. 135–8, 156–60 for gift/sale ‘confusion’. ⁷¹ Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LIX (949), LX (950), LXXVI (959), CXXXVII (983), CXXXVIII (983), CLXVI (992), CLXXIII (995). Several of these texts survive in very late copies; several relate to the property of Countess Mumadona, founder of Guimarães, preserved in the so-called ‘Livro de Mumadona’. ⁷² Li156 (942).


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the Portuguese examples, had a close relationship with Celanova at that time.⁷³ It looks as if, whatever wider currency there may have been, this was a way of thinking about giving that was picked up and extended by the Celanova scriptorium, just as traditio corporis et animae was picked up and extended by the Cardeña scriptorium. Transactions of incommuniatio have occupied a place in the scholarly literature, however, that is out of all proportion to their occurrence. Sánchez-Albornoz argued that incommuniationes were the equivalent of the later benefactoría agreements of Castile and León and represented the commendation of donors to beneficiaries, in other words freemen submitting to a powerful lord for protection.⁷⁴ Estepa has shown that incommuniatio and benefactoría were not as identical as SánchezAlbornoz assumed, but Isla Frez, in an influential paper of 1984, took the argument in a different direction.⁷⁵ He stressed that use of incommuniatio was indeed a technique by which the powerful appropriated property but argued that it differed from Sánchez-Albornoz’s commendation because it established hereditary obligations of dependence from the heirs of the donor to the heirs of the recipient.⁷⁶ He drew parallels with gift by profiliation (the practice of adopting an heir, profiliatio) ⁷³ See J. Mattoso, ‘Portugal no reino asturiano-leonês’, in J. Mattoso (co-ord.), História de Portugal, I, Antes de Portugal (Lisbon, 1993), 441–562, at 473–4; cf. C. J. Bishko, ‘Portuguese pactual monasticism in the eleventh century: the case of São Salvador de Vacariça’, in C. J. Bishko, Spanish and Portuguese Monastic History 600–1300 (London, 1984 [first published 1982]), IV.139–54, at 152–3. Mumadona, in whose charters these words occur, was the daughter of Bishop Rosendo’s sister Adosinda (Mattoso, ‘Portugal no reino asturiano-leonês’, 537) and Rosendo (of Celanova) is named as a signatory to Mumadona’s large endowment of Guimarães, of 959 (Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LXXVI). As it stands, this text raises questions of authenticity, although it was used by Mattoso as a credible charter (A nobreza medieval portuguesa. A familía e o poder; 2nd rev. edn. (Lisbon, 1987), 141, 271), and it is quite clear that Mumadona was a member of the Galician aristocracy, of which Rosendo himself was so much a part. It is also the case that both of Rosendo’s parents had Portuguese properties; see M. del C. Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, una Aristócrata del Siglo X (La Coruña, 1998), 12, 49, 50. ⁷⁴ C. Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Las behetrías: la encomendación en Asturias, León y Castilla’, in C. Sánchez-Albornoz, Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1976–80), i.17–191 (first published in Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español, 1 (1924)), at 67–96; cf. his ‘Pequeños propietarios libres en el reino Asturleonés. Su realidad histórica’, Settimane di Studio del centro italiano sull’alto medioevo, 13 (1966), 183–222, at 187. He was in part following earlier, Portuguese, commentators. See below, pp. 153–4, for commendation. ⁷⁵ A. Isla Frez, ‘Las relaciones de dependencia en la Galicia altomedieval: el ejemplo de la incomuniación’, Hispania, 44 (1984), 5–18; Estepa Díez, Las Behetrías Castellanas, i. 41–5. ⁷⁶ Isla Frez, ‘Las relaciones de dependencia’, 5, 8, 16; cf. idem, La sociedad gallega en la alta edad media (Madrid, 1992), 228–34.

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and argued that both incommuniatio and profiliatio were mechanisms by which strangers acquired rights in family property and other relations lost rights. As a broad interpretation, this is entirely reasonable, as it is also reasonable to suggest that in the long term powerful people acquired more and more rights over the property of free peasants.⁷⁷ However, Isla’s arguments, like Sánchez-Albornoz’s before him, depended very much on eleventh-century texts. In tenth-century texts, the term had a more limited range of reference and occurred in very limited contexts; above all, it was rare. In the tenth century it could be associated with an obligation to return produce to the recipient; it was not associated with menial dependence. A word on profiliatio. This ‘adoption’ technique was a mechanism for passing on property to a body, as if to a child, as many texts explicitly say.⁷⁸ In the tenth century it was used by childless people to nominate heirs; by people with children to win favours or support from the powerful or the well-off; by people with or without children to reward others for service of some kind; and, increasingly, by people with or without children to make bequests to the church, both in vitam and post mortem, in life and after death.⁷⁹ It is often little more than donation (cartula donationis vel perfiliationis is very common) and the choice of this particular word may reflect a need to stress an unusual mechanism in a world where freedom of disposition was far from generally agreed. The contexts of its use in the tenth century were several, although sometimes, as Isla argued, it clearly operated like incommuniatio, as a method of sharing property with others.⁸⁰ As in that case, there was not much of dependence about it: some gifts were only to come into effect after the donor’s death and many gifts were of part, rather than total, properties.⁸¹ ⁷⁷ See above p. 28. The argument that ‘tribal society’ was collapsing is rather more questionable; the notion seems to depend on uninvestigated assumptions about the relationship between blood, family, and ‘tribe’; Isla Frez, ‘Las relaciones de dependencia’, 9, 11; Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo, 384, 394 (where profiliatio is deemed to supply ‘proof ’ of the survival of tribal society). ⁷⁸ S143 (954), S178 (960), S191 (961), for example. ⁷⁹ For example, in vitam: S184 (960), Lii356 (962); post mortem: Lii455 (978). ⁸⁰ Lii331 (960), S184 (960), for example. ⁸¹ See further below, pp. 160–1, for more detailed discussion. Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo, 380–94, presented the classic and much-cited treatment of profiliatio, as an ‘instrument to break the social and economic cohesion of consanguinity’ (ibid., 384), but even they stressed that its importance came in the late eleventh century (ibid., 380), and they paid little attention to tenth-century texts.


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Incommuniare, and sometimes profiliare, were about sharing property; they were not about total alienation. Obviously anyone could do it—peasant or aristocrat, lay or cleric. Perhaps a familiar concept across a much wider area, it seems to have been more common in Galicia and Portugal than elsewhere and to have been taken up by the Celanova scriptorium for the specific purpose of describing a type of ecclesiastical endowment. It is often viewed as a kind of Galician equivalent of the gifts which led to Frankish precarial grants, temporary grants made by a landowner; in the Frankish world, peasants are seen to have given up ownership of their plots to more powerful landlords, receiving them back as precaria, and paying regular dues from them thereafter. Even if there is a superficial similarity here, the Galician process was not the same.⁸² It was conceptually different because the donor by incommuniatio remained an owner and did not simply become a tenant or leaseholder. It was also in practice different since the donor of a shared plot might well reserve a portion, unshared, for his or her heirs, frequently retaining full ownership of a portion for himor herself. Tenth-century incommuniatio was, in effect, a strategy for preserving family interest in property: by extending shares in the pool of common property, families strove to preserve their own proprietary powers.

FA M I LY S T R AT E G I E S In the face of growing church proprietorship and increasingly aggressive exploitation of their properties by some abbots and bishops,⁸³ the existence of fractions and the habit of ‘sharing’ let us see some of ⁸² For the standard approach, see R. Latouche, The Birth of Western Economy, trans. E. M. Wilkinson (London, 1967 [first published 1956]), 24–6, on fifth-century Gaul. The precaria (initially precarium), really a grant on light terms in response to a petition, came to denote many different kinds of arrangement; for early forms see I. Wood, ‘Teutsind, Witlaic and the history of Merovingian precaria’, in W. Davies and P. Fouracre (eds.), Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1995), 31–52, at 43–9; and for the development, S. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994), 78–9, 89–90, etc. See further references below, p. 86, n.84. Precaria were known in Spain (Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo, 76–9; Wood, ‘Teutsind, Witlaic’, 46), but there is no need to suppose any direct connection between the precaria of Isidore and of the Visigothic law codes and the incommuniationes of the tenth century. ⁸³ See above, pp. 61–4.

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the strategies employed by families to preserve their own interests in their property. By sharing they kept some; by dividing and alienating a fraction they got to keep a fraction, often a larger fraction, although some appear to have alienated totally. Although, overall, it looks as if there was some diversion of property from independent proprietors to largely religious, and some lay, landlords, this process was modified by sharing and by splitting off portions. These strategies for preserving family interest look different from some of those employed in the Frankish world, where full ownership of property might be alienated but continuing rights to the usufruct of the property negotiated.⁸⁴ (Some Spanish alienators of the tenth century did similarly reserve rights to the usufruct for family members, but such cases are very rare.⁸⁵) The usufruct strategy implies greater levels of, and more rapidly developing, dependence, than the sharing strategy. If the apparent contrast here is a real contrast, one would expect a stronger, less dependent, peasantry in northern Spain in the central middle ages—that is, a world with higher proportions of free peasants and with obligations of less menial kinds—as indeed appears to be the case; this might go some way to explaining the distinctive types of lordship that emerged there. What is particularly interesting here is that there do seem to have been deliberate strategies for preserving family property.⁸⁶ Although this chapter has emphasized some differences from strategies employed elsewhere in western Europe, others were more similar: we have already noted the founding and maintenance of proprietary churches; we shall in due course see the spread of family memorialization.⁸⁷ Against the backdrop of the continuing fission and re-assembly of family property, new things were happening to property in the tenth century. These most obviously followed from the development of entrepreneurial proprietary policies by the great monasteries and the consequent diversion of some family property into their hands. But they also involved some shifts in habits of recording property transfer, as different monasteries brought their preferred words into the record. The language of transfer already ⁸⁴ See above, p. 34, and see F. Bougard, C. La Rocca, R. Le Jan (eds.), Sauver son âme et se perpétuer. Transmission du patrimoine et mémoire au haut moyen âge (Rome, 2005); cf. the hundreds of precarial grants in eighth- and ninth-century Saint-Gall material, H.-W. Goetz, ‘Coutume d’héritage et structures familiales au haut moyen âge’, ibid., 203–37, at 222–9, and those in France, Switzerland, and Italy cited below, p. 134. ⁸⁵ Cel7 (950), Cel251 (993), for example. ⁸⁶ Cf. Isla Frez, Sociedad gallega, 226, on aristocratic strategies for preserving the patrimony, although his focus is on the prevention of fragmentation. ⁸⁷ Above, pp. 36–44; below, pp. 123–6.


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had some distinctive characteristics, with—for example—its unusual emphasis on the concept of common ownership. In the later tenth century great monasteries used words like quinta to emphasize the disposability of the portions they acquired, and places like Celanova appropriated the concept of incommuniatio. The interplay between changing practice and the changing language of donation was subtle; and it can offer further clues to understanding what was happening on the ground.

4 The Language of Donation FORMULAS The language used to record the making of gifts in these tenth-century Spanish texts is often brief and simple but it is also often very elaborate, and laced with pious explanations; in extreme cases it can be very convoluted. That may at first sight appear problematic but it is, on the contrary, rather helpful: while the genre is undoubtedly formulaic, there is a great wealth of different forms within these records; to dismiss this kind of writing as simply formulaic would miss a key to one level of understanding of process and relationships.¹ The range of language deployed has to be taken into account and its significance explored. At the simplest level, a record of donation might run as follows: ‘In the name of God. I and my wife greet you, abbot and brothers of monastery X, in the Lord. We have agreed, of our own free will, to make you a charter of donation, for the salvation of my parents. I give the arable which is at the place Y, completely; and I include half of the meadow there. Let power be given to you so that you have this securely and can do whatever you wish with it’. A detailed indication of the land’s location may often be included; and the record usually concludes with a secular sanction against anyone who contravenes the gift, a dating clause, and a witness list.² A common elaboration is the ¹ A point made in the brief but helpful discussion of the value of ‘useless formulas’ in J. L. Martín, ‘Utilidad de las fórmulas ‘‘inútiles’’ de los documentos medievales’, in Semana de Historia del Monacato: Cantabro–Astur–Leonés (Oviedo, 1982), 81–6. ² ‘In Dei nomine. Ego Aiza et uxor mea Argentea vobis domno Sperando abba et fratres Sanctorum Iusti et Pastoris monasterio, in Domino salutem. Placuit nobis atque convenit, propria et spontanea nostra voluntate, ut faceremus vobis kartula testamenti, pro remedio de parentum meorum. Concedo illud, ego Argentea, ipsa terra qui est in locum predictum iuxta karrale qui pergit ad illa nave, et de alia parte terminum …, ab integra; etiam aditio vobis in illo prato medietatem. Ut abeatis illud firmiter de dato nostro, et quicquid exinde agere, facere vel iudicare volueritis, sit concessa vobis potestas. Siquis aliquis homo ad inrumpendum venerit vel venerimus contra hanc kartula, hanc

The Language of Donation

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addition of a clause spelling out that control of the land freely transfers from one party to the other, as in: ‘In the name of God. I and my wife greet you in the Lord and in eternity, Doña Fredesinda. There is no doubt, but it should be noted that we will give you, and we do give you, half of our land at Z; and from this day it shall be transferred from our right (iure) into your control (dominio), and whatever you want to do with it, you have free power’. ³ Such charters are not long (preamble, notification, and disposition may number no more than sixty or seventy words) but they are not casual; they are formal documents, and use standard formulas; we often know who wrote them, for the scribes are identified, as the priest Gauventio is in the second example above.⁴ The more elaborate charters use a much wider range and greater number of formulas as preamble and by way of explanation of the gift, and often include religious sanctions; comparable phrases sometimes occur in records of sale or exchange but they do so very infrequently, for elaborate language is a particular characteristic of gift texts.⁵ The range of formulas is indeed surprisingly wide, although the range of ideas they convey is quite limited. The donor is weighed down by sin or looking for expiation or remission of sins; he or she fears hell or wants to evade the infernal penalty, or the torment, or the abyss; more positively they (for the donor is often a married couple or a group of siblings⁶) want to enjoy paradise, or the heavenly kingdom, or the celestial mansion; they want eternal life; they want to be for ever joyful with the saints (or angels, or the chosen); they often want a reward (or recompense); or they want to be worthy of eternal glory; on the day of judgment, when the trumpet sounds, standing before God, they want per me, hanc per extranea, que ego et Argentea vindicare non valuerimus, ut pariemus vobis ipsa hereditate duplata, et vobis perpetim abiturum. Facta series testamenti et adfirmationis v kalendas novembris, era DCCCCLXXXVI. Argentea in hanc kartula testamenti a me facta. Aiza qui sum vigario de Arenta et adfirmo. Amoroze ts.’; Li203, of 948. (In this particular case it is the wife’s land that is given, and the husband acts for her; see below, p. 171 for comparable cases.) In translating this and other examples in this chapter, I have in most cases aimed to convey the meaning in modern English, rather than give a literal translation. ³ I quote the sense of the introduction and main giving words, Li11, of 897. ‘Ut de odierno die et tempore de nostro iure in vestro dominio sint vestri donati adque concessi, et quidquid de illos facere volueris, liberam, in Dei nomine, abeas potestatem.’ ⁴ ‘Gauventius presbiter ubi rogitus fuit scriptor manu ( The priest Gauventio, as requested, wrote [this] by [his own] hand).’ See below, pp. 99–102, 91–8, for scribes and for the sources of standard formulas. ⁵ Sale and exchange, for example, Lii489 (982), C191 (984). ⁶ See above, pp. 65–71, for owning in common and shared family interests.

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the beneficiary to intercede for them. Of course, many of these ideas draw upon biblical statements and some texts quote directly from Old or New Testament—especially from the Pentateuch, Psalms, Proverbs, or Gospels, in a wide range of styles. So we find ‘this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations’ (Exod. 3: 15) in the record of a very large gift from a deacon to the bishop of León; the rather gloomy ‘the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others’ (Ps. 49: 10) in a charter recording a religious woman’s gift to a monastery; and ‘I have no pleasure in [emended to ‘I do not want’] the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from this way and live’ (Ezek. 33: 11); or, unsurprisingly, ‘Give, and it shall be given unto you’ (Luke 6: 38) in records of many gifts, whether large or moderate; and, as is common in records with a royal interest, ‘Come … inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt. 25: 34).⁷ In all of this the fertility of expression is striking, particularly since the material comes from only one century, from only one—admittedly large—region, and from the writings of communities that were prone to use the formulaic. Take for example the simple idea of the burden of sin. Here is a flavour of the range of different ways this might be expressed: ‘pecatorum nostrorum oneris pregravationem’; ‘criminum pergravatum et copia peccaminum oppressum’; ‘ex toto peccatorum mole depresso’; omnem nigredinem peccatorum’; ‘cunctorum meorum nexibus … peccaminum’; ‘molle criminis delictorum meorum’; ‘ingentis sceleribus opressum’; ‘veniam … nostrarum noxarum’; ‘peccati gravati’; ‘ego namque peccator’; and the telling ‘A me etenim inutile et peccatrix (And so I, useless and a sinner [salute you in God])’.⁸ Likewise, the apparently straightforward concept of the day of judgment can be expressed in many ways: ‘ducat me ante tribunal Domini nostri Ihesu Christi’; ‘in illa examinatione’; ‘apud Deum’; ‘ante Deum’; ‘ad diem sancti tremendi iudicii’; ‘dum in examinis diem (apparueris magnus et manifestus)’; ‘ad diem magni iuditii’; and the more personal ‘Domine tu ⁷ Li109 (936), Lii413 (970), Lii490 (983), Lii274 (954) and Liii535 (990), Liii548 (991), for example. ⁸ Orthography and grammar frequently stray from classical norms; I quote the texts as printed, without attempting ‘improvements’; see further below, pp. 99–104. Examples are from Li5 (873), Li42 (917), Lii409 (968—common in many collections, cf. SJP30 (995)), Lii265 (954), Cel247 (927), Lii296 (956), S105 (946), SM97 (984), OD21 (976), Sob52 (930), Liii520 (987); León material has a particularly wide array, not just because it is the largest collection, but because it draws on a wide range of different recording traditions in its neighbourhood; see further below, pp. 92–7.


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es iustus iudex’.⁹ Some charters deploy almost the entire array of these phrases; some select one or two; and, as we have seen, some have none at all, even for donations to a church or monastery. That difference of approach to the record is interesting and is worth exploring further.

C R E AT I N G T H E R E C O R D S Whether or not the language deployed is elaborate or simple is partly to do with the identity of the beneficiary—but not entirely so, as I shall demonstrate below. Drafting by the beneficiary is clear in many monastic contexts. The same phrases can occur again and again in records favouring a particular monastery, sometimes across several decades, as we have already seen with Cardeña’s repetition of tradere corpus et animam and Celanova’s of incommuniationes.¹⁰ The brief but distinctive ‘ut evadamus portas inferni (so that we may evade the gates of hell)’, also signals a gift to Cardeña.¹¹ Celanova record-makers had a particularly neat way of expressing the benefit to the donor: ‘Et abeatis vos inde temporale subsidium et ego ante Deum premium inconvulsum (and from that you will get a temporal subsidy, while I [will get] a continuing prize in the presence of God)’.¹² Sahagún writers had a very distinctive invocation which marks their records of gifts to their monastery; there are variants but the words ‘Patronis sanctissimis Sanctorum Facundi et Primitivi quorum corpora tumulata dinoscitur esse in locum super crepidinis alvei Zeia’ usually constitute the core.¹³ For a period in the 940s and 950s the scribes of San Martín of Turieno in the Liébana valley used a distinctive local diplomatic to record substantial lay gifts to their monastery, incorporating the words ‘quia per vestris sanctis ⁹ ‘May he lead me before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ’, Li177 (943), cf. Liii570 (995); ‘in that examination’, C32 (939); ‘in the presence of God’, Lii274 (954); ‘before God’, Cel36 (889); ‘at the day of the holy, tremendous, judgment’, OD29 (988); ‘while at the day of examination you will have revealed [yourself ] great and visible’, Cel256 (936); ‘at the day of the great judgment’, Cel246 (969), Liii555 (993); ‘Lord, you are a just judge’, Cel256 again. ¹⁰ Above, pp. 54–6, 80–3. ¹¹ C30 (937), C147 (971), C172 (977), C201 (988), etc. ¹² Cel177 (952), Cel503 (985), Cel209 (997); cf. Cel210 (991), Cel216 (993). The sentiment sometimes occurs in other collections too: e.g. Sob38 (985), S352 (996). ¹³ ‘To the most holy patrons, Saints Facundo and Primitivo, whose bodies are distinguished by being buried in a hollow in the ground in the place Cea’, S128 (950), S221 (964), S228 (965), S245 (966), S255 (970), S293 (978—incorporated in a royal charter), S303 (980), for example.

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orationibus me arbitror impetrare ut fruar celestibus regnis quia nichil me abere bonum recordor ex meritis; et qui hec paginola tenuerit pro N non pigeat orare si Deum absque verecundia videat’.¹⁴ And the more elaborate ‘et/ut eorum sufragiis eruamur ab omni malo flagitiorum, et post heredes fieri mereamur in regno polorum’ signals what San Millán deemed appropriate for Navarre royal grants in its favour.¹⁵ The monastery of Abellar seems to have enjoyed quoting a version of ‘O Lord God … keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people’ (I Chr. 29: 18), when gifts in its favour were recorded,¹⁶ while grants to the bishopric of León (whether to the same or to several different bishops) can share several lines in common.¹⁷ It would seem that straightforward gifts to a major monastery or bishopric were usually recorded by the receiving institution, using its standard favoured formulas. Indeed, it looks as if record-makers at those and other institutions sometimes took an earlier record and copied virtually all of it, inserting an appropriate description of the newly acquired land and a new set of witnesses. Two grants to the monastery of Santiago ‘de Cellariolo’, during the abbacy of Ranosindo, are almost identical from beginning to end, one from a priest in 956 and the other from a person called Egila in 961; the latter is on a single sheet, probably an ‘original’, with no scribe named (the monk Baltario wrote the former).¹⁸ ¹⁴ Loosely translated as: ‘through your holy prayers I get to enjoy the heavenly kingdom, since I am mindful that nothing good comes from my own merits; and he who shall hold this little page should not hesitate to pray for N if he should approach God without due respect’; T45 (941), T51-T55 (946–52), T58 (961), T70 (964). ¹⁵ Freely rendered as ‘and with their support we shall be released from the evil of our disgrace, and thereafter be worthy to become heirs in the kingdom of heaven’; SM65 (952), SM72 (957), SM75 (957); cf. SM91 (972), SM110 (996). Several of these charters were drafted by the abbot of San Millán himself; see further below, p. 94, on abbots drawing up charters on royal instruction. ¹⁶ Lii469 (979), Lii487 (982), Liii520 (987), for example. ¹⁷ Li5 (873), Li6 (874), and Li76 (928); Liii539 (990) and Liii571 (995), for example. ¹⁸ Lii296, Lii351. It cannot be assumed that all charters on single sheets represent original records, since some of them are demonstrably copies or forgeries; see R. Pacheco Sampedro, ‘Arqueología archivística y documental’, in C. Sáez (ed.), Libros y Documentos en la alta edad media. Los libros de derecho. Los archivos familiares. Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Cultura Escrita, vol. 2 (Alcalá de Henares, 2002), 55–91, at 83–4; cf. O. Guyotjeannin, J. Pycke, B.-M. Tock, La Diplomatique Médiévale ( Turnhout, 1993), 126–29. However, where single sheets record small-scale transactions by ordinary people, it is customary to treat them as originals, as many are likely to have been. The editors of volume 1 of the León collection, and volume 1 of the Otero collection, count 93 and 312 originals respectively (44 before 1000 in the latter case): E. Sáez, Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, vol. I (775–952), (León, 1987), xxiii, and J. A. Fernández Flórez and M. Herrero de la Fuente,


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Although these records are only five years apart, they have completely different descriptions of lands donated and almost completely different witness lists: the former, recording the priest’s gift, is largely witnessed by clerics; the latter, lay, gift appears to be largely witnessed by lay persons, including at least three families and the owners of adjacent properties. Were it not that the latter is on a single sheet, as ‘copies’ of this kind often are, one might think that copying came at the stage of creating a cartulary; but clearly copying a handy model was one way to create a contemporary record.¹⁹ Composition by the receiving monastery or bishopric was one way to create a record, but that was not the only way. There were royal charters, often (and increasingly so across the tenth century) of considerable length and elaboration. Dealing with royal diplomatic has its own special problems, given the tendency for later interpolation or direct falsification. Fortunately, the work of many editors, especially of the last two generations, allows us to navigate a way through the pitfalls; the single sheets from the León collection are also particularly helpful in providing standards and comparanda. Sometimes, royal records of a given period used identical or similar formulas, just as monastic records did. Grants to two different beneficiaries from King Ordoño II and his wife Elvira, on 9 January 916 and 8 January 917 respectively, have near identical texts (sharing the same quotations from the first Book of Samuel and from Proverbs); as might be expected, the witness lists are not identical but have significant overlap.²⁰ Both survive on single sheets and the first was written by Sarracino; no scribe is named on the latter. Royal charters of the same period sometimes, however, just share a few formulas. Ordoño III’s grant to Bishop Rosendo of Celanova in 955 has some diplomatic in common with records of his gifts to Colección documental del monasterio de Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas (854–1108) (León, 1999), 28; cf. J. I. Fernández de Viana y Vieites, ‘Problemas y perspectivas de la diplomática de los reinos asturiano, leonés y castellano leonés en la alta edad media’, in Sáez (ed.), Libros y Documentos, 39–53; Commission Internationale de Diplomatique, Vocabulaire International de la Diplomatique, ed. M. Milagros Cárcel Ortí (Valencia, 1997), 41–4; E. Pastor Díaz de Garayo, ‘Los testimonios escritos del sector meridional de Castilla (siglos X–XI). Ensayo de crítica documental’, Historia, Instituciones, Documentos, 24 (1997), 355–79, at 357–8; and M. Lucas Álvarez, La Documentación real astur-leonesa (718–1072)= El reino de León en la alta edad media. VIII (León, 1995), 75–6, on over 300 royal originals pre-1000. ¹⁹ Cf. Li42 (of 917) and Lii412 (of 970), where the beneficiary of the first is the donor of the second; it looks as if the earlier record was used as a model for the later (although there may well be an error in the date of the former). ²⁰ Li38, Li41.

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Bishop Gonzalo of León at about the same time.²¹ Ramiro III’s grants to the monastery of San Cipriano de Valdesaz and to that of Sahagún in 978 also have echoes of the same formulation.²² Vermudo II’s grants of 25 December 989 and 25 June 990, to two different laymen, have some common formulas, some overlap in witness lists, and the same scribe, Brother Munio.²³ At other times, however, particularly in the case of grants to the bishop of León, even royal grants appear to have been drafted by the beneficiary. Hence, while Vermudo II and his wife Velasquita’s grants to two different monasteries in 985 have many common formulas, some witness overlap, and the same scribe (the ‘notary’ Cresconio Arvadi), the king’s grant to the bishop of León eight days after the second monastic gift has several common witnesses, but episcopal diplomatic, and a different scribe.²⁴ Vermudo’s grant to the monastery of Celanova of the same year (29 September) is recorded in the monastery’s diplomatic and, doubtless reflecting the more westerly location, has very few witnesses in common with the León group.²⁵ Several of the Navarre kings’ grants to San Millán in the later tenth century explicitly appear to have been drafted by the abbot of San Millán;²⁶ that kings used monastic scriptoria to draft not just records of their own donations but all kinds of document is well-known in the eleventh century.²⁷ In fact, the variety in the formulation of royal grants is in many cases more striking than its standardization. Sancho I’s two grants to Sahagún, made on the same day, 26 April 960, have very similar records but even these are not identical.²⁸ Ramiro III and his wife Elvira’s grants to Sahagún of a decade later, 11 May 971, despite having the same scribe, Julián, have very different diplomatic from each other.²⁹ There is also the particularly telling case of Vermudo II’s grants to his armiger (armour-bearer), Fruela, and to another trusted layman, Munio ²¹ Cel54, Li257 (952), Lii300 (951–56), the latter on a single sheet. ²² Lii461 (a single sheet), S293 (which probably has an interpolated sentence, Lucas Álvarez, La Documentación real astur-leonesa (718–1072), 191–2). ²³ Liii530 and Liii541, both on single sheets. ²⁴ Lii506 (22 October), Lii507 (8 November), Lii508 (16 November); the first and last are on single sheets. ²⁵ Cel503. ²⁶ ‘Sisebutus abbas Sancti Emiliani exaravit’, SM97 (984); cf. SM72, SM74, SM75 (all 957). ²⁷ See I. Alfonso, ‘Judicial rhetoric and political legitimation in medieval LeónCastile’, in I. Alfonso, H. Kennedy, J. Escalona (eds.), Building Legitimacy: Political Discourses and Forms of Legitimation in Medieval Societies (Leiden, 2004), 51–87, at 76. ²⁸ S175, S176. ²⁹ S261, S262.


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Fernández, in 989—the same year and the same scribe but completely different diplomatic; and here the records appear to be originals.³⁰ In the tenth century kings seem to have been inconsistent in their approach to producing records: sometimes they used episcopal or monastic scriptoria to record royal favours, but sometimes, although it was more than a century before royal chanceries were to be established, they used scribes attached to the court, who wrote for the king and in his interest, like the priest Jimeno, scriba regis of García Sánchez of Navarre, or Felix, the notarius regis of Vermudo II of León.³¹ We know the names of many such scribes and it is clear both that there could be several at any one time and that they had a very wide repertoire of formulas available, from which they might select in varied and creative ways. The record of one of Ordoño III’s grants, made in May 956, names two notaries: the priest Ambrosio and the priest Zalame, who was the chief notary, notarius maior;³² that they were in orders is not surprising. Two of the 985 royal grants in fact name ‘monks of the palace’ too: Osorio and Gutino, who were priests, and Nuño, who was a deacon. Four years later, Vermudo’s grant to Fruela names three different monks of the palace. Records for other kinds of donor were also written by priests, for we find them named as ‘notary’ or ‘scribe’ on many other records. Apart from the royal cases, it is not always apparent where these priests came from and why they were making the records. We might expect that some priests worked for aristocratic families and provided writing services for them:³³ someone made an inventory of Fernando Vermúdez and Elvira’s charters in 976, a precious glimpse of the fact that lay families could take as much care of their documents as religious institutions did.³⁴ Much of the corpus of tenth- and eleventh-century texts in the Otero de las Dueñas collection makes the same point about ³⁰ OD30, Liii530. ³¹ SM30 (943), king’s scribe; OD30 (989), king’s notary. See Commission Internationale de Diplomatique, Vocabulaire International de la Diplomatique, 33, 43, and Lucas Álvarez, La Documentación real astur-leonesa (718–1072), 219–20, for chanceries; also Lucas Álvarez, La Documentación real astur-leonesa , 221–8, for documents produced by the entourage surrounding the king. ³² Lii295, on a single sheet; cf. S98, two notaries in a grant of Ramiro II, of 945 (a reworked text). See below, p. 99, for the terminology of scribe and notary. ³³ As suggested by Carlos Estepa in a late tenth-century context, ‘Poder y propiedad feudales en el período astur: las mandaciones de los Flaínez en la montaña leonesa’, in Miscel-lània en homenatge al P. Agustí Altisent ( Tarragona, 1991), 285–327, at 310. ³⁴ OD22.

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lay attitudes to documents, for the thirteenth-century monastery of Santa María inherited an extremely substantial lay archive, originating from the activities of two early eleventh-century aristocrats, Fruela Muñoz and Pedro Flaínez.³⁵ Some of the other priests who wrote charters were clearly resident in monastic communities, but they did not invariably have such an immediate monastic context. We have seen above that some churches in northern Spain had one resident associated priest, a person who had sometimes been appointed by a distant lay, monastic, or episcopal owner, but who sometimes appears to have been an independent agent.³⁶ There were priests available in the countryside in addition to those who lived in monastic communities and those attached to aristocratic households.³⁷ Gifts are not the sole subject of the records, and the surviving corpus of charters includes records of sale and exchange, in which many of the actors were lay persons. Lay men and women certainly gave to the church, but they also made gifts to each other and, especially, bought and sold property from and to each other.³⁸ Sales between lay persons, in which there was no contemporary ecclesiastical interest, were frequently recorded by priests. So, for example, the priest Zezo recorded a sale of land on the river Torío from one lay couple to another in 910, in a complete but unelaborate record; the priest Stephen recorded another sale between laity in Marialba in 928 in a similar record; the priest Atriano recorded a sale between married couples of land on the river Esla in 936 in a similar record; the priest Gómez recorded the sale of another plot in Marialba in 944 from a couple to a deacon who was acting for his cousin, again in a simple charter; in another, in 953, the priest Leovildo recorded the sale of an orchard in central Galicia from one couple to another; in another, in 984, the priest Graciano recorded ³⁵ Fernández Flórez and Herrero de la Fuente, Colección de Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas, 21–3, and passim. Cf. Warren Brown on lay archives in fifth- to early tenth-century France and Germany, ‘When documents are destroyed or lost: lay people and archives in the early middle ages’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 337–66, and A. J. Kosto on lay archives in tenth- and eleventh-century Catalonia, ‘Laymen, clerics, and documentary practices in the early middle ages: the example of Catalonia’, Speculum, 80 (2005), 44–74, at 62–3. For Pedro Flaínez, see further below, p. 146. ³⁶ Above, p. 48. ³⁷ Cf. the numbers of priests listed by Estepa, ‘Poder y propiedad’, 307–08. ³⁸ For gifts to the laity, see below, pp. 139–63. Cf. the elegant demonstration of the existence of large numbers of lay charters in tenth- and eleventh-century Catalonia, Kosto, ‘Laymen, clerics, and documentary practices’. As in many parts of western Europe, records of purely lay transactions could be preserved in monastic archives when they provided evidence of relevant past ownership or of the transmission of property.


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the sale of half a plot and an orchard in Corniero from a couple to a woman; and the priest Sendino recorded the sale of land in Posadilla in Astorga by a couple to a layman and his sons in 999, again in a simple charter.³⁹ The priest Gauventio’s record was of a gift of a few apple trees from a couple to a lay woman in 897, in a very simple charter; likewise, the priest Juan recorded the gift of inherited land from one couple to another in 931, and the priest Maxito recorded a gift in the Cantabrian mountains from a couple to a layman in 960; the priest Vermudo recorded a gift of property near the river Valderaduey from one woman to another in 973, in a rather more elaborate charter; and so on.⁴⁰ Sometimes we find the records of the same scribe in different collections, showing that they were not attached to the source of the surviving archive: the priest Godesteo wrote charters of sale from a man called Salite to different purchasers, in 961 and 963; the ‘deacon and notary’, Felix, wrote a charter of donation for a couple and a charter of sale for a woman and her daughters for land near León in 962 and 961 respectively.⁴¹ Although some writers have no recorded description of status, there are very many examples of priests and deacons performing what were in effect notarial functions for the lay community, and notably for laity in local rural communities, as we know that they did in many other parts of Europe in the early middle ages.⁴² This is not to say that small monasteries did not perform such functions too: transactions between lay persons could also take place in the presence of monastic communities and it seems likely that in such cases a member of the ³⁹ Li25 (on a single sheet), Li78, OD3 (single sheet), Li179, Sob95, S371, OD46 (single sheet). ⁴⁰ Li11 (single sheet), Sob78, S178, Lii425. The Celanova collection records very few lay to lay transactions, although a woman sold land in Rabal to a confessus in 1003, recorded by another confessus (Cel383). ⁴¹ S188, Lii363; Lii356, S194. ⁴² See W. Davies, Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany (London, 1988), 137–8; R. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), 104–34 (of Switzerland); B. H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, 1989), 75; P. Bonnassie and J.-P. Illy, ‘Le clergé paroissial aux IXe –Xe siècles dans les Pyrénées orientales et centrales’, in P. Bonnassie (ed.), Le clergé rural dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne (Actes des XIII e Journées Internationales d’Histoire de l’Abbaye de Flaran, 6–8 septembre 1991) ( Toulouse, 1995), 153–66, at 161; J. Belmon, ‘ ‘‘In conscribendis donationibus hic ordo servandus est … ’’: l’écriture des actes de la pratique en Languedoc et en Toulousain’, in M. Zimmermann (ed.), Auctor et Auctoritas: Invention et conformisme dans l’écriture médiévale (Paris, 2001), 283–320, at 292–3; L. Casado de Otaola, ‘Escribir y leer en la alta edad media’, in A. Castillo Gómez (co-ord.), Historia de la cultura escrita: Del próximo oriente antiguo a la sociedad informatizada (Gijón, 2002), 113–77, at 123.

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community made the record.⁴³ Indeed, abbots sometimes made the records of major transactions to which they were not a party.⁴⁴ To add complication, it looks as if more than one party to a transaction sometimes had a record made: two versions of the sale of a vineyard, enclosure, and springs by the river Cabia survive, land sold by a man called Felix and his family to a small local monastery on 1 May 939.⁴⁵ (Interestingly, the witnesses, although largely the same in each version, are recorded in a different order, which should make us cautious about assuming a relationship between the order of a list and status.) That variant versions were known to exist is made evident by some cases of dispute. In a case of 945 between a monk and a priest, each had a charter purporting to show his ownership of a disputed inheritance; the monk’s was shown to be false and thrown into the fire.⁴⁶ Two charters, both apparently originals, recording essentially the same gift from a nunnery to a monastery on 1 March 990, again emphasize the fact that different records might be made, but also highlight how different in style and spelling the records could be: the first, which could have been a draft for the more formal second, is much simpler in style and spells witness names in non-standard fashion—Frenade/Fredenando, Terasico/Trassico, Iuanes/Ihoannes, Christovalo/Cristoforus; it also demonstrates how the case endings of classical Latin could be abandoned by some writers ‘Ego Leticia et Maia et colegium serores de Santi Laurenti vobis colecium fratriis de Sancti Salvatoris. Facimus inter nos unatem de …’.⁴⁷ There was clearly plenty of opportunity for local variants in the records.

S TA N D A R D L A N G UAG E A N D VA R I AT I O N S Although we know something about individual writers of large books, we do not know so much about writers of charters, or about their ⁴³ As in Lii402 (967), for example; perhaps cf. SJP5 (c.850). I would not rule out the possibility of lay scribes too, but it would be much more difficult to make the case for most of northern Spain than it was for Kosto to make it for Catalonia, ‘Laymen, clerics, and documentary practices’, 56–60. ⁴⁴ Li184 (944), the record of the resolution of a major dispute; cf. Abbot Diego below, p. 107. ⁴⁵ C31; cf. C32, C97, C140, C144, C184 (939–81), Lii410 (968). ⁴⁶ C55. ⁴⁷ Liii534, Liii535 (Leticia and Maia and the community of sisters of San Lorenzo [greet] you, the community of San Salvador. We have agreed …). One might expect ‘collegium sororum Sancti Laurentii … collegio fratrum Sancti Salvatoris’.


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training, in the tenth century.⁴⁸ One recent editor has described the scripts of originals in the León collection as ‘rustic’, the product of rural clerics with a ‘low level of culture’, but others have begun to identify individual scribal characteristics, emphasizing the number of different individuals involved and their capacity for adapting formulas.⁴⁹ Further work on charter scripts can be expected in the future; for the moment we have to make deductions about scribal habits from the texts themselves. Charter texts depended on the repetition of set formulas. Although there are a number of possible scenarios, it is conventional to suppose that basic training for the composer of charters consisted initially of mastering writing (by copying models over and over again) and then of mastering content by memorizing formulas appropriate for records of different kinds of transaction.⁵⁰ The words used to describe the writers in the charters themselves are mainly scriptor and notarius, but occasionally exarator; the verbs used to describe their actions are usually scripsit or notuit, but sometimes exaravit or titulavit.⁵¹ At first glance these words may seem to imply that different people performed different functions during the business of record creation, with some distinction between the composer of the words on the one hand and the writer of the text, to whom the words were dictated, on the other, or even between those two and a third person who prepared a draft on temporary material; very, very occasionally a scribe’s signing-off clause shows some contemporary ⁴⁸ For the scribes of the great codices of the tenth century, see C. García Turza (co-ord.), Los manuscritos visigóticos: estudio paleográfico y codicológico. I. Códices riojanos datados (Logroño, 2002). Cf. the bishop who wrote books of the bible and service books with his siblings, Sob123 (867). For Catalonia, Kosto, ‘Laymen, clerics, and documentary practices’, 58, notes schools in monasteries and cathedrals and one—exceptional—lay school, c.1000. ⁴⁹ J. M. Ruiz Asencio, Colección documental del archivo de la catedral de León, vol. III (986–1031) (León, 1987), xxvi; Fernández Flórez and Herrero de la Fuente, Colección de Santa María de Otero de las Dueñas, 27. ⁵⁰ B. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. D. Ó Cróinín and D. Ganz (Cambridge, 1990), 38–9; P. Riché, Écoles et enseignement dans le haut moyen âge (Paris, 1989), 224–5; R. Wright, Early Ibero-Romance (Newark, 1994), 128; T. J. Walsh, ‘Spelling lapses in early medieval Latin documents and the reconstruction of primitive Romance phonology’, in R. Wright (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1991), 205–18, at 211–12. Cf. the seventh-century training ephemera preserved on slates, from the Psalms and computus, in I. Velázquez Soriano, Las Pizarras Visigodas. (Entre el latín y su disgregación. La lengua hablada en Hispania, siglos VI-VIII) (Salamanca, 2004), 58. ⁵¹ Literally ‘writer; person who has learned the signs (notae); person who provided a draft on a wax tablet’, and ‘write; take notes; make a draft; inscribe’. Very occasionally depinxit (literally ‘paint’), Liii520 (987). For examples: Li11 (897), C46 (944), SM72 (957); S178 (960), S214 (963), Liii580 (998), OD26 (986).

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awareness of such distinctions, as in ‘Fragianus notuit, qui hoc scripsit (Fragiano, who wrote this, composed it)’, and ‘Aloytus diaconus qui et notarius dictavi et scribsi (I, Aloyto, deacon and notary, have composed and written it)’.⁵² However, statements like these are very unusual and it is unlikely that such distinctions were in practice sustained in this early medieval world.⁵³ While one can well imagine some differentiation between the author, the scribe, and the copyist in the great monasteries, given the levels of scholarship evident in the Riojan manuscripts of the tenth century, it is very unlikely that there was any such differentiation in small monasteries and among those serving rural localities; it is more likely that local scribes chose the words as well as writing them down, drawing upon their store of memorized formulas.⁵⁴ All of these scribes must in effect have been using formularies, even if orally transmitted through the process of memorization, rather than transmitted in forms like the comprehensive texts from seventhand eighth-century Francia with which we are familiar (although the tenth-century formulary from the Catalan monastery of Ripoll must indicate that written collections of formulas are far from unthinkable in northern Iberia).⁵⁵ Without formularies of one kind or the other, it is very difficult to explain why records of sale in the early tenth century, in different areas, particularly sales between laity, use the same standard formulas over and over again.⁵⁶ In any case, some of these sale formulas had previously been used in the sixth- and seventh-century records that ⁵² OD2 (932)—copy on a single sheet; Aloyto worked in comital circles, Cel48 (941), Cel2 (942); the wealthy deacon Ermegildo indicated that he had provided a written draft of his own bequests, ‘omnia mea que litteris exaravi’, Li109 (936). Cf. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography, 41. ⁵³ Casado de Otaola, ‘Escribir y leer en la alta edad media’, 132. Although relating to a different context and a later period, Michael Clanchy’s chapter on the technology of writing conveys an excellent sense of the different processes that could be involved in producing medieval records, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (London, 1979), 88–115. ⁵⁴ Modern linguists tend to use the word ‘notary’ to describe these charter writers; in view of its connotations of public office, and often of lay status, as in, for example, early medieval Italy, I have preferred to use the more neutral ‘scribe’. ⁵⁵ ‘Marculf ’s Formulary’, for example, in Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, ed. K. Zeumer, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges in quarto, section 5 (Hannover, 1886), 36–106. M. Zimmermann, ‘Un formulaire du Xème siècle conservé à Ripoll’, Faventia, 4/2 (1982), 25–86, in a collection of miscellanea. Cf. the use made of formularies by Brown, ‘When documents are destroyed or lost’, to make his case about lay interest. ⁵⁶ Cf. above, p. 90, on the wide array of preamble formulas in León material; and cf. Sob58 (865), which refers explicitly to the law of sale.


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are preserved on slates; and Gil has demonstrated the likely existence of a ‘Visigothic’ formulary preserved in an early modern manuscript.⁵⁷ We can envisage the process of charter composition like this: an actor in a transaction would tell the scribe the kind of content needed and the latter would then draw up the text, as instructed, in the appropriate fashion—rather like the process of instructing a solicitor in the modern world and securing a document in technical, legal language.⁵⁸ The finished text would be read out, a point made explicitly by many Cardeña charters: when Munio and his wife sold a vineyard to a man called Lihoar in 965, they ordered a record to be made and heard it read out.⁵⁹ This was a culture in which spoken performance was as important as the record.⁶⁰ Some actors may have requested the inclusion of specific, personal, touches: for example, an otherwise standard record of donation of a substantial house in Grajal in 961, from a widow to Sahagún (where the transaction was performed), includes an unusual sentence noting how she accepted conjugal union with her husband with the aid of a blessing and noting God’s gift to them both of their three children;⁶¹ it looks like a personal comment and certainly was not a standard output from the Sahagún scriptorium. Other actors may have requested the inclusion of a few or more pious phrases, the greater the number the more likely the record’s origin in a monastic centre: the record of Eldoara’s gift to Doña Imilo begins with no fewer than thirteen (printed) lines of invocation, naming Father, Son, and Holy Spirit three times and dwelling on the concept of unity in the Trinity.⁶² Some ⁵⁷ Velázquez Soriano, Las Pizarras Visigodas, e.g. nos. 8, 19, 40; J. Gil (ed.), ‘Formulae Wisigothicae’, in his Miscellanea Wisigothica (Seville, 1972), 70–112; whether or not this formulary was Visigothic in origin is arguable, but Pastor Díaz de Garayo, ‘Los testimonios escritos’, at 359, 379, has made a very strong case for it. ⁵⁸ Cf. Roger Wright’s characterization of the process, Early Ibero-Romance, 129–30; Rosamond McKitterick’s, Carolingians and the Written Word, 94–8; and—with more detail—Belmon’s, ‘ ‘‘In conscribendis donationibus hic ordo servandus est …’’ ’, 305–14. ⁵⁹ C122; cf. C117, C118, C119, C120, C121, C123, C124 (964–5), and many other cases. Lihoar was associated with Cardeña; C128 (another charter of the transaction recorded in C122, made six months later). ⁶⁰ Cf. R. Blake, ‘Syntactic aspects of Latinate texts of the early middle ages’, in R. Wright (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1991), 219–32, at 219, 229; Wright, Early Ibero-Romance, 130–3, 144–5. ⁶¹ S190. Although unlike Sahagún diplomatic, it is reminiscent of formulas for the donation of dos; see Zimmermann, ‘Un formulaire’, 80–1. ⁶² ‘Sub Christi nomine et sancte Trinitatis, Patris videlicet et Filii et Spiritus Sanctus, individua maiestas, cuius nutu famula Dei Eldoara, quod corde credimus et ores proprios Patris ingenitus, Filius genitus, Spiritum quoque Sanctum nec anterior nec posterior, set ex ambobus procedens …’; Lii425 (973). That there were ready-made elaborate

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other actors, who were based in a religious context—monastery or lay religious household—and who had training, may actually have written their own texts: a small but special group, with the capacity to do so. It follows that some of the variations from standard diplomatic occurred because the writers were sufficiently educated to add their own personal touches to the record. A whole page on the glory of the Trinity; an agreement to ‘fight on under the rule and put their shoulders under the abbot’; a stream of consciousness that is barely formulaic at all, almost as if written as the writer thought; a statement of devotion that an aristocrat ordered to be made.⁶³ All strike the modern reader with their individuality. So also the immensely personal texts that break the formulas of what are, after all, merely deeds of conveyance with a cry of adoration or entreaty: ‘te adoro, te deposco, Redemptori ac Salvatori meo’; ‘oramus, Domine, oramus’; ‘obtamus, obtamus, ut de nostris oblationibus cunctis quibus placere Deo studuimus nemo nichil aufferre’; or ‘ut parcas Domine parcas tanto vulnere fessis qui noster es plasmator et ductor’.⁶⁴ One can imagine the individual cleric, monk, or holy woman constructing a much more personal record, as much a personal statement of faith as a record of a material transaction. Some kinds of variation from standard diplomatic, however, are quite different from these: they stand outside the literary crafting, and they seem to draw on other traditions. That such texts were written some intellectual distance away from the art, skills, and training of the great monasteries is apparent in their grammar and in some respects in their orthography. Although texts of many kinds deviate from classical Latin norms, charters written in royal courts and in major ecclesiastical centres, by contrast, tended to respect the Latin cases and to use classical or patristic vocabulary. This difference is evident if we compare charters of different provenance, royal as against peasant, which are preserved on single sheets.⁶⁵ The non-classical forms are particularly notable if preambles available is clear from the seven additional donation models in the Ripoll formulary, ‘Zimmermann, ‘Un formulaire’, 82–5. ⁶³ Cel210 (991), SM86 (967), Sam61 (976—see below, pp. 110–12), S114 (949). ⁶⁴ ‘I entreat you, I demand of you, my Redeemer and Saviour’, Cel461 (982); ‘We are praying, O Lord, we are praying’, Sam115 (982); ‘We wish, we wish that no one will take anything from all the offerings with which we strive to please God’, S330 (986); ‘so that you spare us, Lord, spare us, wearied by such a wound, you who are our creator and guide’, Cel7 (950); cf. Cel256. ⁶⁵ Compare, for example, the royal texts of Li18, Li38, Li41, Li79, OD30, and the nuns’ text of Li80, with the peasant transactions recorded in Li82, Li135, Li139, Li223, OD34, OD37.


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cartulary copies from the great monasteries are compared with originals, for they have a tendency to standardize the spelling and grammar of originals: adque becomes atque, azessit becomes accessit, tibi et uxor tua becomes tibi et uxore tue, loco predictum becomes in locum predictum, nobis non valemus becomes nos non valuerimus, terra … abiturum becomes terra … abitura, ego … quem fieri voluit becomes [ego] … quam fieri volui, and so on.⁶⁶ The contrast between originals and copies shows that, while texts written outside the major centres may sometimes simply have been carelessly written, such texts frequently (though not invariably) used non-classical forms of the language.⁶⁷ These texts are the texts that originated from the smallest monasteries, the lay households, and the independent, or quasi-independent, priests. They must to some extent reflect local patterns of speech and vocabulary, in other words, local vernacular Romance;⁶⁸ their orthography, without in any sense being phonetic transcription, must in some respects reflect habits of pronunciation.⁶⁹ This is especially striking in texts recording transactions between lay persons, but it can also be true of texts relating to small monasteries (as in the case of the Leticia and Maya text quoted above) and of records of the transactions of the clergy. To make the ⁶⁶ Li25, of 13 April 910, in firstly single sheet and then cartulary copy versions; cf. Li73, Li79, etc. The changes made in cartulary copies are very systematically treated by the editor of the first León volume, Sáez, Colección de la catedral de León, vol. I, xxv–xxviii; cf., less systematically, J. M. Mínguez Fernández, Colección diplomática del monasterio de Sahagún, vol. 1 (León, 1976), 11–12. Cartulary copies might also augment the number of pious formulas, e.g. Lii270 (954); cf. Lii415 (971), two different cartulary copies. Cartulary copies of texts are normally, of course, of later date than their single sheet exemplars. ⁶⁷ This point about the two traditions is made well by Walsh, ‘Spelling lapses’, 207. ⁶⁸ R. Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982), passim, but especially 165–75; for a concise statement of the argument, see also Wright, ‘The non-existence of ‘‘Leonese Vulgar Latin’’ ’, in Wright, Early Ibero-Romance, 127–34. There have been great debates about the form of the language that these texts reflect: Menéndez Pidal had argued that they represented ‘Leonese Vulgar Latin’, a register between Low Latin and vernacular Romance, but many modern commentators accept Wright’s revision, i.e. that the scribes were writing their own language, Romance; cf. Blake, ‘Syntactic aspects of Latinate texts’, and C. Pensado, ‘How was Leonese Vulgar Latin read?’, in Wright (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages, 190–204. For some contrary views, see M. Banniard, ‘Language and communication in Carolingian Europe’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume II c.700–c.900 (Cambridge, 1995), 695–708. ⁶⁹ This is a more contentious point, but see Walsh, ‘Spelling lapses’, 210–14. The suggestion sometimes made that the formulas in these texts usually have fairly ‘correct’ Latin while the ‘freer composition’ does not, does not stand up to scrutiny; cf. Ramell’s case below, and the material cited by Pensado, ‘How was Leonese Vulgar Latin read?’, 201.

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point, I quote almost in full a charter written by a priest to record another priest’s gift of half of his goods to a deacon, in 977. In Dei nomine. Ego Fagildo presbiter tibi Sabbarigo diaconus, in Domino Deo eternam salludem. Macnum est enim tidullum donacionis vel consecione, in co nemo poteest largidatis inrumpere, set quiquit grado animo, expontania volluntate, donatur vell ofertur semper libenter ancplectet. Ideoque plaguit mizi ut faceremus tibi, sicut et facio, kartula donationis vell consezionis de omnia mia kausa, quam eciam mea ereditate vell quiquit visum sum avere, medietate ex integra dono vobis adque concedo, tam in vidam quam eciam post hobidum eum, facio es eo quot tum estederit volluntas. Ida ut ab odierno die vel tempore de nostro iure in vestro iure trada aque confirmata, tu t omnis posteredas tua, per seculla cuncta. Siquis tamen, fiet minime credo, contra in anc kartulla disrumpendum vennerit vell venerimus, anc per nos, anc per alliquia personam subrogida, tunc abeaas podestadem de nos adprende ipso que in ista kartulla resonat duplado vell quantum ad te fuerit meliorado, et tibi perpedim avidurum. Facta kartulla donacionis ipsas kalendas ienuarias, era xv post M. Fagildo presbiter … manus mea fecit … Ramell presbiter noduit.⁷⁰

What is particularly interesting here is that the charter uses very standard formulas, which occur throughout the tenth-century corpus, from east to west, but that Ramell chose to write them down in nonclassical grammar and spelling;⁷¹ hence, plaguit mizi for placuit mihi, in vidam … post hobidum for in vitam … post obitum, fiet minime credo for quod fieri minime non credo, contra in anc kartulla disrumpendum vennerit for aliquis contra hanc cartulam ad inrumpendum venerit, quantum … meliorado for quantum … melioratum, and so on. Very standard material but non-standard transmission. Local variation sometimes went further than the use of irregular spelling and grammar. Sometimes a collection includes a record of quite different form, like the third-person record of a sale of a vineyard on the river Eslonza made in the late 970s;⁷² there are hints here of an entirely different diplomatic tradition. Other hints of the existence of different diplomatic traditions occur in records of gifts introduced by the formula ‘Magnus est titulus donationis’. Ramell’s charter quoted above is in fact ⁷⁰ Lii448; Lii467 (979), which records a woman’s sale of a vineyard to a priest, is another good example; both survive on single sheets. ⁷¹ See below, p. 105, for a more classical version of the full opening dispositive formula, and the example cited above, n. 2, for more classical versions of standard formulas. ⁷² Lii472 (single sheet).


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one of these but here is the full formula in a more standard form (there are often variants on the last part of the sentence): ‘Magnus est titulus donationis in qua nemo potest actum largitatis irrumpere neque foras legem proicere sed quicquid grato animo donatur pronaque voluntate facere quis decreverit semper libenter amplectitur’.⁷³ The sentence is usually followed by something like ‘Ideo placuit nobis … (Therefore we have agreed … )’. This formula occurs in Liébana, Celanova, Sobrado, León, Sahagún, and Cardeña charters, across the tenth century.⁷⁴ Not surprisingly, it introduces records of gifts, but a very high proportion of the transactions in which it occurs is between lay persons. These may be of high status—a count’s gift to his wife, a king’s gift to a trusted servant⁷⁵—but many are peasants contracting with other peasants, and with their more powerful neighbours. The actors are not exclusively lay (as the Ramell case makes clear), and monasteries or religious individuals might benefit from such gifts; many of the records were in fact made by priests. Although undoubtedly widespread, the use of this formula is not especially common; it crops up here and there, but infrequently. Here we have a trace of a diplomatic that was different from the dominant tenth-century ecclesiastical tradition, a diplomatic familiar to local priests and monasteries in their various localities and primarily used to record gifts from one lay person to another. It is, in fact, one of Gil’s formulas of ‘Visigothic’ origin and may have had a long history of pre-tenth-century use.⁷⁶ These uneven traces of local diplomatic practice suggest that those who made records were working with existing traditions, some of which had archaic elements. Members of local communities used writing; writing had standard elements; records using standard formulas were made for the laity in rural communities; and there was some local variation in scribal habits. Records were made for the laity regardless of whether or not there was a large monastery nearby and whether or not a large monastery was an actor in the transaction; where there was ⁷³ S318 (15 May 984). Loosely translated as ‘Great is the deed of donation, by which a gift cannot be broken or put beyond the law, but, whatever be given with a thankful heart, he who so desires can proclaim it for ever free’. ⁷⁴ For examples across time and space: Sob72 (858), T19 (914), Li35 (915), Cel498 (927), Cel304 (937), Sob12 (945), Li223 (950), Lii315 (959), S178 (960), S214 (963), Lii411 (969), S370 (972), C188 (981), C203 (992). ⁷⁵ Cel576 (916), Liii530 (989—single sheet). ⁷⁶ Gil (ed.), Miscellanea Wisigothica, 100–1; see Casado de Otaola, ‘Escribir y leer en la alta edad media’, 144–5, on interest in copying Visigothic texts in the tenth century.

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no large (or small) monastery, records were made by local priests, in effect performing a notarial function for peasant communities. This is of exceptional importance in understanding not only the records but the culture. Further, a basic, record-making tradition, with standard formulas, was shared by local priests and by those in greater centres; variant standards, of archaic origin, sometimes surfaced in the localities. On the other hand, there was also a much more elaborate recordmaking habit (or series of habits), lodged in the great aristocratic and ecclesiastical houses, which used those standard formulas but which had, by the tenth century, a much wider range of formulas available.

L A N G UAG E A N D S TAT U S Elaborate language, not surprisingly, tends to be employed in the records of donors who had high status. A very high proportion of the charters with florid preambles, pious explanations, and lengthy sanctions, records the gifts of aristocrats and religious persons.⁷⁷ This was not invariably so, for even the gifts of kings could be recorded in short formal documents, like Alfonso IV’s gift to the monastery of Abellar on 15 March 930.⁷⁸ However, about 80% of these elaborated texts are associated with the deeds of those who are identifiably noble or ecclesiastical and an even greater proportion of the exceptionally elaborate documents have those associations: royal and episcopal documents are usually immediately recognizable by their length; preamble, notification, and giving words can easily total 300 to 500 words, five or six times the length of the brief texts with which I began this chapter.⁷⁹ Kings and bishops were not the only originators of such elaborate texts; comital and other aristocratic families did so too, as did monks, priests, and deacons.⁸⁰ There are two particularly interesting sub-sets of ⁷⁷ See above, pp. 89–91, for examples. The inclusion of an elaborate religious sanction, in addition to a secular sanction, is a particular feature of records of gifts to religious bodies; see, for example, the sanction quoted in the Appendix to this chapter, p. 112. ⁷⁸ Li86 (single sheet); it has a short text but quite a long witness list. ⁷⁹ For example, episcopal texts on single sheets: Li43 (917), Li76 (928); royal texts on single sheets: Li38 (916), Lii270 (954), Liii550 (991). (Many episcopal charters are much longer, but survive only in cartulary copies.) ⁸⁰ For example, a priest Li93 (932), an abbot Lii409 (968), some nuns Liii535 (990), an aristocratic couple Liii587 (999)—all on single sheets. See also the aristocratic gifts


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this group: women and lay religious families. Many of the most lengthy and pious charters record the gifts of religious women—abbesses, nuns, ancillae or famulae Dei (‘female servants of God’, i.e. women committed to God)—like the two nuns, Eilo and Goisenda, who gave their (clearly substantial) estates to the abbot of Celanova in 993; or the ancilla Christi, Ermigia, who gave her half of a substantial estate near the river Valderaduey to the nunnery of Santiago in León in 970.⁸¹ The former charter begins with an elaborate invocation and a very elaborate salutation, before describing the property at some length and seeking some regular memorial for the donors. The latter has an elaborate salutation, followed by a lengthy preamble with three biblical quotations, a lengthy description of the property, and a long sanction. The percentage of women donors in these elaborate texts is not in itself striking but the association of women with some of the most developed expressions of piety is notable. It is tempting to suppose that they composed these records themselves, as some may well have done, but their records often terminate with the name of a male scribe, who may have been author and not simply someone who recorded their dictation.⁸² The former abbot Diego was the writer for Eilo and Goisenda. Lay religious families were not especially numerous either but their presence is nevertheless striking in association with this kind of text. These people, frequently termed confessus or confessa, were laity committed to follow a religious lifestyle. They appear to have taken some kind of vow of commitment, but did not join a monastery, often remaining in their secular households and continuing in effect to live secular lives.⁸³ Married couples stayed together, with their children. They were clearly publicly identifiable—perhaps they wore distinctive clothing or some kind of badge—and appear to have been recognized as distinctive in major cartularies, such as the comital records in the Cardeña collection, like C27 (935) and C42 (943) (excluding the many falsified records here), and such as the gifts of Bishop Rosendo’s family in the Celanova collection, e.g. Cel256 (936), Cel7 (950), Cel92 (968). ⁸¹ Cel216 (see also an alternative version at Cel251); Lii413; cf. C187 (981). ⁸² See below, p. 180 for a likely example of female authorship. ⁸³ See J. Orlandis, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’. Laicos y monasterios en la alta edad media española’, in J. Orlandis, Estudios sobre instituciones monásticas medievales (Pamplona, 1971), 217–378, who believed he had identified the distinctive institution of familiaritas, that is, lay membership of a monastic family; for doubts about this interpretation, see above, pp. 53–4. See Sam23 (982) for a wealthy confessus who made a public statement of his commitment.

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individuals.⁸⁴ A man and his wife, confessus and confessa, gave to the same nunnery in León in 995 as Ermigia had done; in Galicia a count’s mother, confessa, quoting twice from scripture, gave to the church of Santa Maria in Osoño; the widow of a duke, also confessa, gave to Celanova in a highly elaborate record, requesting a place for her own burial there.⁸⁵ In view of their distinctive lifestyle, and public position, it is not at all surprising that the records of their donations should have a more than usually pious bent. By contrast, the short, unelaborated, donation documents overwhelmingly relate to the transactions of small-scale, peasant farmers, just as the texts recording sales from lay person to lay person often relate to this group.⁸⁶ They may indeed include a brief phrase of pious explanation—hardly surprising when the beneficiary was a monastery and the scribe a local priest—but they do not elaborate the explanations and they do not pile formula upon formula, as the longer charters do. Of such a type is my opening example, recording a gift to a monastery by a lay woman and her husband in 948.⁸⁷ There are many other such examples. They deal, overwhelmingly, with small properties: a couple and their children give their share in a saltpan to Cardeña; another couple give a vineyard in Marmellar; a man gives the monastery of Abellar some bits and pieces in Marialba; a woman and her children give a priest her share in the local orchards of Montecillo; a man called Julián, with his wife and children, gives Bishop Rosendo several bits and pieces of land in the neighbourhood of the river Arnoia; four named siblings, with others unnamed (germanos minores), give a quarter of a mill on the river Cea to the monastery of Valdávida.⁸⁸ The gifts may have been made for pious reasons but, for peasant donors, the scribe did not adorn the document with pious phrases. Saving the soul may well have merited a mention, but fear of hell and hope of reward did not. Donation is recorded in many ways in tenth-century Spain. Royal courts, episcopal households, and major monasteries had their own dedicated scribes and their own distinctive styles of writing; but records were also made in local communities for lay people, often by local ⁸⁴ I am grateful to Roger Collins and Susan Wood for their help in understanding the nature of this group. See further below, p. 177. ⁸⁵ Liii570, Cel492 (988), Cel530 (999). ⁸⁶ See above, pp. 96–8. ⁸⁷ Li203; see above, p. 88. ⁸⁸ C30 (937), C107 (962), Li126 (938, single sheet), OD14 (964, single sheet), Cel497 (950), S173 (960). For a wider range, see for example Sob71 (918), T35 (927), SM54 (c.949), T73 (975), S332 (986), Cel409 (990), Liii575 (997).


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priests or deacons, as they were also made in small monasteries. A standard group of donation formulas seems to have been available to virtually every kind of writer, derived from formularies, but some scribes deployed these within an array of florid and elaborate language. Kings, bishops, aristocrats, abbots, and lay religious families are associated with the most elaborate forms of record. Peasant donors, like peasant vendors, are associated with shorter, simpler records. This must in part have been because they did not have access to the most highly trained record-makers but it may also have been because intentional points were being made about status. Whoever paid for the production of their texts, whether alienator or beneficiary, apparently did not consider it suitable to decorate records of peasant transactions with florid language.⁸⁹ Peasants may also have been less concerned about the delights of the heavenly kingdom. Indeed, perhaps peasants made gifts to priests and monasteries for different reasons from those that stimulated kings and aristocrats. ⁸⁹ Although the voice of the charter text is the voice of the alienator, one might think it was more in the interest of beneficiaries of gift or sale to see to the production of a document—all beneficiaries, not just the major monasteries. Some donation texts, however, are so personal it is extremely difficult to see them as other than the responsibility of the alienator, and we know that both parties sometimes had documents made (see above, p. 98). For more standard texts, beneficiary instruction must be a possibility: four sales to the same purchaser, on the same day in 964, have almost identical formulas, Lii371–74, for example. In such cases, we must presume that the drafters thought ‘basic’ texts appropriate for peasant alienations.

Appendix to Chapter 4 A N E X A M P L E O F A L E N G T H Y D O N AT I O N C H A RT E R In this record of 3 June 963, the confessus Sunilano gives his son, the priest Vermudo, his family monastery of Santiago and San Pelayo de Barbadelo in Galicia, with substantial appurtenant properties and churches. The opening invocation and salutation, and the final sanction, dating clause, and witness list, are all close to standard formulas, but the long and repetitive disposition is not at all standard in its arrangement and, although it draws from standard formulas from time to time, its overall effect is to suggest a personal view of hopes and aspirations. The witnesses listed are of very high status.⁹⁰ For a flavour of the text in English, here are some brief, freely rendered, passages. ‘I your poor servant Sunilano … salute you, our son, the priest Vermudo, in the Lord God … I and the confessa Nunnita [his wife], and all the brothers, confirm your election as abbot and guardian of this place … We give you, from God in heaven, this holy place of St Martin, with its buildings and all appurtenances; where there is a more suitable place for a monastery, you should build, and set it up, and attract good men, who will help you in all good things, men who persist in the fear of God night and day, who live by the holy rule, with their feet rushing to church, with their hands toiling, and ensuring a reward for travellers and the poor. Use all your goods, and do not fail to pray and celebrate anniversaries, do all good things, banish evil, work, so that you reap the fruit of your labour in eternal joy and we receive a reward before God; and you, beloved son, take care of all our goods, because we only assign Christ as your heir. And if a good man should arrive, either one of our relations or someone unconnected, who should be humble and obedient, he should receive your love; and he who is proud, contumacious, and does evil shall have no part with you here … Always listen to our sound advice, and spend your days on good works, and seek advice from good men, and show your generosity, so that you offer God your soul; and everything which we give you, with good heart, you shall have in perpetuity.’

In nomine sancte et individue Trinitatis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Ego exiguus famulus tuus Sunilani confessus vobis patronis meis sancto Iacobo apostolo et sancto Pelagio et omnibus reliquiis sanctorum, quorum hic continentur ecclesia hic in Barvatello, quam edificavit Audilane et Teodemundus abba, Visclafredoni abba, et in ultimo Nunnita confessa, et ipse Sunilane initiabimus ⁹⁰ Sam61.

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et quantum potuimus tantum fecimus, quoniam mors antecedit nobis et quem dominus adiutus fuerit renovet et conmutet in melius; et beatus homo qui sperat in Te; et qui adiutus est a Deo; monet enim Dominus dicens ‘Date et dabitur vobis’. Ego quidem Sunilani confessus tibi filio nostro Veremudo presbitero in domino Deo eternam salutem amen. Dubium quidem non est sed plerisque cognitum manet atque notissimum patet cum sis tu filius meus iam quidem sacerdotali honori adeptus, nunc tempus ego quidem confessionis iugo Christi militum totis viribus sanctorum patrum normam desiderans, placuit mihi atque convenit propia mea voluntate integroque consilio liberoque arbitrio, ut in Dei honore et tuo amore facerem tibi filio meo iam dicto textum scripture de bonis meis, rebus, vel quicquid visus sum habere, tam de aviis, tiis, avunculis vel parentibus meis, quam etiam et de meo iermano Veremudo, presbitero, Pelagii filio, sicut ille mihi concessit per textum scripture testamenti ecclesiam sancti Petri cum omnibus suis bonis sicut in scripturas illius resonat in primis locum sancti Salvatoris latere montis Parami, ripa Logii, cum omnibus bonis suis et suis familiis et suos cartarios, priores, et antecessores, vel avolos et tios nostros usque ad minimam rem cum omnibus edificiis, palatiis, et intus in ea, rem viventem, iumenta, armenta, apes, et oves et omnes suas adiunctiones ubique in nomine meo et de ipso priore fratre meo iam memorato ab omni integritate tibi dono atque concedo; et aliam ecclesiam sancti Mametis erga ripa Logii cum omnibus bonis suis sicut in scripturis suis vel testamenti resonat … [plus seven further churches, seven villas, one with a church, and two hereditates, one with a church]. Tam ego Sunilani simul et Nunnita confesa, vel omnes sui fratres, filii Trodilli, nepte Visclafredoni abba, Dayldus presbiter, Vistressilli confesa, Fredenandus et Ioaquintus et Ayricus presbiter, hec omnia condonarunt nobis et de illis abba et eligerunt vel tutorem loci illius, sicut et nos presentes fecimus Deo iubente et scriptura dicente ‘Qui inter vos fuerit humilis et ultimus sit vester dominus et qui fuerit inter vos maior sit vester servus’. Ipsum locum sanctum iam prefatum sanctum Martinum cum cunctis edifitiis et prestationibus suis et omnibus suis familiis et suis scriptis veteribus et novis et omnibus bonis suis, et sanctum Iacobum cum omnibus bonis suis, unde in primis inquoavimus et hic finimus, tibi concedimus a Deo excelso et, ubi plus aptum fuerit locus pro monasterio, in omnibus istis locis facias, instruas, edifices, et plantes et homines bonos ad te aplices qui te adiuvent in omnibus bonis et, qui in timore Dei persistant die noctuque et, qui per regulam sanctam vivant pedibus alacres ad ecclesiam, manibus ad laborem, et ad mercedem in pauperes et peregrinos. Omnia vestra expendite et vestros votos et anniversarios et kalendarios ne pigritetis, et omnia bona facite, mala dimittite, et facite labores, ut reportetis fructum laborum vestrorum in gaudium eternum et nos recipiamus mercis lucrum ante Deum; et du, dilecte fili, tene custodiam super omnia nostra, quia alium heredem tibi non ponimus nisi Christum.

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Et si de aliqua parte homo bonus advenerit ex propinquis aut extraneis, qui plus humilis fuerit et obediens, caritatem, que culmen est bonorum operum, ipse de manu tua accipiat, qui et pro te currat et nos non obliet; superbus et contumax et maleficus nullam partem hic tecum habeat; humilis servus Christi et ministri Dei et ancille Christi, qui pro animabus suis devote curam gerant. Salubre nostrum audi consilium semper, et in operibus bonis dies tuos in bono expende, et cum bonis consilium prebe, et distributorem te ostendas, ut inamam tuam cum fructu bono Deo offeras; et omnia que tibi cum bono animo concedimus habeas in perpetuum vel ille, cui tu omnia reliqueris in parte ecclesie nostre; in parte extranea vel secularia aut fiscalia non promittimus nec cuiquam. Insuper tibi dilecto filio nostro vel abbati concedimus ecclesiam sancti Adriani in illo monte de Paramo, sicut illam obtinuit domnus Ambrosius, et domnus Ranosindus nobis concessit per scriptura testamenti et de presura de nostris intercessoribus vel aviis, et omnia nostra ubicumque potueris invenire. Hec omnia suprataxata, que gratanter a nobis sunt adnotata irrevocavilia permaneant secula cuncta … sequentibus temporibus hunc factum meum infringere aut inrrumpere temptaverit vel presumpserit, nec vocem habeat nec licentiam sed sit excomunicatus a fide catholica et a corpore et sanguine Domini, et cum Iuda Domini proditore habeat partem in eterna dampnatione; et pro temporali pena pariat tibi vel voci tue omnia que in testamento resonat duplata vel triplata et insuper unum auri talentum exsolvat post partem ecclesie potestatis, et hec series testamenti in perpetuum habeat firmitatis roborem euo perenni. Notum die III nonas iunii era XIVa post milesima. Sunilani confirmans in hac scriptura testationis et donationis manu propia signum indidi. Nunnita confesa in hac series testamenti, quam fieri volui manus mea confirmo. Ranemirus princeps confirmo; Rudesindus episcopus confirmo; Giloira Deo dicata confirmo; Veremudus serenissimus princeps confirmo; Froila Vimaraz, armiger eius, confirmo; Rudericus Velasquiz confirmo; Naustas testis; Arias testis; Alvitus testis.

5 Donation to Churches: Purpose and Expectations Whatever we might think was the peasant rationale for donation, explicitly pious reasons for giving are stated throughout this material. They sometimes come in a formulaic statement, perhaps brief, perhaps elaborated; they sometimes come as a specific intention—I give you this in order that I may be buried in the porch of the church at N—and they sometimes come as a formulaic or personalized request for continuing commemoration. Indeed, nearly 90% of all the donations recorded in these charters were made to ecclesiastical individuals or communities, and about four fifths of those were expressly made for pious reasons of one kind or another. In modern legal usage donation is about handing things over ‘without consideration’, that is without explicit prior agreement that something will be given back in return. In this modern understanding, ‘giving’ is differentiated from ‘exchanging’ and from ‘selling’, in other words from handing something over as a result of an agreement between two or more parties, with a precise return specified in advance. Tenthcentury Iberian scribes also usually differentiated clearly between the concepts of giving and selling, consistently associating sale but not gift with the concept of price, pretium, for that which was to be given in return, price normally being paid in movables of measurable value.¹ Of course, things were given in return for gifts—most obviously countergifts²—and things might also be expected to be given in return for gifts, just as we expect some kind of parity in ¹ See below, pp. 135–8. Exchanges usually involved exchange of one piece of landed property for another. The language of exchange records hovered between that of sale and gift: we find both donare and kartula vendictionis for the exchange in Lii386 (965), and both dare and kartula vindicione for that in Lii388 (965), but karta commutationis could also be used, as in the former. ² See below, pp. 135–6, for countergifts.

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present-giving in the twenty-first-century western world. However, there is no implication in this corpus of material that a countergift was obligatory, nor that there was the kind of overarching ‘gift economy’ that has been proposed for some early medieval societies.³ Charters recording sales for price are almost as common as those recording gifts. Nevertheless, although the records kept the concepts separate, early medieval donation to the church was a kind of giving which often did envisage an ultimate return, even if it was to come after the donor’s death. An air of reciprocity hung about these transactions. That something was expected back is explicitly stated by the more elaborate charter formulas and implicitly indicated in many of the briefer charters of gift; by virtue of the gift, monks and clergy became intercessors, mediators between this life and the next, arranging the ultimate return.⁴ Sometimes, however, tenth-century texts make it clear that donors expected a return for their gifts in the earthly world and occasionally their scribes brought the concept of sale into such transactions, as if they thought that the vendors were doing outright deals with the clergy for their immediate benefit. Very occasionally the texts even seem confused between the categories, as if the gift required so obvious a return that the scribes did not know how to classify it.⁵ There is therefore an element of the contractual, sometimes overt, sometimes implicit, in much of ³ See above, pp. 30–4, for the classic literature on gift exchange and for studies of early medieval giving, such as B. H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, 1989), especially 132–43. Note the thoughtful assessment of the place of gift exchange in early medieval Frankish societies in J.-P. Devroey, Économie rurale et société dans l’Europe franque (VI e –IX e siècles), vol. 1 (Paris, 2003), 175–93. ⁴ See the excellent discussion of these issues by Stephen White, Custom, Kinship and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150 (Chapel Hill, 1988), 26–7, 158; in contrast, A. Guerreau-Jalabert, ‘Caritas y don en la sociedad medieval occidental’, Hispania, 60 (2000), 27–62, argued that no return was expected for such gifts. ⁵ Lii357, for example; see further below, pp. 136–7. Cf. White, Custom, Kinship and Gifts to Saints, 196, who argues that the distinction between gift and sale only really appeared in the twelfth century; others have made the point for northern Spain that sale became more evident in the late eleventh century, for example, M. I. Loring García, ‘Dominios monásticos y parentelas en la Castilla altomedieval: el origen del derecho de retorno y su evolución’, in R. Pastor (ed.), Relaciones de poder, de producción y parentesco en la edad media y moderna (Madrid, 1990), 13–49, at 47–8. However, in tenth-century northern Spain, the distinction between gift and sale is usually sustained and is very clear in most sets of texts; the Cardeña collection, for example, is an exception in having relatively few sale texts, although even these are clearly differentiated.


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tenth-century donation to the church in northern Spain. That was not at all unusual in the European context.⁶ In what follows I shall deal in turn with the three kinds of expression of pious motivation (formulaic statement, specific request, and donation for the purpose of commemoration), exploring their spatial and temporal occurrence.⁷ However, some gifts were made to churches and clerics for reasons that were not religious; these will be considered subsequently. There may well have been many other, unrecorded, layers of motivation, but it is the intention here to identify and explore the rationales that were stated.

F O R M U L A I C PI E T Y Most gifts to the church in these collections were made for no return in life. However, awareness of the post mortem return is often close to the surface of the texts that record them. Just as they did in other parts of Europe at the same time, some records display a clear understanding of the causal relationship between giving in life and reward in heaven: in the record of the gifts of Foracasas ibn Tajón to the monastery of Sahagún of 1 January 955, after a long preamble and lengthy detail of the gifts, the text continues ‘you can give alms to the poor and to slaves from these gifts, so that (ut) I earn God’s pardon for my sins through your holy intercession’.⁸ The record of the much smaller gift of Fruela Vélaz and his wife of 23 June 964 concludes, after the invocation and short disposition, that ‘from that [i.e. from the gift] there shall be lighting for the altar, food for the monks, support for the poor, and alms for the needy, and for us there shall be remission of sins before God’.⁹ The record of the gift of a villa by Genobreda and her son, Nuño, dated ⁶ Cf. a fifth-century Ravenna bishop’s ‘négoce spirituel’, Ph. Jobert, La notion de donation. Convergences 630–750 (Paris, 1977), 185; Jobert argued that the ideology of the redemptive value of giving was established by the seventh century, ibid., 192. ⁷ Cf. the three categories of rationale identified by J. A. García de Cortázar y Ruiz de Aguirre, El dominio del monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla (siglos X a XIII). (Salamanca, 1969), 54–6: spiritual, material, and expecting some kind of countergift, like burial. ⁸ S144. See White, Custom, Kinship and Gifts to Saints, 26–7, for a good discussion of similar notions. ⁹ S220; cf. S221, S303. Cf. also, above, p. 91, the favourite Celanova formula contrasting the temporal subsidy gained by the monastery with the perpetual reward to the donor.

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17 April 970, after a relatively short preamble, goes on to say ‘we offer our villa to God and to this holy monastery of Samos for the salvation of the soul of Cesabi Efimariz, Nuño’s father … so that (ut) we shall be worthy to find pardon for our sins before God’.¹⁰ The ideas here are standard and formulaic in expression, but the explicit connection between immediate value to Sahagún or Samos and long-term benefit to the donor is particular to these records. The reasons recorded for the overwhelming majority of donations to churches were very general, with the same words repeated in many charters from across northern Spain and across the century. Very standard formulas were used, usually without language or intention that was specific to the donor. These formulas were sometimes of the elaborate kind discussed in the preceding chapter and were sometimes brief and simple. If they were elaborate, a long preamble might provide a religious context for the gift, emphasizing the terrors of the day of judgment or hopes of eternal reward in heaven; usually some words of intention were also directly linked with the giving words in the phrases or clauses of the disposition (‘I give so that … ’). The purposes most directly associated with the verbs of giving were remission of sin, pardon for sin, intercession with the saints, or prayers from the monks, as in the Sahagún and Samos examples above. However, it was salvation of the soul of the donor, or of someone close to the donor, that features most consistently in the records, either in combination with other purposes or alone: pro anima mea (for my soul) or pro remedio animarum nostrarum (for the salvation of our souls) or pro remedio animae fratris mei (for the salvation of my brother’s soul) are the standard forms, although occasionally there is expansion to take in the cure or care (cura) of the soul (pro anima mea curam abeant).¹¹ In most of these Spanish charter collections, just over half of the donations made for pious reasons refer to the soul. Formulaic references to the soul are not in themselves ¹⁰ Sam102. ¹¹ For example, ‘ut pro remedio anime mee vel pro anima domno meo Gundissalbo Telliz, trado … ’, C18 (929); the original ‘Ordonius rex et Urraka regina … Vovimus votum Domino Deo nostro, ob remedium animarum nostrarum … ’, Lii298 (956); ‘Ita ut … duos agros et ipsa vinea … sit concessum pro animabus nostris’, S219 (964); ‘Conzedimus ibidem ipso monte, propter remedium animas nostras vel de parentes nostros … ’, OD35 (993); the last three are on single sheets. The Latin cases vary; we find pro animam, pro animae meae, pro remedium, pro remedio animabus nostris, and so on, as well as the forms given above. For the expanded form, for example: ‘Concedo [duas rationes] post parte monasterii … ut sit in manibus abbatis … ad cuius regimen fratres fuerint reconditi, ut pro animam meam curam gerant’, Li175 (943).


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remarkable in the context of early medieval European records, for such statements occur widely. Jobert identified the first occurrences in Ravenna documents of the early seventh century, and drew attention to their occurrence in mission areas of northern Gaul from the late seventh century and their frequent use in Alsace and Germany thereafter.¹² In more western parts of the continent, the pro anima formula became more common in the eleventh and twelfth than in earlier centuries.¹³ In Spain, the ideas of donation en beneficio del alma and the pro anima cuota are fundamental to Spanish scholarly discourse of the early and mid-twentieth century, to such an extent that one might think the pro anima formula invariable, although it would be fair to observe that scholars of many regions tend to use ‘gifts pro anima’ as shorthand for any kind of giving to the church in this period.¹⁴ The shorthand is unfortunate, because there are important distinctions to be made between records that use the pro anima/pro remedio animae formulas and those that do not: the distinction between gifts for very specific pious reasons, requiring specific action on the part of the beneficiary, and gifts for rather general pious reasons, has some significance. In the order of two thirds of donations to the church were made forwhat can only be called formulaic or ‘unspecific’ pious reasons, whether mentioning the soul or not: they do not request celebration of particular anniversaries, or burial of specific individuals, or construction of a church or oratory in a specific place; they simply use one or more of the pious formulas. About 42% of donations to the church were made pro ¹² Jobert, Notion de donation, 213–17; cf. H. Fichtenau, Arenga. Spätantike und Mittelalter im Spiegel von Urkundenformeln (Graz, 1957), 144; M. Borgolte, ‘Gedenkstiftungen in St. Galler Urkunden’, in K. Schmid and J. Wollasch (eds.), Memoria. Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter (Munich, 1984), 578–602, at 584–93; M. Lauwers, ‘Commentaire. Memoria. À propos d’un objet d’histoire en Allemagne’, in J.-C. Schmitt and O. G. Oexle (eds.), Les tendances actuelles de l’histoire du Moyen Âge en France et en Allemagne (Paris, 2002), 105–26, at 107. ¹³ In western European charters, English and continental, pro anima mea was not so commonly used before the eleventh century, although it was exceptionally common from then onwards; see White, Custom, Kinship and Gifts to Saints, 29; cf. Jobert, Notion de donation, 224, on its ‘dilatation’ from the mid-eleventh century. Interestingly, it occurs in Celtic contexts, insular and continental, in earlier centuries; see W. Davies, ‘Saint Mary’s Worcester and the Liber Landavensis’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 4 (1972), 459–85, at 464–6 (its use in largely uncorrupted Llandaff charters of the eighth and ninth centuries is notable, e.g. LL178, LL184, LL169a). ¹⁴ ‘For the benefit of the soul’ and ‘the pro anima quota’. See J. Orlandis, ‘La elección de sepultura en la España medieval’, in his La iglesia en la España visigotica y medieval (Pamplona, 1976), 257–306, especially 259–61 for references; see above, pp. 76–8, for discussion of the quota or ‘fifth’.

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anima/pro remedio animae; another 26% were made for unspecific pious reasons, without using those particular formulas (they use, for example, ‘propter amore beatissimi paradisi et evadendum laquens penarum inferni’, ‘ut merces michi eveniad per vestro intercessu apud Domini copiosa’, ‘potius per eius intercessione aliquam ante Deum possim invenire remunerationem’);¹⁵ another 12% were made for very specific, stated, pious reasons; while about 14% of such donations, interestingly and surprisingly, have negligible or no expressions of piety.¹⁶ Given the later frequency of the formula, and its influence on the historiography of donation, the 42% mean for the occurrence of pro anima/pro remedio animae is surprisingly low. As we can see, although Table 5.1 Expressions of piety in records of donation to the church, by collection, as percentages of stated reasons for giving in those records¹⁷

Cel Sam Sob L OD S C SM A Ar V SJP T Ov Total % Total nos

Unspecific pious reasons

Pro anima, pro remedio animae

Specific pious reasons

17 39 28 23 11 33 33 17 19 24 32 30 22 22

34 38 48 40 34 47 53 41 62 43 45 20 31 11

12 10 10 15 22 9 8 5 19 24 7 10 33 56

26 229

42 370

12 108

No pieties

Secular reasons

21 8 10 15 11 5.5 5 36 0 9 13 20 11 0

16 5 4 7 22 5.5 1 1 0 0 3 20 3 11

14 121

6 49

¹⁵ Li27 (912), Li110 (936), Lii309 (958). ¹⁶ See below, pp. 126–30, for donations to the church that were expressly made for non-religious reasons (6%). ¹⁷ These percentages do not include donations to the laity, hence variation from figures for percentages of all donations. Note that the raw numbers for some collections are small; too much significance cannot be attached to proportions in those cases: Albelda, Arlanza, San Juan de la Peña, Otero de las Dueñas, Oviedo.


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many collections reflect the mean, there are in fact some striking variations from it. Most of these are not regionally differentiated, but the low and very low proportions of pro anima grants in the far northern Cantabrian and Asturian collections of the Liébana and Oviedo are striking, while it is interesting that they have correspondingly high proportions of specific pious reasons, as also does that from Otero de las Dueñas. Celanova and San Millán collections—in very different regions—are notable for their high proportions of records that have no or minimal expression of pieties, even though grants to the church are being recorded. While the explanation for such diversity must sometimes be to do with individual actors’ instructions to the scribe, it must be likely that record-making practice is the principal explanation—particularly when collections from different monasteries in one region have divergent practice. Looking at the chronology of occurrences helps to develop this explanation. The broad trend is that pro anima grants are much more common in the second half of the tenth century than in the first. This trend does not match the overall incidence of donations, since it starts later and continues strongly in the last two decades of the tenth century, when raw numbers of records decline. Although the Otero collection has few records of donation to the church, it is nevertheless the 970s before the formula occurs there; although it occurs in Sahagún material from the 920s, it is the 980s before the formula was obviously used in preference to others; although it occurs in León material from the 910s, the 950s are the years when the relative balance between use of this formula and of other non-specific formulas changes; although many Celanova records lack pious expressions, it is the 980s before the formula becomes common; and for Samos, it barely occurs at all before the 950s. If we look at collections with a significant number of charters on single sheets, the point is made even more clearly: in León collections, while both the pro anima formula and other expressions of pious motivation occur on single sheets, the increasing use of pro anima from the 950s is in records for which we only have cartulary copies. Take in particular Ordoño III’s restoration of a suburban León church to the bishopric: the cartulary copy adds ‘remedium anime avorum vel parentum nostrorum’; the original single sheet does not have it.¹⁸ The low incidence of the expression in the single sheets of the Otero collection is also striking. Indeed, many of the records on single sheets from other sources have ¹⁸ Lii270 (954).

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few pious expressions. What this seems to suggest is that, while pro anima and pro remedio animae certainly occur in charters from the ninth century onwards, they are not nearly as common as might be expected during the tenth century;¹⁹ that usage clearly started to increase in the last decades of the tenth century; and that it is one of the phrases that tended to be added when cartulary copies were made in the eleventh or later centuries. Notably, where it occurs in originals there tends to be a strong monastic or royal interest; it is much less commonly found in records made by local priests. This means that, in effect, there was no contemporary stated rationale for a significant (though immeasurable) proportion of tenth-century pro anima gifts. While it is reasonable to argue that the long charters, full of pieties, associated especially with the gifts of clergy, aristocrats, lay religious households, and religious women, express a contemporary ideology of expected reward in heaven, this cannot apply to many of the shorter charters.²⁰ Where awareness of the reward is causally related to the verbs of giving,²¹ or where the soul of a named relative is identified, again it is reasonable to suppose that the record-maker, at least, shared the reward ideology; but no comparable awareness is indicated by the short charters with an unspecific pro anima/pro remedio animae.

S PE C I F I C PI E T Y Although standard formulas may have been used as well, in a small percentage of cases (about 12% of all kinds of donation to the church), much more specific pious reasons for making the gift were given.²² These specific reasons include an unusual gift of land in order that a monastery may be founded—for the souls of the donors, their parents, ¹⁹ Although prayers for the soul (anima) of the dead feature throughout the surviving liturgical ordines; see further below, pp. 122, 125. ²⁰ See above, pp. 106–8, for the people associated with elaborate expressions of piety. ²¹ As in the examples above, pp. 115–16. ²² Note that M. McLaughlin shows a comparably low (though higher) proportion in her study of prayer for the dead in early medieval France, demonstrating that proportions rose in the late eleventh century and also that the reasons, where demonstrable, were often ‘crisis’ (e.g. deathbed) gifts; Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, 1994), 123, 169–71, 262, 267. Cf. the notable increases in Burgundy after 1040, Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor, 204–6; and L. Feller on pious donation as an eleventh-century phenomenon in central Italy, Les Abruzzes médiévales. Territoire, économie et société en Italie centrale du IX e au XII e siècle (Rome, 1998), 821–2.


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and their ancestors²³—but the purposes were more usually to ensure provision of some aspect of the burial or of another service; to secure burial in a specific place, such as within the monastery itself; to ensure continuing, repeated prayers for the donors; or to provide for their explicit commemoration on a regular basis, sometimes on a specified feast day. Such specific requests are essentially a feature of the second half of the tenth century and—commemoration apart—cluster in the 950s, thereby reflecting the distribution of all donations.²⁴ Raw numbers are too small to suggest any significant regional differences, but Castilian collections of any size include relatively few such requests and the northern collections of Oviedo and the Liébana have relatively many (though the Oviedo group is tiny).²⁵ Gifts were made so that masses could be said, candles lit in honour of a loved one, funeral rites performed, or a shroud procured.²⁶ Just as there was an element of reciprocity when gifts were made for less specific reasons (the gift was made so that sins would be forgiven, intercession would be made, and so on), there was an explicit expectation of some return here: the gift was made in order that a specific action be performed in the foreseeable future. These were contracts and both parties had obligations. When the language of sale was used in the record, as it occasionally was, attitudes openly bordered on the commercial: land in Rama was handed over in 937 and the ‘price’ (precio) paid for this land would be provision of a shroud when the vendor died and performance of masses for him; a widow and her son sold land near Oviedo in 980 and the purchaser paid for it with a cap and wax for the candles which were to be lit for the dead husband and father.²⁷ Both transactions—though intrinsically no different from the gifts above (for land was more often ²³ Cel569, of 922; cf. Li75, of 927. For new foundations, and their increasing rarity in the later tenth century, see above, pp. 50–1. ²⁴ For commemoration, see below, pp. 123–6; for the distribution of donations, see above, p. 22. ²⁵ So also that from Otero de la Dueñas, although numbers there are also very small. ²⁶ Cel177 (952); Sam164 (989); S128 (950), S130 (951); Liii585 (999), for example. Occasionally deals were made with lay persons in order to have candles lit or masses said; see T64 (962?), Sob92 (934). Cf. the liturgical office of the dead and votive masses in Le Liber Ordinum, ed. M. Férotin (Paris, 1904); for example, the prayer for the anniversary of the dead at cols. 447–8. ²⁷ C29, Ov22. Although it relates to a later period, there is a very interesting attempt to identify the cost of providing a mass in M. Aventín, ‘La familia ante la muerte: el culto a la memoria’, in J. I. de la Iglesia Duarte (ed.), La familia en la edad media. XI semana de estudios medievales. Nájera, del 31 de julio al 4 de agosto de 2000 (Logroño, 2001), 387–412, at 398–401.

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‘given’ than sold in order that masses be said or candles lit)—were conceptualized as sales by the recorders (the son of a priest in the latter case), with the service provider presented as purchaser. Gifts were also made to secure burial in a specific place.²⁸ The two women Eilo and Eusicia wanted to be buried with the brothers at Cardeña, as did the priest Mikael; the high aristocrats Jimeno and Adosinda (Bishop Rosendo’s sister) wanted burial within the monastery of Celanova; a man called Bonello requested burial in the monastery of San Vicente (Oviedo) in Asturias; the rather wealthy woman Eldoara made gifts to secure burial in the nunnery of Santiago in León.²⁹ Another man, Nuño Sarracíniz, arranged with a priest to organize his burial.³⁰ Records of gifts in order to secure repeated prayers, or make repeated offerings, are largely formulaic and often echo the formulas of elaborate preambles. As such, they could hardly be classified as ‘specific’. However, when such formulas are closely associated with the giving words they look both more immediate and more personal. Abbot Crescentio gave Cardeña a church, so that prayers would be said for his dead brother as well as himself; Abbot Omar gave half of his property near Zamora to two confessors, so that they would keep on praying for him; the priest Halile gave lands in Valdesogo to the monastery of Abellar, in order that the monks’ continual prayers might liberate him from a second death; the wealthy lay couple Adriano and Leokadia gave lands that stretched as far as Astorga so that the church of Santa Marina would keep on praying for them after they died.³¹ In an unusual shift of the responsibility for prayer to a lay party, the charter recording Rodrigo and Elvira’s grants to Sobrado goes on to request that whoever survived the other should pray that his or her soul should be snatched from hell.³² ²⁸ See Orlandis, ‘La elección de sepultura’, for discussion of donation for burial; his discussion focuses on eleventh- and twelfth-century material and his statement, at 262, that donation to the church was often accompanied by a request for burial in a specific place would not hold good for the tenth century. ²⁹ C39 (942), C82 (952), C211 (999), Cel7 (950), Ov18 (974), Lii425 (973). ³⁰ C117 (964); see further below, pp. 139, 152, for this case. See also similar arrangements with monasteries, although the specific place of burial is not specified in the texts: SM64 (952), V22 (950), OD23 (978). ³¹ C60 (947), cf. C191 (984); Lii409 (968), cf. Liii512 (986), Liii550 (991); Liii566 (994); OD21 (976). ³² Sob5 (966); Rodrigo’s brother, Bishop Sisnando, was also party to the transaction but this clause appears to refer to the couple.


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D O N AT I O N F O R C O M M E M O R AT I O N Giving in order to ensure family commemoration has been a major theme of European scholarship in the past generation. It has been amply demonstrated that aristocratic families, in particular, made donations to the church in the middle ages in order to perpetuate their own memory and enhance their sense of family identity; the techniques used have been elaborated—from listing in Libri Memoriales, to donations recorded by charter and the compilation of cartularies, to regular commemoration in the liturgy in a formal memoria, to the erection of substantial monuments.³³ We have already seen that some families founded churches and monasteries in northern Spain, effectively ensuring their commemoration by that means, although the practice—current in the ninth century—was disappearing by the second half of the tenth.³⁴ If the practice of founding churches and monasteries was declining in the tenth century, was commemoration ensured in other ways? On 24 October 889 the priest Beato restored the church of San Salvador near the river Eyres in Arnoia in southern Galicia, endowing it with vineyards and orchards, houses and furnishings, books and liturgical vessels. Joining the community there himself, he asked that after his death successive abbots should always remember him (in memoria abeant) and should celebrate his holy days and his anniversaries with divine service.³⁵ A century later, Abbot Mandino of Samos and his brothers gave substantial estates on the river Mao, also in Galicia, to the monastery of San Julián at Samos, requesting that after their deaths the monks should say prayers and anniversary masses for them, so that the memory of their good works should not disappear.³⁶ Farther east, near León, the priest Citayo took the unusual step of requesting that an oratory be built as a memorial on land he had given to the monastery of Abellar, having arranged to enter the monastery, made provision for his brother and sister, and made further endowments; very suggestively, the oratory was to be built where his parents had lived—a more than ³³ See above, pp. 30–4, and nn. 99, 102, 104, 105, and 107 there for Spanish comment. For the erection of substantial monuments in eleventh-century Spain, see R. Walker, ‘Images of royal and aristocratic burial in northern Spain, c.950–c.1250’, in E. van Houts (ed.), Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past (Harlow, 2001), 150–72. ³⁴ See above, pp. 36–44. ³⁵ Cel36. ³⁶ Sam151 (16 May 992).

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usually explicit creation of a lieu de mémoire.³⁷ Memorials were not only a matter for the clergy; some others were just as concerned about personal commemoration, kings and their families especially. The king of Pamplona, Sancho II Garcés Abarca, and his wife Urraca, in 984 confirmed estates which his parents had given to San Millán de la Cogolla, so that, in addition to regular prayers, there should be a special commemoration with masses, psalms, and chanting, three times a year, every year.³⁸ Seven years later they gave substantial properties to the monastery of Leire, farther to the east, in memory of his brother Ramiro, who was buried there, with the request for annual commemoration in this royal mausoleum.³⁹ The powerful León royal, Elvira, gave Sahagún an estate in memory of her brother Sancho and also, a couple of years later, handed over the monastery of Santos Justo y Pastor to its own community, for commemoration of this brother.⁴⁰ Similar actions could happen at a lower social scale: the widow Entregoto gave a villa in the north to the church of Oviedo in memory of her parents, her husband, and her ancestors; and two siblings sold a plot of land, in Val de Covellas, to the priest Mavia Indura for the souls of their parents Azalone and Senvita; in return he provided thirty masses and preservation of their memory along with that of the ‘other dead’.⁴¹ This simple text of 940 is a ‘local’ record, not one associated with one of the large monasteries; it is particularly interesting that it indicates that the dead were customarily remembered. Meanwhile, it records the transaction as a sale, regular memorialization being the price paid by the priest for the land.⁴² The examples above suggest that quite a wide social range of people made gifts (or occasionally sales) in order to perpetuate the memories of themselves or their families, although the practice was overwhelmingly aristocratic. In fact, the number of charters that explicitly record the intention to perpetuate memory is rather few—just over thirty, a tiny proportion both of surviving charters and of donations. We can increase the number by 50% by including those charters that provide for annual services of celebration, for the intention was clearly the same: Adosinda, ³⁷ Lii288 (25 April 955). ³⁸ SM97 (‘missarum, psalmorum, clamorum’, literally masses, psalms, and the clamor, the liturgical shout). Cf. the clamor (beginning kyrie eleison) in the ordo for burial, Liber Ordinum, ed. Férotin, cols. 111–13. ³⁹ Documentación medieval de Leire (siglos IX a XII), ed. A. J. Martín Duque (Pamplona, 1983), nos. 9, 11 (991). ⁴⁰ S255 (970), Lii432 (974); for Elvira, see below, pp. 174–6. ⁴¹ Ov20 (978) and Li137, both on single sheets. ⁴² See further, pp. 132, 135–8.


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her husband, and her children were to be remembered at Celanova every Christmas day; the deacon Ermegildo was to be remembered at Abellar, with candles and offerings, on every anniversary of the birthday of St James; the priest Vermudo was to be remembered at San Juan de Loyo every feast of the Assumption of St John.⁴³ Whether or not explicit memorialization was either the intention or the effect of all the other pious donations to the church we cannot know. Casual references to lists of the dead who were to be remembered and to recording the names of those who made offerings suggest that some of them must have been regularly commemorated; so does the occasional insertion of the words ‘every year’ in a standard formula.⁴⁴ The surviving liturgical texts, that is those in the Liber Ordinum, much of which is likely to have been available in the larger religious houses in the tenth century, offer plenty of opportunities for the repetition of names of those to be remembered, and a great variety of votive masses.⁴⁵ Commemoration, then, may well be significantly under-represented. While bearing that possible under-representation in mind, we cannot avoid the fact that charters that clearly mention, or unambiguously imply, memorialization of their donors or other named persons are very rare; they are again a particular feature of the second half of the tenth century. There are a few ninth- or early tenth-century examples but almost three quarters of them fall after 950. This is particularly striking since, again, it does not reflect the overall distribution of charters nor that of donation charters (of which the main bulks fall in the years 930 to 970, and 940 to 970, respectively). This is especially well demonstrated by the León collections, which include many pre-950 charters but only three pre-950 references to specific commemoration or annual ritual (in 936, 937, and 940). It looks as if specification of memoria increased after the main wave of donations started, and continued even when the number of donations was declining; indeed, it looks as if procedures for memorialization in ritual became established at this time. There is little variation in the patterns from east to west, for in this respect Leonese practice is much the same as Galician; however, it is notable ⁴³ Cel247 (927), Li109 (936), SamS-7 (969). ⁴⁴ Above, p. 124; A19 (950); Lii432 (974); ‘pro meorum delictorum veniam per singulos annos’, S137 (952). ⁴⁵ For example, the mass perhaps composed by the tenth-century Salvo of Albelda, Liber Ordinum Sacerdotal (Cod. Silos, Arch. Monástico, 3), ed. J. Janini (Silos, 1981), 92–5, at 94; for Salvo, ibid. 25. The whole work, dated to 1039 in the Silos MS. 3 version, has votive masses whose archetypes predate the tenth century; ibid., 13–24.

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that reference to memoria is rare in the Castilian texts of Cardeña and Valpuesta at this period.

D O N AT I O N F O R ‘ S E C U L A R ’ R E A S O N S Gifts were also made to clerics, churches, and monasteries for entirely different reasons, often for precisely the same kinds of reason that gifts were made to lay proprietors;⁴⁶ these kinds of gifts were made to persons or communities of power and property, whether religious or lay. Some gifts to the ecclesiastical powerful were made in gratitude for some recent event: for bringing a lapsed monk back to a monastery, for saving a child, for paying a ransom to the Muslims; these donors were literally giving thanks for very particular, one-off, events.⁴⁷ Others were restorations of properties lost and returned.⁴⁸ More usually gifts for non-religious, or outright secular, reasons were made because of obligations to the recipient, whether externally imposed or voluntarily undertaken. A little less frequently, gifts were also made to secure support. The most common occasions of obligation evidenced in records of donation were those that arose from court rulings that property should be handed over, from judicial or other pressures to compensate for offences committed, and from requests to discharge debts. Because bishops themselves served as judges, and one would therefore expect a portion of the fines to have gone to them, some otherwise unexplained ‘gifts’ to clerics may in fact have been made for such reasons.⁴⁹ We often do not know precisely why a court ruled as it did, or why a case went to court in the first place, but sometimes there is some detail: church proprietors took legal action against peasants who had gone, in one case, into a local priest’s vineyard or, in another, on to a monastery’s arable, and had begun digging or ploughing, as Dulquite did near León in 978 and Belito and Kalendo did in Valdoré some twenty years later; other intruders, doubtless more aristocratic, might seize whole estates and start to work them.⁵⁰ In effect, disputed ownership (or ⁴⁶ See below, pp. 139–63 for gifts to the laity. ⁴⁷ Cel511 (955), SJP31 (late tenth century), SM99 (986). ⁴⁸ S293 (978), for example. ⁴⁹ Sob75 (858), for example. See below, pp. 143–6, for fines. ⁵⁰ Lii458, OD43 (997), S356 (998); cf. also T30 (922), Li116 (937), C54 (945), SJP18 (948).


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disputed rights to use land) lay behind many of these cases; the dispute was sometimes explicit—shares in water mills were openly disputed between two abbots, Citayo and Gomelo, in 977.⁵¹ When property was handed over in compensation for an offence, there is often no record of a formal judgment and some of these gifts may have been partly compensatory, but partly penitential. The offences run from minor peasant thieving, like taking timber and stealing sheep, to the fornication and adultery committed by peasants, aristocrats, and clergy alike, and from that to assault and killing.⁵² Once when a man called Rapinato got drunk, he rushed off to Sahagún in a rage, broke down the doors, entered the monastery, and killed a monk; despite the inebriation, there was probably a reason for his behaviour—perhaps a good reason—but in this case the king intervened, confiscated his parcels of property, and gave them to the monastic community. There was no such royal intervention when Revel took some friends to Bishop Sisinando’s estate and also killed, but subsequently Revel simply handed over half his vineyard to the bishop.⁵³ Teodemiro’s case was similar: walking along one day, round about 964, he came across a monk and happened to stab him in the arm, so the story goes; the arm hung limp, so Teodemiro rushed off to Sahagún, asked for pardon, and gave the community a plot of land in Melgar.⁵⁴ Many of these compensation cases involved peasants. Discharging debts by handing over plots of land also seems to have been a feature of tenth-century peasant life in these regions.⁵⁵ Gifts of vineyards in lieu of renders of wine and grain that should have been paid regularly were made from the villages close to the monastery at Celanova, as they were similarly made to a local priest on the meseta.⁵⁶ Gifts of land were also made to priests and monasteries because they had helped out with food and wine or cider in the past—sometimes explicitly because it had been a ‘bad year’.⁵⁷ Monks and clergy helped out in bad times, ⁵¹ Lii452 (977). ⁵² Theft: Liii590 (999), Cel169 (962); adultery: Cel72 (952), Lii479 (980), Cel338 (989). ⁵³ S287 (977); Lii463 (979), cf. Lii464, of the same day, recording the names of Revel’s guarantors. ⁵⁴ S218. ⁵⁵ See further below, p. 157. ⁵⁶ Cel411 (989), Cel409 (990), Lii457 (978); cf., on a much larger scale, the different case of the abbot of Samos, who persuaded wealthy laymen to pay a debt on his behalf, rewarding them with the gift of a villa in El Bierzo, Sam178 (988). ⁵⁷ V27 (950), OD14 (964), Lii465 (979); perhaps cf. Sam241 (969). See further below, pp. 151–2.

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and subsequently were repaid with a land grant; such transactions are particularly characteristic of the villages round Celanova in the 960s but did occur on the meseta too (though they are much less characteristic of parts of Castile).⁵⁸ The other common, but not quite so common, non-religious reason for making gifts to the church was in order to secure support of some kind, whether in general or in some specific form. Purpose was expressed in general terms that bishops and large monasteries, in particular, and occasionally priests, should ‘defend’ estates, should keep a watchful eye over the donor’s affairs (including his or her court cases), and should give ‘help’, sometimes expressed through the formula ‘ut habeamus de vos moderationem et defensionem’ (so that we have rulings and defence from you).⁵⁹ We find a few peasants as well as aristocrats making such gifts, and also the occasional member of the clergy, although aristocrats are more evident; the woman Segesinda gifted Bishop Rosendo in these terms in 932; a peasant couple gifted the priest Munio more modestly in 978, and so on. Sometimes the gift for support was couched in more specific terms in order to ensure supplies of food and clothing in the future; and, unusually for these records, one abbot gifted a nunnery in the city of León specifically in order to supply his monks with clothing.⁶⁰ Again we find a wide social range involved in such transactions, and clergy as well as lay people. The abbot who secured clothing supplies was probably primarily concerned to acquire commodities, but most of these people were seeking patronage. Indeed, ‘opting for patronage’ (eligere patrocinium) is a standard formula in Abellar charters; the priest Melic, for example, gave water rights in the river Porma to the monastery of Abellar and at the same time accepted its patrocinium in 959.⁶¹ We do not have to suppose that such transactions constituted ‘commendation’ and resulted in the exclusive personal commitment of donor to patron that characterizes the classic ⁵⁸ See W. Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation in Galicia and Castile-León in the tenth century’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 149–74, at 159–60 and 171–2, for a brief discussion. ⁵⁹ Cel501 (932), perhaps Lii265 (954), Cel394 (956), Cel246 (969), Lii455 (978), Cel519 (998). Sánchez-Albornoz’s word for this phrase was ‘protection’; see ‘Las behetrías: la encomendación en Asturias, León y Castilla’, in his Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, i. 15–191, at 75. ⁶⁰ Li180 (944); Cel575 (954), Lii462 (978). ⁶¹ Lii321; cf. Li42, in which patrocinium was transferred, Li175 (943), and Sob123 (867), in which freed slaves were to be under the patrocinium of the beneficiary church. See also above, pp. 57–60, for ecclesiastical patronage.


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models of European socio-economic development;⁶² it is important to remember the variety of forms that early medieval patronage could take.⁶³ The donors chose to join a support network, which may in some cases have had little practical effect and in others resulted in hands-on help. That lords or patrons did sometimes in practice give help in court cases is shown by the fact that gifts were also given in thanks for such help in the past. Bishop Rosendo intervened in one Galician case, helping a man called Adaulfo to secure some land in Nigueiroá, and he received a third of the land secured as a reward; the priest Melic helped another priest who had been taken to court ‘in chains’, and was rewarded with a plot of land; Mandino, abbot of Samos, helped the widow Fernanda against the court claims of her sister-in-law on land her husband had given her, and that land ultimately passed in grateful thanks to Samos; and, on a smaller scale, the monks of Sahagún paid the fine for a peasant who had stolen a horse and were subsequently given his whole inheritance.⁶⁴ Ecclesiastical lordship could clearly be of very practical assistance to clients. Donations of these kinds are essentially a feature of the second half of the tenth century, although a few took place in the preceding thirty years. This is interesting because the distribution again does not quite reflect the overall distribution of tenth-century charters (heavy in 930 to 970) nor that of donations (heavy in 940 to 970);⁶⁵ while slow to start, these actions continued through the 980s and 990s, when the overall number of recorded transactions was declining. Since numbers are small relative to the total number of all donations (in the order of 5% of the latter), they may be skewed by a Celanova group in the 950s and a León group in the 970s (the former reflecting Celanova’s interest in recording the many actions of Bishop Rosendo and the latter reflecting the survival of a small archive relating to the priest Munio). However, it is worth considering if the relative increase in these kinds of donation late in the ⁶² See further below, pp. 153–4. For Spain, see C. Estepa Díez, Las behetrías castellanas, 2 vols. (Valladolid, 2003), i. 41–3, pace the influential treatment of SánchezAlbornoz, ‘Las behetrías’; cf. A. Barbero and M. Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la península Ibérica (Barcelona, 1978), especially 155–200, 354–404. For European parallels and contrasts see further the discussion below, pp. 160–3. ⁶³ Cf. the comments of C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), 438–41. ⁶⁴ Cel527 (950), S133 (951), Sam239 (985), S358 (998). ⁶⁵ See Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation’, 154, for charts.

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century reflects a real increase in transactions to secure support.⁶⁶ There do not appear to be any significant regional distinctions in distribution, except for the fact that Cardeña is notably under-represented in the group. Rather than concluding that this indicates some real regional difference, it may well be more of an indication of the kind of documents that Cardeña scribes chose to preserve, and emphasizes their particular interest in recording pious rather than other kinds of donation.

G E N D E R A N D S TAT U S I S S U E S In the light of the uncertainties discussed above surrounding pro anima gifts, the gender and status of pro anima donors cannot be meaningfully explored. In texts recording other kinds of unspecific pious motivation, as we have seen, aristocrats and clergy feature strongly; so do religious women, although their numbers are relatively few. In the texts recording specific pious motivation, both clergy and aristocrats are again prominent in the lists of those making provision for repeated prayers, while aristocrats are more prominent in making burial arrangements (comparable arrangements were presumably normally made for the clergy⁶⁷). Men and women, both separately and together, requested burial in specific places; there is no noticeable gender distinction here. There are gender distinctions, however, both in making arrangements for repeated prayers and also in making arrangements for the rite of burial and other rites. Both men and women arranged for prayers, but more than twice as many men as women are recorded as doing so; men, or men and women together, made provision for elements of burial or other ritual, but women alone are very rarely recorded as doing so. Male actors are, overall, much more frequently associated with specific pious reasons for giving than female actors. The beneficiaries of donations for commemoration were overwhelmingly monastic communities; priests sometimes benefited too but these cases are unusual. As for the donors: overall, more men than women ⁶⁶ Cf. indications of an extension of private lordship at this time; see references cited above, p. 29 n. 90; and I. Álvarez Borge, ‘Estructuras de poder en Castilla en la alta edad media: señores, siervos, vasallos’, in Señores, siervos, vasallos en la alta edad media. XXVIII Semana de estudios medievales, Estella, 16 a 20 de julio de 2001 (Pamplona, 2002), 269–308, at 308. ⁶⁷ Although not always: the neighbours of the monk Liciano got together to make provision for his mortalia near Valpuesta in 939 (V15).


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made provisions of this kind, in a ratio of two to one, although men, women, and mixed groups all did so. Men are particularly evident in making provision for annual celebration. Bearing in mind that many donors were monks or clergy, this is hardly surprising. The people who were commemorated in perpetuity were also overwhelmingly men, unless they were of both sexes (couples, groups of siblings, and so on). All of this is interesting, and perhaps more surprising, given the burden of the literature on the memorializing functions of women in early medieval cultures, and it appears to set northern Spain in stark contrast to some parts of Europe.⁶⁸ However, recent work on the complementary roles of men and women tends to modify the starkness of the contrast: men played an active part in memorialization in many other parts of Europe. It would still, however, be reasonable to stress a contrast between Spain and Germany, where the evidence for the female role is particularly strong, in this respect.⁶⁹ Second, it is noticeable that whereas men made such provision at almost any time in the period considered, in proportion to the total numbers women are more evident in the latter half of the tenth century; although numbers here are too small for certainty, they tend to suggest that this may have been a function in which women had an increasingly prominent role. Third, whereas men overwhelmingly made provision for commemoration of themselves (kings and bishops are particularly notable here), women overwhelmingly made provision for others (husbands, brothers, parents, especially), although—like men—they also provided for themselves in the company of others; married couples would give in order to secure their own commemoration, for example. So, insofar as our texts allow us to see what was happening, women may well have been performing a function for the family group that men did not perform. Their numbers may have been smaller but they could nevertheless have developed a socially distinctive role.⁷⁰ ⁶⁸ See Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance, 21, 49–73; R. Le Jan, ‘Douaires et pouvoirs des reines en Francie et en Germanie (VIe –Xe siècle)’, in F. Bougard, L. Feller, R. Le Jan (eds.), Dots et Douaires dans le haut Moyen Âge (Rome, 2002), 457–97, at 479–83. ⁶⁹ See above, pp. 33–4. E. Santinelli, ‘Les femmes et la mémoire: le rôle des comtesses dans la Francie occidentale du XIe siècle’, in F. Bougard, C. La Rocca, R. Le Jan (eds.), Sauver son âme et se perpétuer. Transmission du patrimoine et mémoire au haut moyen âge. Collection de l’école française de Rome, 351 (Rome, 2005), 459–84, argues, against Geary, that eleventh-century countesses in France had a greater role in memorializing than counts. ⁷⁰ I suggested in ‘Buying with masses: ‘‘Donation’’ pro remedio animae in tenthcentury Galicia and Castile-León’, in F. Bougard, C. La Rocca, R. Le Jan (eds.), Sauver

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What about the status of donors for commemoration? A high proportion of donors for whose gifts commemoration is specified, about half, are demonstrably aristocrats. Of the remainder, about two thirds are clergy (several of whom had property interests of aristocratic proportions, like the deacon Ermegildo) and the rest are unknown or peasants. Comparable proportions apply to those who are themselves commemorated in perpetuity. There do seem to be a few peasant cases—suggested both by the scale of properties and by the simplicity of the records⁷¹—but they are rare. The Celanova collection does not appear to record peasant gifts for this purpose at all; where they do happen to be recorded, peasant gifts were to the smaller churches and monasteries (like Santiago de Cellariolo and San Miguel), or to priests, rather than to the large communities;⁷² that being the case, peasant donation may be under-represented, the records not copied into the major cartularies. Even allowing for that possible under-representation, donation for commemoration appears to have been an overwhelmingly aristocratic practice; the point is made as much by the elaborate language of the records as by the scale of properties donated and personal associations of the donors. Not surprisingly, and by no means unusually in the European context, it was aristocrats who wanted their memory perpetuated and their family identity enhanced and preserved. The fact that it was peasants rather than aristocrats who made gifts of property in order to discharge debts and in order to pay fines, compensations, and penances has already been stressed. It is not surprising but it is socially and economically important as an indicator of one of the principal mechanisms by which churches, monasteries, and clerics acquired property at this time. Gifts to the church for secular reasons were overwhelmingly made by men or by a group that included both sexes. Few women feature, except as partners in couples or larger groups, and where they do feature they are most prominent in the discharging of debts, whether acting alone or with a male partner. Unlike women, men were involved in making all categories of these gifts, but are especially notable in making the grants that followed court cases or those made in compensation for offences. It would be reasonable son âme et se perpétuer (Rome, 2005), 401–16, at 416, that the occurrence of women may be to do with the disposability of their property; this may well have been a factor but given the disposability of all kinds of property demonstrated above, pp. 72–5, it is very unlikely to be the sole explanation. ⁷¹ See above, pp. 108–9. ⁷² Li137, Lii351, Lii427, for example.


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to say that the kinds of offence that are recorded are gendered: they tend to be masculine acts.⁷³

I M P L I C AT I O N S There are two very striking things about the preceding survey: the proportion of pro anima gifts made in the tenth century was relatively low, certainly less than half of all gifts to the church and probably a lot less than that; and gifts were made to church bodies for reasons that had nothing to do with piety. In a significant number of cases we do not know the reason why gifts were made; in many the reason is suggested by the (ecclesiastical) record-maker and may have nothing to do with the donor’s motivation. Given that the pro anima formula may often have been subsequently inserted into tenth-century texts, it is likely that the proportion of gifts to the church for non-religious reasons was significantly higher than the measurable 6% of donations to the church that we can count. For those gifts for which credible motivation is suggested, the role of men in making donations for specific pious reasons, especially for commemoration, is especially clear. The interest of aristocratic families in ensuring their own commemoration is also clear, though at quite a small scale. The former gives something of a distinctive character to the region; the latter mirrors practice in western Europe as a whole, although not in scale. Gifts were made to the church to get something in the afterlife, to get something at the point of death, and to get perpetual commemoration—continuing in life, as it were, after death. Gifts were also made because of obligations to church or monastery or to secure support in life—of enormous importance as the route by which ecclesiastical property increased (and not just to the benefit of large institutions, for local priests like Munio and Melic benefited too, although their acquisitions were often subsequently absorbed by the more powerful institutions⁷⁴). Gifts for commemoration and gifts to secure support are both notable in increasing, relative to the total number of donations, in the last twenty years of the tenth century. This is particularly interesting and suggests that, on the one hand, donation for ritual commemoration ⁷³ See further below, pp. 181–6, for gendered offences.

⁷⁴ See above, pp. 61–4.

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probably replaced foundation of churches as the principle means of perpetuating memory; and on the other that the increase in patronage contributed to the extension of private lordship. The number of cases of donation for commemoration is really very small in the tenth century, even if we allow for under-representation, but the likelihood must be that—whereas foundation of churches was necessarily an aristocratic interest—making a gift for commemoration in the liturgy, needing less resource, tended to expand the social scale of those commemorated. By the year 1000 perpetuating memory was still overwhelmingly, but no longer exclusively, aristocratic. There are strong echoes of European trends in this material. As everywhere, transactions had social overtones; and some gifts clearly established continuing relationships with beneficiaries, especially those which led to active patronage relationships.⁷⁵ The importance attached to getting a return for the gift has strong parallels in many other European countries, and the motivations for giving were very similar. As elsewhere in Europe, family mausolea had explicitly been established in the ninth and earlier centuries, with the foundation of some family churches;⁷⁶ and family churches, whether or not associated with special burial, could clearly be the focus of family identity, as they were, for example, in the eighth-century Rhineland.⁷⁷ On the other hand, the absence of precarial gifts to the church and of relationships dependent on the precaria, such as characterized East and West Francia, and for a short period Italy, is very striking.⁷⁸ Overall, there were some comparable processes and similar movements in Spain, but there were some significantly different mechanisms; where similar, on the whole the scale was smaller and the chronology later, and the parallels are closer to the French than to the German models. The very fact that there are no surviving Spanish Libri Memoriales from this period is in itself a significant contrast. ⁷⁵ See above, pp. 57–61. ⁷⁶ See above, pp. 36–43. Cf. B. H. Rosenwein, ‘Property transfers and the Church, eighth to eleventh centuries: An overview’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 111 (1999), 563–75, at 565. ⁷⁷ See M. Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400–1000 (Cambridge, 2000), 25. ⁷⁸ See, for example, L. Morelle, ‘Les ‘‘actes de précaire’’, instruments de transferts patrimoniaux (France du Nord et de l’Est, VIIIe –XIe siècle)’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 111 (1999), 607–47; Ph. Depreux, ‘L’apparition de la précaire à Saint-Gall’, ibid., 649–73; L. Feller, ‘Précaires et livelli. Les transferts patrimoniaux ad tempus en Italie’, ibid., 725–46. For precaria, see above, p. 85.

Appendix to Chapters 5 and 6 C O N C E P TS O F G I F T A N D S A L E One might argue about what constitutes a gift and what constitutes a sale, but the distinction is one that was used by tenth-century writers: the language of gift and sale was in most cases strongly differentiated, and the concept of price was central to sale.⁷⁹ By ‘giving’ they meant transferring something to another party, without a pre-arranged price or return gift being necessary to validate the transaction (although a countergift might subsequently follow it); by ‘selling’ they meant transferring something to another party, as a result of contract between the two parties, for a pre-determined price, to be paid at a pre-determined time.⁸⁰ Hence, charters of gift used words like donare, tradere, and concedere (give, hand over, concede) and cartula donationis or occasionally concessionis (charter of gift),⁸¹ while sale charters usually had the active verb as vendere, to sell, with the document itself called a cartula vendicionis, charter of sale, and a price, pretium, being specified. Hence, ‘we sell you a villa in Fontasquesa and received a price of one bay cow’ or ‘a price which satisfied me’; often texts include the words ‘I have accepted the price and nothing remains’.⁸² This concern with price also occurs in composite records, like the 940s text from San Millán in which a long list of separate small-scale transactions has price associated with all those termed sales, but not with those termed gifts.⁸³ Of course, gifts to the church might sometimes provoke a material countergift in response, especially if the donor was a high aristocrat (the word for countergift is usually (h)onor, sometimes offertio): a mule given to the countess in recognition ⁷⁹ Spanish scholars have pointed to clauses in the much later Fuero Viejo, which indicate that sale transferred land without appurtenances whereas donation transferred land with appurtenances; see Loring García, ‘Dominios monásticos y parentelas en la Castilla altomedieval’, 46–8. Appropriate as that may be for the later middle ages, I cannot detect any such differentiation in tenth-century text. ⁸⁰ Note the emphasis of Visigothic law on the appropriate time for paying the price, Forum Iudicum V.iv. 4, 5. ⁸¹ See above, pp. 88–9, 104 for full examples. ⁸² S34 (930): ‘vendimus … Et accepimus de vos in precio una vacca laura’; S53 (933): ‘et alio precio que michi complacuit’; ‘et de ipso pretio aput vos nichil remansit sed completum est’, Cel237 (934); ‘et de pretio aput vos devitus nicil remansit’, S120 (950). ⁸³ SM59 (943–51); in fact the gifts are, by contrast, explicitly pro anima.

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Appendix to Chapters 5 and 6

of a large gift of land in 935; a rabbit skin given in acknowledgement of the gift of a large estate in 954; a carpet and a tunic given in recognition of the confirmation of a grant in 957; linen cloth for an act of corroboration in 960; and the unusually large countergift of two yoked oxen, ten sheep, a blanket, and a skin in the 980s.⁸⁴ In such cases not only was the language different but the timing of the return and the level of obligation to make it were different from the timing of the price payment and the necessity of making it. These were presents—gestures of appreciation—and were clearly not a necessary condition for completion of the main transaction. Countergift was not, therefore, the same as price: the latter was defined and agreed in advance, and it was essential to meet it in full; failure to produce the price, at the right time, would invalidate the transaction. In the vast majority of cases these distinctions between gift and sale, countergift and price, were maintained. Although the essence of the distinction was therefore usually clear and consistent, there are a few texts in which it was not, and indeed where the concepts appear confused—hence we find kartula donationis vel venditionis (charter of gift and sale);⁸⁵ or we sometimes find a straightforward record of a gift which bizarrely terminates with a reference to ‘this cartula venditionis’.⁸⁶ Even more confusingly, sometimes transactions which appear to be gifts for no consideration were called ‘sales’, and contracts for a price were called ‘gifts’. Grants were made to court presidents, following judgments, as directed by the judge, but are recorded in the language of sale;⁸⁷ gifts were made, without price or countergift, and are called sales;⁸⁸ deals appear to have been done, for a price, but are recorded as gifts;⁸⁹ gifts were made to the church, but framed as sales, with the price to be paid in masses;⁹⁰ and gifts of food and sustenance were made in hard times and subsequently retrospectively reframed as an advance payment for property, a down-payment, as it were, on a future purchase.⁹¹ What did all this mean? We should not lose sight of the fact that most records of sale recorded sales of land, for a specified material price, the price changing hands at about the same time as the land; and most records of gift recorded grants for no material consideration. We are dealing with a small proportion of records that look confused. Although the authors of these texts usually kept the categories distinct, occasionally they do not appear to have seen them as so distinct. Sometimes they really seem to have been confused between ⁸⁴ C27, Lii265, V35, S178, S302; cf. S26, S285, Li168, Lii276, C23, C46, Cel570. ⁸⁵ Lii350, Lii357, Cel535, for example; cf. Lii285, S140; and a Catalan example of 989 noted by Ll. To Figueras, ‘L’historiographie du marché de la terre en Catalogne’, in L. Feller and C. Wickham (eds.), Le marché de la terre au moyen âge (Rome, 2005), 161–80, at 163. ⁸⁶ SM90, Cel456, for example. ⁸⁷ Cel393, Liii578. ⁸⁸ S75. ⁸⁹ Liii585, Cel394; cf. Cel535. ⁹⁰ Li137, C29 (see above, pp. 121–2). ⁹¹ Cel436. See further below, pp. 152, 156–60.


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categories; but sometimes, although their records look confused, their thinking can be explained. A family exchanged property with the monastery of Cardeña in 941: they gave the abbot houses, a garden, and land around the church of San Torcuato, and received in return houses, a garden, two plots of land, and a vineyard elsewhere, as also a skin; the verbs used are ‘exchange, sell, and hand over’, the document is called a ‘charter of sale and exchange’, and what they received is described as ‘countergift and price (accepimus ex vobis in honore vel precium una vinea … )’.⁹² Two records concerning Munio Fernández fall into this category and, given that he was involved in a number of transactions of both gift and sale, this is interesting.⁹³ In 996 a married couple ‘sold and gave’ him and his wife a vineyard in the Ardón valley and received a horse from them ‘as price and gift’; the charter is twice called a ‘charter of sale’.⁹⁴ The other concerns a gift made the following year after one of Munio’s court judgments, although the text is called a ‘charter of sale’ and the active verb is ‘we have agreed to sell’; in the price clause the writer has then inserted the outcome of the judgment, in place of a price.⁹⁵ There is clearly confusion in these cases about what kinds of transaction are being recorded and which formulas to use. In the latter case the author has decided to use the sale formulas, even though they don’t quite fit; in the Cardeña case the author decided to use the sale formulas, and adapt them slightly to allow for the fact of exchange. There is a kind of rationale here. Reading between the lines in the Cardeña case, it looks as if a deal was done to stop the family building more houses round the church (the text specifies that they have given up the right to build any more there), and it looks as if they received a little more than they handed over; so there was a contract, and there were sweeteners—as well as exchanging they received both a bit more, as ‘price’, and also a skin, as countergift. In the Munio case, and in ‘sales’ for good that had been done in the past,⁹⁶ sale formulas appear to have been chosen because it was land that was handed over, rather than movables, in compensation for deeds done in the past. There is some sense here that the record-makers thought that using land to meet debts or fines or compensations ought to qualify as contractual sale. Differently, in other cases, like the ‘sales for masses’, the reciprocal element in donation to the church seems to have come to the fore; the fact that something was expected ⁹² C36. ⁹³ See below, pp. 145–8, for Munio Fernández. ⁹⁴ ‘Ideo accessit bone voluntas ut venderemus vel donaremus vobis vinea nostra … et accepimus de vobis in precio et in dona una equa, quantum a nobis bene complacuit, et de ipso pretio nichil remansit in debito’, Liii573. ⁹⁵ ‘Pro que accepimus iudicio cum Cedinus presbiter et pectavimus ad illo uno kavallo in xl solidos et proinde abevimus a dare alio kavallo a comite Monio Fredenandiz de alios xl solidos. Et proinde damus vobis medietate in ipsa hereditate Monio Fernandiz, que nobis bene conplacuit’, Liii578. I have italicized the price clause; compare ‘Et acepimus de vos in pretio solidos x, quem nobis bene conplacuit’, Liii579 (997), written by a different scribe. Cf. Cel393 for a comparable case to Liii578. ⁹⁶ See below, pp. 151–2.

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back for the donation found its way into the record; and these donations were framed as sales. Occasionally both the material and the spiritual return got a mention—like a couple’s sale of half a villa to Sahagún in 954 both for the care of their souls and also for money.⁹⁷ There are, then, a number of different factors which underlie these real or apparent confusions. Occasionally there appears to have been real confusion, because the formulas available were insufficient to explain the transaction; at other times at first sight it looks to us as if the record-makers were confused, but there is a detectable rationale to their choice of words; more often, however, the categories of gift and sale were kept separate. Even when the categories were kept separate, however, the inclusion of pious formulas in records of gift inevitably introduced an element of the contractual into the concept. ⁹⁷ S140.

6 Gesmira, Recosinda, and Nuño Sarracíniz: Donation to Lay Persons In 950 Gesmira gave all her property in the villa called Torre to the lay couple Flaino and Brunildi, so that they could take her into their house and look after her, as well as taking care for her soul after her death. In 962 Recosinda gave half of her land in a villa in Ujo to the couple Taurelo and Principia, also lay, so that they could provide her with bedding and warmth. In 964 Nuño Sarracíniz gave property in Orbaneja and Villímar to the priest Iñigo so that he would look after him in infirmity and old age, as well as make sure that he was properly buried.¹ Providing for care in old age is one element in the complex web of reasons for gift-giving in these tenth-century Spanish societies.² In two of the above cases the recipients were not churches or clerics, as we usually expect of transactions recorded in early medieval charters, but lay couples. How much gift-giving went to lay beneficiaries? To what extent was gift-giving in order to secure material, practical, support of this kind a particular feature of donation to the laity?

D O N AT I O N TO T H E L A I T Y About 14% of all the gifts recorded in these tenth-century charter texts were gifts to the laity. In over two-fifths of these lay gifts, no ¹ Li222, Lii357, C117; see above, pp. 116–22 for grants for care of the soul, and for provision of religious ritual. ² A well-known later medieval practice, as recorded, for example, in the corrody; see B. Harvey, Living and Dying in England 1100–1540 (Oxford, 1993), 179–209. Dr Harvey points out that care could be provided as much for the young as for the old, and that it might include distribution of food to those living outside the monastery as well as to the ‘monastic lodger’, ibid., 179, 208.

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reasons are stated in the texts for what motivated the donors; while one can speculate about the motivation, they have to be excluded from primary analysis of what lies behind these actions. That leaves just under eighty cases, spread across the whole century and across all collections. Although widespread, it is nevertheless interesting that gifts to the laity are significantly under-represented in Castilian collections; this is particularly notable in the large data sets from Cardeña and San Millán de la Cogolla (where they constitute only 3% and 1% of donations respectively), especially since donation is much more prominent than sale in these groups of charters. By contrast, gifts to lay persons are over-represented in the substantial Sobrado and Celanova collections from Galicia (46% and 24% respectively), although in these cases the over-representation can be explained: most of the Sobrado examples, which fall between 916 and 952, were gifts to Ermegildo and Paterna, whose estate became the core of the monastery’s foundation endowment.³ Most of the Celanova examples fall between 924 and 947; many of these were gifts made to Countess Ilduara, mother of Bishop Rosendo and founder with him of that monastery. The presence of these two groups skews the figures: because of their association with Sobrado and Celanova in their foundation years, there is an unusually high survival rate; and, although made to a lay woman in the Celanova case, many of those gifts appear in fact to have been destined for the monastery. A fifth of donations to the laity fell in the 960s and another fifth in the 980s and 990s. Although the 990s figures are again skewed by an accident of survival—the inclusion of the family archive of Pedro Flaínez in the Otero de las Dueñas collection, which accounts for nearly half of the examples⁴—these decades still reveal a disproportionately high number of gifts to the laity; it was the 950s not the 960s, it may be recalled, that were the high point of recorded giving in the tenth century and the 980s and 990s saw a decline in all kinds of recorded transaction, including donations.⁵ Overall, then, it appears that donation to the laity was a notable feature of practice in Galicia and the western meseta, but it was not so notable in Castile. It occurred throughout the century but, although numbers at the end of the century are very striking, uneven ³ M. del C. Pallares Méndez, El monasterio de Sobrado: un ejemplo del protagonismo monástico en la Galicia medieval (La Coruña, 1979), 71–83. ⁴ See further below, pp. 144–8, for this family. ⁵ See above, p. 22.


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survival rates make it difficult to attribute any conclusive significance to numbers per decade.⁶ Table 6.1 Ninth- and tenth-century gifts to lay beneficiaries, by collection, as percentage of all gifts per collection Number of gifts to laity

Gifts to laity as % of all gifts

Cel Sam Sob L OD S C SM V Ar A SJP* T Ov

26 4 32 30 11 20 3 1 0 1 0 1 10 2

24 8 46 12 65 12 3 1 0 6 0 14 28 25

Total

141

14

*

a suspect charter

Although we cannot always determine the status of participants in these transactions, the proportion of aristocratic donors is notable, and this has a bearing on our interpretation of the rationales for giving. Over a quarter of donors to the laity were clearly aristocrats; a few were clergy; and a half were clearly peasants. Even more strikingly, virtually all of the beneficiaries whose status can be determined were aristocrats—about three quarters of the total; only a couple of recipients might reasonably be identified as peasants. Donation to the laity therefore appears from the ⁶ Figures for the Liébana, to the north, in Cantabria, are also high but relatively early in occurrence; figures for Oviedo are high but numbers negligible; figures for Otero are high because of the lay archive.

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outset to relate to different kinds of process: aristocrats giving to other aristocrats as well as peasants giving to aristocrats. All the charter collections tend to reflect these overall patterns, although peasant donation is more evident in Sobrado, Otero, and León material than in the others. Gender differences are also interesting and to some extent unexpected. While the examples with which this chapter began might suggest that it was women, especially, who made grants to the laity, in fact, overall, the proportion of women doing so is—at 18%—very close to the mean for all women alienators;⁷ proportions of men are also close to the mean, though slightly lower; proportions of married couples are slightly higher. Sahagún texts have slightly higher proportions of couples and lower of women; Celanova texts have lower proportions of couples and higher of men; however, overall, there is nothing particularly striking about gender differences in donation to the laity. Gender difference in recipients is much more striking. More than 60% of gifts were made to married couples, a relatively low 26% to men, and again 18% to women. Married couples thus feature particularly strongly as the beneficiaries of gifts. Where reasons for donation to the laity are given, the prominence of aristocrats begins to be comprehensible. Some charters simply record the gifts of kings to trusted men, fideles, a kind of gift one would expect to have been made in these societies, whether recorded in writing or not; kings made gifts to those who served them faithfully, as Ordoño II did to Tajón and Fernando Assuriz, and Vermudo II to Fernando Núñez, often using lands that had been confiscated from rebels; kings also granted rights to rents and to other income to those to whom they delegated political control, as Ramiro II did to Fruela Guttieriz (Bishop Rosendo’s brother).⁸ Other aristocrats acted similarly, in gratitude for faithful service, obedience, and love: Elena gave an urban homestead in León to her cousin; Jimena, the king’s daughter, gave a villa in Bubal to the same brother of Rosendo, Fruela; and, on a much smaller scale, Adosinda gave a deacon and his children a quarter of a smallholding.⁹ There were also occasional gifts to family members, ⁷ See below, pp. 171–3, for consideration of alienators by gender. ⁸ S19 (920; see Lucas Álvarez, La Documentación real astur-leonesa (718–1072), 164), S285 (pre-976—a brief reference within the main text), Liii541 (990), Cel499 (942); cf. Li123 (937), Liii530 (989), S84 (943), Cel533 (927). See above, pp. 14–16, for delegated authority. ⁹ S206 (962), Cel505 (935), Cel423 (957); cf. Ov4 (916), S75 (940), from and to priests. See further below, pp. 160–3, for discussion of clientship.


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recorded by charter in order to ensure they were not contested by other relatives;¹⁰ occasional marriage settlements, provided by parents or husbands;¹¹ occasional gifts in gratitude for help given in bad times or for specific acts of assistance, just as such gifts were made to clerics and monasteries who had helped out;¹² and very occasional gifts to lay persons to ensure that religious ritual be provided, particularly at death.¹³ The two most prominent, and probably most significant, categories of gifts to the laity, however, are gifts made to pay fines or compensations, and gifts made for ‘doing good’. Both need some detailed examination. C O U RT D E C I S I O N S Gifts made to the laity as a consequence of court decisions are recorded in donation format and are a prominent element in the first category (they constitute more than a third of those for which we know the reasons for giving); they comprise both fines and compensatory payments. They feature in collections from San Juan de la Peña, San Millán, Arlanza, León, Otero, Sobrado, and Celanova—which is a geographically representative spread.¹⁴ The largest groups are from the Sobrado, León, and Otero collections. Compensation cases are relatively straightforward and the rationale for them is usually easy to comprehend; the beneficiaries were mostly wealthy landlords. So, following judgments, Ilduara received compensation for the murder of her young retainer, and a man called Menendo was compensated for the wrongful seizure of his lands in troubled times; the couple Munio Ovekiz and Guldregoto were compensated (with land) for the theft of two of their horses, and the woman Paterna for the fact that her two cowherds were wrongly accused of theft; the wealthy couple Fruela and Adosinda received a series of compensatory land grants from their tenants for loss of stock ¹⁰ e.g. C192 (984), Cel74 (963); see also above, pp. 44, 73–4, for transactions of this kind; transmission of property by charter within families is unusual, although there are hundreds of incidental references to the fact of transmission to relatives. ¹¹ See below, pp. 168–70. ¹² OD27 (987), S332 (986), Cel436 (924), Sam6 (997). For gifts of this kind to the clergy, see above, pp. 127–8; and in general see below, pp. 151–2. ¹³ Cel172 (943), T64 (?962); cf. the sales for masses at Sob92 (934), C29 (937). ¹⁴ Cf. also Portugaliae Monumenta Historica a saeculo octavo post Christum usque ad quintum decimum, 3, Diplomata et Chartae, ed. A. Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo and J. J. da Silva Mendes Leal, vol. 1 (Lisbon, 1868), LVIII (949).

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and failure to pay due rents.¹⁵ Gifts made in order to pay off debts, although they were often made as a result of agreements rather than of court decisions, are similar and were made to lay landlords just as they were to ecclesiastical landlords.¹⁶ Plots of land were given as a substitute for twenty-three missing measures (perhaps sacks) of corn and for forty sesters of cider, for example, as well as for debts that were not detailed.¹⁷ Fines are more complicated. There are some isolated examples, from as early as the 930s, of fines being paid for offences committed, although the exact circumstances of these isolated cases are often unstated. A false land claim in Castile led to a fine being levied on the claimant, a fine assessed in money terms, but the role and status of the beneficiary is unclear from the record; whether or not the half-vineyard given to court president Godesteo Menendiz by the dowry-less Eldesenda at the end of her case was a fine or some kind of compensation is not certain, as also where blame attached in this episode; nor do we know precisely why Bonmenti had to give Cecilio meat and cider following a case about a cow.¹⁸ On the other hand, early Sobrado cases are clear that fines were paid to the court president for theft, but in most cases they are unclear about what, if anything, went to the injured party.¹⁹ The entirely clear fine payable to the king, King García Sánchez I, following a land dispute in Navarre, unfortunately comes from a suspect record.²⁰ There are, however, two groups of fines paid in the 990s which are much more illuminating; although they certainly leave some questions open, this kind of donation begins to let us see how local dispute processes worked, as well as different levels of interaction between locality and representatives of the ‘state’. One group comes from the Otero collection, from the Pedro Flaínez archive,²¹ and the other from the Leonese collections of San Antolín del Esla and San Juan de León. The former concerns fines paid to Count Flaino Muñoz and his wife ¹⁵ Cel456 (940), Liii559 (993), Cel248 (before 991), Lii378 (964), OD37 (994), OD40 and OD41 (995); cf. Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, CXI (975). ¹⁶ See above, pp. 127–8. ¹⁷ S198 (962) and Cel229 (947); cf. Sam132 (before 978) and Sam178 (988). ¹⁸ SM23 (936); Lii355 (962); Lii473 (before 980). ¹⁹ Sob54 (930), Sob21 (931), Sob24 (931), Sob29 (931). The perhaps wrongly-dated Sob75 (858) appears to indicate a fine to the judge and compensation to the injured party. ²⁰ SJP18 (948). ²¹ See C. Estepa Díez, ‘Poder y propiedad feudales en el período astur: las mandaciones de los Flaínez en la montaña leonesa’, in Miscel-lània en homenatge al P. Agustí Altisent ( Tarragona, 1991), 285–327.


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Justa and the latter concerns fines paid to Count Munio Fernández and his wife Elvira.²² Most of these records are explicit about the fact that the count held the court and received the fine. Flaino’s cases involved assault and wounding, rape, theft, and attack by siege; Munio’s included theft and adultery; in other words, these are the kind of serious breaches of the peace, as offences against the whole community, in which rulers came to have an interest, as criminal legal systems developed alongside essentially compensatory civil systems.²³ Now, although it was their role to hold the court, it would appear that the counts and their families benefited personally from these gifts: the properties given them as fines were not passed on to the ‘state’ nor passed to the victims as compensation, for they were subsequently transmitted along with the counts’ family properties.²⁴ In one of Munio’s cases it is recorded explicitly that one payment went to the victim and the other to the count, but that is very unusual—‘we had to make a payment to him [the injured man] of a horse worth 40 solidi and we had to give another horse to Count Munio Fernández worth another 40 solidi’; as often happened, a grant of land was made to the value of 40 solidi rather than chattels or cash being handed over.²⁵ We see very clearly here that one reason for donation to the laity was the result of judicial process, the fines going to build up the personal property of counts, and perhaps others, who presided in court. Was this legitimate appropriation? A form of payment for the service the count provided? ²⁶ A mechanism for warning people to behave? To see counts receiving fines for fornication is particularly unexpected; one might have expected penitential payment to go to the ²² OD31 (991), OD33 (992), OD34 (993), OD44 (998); Liii556 (993), Liii561 (994), Liii578 (997). ²³ The development of the English legal system is a classic example of this process; see P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century (only 1 vol. of a 2-vol. work published, Oxford, 1999), i. 25, 147–8, 364, and passim; it is expected that ch. 9 of vol. ii, which is particularly relevant, will be published posthumously. I am grateful to Stephen Baxter for this advice. ²⁴ Cf. the disposal of Munio’s property, Liii743 (1016), and some of Flaino’s, OD82 (1009). ²⁵ ‘et pectavimus ad illo uno kavallo in xl solidos et proinde abevimus a dare alio kavallo a comite Monio Fredenandiz de alios xl solidos’, Liii578; cf. also Liii624 (1002). Julio Escalona reminds me that many of the secular sanctions attached to charters imply that compensation went to the injured party when transactions went awry. For the significance of paying in land rather than chattels, see further below, pp. 219–21. ²⁶ There was a long distant background in Visigothic law of paying judges fees for hearing crime cases, Forum Iudicum II.i.24.

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church, and/or compensation to the family of one party, rather than the exaction of secular penalties. It is worth looking at these counts in a little more detail. Munio Fernández took part in the noble rebellion against the king of León in 991, although in 989 he had received a major grant of land near Coyanza (now Valencia de Don Juan, south of León) from the king; he was back in court circles by 992 and his family seems to have been in close touch with the royal family—his son Pedro received royal grants too and the king himself witnessed Munio’s monastic endowment in 1011.²⁷ Munio and his wife continued to receive property in lieu of fines until at least 1008, although it looks as if his active period in court was coming to an end around 1010. They also received gifts for unspecified reasons until 1011, and were involved in many exchanges of property.²⁸ In 1011 he and his wife founded the monastery of San Juan Bautista within the city of León, making generous endowments and putting Abbess Teresa in charge.²⁹ Five years later we hear of the division of his heritable land between his four children and must presume him dead. His property essentially lay in a block lying to the south and south-west of León, stretching for 40 km, roughly bounded on the east by the course of the river Esla, and running for about 20 km to the west of this line. Property that came to him and his wife as fines came essentially from within this block—in other words, he was presiding over courts in this area and dealing with offences committed within it. Flaino Muñoz had a more northerly orientation and his family focus lay 40 km to the north-east of León, on the southern side of the Cantabrian mountains (the Alto Esla). One grandfather may have been the Flaino whose assistance Gesmira had sought in 950; another was Vermudo Núñez, an associate of the king’s in the 940s and 950s, who made substantial grants to Sahagún.³⁰ Flaino’s father and mother, Munio Flaínez and Froileva, were very prominent landlords, ²⁷ Liii559, Liii530, Liii623 (1002), Liii701 (1011). See P. Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos occidental (Valladolid, 1985), 333, 337–8, who points out that Munio was from the family of the counts of Saldaña. ²⁸ Fines: Liii603 (1001), Liii624 (1002), Liii630 (1003), Liii632 (1003), Liii671 (1008); gifts for no specified reason: Liii573 (996), Liii694 (1011), Liii721 (989–1013). ²⁹ Liii701. ³⁰ S93, S98, S99, S101, S104, S129, S130, S145, S146, S147, for example. Flaino’s sister Jimena identified Vermudo as her grandfather, S328 (985); he was Flaino’s mother’s, Froileva’s, father; although much of his property was in the Sahagún region he did also have property in the mountain region of Valdoré, as did Flaino, S114 (949). See


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Figure 6.1 Location of properties of Munio Fernández and Flaino Muñoz

involved in at least twenty transactions of gift and purchase between 947 and 962; these lay mostly in the northern hills—indeed some (at Caso) were way north in the mountains of Asturias—although Munio attended transactions in the neighbourhood of León, where he Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos occidental, 331; Estepa, ‘Poder y propiedad’, 296, 289 n. 14.

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witnessed grants to Vermudo Núñez and his wife.³¹ However, these were essentially mountain lords. Munio and Froileva were the people who were owed the twenty-three sacks of corn noted above, the last of their joint transactions to be preserved; Froileva made purchases alone in 962 and 963 and presumably Munio died round about this time.³² We have no record of Munio taking fines but his son Flaino appeared on the scene in the late 980s; his daughter Jimena was also active in the 980s and 990s, a patron of Sahagún, and another son, Velasco Muñoz, made large gifts of northern lands to the monastery at Boñar in 996.³³ Flaino was count, sitting as a judge, sometimes with other judges to assist him, and taking fines in the mountainous region of Valdoré, 13 km east of Boñar and 8 km north-west of present-day Cistierna.³⁴ By 1009, when his wife and surviving children exchanged half a villa with his grandson, and made a grant for his soul, he was dead.³⁵ His son Pedro was actively involved in transactions in this mountain region from 996; he was ultimately a count too, with his own areas of responsibility, involved in judicial business and taking fines.³⁶ He was involved in at least seventy transactions of one kind or another and is last heard of in 1052.³⁷ These two cases are important because we have so much detailed information about the families across several generations. We can see in each case a powerful, hereditary landlord, with connections to the king, in charge of a relatively small, defined region, taking fines for ‘crime’ committed in his region. It is particularly interesting that the counts appear to have benefited personally from the judicial system, but also that both men received numerous other gifts in addition to the several ³¹ Lii286 (955), Lii305 (958), OD6 (947), OD11 (961), OD12 (961), S107 (947), S108 (948), S178 (960), S191 (961), for example. See Estepa’s discussion of his acquisitions, ‘Poder y propiedad’, 289–90 and 296–7; he argues that Munio was displaced from the Cea valley to the north (though Martínez Sopena, ‘El conde Rodrigo de León y los suyos. Herencia y expectativa del poder entre los siglos X y XII’, in R. Pastor (ed.), Relaciones de poder, de producción y parentesco en la edad media y moderna (Madrid, 1990), 51–84, at 53, suggests that the family may already have been mentioned at Valdoré, in the north, in 854). ³² S198; S201, S205, S213. ³³ S328, S357; S352. ³⁴ OD31 (991), OD33 (992), OD34 (993), OD43 (997), OD44 (998). ³⁵ OD82. ³⁶ OD42 (996), OD70 (1006), OD71 (1006), OD73 (1007), OD76 (1008), OD99 (1014), OD181 (1027), OD213 (1035), OD227 (1039), OD241 (1046), for example. ³⁷ See Estepa, ‘Poder y propiedad’, 300; cf. OD245 (1048), OD253 (1057).


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transactions of sale and exchange in which they were involved. We shall return to these gifts a little later.

DOING GOOD The other prominent reason for making gifts to the laity was because the beneficiary had done some good—literally bonum facere —to the donor, in other words had looked after (or was to look after) the donor in some way. Hence, the two brothers Pepino and Petronio gave Fraterno and his wife half an orchard in Argüebanes (on the edge of the Liébana valley) in 875, ‘so that they should do good’ to the brothers; a man called Eulalio in 915 gave the couple Vicencio and his wife his share (sorte) of land in Viñon (also on the edge of the Liébana valley) inherited from his parents, ‘so that as long as he lived they should do good to him and provide clothing’; while a woman, another woman and her male cousin, and a man, on three separate occasions in 962–63, gave land in the same region to the couple Savarigo and Guestrilli because of the good that had been done—in bad times, in the first two cases.³⁸ Although some of these people were clearly peasants, the woman Severa (one of those who gave in 962) was equally clearly an aristocrat, with property scattered in several locations. The formulation of ‘doing good’ is only rarely reflected elsewhere in tenth-century charters and appears to be a particular characteristic of the way relationships were conceptualized in this northern, Cantabrian, group. The only other direct parallels are the León charters recording Gesmira’s gift to Flaino and Brunildi, so that ‘during my lifetime you should do good to me’, although interestingly this may have come from a mountain context to the north of the meseta; and Recosinda’s gift to Taurelo and Principia of half her share of family land ‘because you do me much good’, also from the north, in Asturias, about 20 km south of Oviedo.³⁹ The phrase also occurs in the tenth-century record of the aristocrat Segesinda’s gift to a bishop in the north-west (Rosendo) so that he should ‘do good to me and support my cases in court’.⁴⁰ ³⁸ T13, T22, T64, T65, T69 (a slightly different case—see further below, p. 151). ³⁹ Li222, Lii357; see above, p. 139, for Gesmira and Recosinda, and pp. 24–5, for the northern context. ⁴⁰ Cel501 (932); cf. Lii455 (978), a couple to a priest ‘pro que mici bene facis’ and Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LXVII (953), a woman to the monastery of Guimarães ‘ut eis benefaciatis’. See above, pp. 127–8, for support sought from religious bodies.

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What was all this ‘doing good’ about? What in practice did it mean and what were the couples who were also themselves beneficiaries providing? These and related texts have a major place in Spanish historiography since Sánchez-Albornoz devoted an important early paper to the subject.⁴¹ He argued that these texts provided evidence of the continuation of late Roman commendation, in two distinct forms, on the one hand by the donor agreeing to serve the patron in return for food and clothing and on the other by the donor transferring property to the patron in return for protection; further, he argued that commendation was widespread in the tenth- and eleventh-century Astur-Leonese kingdom, even where the texts were silent about it;⁴² and that the benefactoría cited in eleventh-century texts (in which the right to choose a lord featured) subsequently developed into the distinctive lay lordship of the behetría of the later middle ages. Recently Carlos Estepa has shown, in a major work, that these were not forms of commendation in the commonly understood sense, that the word benefactoría referred to the bestowal of benefits in a rather general sense; that the reasons for the development of the behetría were many and various; and that bonum facere and bene facere did not evolve directly into the behetría.⁴³ The idea that there was widespread commendation in northern Spain, of the kind epitomized by the seventh-century Frankish Formulary of Tours (that is ⁴¹ C. Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Las Behetrías: la encomendación en Asturias, León y Castilla’, in idem, Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1976–80), i 15–191 (first published 1924). ⁴² Ibid., 83; he implies, 63–89, that a very high proportion of all sales and gifts made by small proprietors, to both lay and ecclesiastical beneficiaries, were acts of commendation, mostly of the second type. This interpretation, however, goes far beyond the import of the texts. See above, pp. 83–4, for Sánchez-Albornoz and the incommuniare grants of Galicia. (Cf. also A. Barbero and M. Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la península Ibérica (Barcelona, 1978), 377–80, and M. I. Loring García, ‘Nobleza e iglesias propias en la Cantabria altomedieval’, Studia Historica. Historia medieval, 5 (1987), 89–120, at 97; compare Fustel de Coulanges, Les origines du système féodal. Le bénéfice et le patronat pendant l’époque mérovingienne (Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France, vol. 5, Paris, 1890), 262. Sánchez-Albornoz was strongly influenced by Fustel’s treatment of late Roman commendation and his emphasis on subjection of client to patron.) ⁴³ C. Estepa Díez, Las Behetrías, i. 41–5, and earlier work, such as his ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo en Castilla y León’, 223–40, and the editors’ prologue to C. Estepa Díez and C. Jular Pérez-Alfaro (eds.), Los señoríos de behetría (Madrid, 2001), 10. In fact, texts using the words bene facere and benefactoría play a larger part in the discussion than those using bonum facere: ‘lo importante es el concepto que radica en el ejercicio del bene facere’, Estepa, ‘Formación y consolidación’, 224. Estepa notes, Behetrías, i. 43, that a 1029 grant to a benefactor was to ensure post-mortem commemoration, somewhat similar to Gesmira’s intention.


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binding, exclusive, personal commitment of the commended person to the patron), is therefore no longer held to be appropriate; ⁴⁴ we should not assume that these northern Spanish bonum facere texts must have been recording acts of commendation by donor to recipient. The ‘doing good’ texts are not very specific about what should be, or had been, done, but there are one or two clues.⁴⁵ Very unusually, the 875 text does use the word ‘commend’ and associate it—‘you should hold us commended and do good’;⁴⁶ Severa’s grant is both retrospective and prospective, because ‘you picked me up in a bad year and did many good things for me’ and also that ‘a bad year might come and hunger might overtake me’; Matezia and her cousin’s grant is formulated as a sale, for which the price paid was goats, cheeses, grain, ‘and other good things which you have done for us in a bad year’; Vermudo’s grant to Savarigo and his wife refers to the gifts the couple had made and the fine clothing provided;⁴⁷ Gesmira’s says that ‘you kept me warm in your house and provided for me (gubernasti)’ as well as looking forward to the likelihood of good to be done; and Recosinda’s notes that she ‘accepts blankets and bedding from you and that you provide for me (gubernas) and keep me warm’. These things seem to be about practical, physical care: provision of food and of shelter, and sometimes clothes.⁴⁸ ⁴⁴ ‘Formulae Turonenses’, no. 43, in K. Zeumer (ed.), Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, MGH LL in quarto, sectio 5 (Hannover, 1886). ⁴⁵ Cf. Estepa, Behetrías, i. 43, on the vagueness of the concept. ⁴⁶ Noted also by Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Las behetrías’, 74; this is the only one of these texts to refer to the notion of commendation. ⁴⁷ This text is difficult to translate. It reads ‘dono vobis ad vestra mesa super vestrum panem et vinum et vestrum onore quod fecistis mihi et adhuc insuper presentastis mihi mutalina hoptimum vestimentum’ ( T69). Since the gift to the couple comprised a vineyard, for their lifetime, it was presumably to supply their table; I take it that this was in respect of the onor they had done him and the clothes they had provided. In these texts onor usually signifies a countergift and therefore perhaps indicates things that had been given. ⁴⁸ Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Las behetrías’, made relatively little of the bonum facere texts because he was more concerned with the benefactoría and with service, but he does include them at 76, as also 83 n. 233 citing Gesmira and Recosinda. It should be clear that the relationship which was his main concern—that is the provision of service and/or rent for a patron in return for food and/or protection—is perfectly well indicated in some of the eleventh-century texts that he cites (e.g. ‘Et post obitum vero nostrum sedeant ipsas villas filios nostros laborent et parciant vobiscum, et faciant vobis veram obedientiam et fidelem servicium, et vos illis faciatis bonum et habeant de vos moderatione et in verbo et in facto’, Cel572 (1012)); however, note that here the client is to provide the service, whereas in my examples above it was often the patron who had already provided the service and was therefore being rewarded; see further below, pp. 161–3.

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Although other texts do not use the bonum facere expression, they record gifts made for very comparable reasons. Though made to a priest, Nuño Sarracíniz’s grant for care to be provided in old age is reminiscent; so is Sanzone’s, also to a priest, because he had provided bread for his son, goat milk for his daughter, and clothing for himself, in ‘that awful year’ (isto anno pessimo), when he was dying of hunger; and so is Leocadia’s to the monastery of Abellar for ‘clothing, shoes, food, and heating’—all donations to religious institutions but cast within a comparable social and economic framework.⁴⁹ In Galicia Gondesendo gave a share of a smallholding to a layman because he had given him bread and wine and had provided for him (guvernasti) in a bad year from March until July.⁵⁰ It is also implicit in the (abused) gift that Reparado and Trasvinda made to their cousins that the cousins should look after them in old age—as was clearly not to be the case.⁵¹A rather more political version of this kind of support comes with Valentino and Donna’s gift to a lay couple because they had protected them from the fisc and from the judge (de iudice).⁵² Assistance given in bad times, be it by layman or church, may have looked at the time like a free gift but clearly it often set up an obligation to repay the gift when times were better, a kind of debt.⁵³ Those with resources could disburse the surplus they had to spare, expecting some kind of return at an unspecified point in the future. Nearly all of these cases are about practical support—deals done with the rich to get essential supplies, especially food, when times were bad.⁵⁴ Lay couples, in particular, were often the beneficiaries of the gifts ⁴⁹ C117 (964), V27 (950), Lii462 (978); see above, pp. 127–8. Cf. Sam241 (969), a sale to the monastery of Samos by the woman Frogildi, for food, drink, and clothing that had been received. ⁵⁰ Cel436 (924); cf. Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, CXXXV (982). ⁵¹ See below, p. 185. ⁵² S332 (986). ⁵³ Cf. the very similar ninth-century Italian cases cited by L. Feller, ‘Enrichissement, accumulation et circulation des biens. Quelques problèmes liés au marché de la terre’, in L. Feller and C. Wickham (eds.), Le marché de la terre au moyen âge, (Rome, 2005), 3–28, at 21–4. Fustel de Coulanges, Les origines du système féodal, 101, in the context of discussing the fifth-century Gaulish work of Salvian, remarked that the giver may have looked liberal but was actually creating a debt. ⁵⁴ Gifts of food and clothing are reminiscent of the victum et vestimentum phrase which occurs in the Tours commendation formula, which has seemed to many scholars to reinforce the commendation argument; see, for example, Orlandis’s elaborate treatment of food and clothing for those entering the familiaritas relationship with monasteries that he proposed, although his examples come overwhelmingly from the twelfth century, ‘ ‘‘Traditio corporis et animae’’. Laicos y monasterios’, 222–3, 309–38 (see further above, pp. 53–4), and Barbero and Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 384. However, the Tours


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given in grateful thanks for earlier handouts. In some of these cases it is clear that the donor entered the household of the providers, literally to be cared for there: ‘keeping me warm’ seems to be code for taking someone in. Other examples seem to have been more short-term and were to do with providing necessities in particularly bad times; and others record gifts as a guarantee against future bad fortune. Although there are slightly more women than men who made such gifts, people of both sexes did so;⁵⁵ and they were nearly always—as might be expected—people without partners, although not invariably so. All the ‘warming’ cases relate to women. These were people who did not have an effective household set-up, and presumably not much of a wider family network. So, could this after all have been about commendation, as the earliest Liébana text might suggest? Was this a Spanish version of a general European post-Roman process, in which small-scale free proprietors submitted their persons and gave up their property to great landlords in order to secure assistance and protection in an increasingly unstable world? Clearly not. Aristocrats as well as peasants made such gifts; the donors often gave only a portion of their properties, not all of them; some of the gifts were to come into effect after the death of the donors; there was no associated service obligation; and the number of such cases is really very small within the overall tenth-century context. As the texts say, this seems in practice to have been about individuals either seeking help from the wealthy in hard times, or providing for the event of future bad times. It is not about personal commitment to the wealthy, let alone total, irreversible, commitment, although of course one would expect some sense of obligation to these providers to have been established in such small-scale rural societies. What it is about, then, is in the first instance economic—getting the wherewithal to sustain life; it is sometimes about direct, physical, care for the weak, feeble, and old; it also seems partly to be about the support mechanisms used by partnerless people—those who, for whatever reason, did not have extended families; formula guarantees service in return for food and clothing, whereas service is not specified in these particular Spanish contexts; gifts and sales for victum et vestimentum are in fact very uncommon in this tenth-century material (although see Sob10 (943), Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, CIII (971)); and in charters the phrase victum et vestimentum is more likely to refer to gifts made in order to supply the poor or monks than to refer to handouts to a donor (e.g. S144 (955): ‘pro victu atque vestimento monachorum’; Sam93 (951), S165 (959), Sob5 (966), S303 (980)). ⁵⁵ But for gender differences overall in donating to the laity, see above, p. 141.

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it is also consequentially about extending patronage—lining up and getting supporters, in an altogether looser, less autocratic, framework than the commendation model.⁵⁶ It is not about the whole society, nor even the whole of peasant society, although it is probably reasonable to suppose that such procedures might be found as well in Galicia, or the western meseta, or Castile, as in the north: although the bonum facere phrase clearly reflects wording characteristic of Asturias and Cantabria, the practices which it encapsulates were more widespread. And what about the levels of control, the power over persons, exercised by the provider? The word gubernare occurs several times and is suggestive of steering, governing, ruling, although I have translated it as ‘providing’. Overall, there is very little to suggest that the people who provided food and shelter, the rich beneficiaries of gifts of land, achieved sustained powers of direction over those who made the gifts. Such powers of landlords over dependent tenants clearly sometimes existed, but they had arisen for a variety of reasons, some of which lay in the distant past.⁵⁷ This was light-touch patronage, not the establishment of heavy burdensome bonds. Those who were ‘governed’ in these texts are those for whom support was provided, often in the household. ‘Governing’ here must be governing in the sense of a head of household setting the rules for the members of the household, who were necessarily subject to his (usually male) authority. One thinks of some of the stock characters of modern novels, the gentlewoman taken into the house of a relative, or the tutor or governess, without household of his or her own, doing the jobs that no one else wanted to do, eternally grateful but totally powerless, like Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, always reminded of her ‘place’. ‘Governing’ was to do with the power of the paterfamilias, not the power of the serf-owner or seigneurial lord.

G I F TS TO T H E L A I T Y F O R N O A P PA R E N T REASON As indicated above, a noticeable proportion of gifts to the laity—over two-fifths of the group—were made for no stated reason, and the texts ⁵⁶ Commendation of a kind did start to feature in eleventh-century texts, however; Estepa, ‘Poder y propiedad’, 320. ⁵⁷ See above, pp. 17–22.


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contain few clues about what was happening. Having examined those made for stated reasons in some detail, we are now in a position to make some suggestions. Nearly three-quarters of these unexplained gifts were made to couples; they were made by men, women, and mixed groups, but mostly by couples. They occurred from late ninth to late tenth century, but notably in the 960s; and they occurred in most collections and most regions, with the exception of Castile. The basic profile of this gift-giving therefore reflects that of gift-giving to the laity for stated reasons. Clearly these gifts for which we have little detail, some of which are gifts by profiliation, could have been made for all kinds of reason, including all of the reasons cited above.⁵⁸ There may well have been deals between family members; there was doubtless some movement of property between members of the royal family and its close associates;⁵⁹ and there was probably some gift-giving in order to clear debts, make rewards for past service, and pay fines and compensations. Some of these gifts, like those made to Gutier and Ilduara in Galicia, may in fact have been ultimately destined for the church: one church was given to a lay couple for their lifetime only, to be passed on to Sahagún.⁶⁰ Others, from ‘your servant’ (servus), were made to lords (domini) and presumably met the terms of some personal obligation.⁶¹ Some of the couples who received gifts for no stated reason are exactly the same wealthy couples who took fines or who received gifts for support that had been provided in hard times.⁶² Most of the gifts to Munio Flaínez and his wife were made for no stated reason, although we know that one gift was in lieu of debt, as also that Munio’s son was a count and took a number of fines; and that Vermudo Núñez, his father-in-law, had received such gifts too. Count Munio Fernández and his wife Elvira are another such case, receiving many fines as well as the occasional gift for no apparent reason. These families bought and exchanged a lot of property as well as receiving gifts, just as Savarigo and Guestrilli in the Liébana gave and bought land, as well as receiving gifts ⁵⁸ See above, p. 84, for profiliation (i.e. adoption), and see further below, pp. 160–1. ⁵⁹ Cf. Cel493 (918). ⁶⁰ For example, Cel518 (931), Cel218 (936), Cel509 (937), etc.; S25 (921). ⁶¹ Li3 (864), Li4 (870), Sob52 (930), Sob30 (955), Lii356 (962), Sam132 (before 978). Barbero and Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 382, treated the ninth-century León grants noted here as evidence that the ‘servants’ had previously received goods from their masters. ⁶² See above, pp. 141, 143–6, 152–3.

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in recognition of help given in hard times.⁶³ Other notable purchasers received unexplained gifts too: Bagaudano and Faquilona (probably Savarigo’s parents), who bought in the Liébana between 914 and 932;⁶⁴ Ermegildo and Paterna, who bought in central Galicia from at least 920 until 953;⁶⁵ the major-domo Ansur, and his wife María, who bought around Sahagún between 958 and 967, and perhaps with a second wife Ilduara in the 970s;⁶⁶ Fruela Vélaz and his wife Jimena, who bought around Coyanza (Valencia de Don Juan) between 962 and 968.⁶⁷ These clearly were all wealthy aristocrats with available surplus—that is, with resources to dispense. It therefore seems likely that, in addition to gifts made for the wide range of reasons noted above, some of the unexplained gifts went to these couples because they had provided. It is notable that virtually all of Bagaudano’s many purchases were paid for in food. Again, we do not have to suppose that the donors of unexplained gifts of land entered into lifelong, enforceable, commitment, or a life of subjection, as a result of such gifts; nor that their gifts represented all their property—some texts are explicit that the beneficiary was only to have a share, just as children did.⁶⁸ They were simply gifts and belong to the world of loose patronage networks.

G I F TS F R A M E D A S S A L E S ? In the present context of gift-giving for purposes which were not primarily religious, it is worth considering the nature of some sale transactions. As indicated above, the layman Bagaudano and his wife received gifts in the Liébana in the early tenth century but they were also noticeable purchasers of land; they used food to pay for their ⁶³ T52 (947), T53 (950), T54 (951); T65 (962); T64, T69. ⁶⁴ T18, T21, T23, T25, T26, T27, T32, T36, T39, T40, T42; T41 perhaps implies that Bagaudano had received the property exchanged as a fine. Barbero and Vigil’s suggestion, Formación del feudalismo, 380, that his family property was transferred to San Martín of Turieno, of which their son Opila became abbot, and that Savarigo was another son, is entirely reasonable. ⁶⁵ For example, Sob67 (920), Sob79 (927), Sob101 (931), Sob102 (935), Sob87 (953), Sob89 (953). ⁶⁶ S158, S169, S182, S187, S194, S199, S210, S223, S237; S260, S268, S269, S272, S273, S278, S282; S284, S285, S308. ⁶⁷ Lii352, Lii360 (see below, p. 186), Lii406. ⁶⁸ Hence gifts by profiliatio, by adoption; S178 (960), S191 (961), for example.


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purchases.⁶⁹ When Matezia and her cousin gave land to Savarigo and Guestrilli in recognition of the good the couple had done them, that transaction was recorded as a sale, with both the good done in the past and the food which had been handed over described as the price paid for the land; and when Recosinda gave Taurelo and Principia half her land in Ujo for the good they would do her in the future, that record was described as a ‘charter of gift and sale’.⁷⁰ A woman, Gogina, also ‘sold’ the priest Braolio half an orchard in recognition of grain he had supplied to her.⁷¹ Shifting the perspective a little towards debt, two men, Martín and Félix, ‘sold’ to a man called Arias and his children their share of some enclosed land (dehesa) in Fontecha, in lieu of the grain, wine, and cheese they owed him; a widow, also called Guestrilli, ‘sold’ the priest Munio her vineyard in 978 in lieu of the wine that she owed him, worth thirteen and a half solidi;⁷² and the following year, with her sons, she ‘sold’ the same priest a plot of land for grain owed.⁷³ As we have seen, ‘gifts’ of vineyards they owned were also made in lieu of regular renders of wine and grain owed by villagers close to the monastery at Celanova.⁷⁴ Now, as in the latter case, when debts were discharged or past assistance rewarded by handing over plots of land—a characteristically peasant practice—the transaction was usually called a gift; however, sometimes exactly the same kind of transaction was called a sale, as if the unpaid rent was a price the beneficiary, by writing it off, paid in advance for some land; and as if the gift made to assist the needy was similarly a price paid in advance for property. In effect, when the ‘debt’ was discharged with a gift of land, the food given by the priest or lay lord and the rent unpaid became—retrospectively—the ⁶⁹ Bagaudano and his wife were central to the interpretation of Barbero and Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 377–80, where their purchases are interpreted as transactions which initiated relationships of dependence. In this they mirrored the approach of Sánchez-Albornoz; see above, pp. 150–1. ⁷⁰ T65; Lii357 (the text is more of a gift text than a sale text but it is twice called kartula donationis vel venditionis); see above, pp. 139, 151. See further above, pp. 136–8 for discussion of ‘confusion’ between the categories of gift and sale. ⁷¹ OD14 (964). ⁷² A different individual (from the ‘territory of León’) from Savarigo’s wife, who was located in the Liébana. ⁷³ Lii371 (964); Lii457; Lii465, a problematic text as it stands because it literally says that the priest owed the woman the grain (‘pro illa cebaria de renobo que mici abuisti a dare’); the only reasonable sense to make of it is that it was her debt and that the endings of the verbs are incorrect. ⁷⁴ Cel411 (989), Cel409 (990); see above, pp. 127–8. See above, pp. 18–21, for the combination of proprietorship and tenancy that was characteristic of some peasants’ property rights.

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price.⁷⁵ Bearing that in mind, it is worth exploring whether the many apparently straightforward sales of small plots of land, for which the price is specified in terms of food and drink, could in fact have been comparable transactions. It is far from my intention to suggest that all sales should be, or might be, viewed in this light. Sales were of many different types, operating at different social levels, with a great range of different price categories.⁷⁶ Some sales were made by aristocrats and some sales were made to religious corporations for what look like essentially commercial reasons; purchases were made to consolidate property, for reasons of more efficient management and exploitation; some sales were made for extremely high-value prices, like the vineyard which changed hands between lay couples for a value of 150 solidi in 927 or orchards sold to Celanova in 961 for fine horses, a carpet, and silver plate;⁷⁷and sales were made to religious communities from which any balance in the value of the land which was not met by the price paid was to be devoted to alms in memory of the vendors’ parents or other relations—the price paid may strictly have been too low but the transaction was clearly concluded in terms of value.⁷⁸ In all these cases price and value were important to the participants. However, there were other kinds of sale: sales were also made for directly consumable food. When sales were made for payment in food, price tended to be expressed in measures of grain, or wine, or cider, and more occasionally in cheeses or bread. The format of the record was usually that of the straightforward sale document: ‘I sell (vendo) you this and I have accepted a price of that, which is agreeable to me, and you have nothing more to give’. Hence, a group of siblings sold the woman Fredesinda some woods for cider, grain, and a cheese; Vímara and his wife sold the monastery of Abellar half a vineyard for salt and grain; the priest Rapinato and his cousin sold their shares in a family mill to the monastery of Santos Justo y Pastor for grain; Rodrigo sold Bishop Rosendo a vineyard for rye, millet, and wine; Domnito sold ⁷⁵ Cf. Feller, ‘Enrichissement, accumulation et circulation des biens’, 23, on price as the cost of all the help given; and Ll. To Figueras, ‘L’historiographie du marché de la terre en Catalogne’, in L. Feller and C. Wickham (eds.), Le marché de la terre au moyen âge (Rome, 2005), 161–80, at 167, on the inability to pay debts as a primary reason for sale. ⁷⁶ See W. Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation in Galicia and Castile-León in the tenth century’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 149–74, for discussion of price. ⁷⁷ Li74, Cel380. ⁷⁸ e.g. Li254 (952), Lii336 (961), Lii343 (961).


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Munio Flaínez and his wife half a plot of land for bread and wine; and so on.⁷⁹ The same Taurelo and Principia who received gifts from Recosinda for her support paid one Nonelo in grain and cider for half a plot of arable and a quarter of an orchard, again in Ujo; it makes sense to see the vendor of such tiny portions as the principal initiator of such a transaction, selling whatever he could to get food.⁸⁰ Sales of this kind were made to clergy, laity, and monastic communities; they were made by men, women, married couples, and mixed groups, both lay and clerical; they were made from early until late in the tenth century. They occur in all parts and in most charter collections; however, they are particularly prominent in Celanova and León collections, especially in mid-century, and they are relatively rare in Castilian collections.⁸¹ This partly reflects the size of collections and the overall incidence of sale as against donation, but the mere handful in Cardeña material is nevertheless notable, particularly given the low incidence of donation to the laity.⁸² One can envisage, therefore, that some of these so-called sales could just as well have been recorded as gifts made in recognition of assistance given in the past when food was short and times were hard. Of course, sometimes they are also likely to have been deals—contracts to secure supplies in times of shortage—closer to the true ‘sale’ but lying precisely within the same social and economic framework as gifts made in recognition of assistance. We do not have to suppose that this only happened in dreadful years, like those in the middle of the tenth century, because such sales happened in all decades. We do not have to suppose that they involved the vendors in relationships of tied dependence: it is striking that the properties alienated were small, and often fractions; the ⁷⁹ Li22 (908), Li170 (943), Lii283 (954), Cel392 (961), S193 (961). Cf. other examples of sales for food: to a lay woman (confessa), Cel437 (943); to the priest Vicente, Ov8, Ov10, Ov12, Ov13 (937–49). ⁸⁰ Lii324 (960). Cf. Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation’, 159–60 and 171–2. ⁸¹ See Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation’, 152–5, for comparative statistics. It is impossible to do a meaningful count of all sales for food because in some cases the value of the price is given but the objects handed over are not identified; further, animals handed over in payment have an uncertain status in this respect—they may have been handed over for immediate consumption or as stock. ⁸² Absence from Cardeña texts could be explained by suggesting that Cardeña scribes did not choose to copy and preserve such records in their cartulary; it does not have to imply that such transactions did not happen. However, the lack is very striking. (S. Moreta Velayos argues that eight donations with countergifts were in fact sales, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña. Historia de un dominio monástico castellano (902–1338) (Salamanca, 1971), 116–19).

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vendors kept plenty back.⁸³ But we do have to consider that this was probably part of a familiar and ongoing economic process: in times of shortage, peasants would get food from richer neighbours, and sooner or later would reward them by handing them a plot of land—land, be it noted, not their own surplus food or other chattels.

G I V I N G , PAT RO N AG E , A N D C L I E N TS H I P Gifts were made to lay persons for a range of very different reasons, although gifts to secure practical support were a significant element of that giving. Clearly the beneficiaries in such cases were not distinctively lay, however, for gifts for practical support were also made to the clergy; lay and ecclesiastical landowners alike might provide support in court or handouts of food; although there are as many such gifts to laity as clergy recorded, there is no reliable basis for estimating whether this practice benefited more laity or more religious or was roughly the same. One thing that these transactions certainly make clear is that there were some very wealthy aristocrats around, lay and clerical, people who had resources to spare, and that they themselves could benefit hugely when they took on the role of provider. A couple like Ermegildo and Paterna, in early tenth-century Galicia, amassed very considerable property by receiving fines, attracting gifts, and buying up land, sometimes for food handouts, although their property was soon transferred to the monastery of Sobrado.⁸⁴ Spanish writers of the past generation have placed a heavy emphasis on the importance of gift by profiliation in this process, arguing that such gifts gave strangers rights in family property and inaugurated new relationships of dependence.⁸⁵ Some gifts to the powerful were certainly ⁸³ It would be possible to interpret other kinds of price paid as evidence for the Sánchez-Albornoz model: price often included bedding (cf. the ‘warmth’ specified in some of the bonum facere texts), lengths of cloth (which could have been for clothing), and shoes (cf. the calciatura that Leocadia ordered), e.g. Lii322 (959), where the price for a plot of land was a ‘best’ Moorish blanket and a pair of shoes; however, although an amusing exercise, this is going too far. For all the reasons stated above, these were not transactions leading to dependence; and many of the lengths of cloth were of special character and very high value. ⁸⁴ Not for ever: see A. Isla Frez, La sociedad gallega (Madrid, 1992), 229, on the transfer of a significant interest to Count Menendo González in the eleventh century. ⁸⁵ It has become common to argue that all ‘profiliation’ gifts, i.e. gifts in which the recipient was taken on ‘as it were as a child’ (and many of the unexplained gifts were


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gifts by profiliation, but we should remember that profiliation gifts had other purposes too, that the properties conveyed were often but small fractions of the donors’ lands, and that a wife could transfer property to her husband by profiliation.⁸⁶ There simply is no reason to assume that in the tenth century a gift by profiliation meant that the donor commended him- or herself into a state of dependence. As suggested above, the word may well have been chosen by the record-maker not because it had any precise signification but as a way of emphasizing the donor’s freedom of disposition. Of course, as has often been suggested, profiliation gifts may well have had the effect, in the much longer term, of diverting property into the hands of the powerful, but it was only one of several practices that led in that direction. What is also noticeable about these transactions is that when the wealthy dispensed food, what they got in return was nearly always land. Poorer people do not seem to have had access to liquid capital nor sufficient surplus of consumables to give back when good times returned.⁸⁷ The only thing they had to give was land. This clearly had social and economic consequences, with a tendency for those rich in land to get richer and the poor to get poorer, but our evidence of such transactions is limited in scale and suggests that the impact must have been limited at this time. Questions about the quasi-feudal, or proto-feudal, or feudo-vassallic, nature of these gifts between lay people naturally leap to mind.⁸⁸ Was property given in return for service? Was such service accompanied by close personal commitment between donor (patron) and recipient profiliation gifts), were gifts by which the donor entered into a service relationship with the beneficiary, in effect a form of commendation; see especially Barbero and Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 380–94; also A. Isla Frez, ‘Las relaciones de dependencia en la Galicia alto-medieval’, Hispania 44 (1984), 5–18; idem, Sociedad gallega, 233; and M. I. Loring García, ‘Dominios monásticos y parentelas en la Castilla altomedieval: el origen del derecho de retorno y su evolución’, in R. Pastor (ed.), Relaciones de poder, de producción y parentesco en la edad media y moderna (Madrid, 1990), 13–49, at 28. This could sometimes have been the case but, as argued here, it is perfectly clear that all kinds of rationale lay behind such giving; it is also the case that some acts of profiliation were clearly intended to provide the donors, not the recipients, with services (cf. Cel228). ⁸⁶ See above, pp. 83–4. S370 (972), for a wife’s profiliation gift to her husband. ⁸⁷ Although, of course, it is landed gifts that are recorded; in theory there could also have been a hidden stratum of repayment in goods, but see further my comments below, pp. 219–21. ⁸⁸ For these categories of enquiry see J.-P. Poly and E. Bournazel, La mutation féodale, X e –XIIe siècles (Paris, 1980); and for updates, E. Bournazel and J.-P. Poly (eds.), Les féodalités (Paris, 1998).

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(client), indeed perhaps exclusive and binding commitment? Some elements of the Spanish patterns are certainly comparable to those of the classic western European (in effect Frankish) models. Kings unquestionably had followers who were seen to be faithful (fideles, fidelissimi), whom they rewarded for loyal and faithful service.⁸⁹ Relationships between some donors and some beneficiaries were described in terms of love (amor, dilectio, caritas);⁹⁰ in an aristocratic milieu this was a way of conceptualizing relationships of commitment. One female donor, making the gift to a deacon for service done, even specified that he might not take another patron while she was alive; there are certainly shades of lifelong commitment here.⁹¹ And landed property was clearly handed over as a reward for service—servitium—by men and women.⁹² All of these features are reminiscent of the classic models. However, there are significant differences: rewards for service were usually explicitly for service completed in the past; and when Sanzone gave the priest his field and garden for the service he had done, that service was explicitly the service of providing food and clothing, not the kinds of active service, whether agricultural or administrative or military, that we usually imagine.⁹³ The land handed over was usually for permanent use by the beneficiaries, and was often explicitly freely disposable—they could pass it on as they wished; and, most importantly, this is but an extremely small element of the property transactions that are recorded, and even of the property transactions between laity. All of these features are unlike those of the traditional models. The patron/client relationship sometimes looks more permanent, more institutionalized, in the relationship between donor and church. To choose the patronage of the church might mean entering a monastery, but it more often meant joining the monastery’s local, small-scale, patronage network.⁹⁴ These relationships have an air of permanence since the monastery, or occasionally church, was a physically enduring element in the local scene, although the gifts and sales to lay couples ⁸⁹ S19 (920), S285 (976), Liii541 (990); cf. the (?eleventh-century) interpolations in Sob6 (966). ⁹⁰ S75 (940), S206 (962), Cel505 (935). ⁹¹ Cel423 (957). ⁹² Ov4, S75, S206, Cel423, perhaps Cel505; see above, pp. 141–2. ⁹³ V27.The one apparently clear tenth-century exception to this is the 952 gift of Fernando Vermúdez to Vermudo Aboleze for service which had been done and which the latter promises to be done in the future, S365; see Estepa, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo’, 223, and Las behetrías, i.44, emphasizing that Vermudo Aboleze was not a dependent peasant and was free to choose a lord. ⁹⁴ See above, pp. 57–61, 128–9.


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make it perfectly clear that lay patronage networks were common too and could last a long time. The power that was realizable by sitting in court is evident from the many cases cited here, and this was a characteristically, though not exclusively, lay activity; it was transferred across generations of lay families, as well as sometimes being transferred to the church. What was also common to lay and ecclesiastical client relationships at this period, and what distinguished them from later, service-based relationships, was the place of the gift in relation to client and patron. In this period, it was the client who gifted the patron with property, expecting support in return, whether practical or protective, temporary or long-term, or spiritual and perpetual—the client was the land donor; it was not a case of the patron giving the client property in order to support future service, nor of the client giving himself and his service and accepting food supplies in return, as in the dominant European models.⁹⁵ Making grants to the laity to enter the patronage network does not look new in the tenth century, and may well have followed decades, if not centuries, of light-touch patronage systems, in which the interests of client and patron were often reasonably balanced. It looks as if such gift-giving may have been increasing in the later tenth century, perhaps as royal orders reinforced the responsibilities of some local aristocrats. Local priests like Melic and wealthy peasants like David and Regina, however, tended to choose monastic patronage. In the long term this was a significant driver of social change, for the balance shifted in favour of wealthy proprietors, once powerful religious corporations became involved. Even with the high profile of donation to the laity in the 990s, there was still more than four times as much recorded giving to the church in that decade. ⁹⁵ Cf. above, n. 48. Note that the Tours formula (above, n. 44) provides for the donor to commend his person not his property; cf. gifts of service (and property) in return for food in East Frankia from 745, Ph. Depreux, ‘L’apparition de la précaire à Saint-Gall’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 111 (1999), 649–73, at 659.

7 Men and Women It would be relatively easy to make it appear that women had a special role in making donations to the church in tenth-century Spain. There are some notable examples. Ramiro II’s daughter Elvira made gifts to several churches in memory of her brother Sancho in the 970s; the woman Eldoara gave all the property she had inherited from her mother to the nunnery of Santiago in León, with the request that she be buried there herself; the sisters, and abbesses, Eilo and Goisenda, gave many properties in Galicia (including one villa their aunt had given them) to the monastery of Celanova, with a request for annual services for their own memorial; the widow Entregoto made grants of land near Oviedo in memory of her parents, her husband Lallino, and her ancestors, just as the widow Emilo Hamita gave property in Grajal to the monastery of Sahagún in memory of her husband Sendino; and so on.¹ Women’s capacity to act is striking, from east to west and north to south, and the church was not the only beneficiary: Ranemira and her two daughters gave half of what they had inherited from her mother to the powerful Galician lay couple, Ermegildo and Paterna, and other women gave to lay couples in order to secure support.² However, the preceding chapters have provided plentiful evidence of men and women acting together, exchanging, selling, and giving property, in all kinds of deal, large and small. This is as true of peasant couples—witness especially the many peasant sales of small plots of property—as it is of aristocratic couples, where the typical transaction was more likely to have been a gift of several entire villas.³ One member of a couple might also act with the consent of the other, like the women who sold small plots near Oviedo with the consent of their husbands, or alternatively the woman ¹ S255 (970), Lii432 (974); Lii425 (973), cf. C39 (942), C82 (952); Cel216 and Cel251 (993); Ov20 (978), S190 (961). ² Sob60 (916). There were relatively high proportions (although small numbers) of women making gifts for support; see above, p. 153. ³ e. g. Cel71 (916), S128 (950), T70 (964), Ar21 (970), S285 (976), SM97 (984).

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who confirmed, in a separate document, her husband’s gifts of property near León.⁴ Men and women doing things together was one aspect of normal life. We have also seen plenty of examples of men as well as women acting separately—to such an extent that it makes Barbero and Vigil’s view that it was women who played a fundamental role in the transition ‘from tribal to feudal society’ very difficult to accept.⁵ Women received property from fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters, and acquired it by purchase; so did men. Property could be transferred by and through women, as demonstrated perfectly well by the examples which begin this chapter, as it could be transferred by and through men: Agela, son of Emenecio, and Vigila, son of Lecinio, sold the wood they had inherited from their fathers, whose ancestors had established it; Armentario Díaz gave the monastery of Cardeña a quarter of a saltpan that had come from his father; Salite sold his share of water rights in the river Cea, which had come from his father Alvaro’s inheritance; Rodrigo sold Munio Flaínez and his wife his share of the inheritance that came from his father Sisverto; the deacons Alvaro and Abraham sold a villa they had received from their uncle, a bishop; Gavino and his two sons gave Celanova everything he had inherited from both parents; and so on.⁶ In fact, the records log noticeably more cases of male transmission than of female. The impression given by tenth-century written sources is that both men and women had access to property and exercised property rights, both separately and together, but that more men had more property. Despite the powerful arguments that have been deployed to demonstrate that women had a special role in preserving family memory in medieval Europe, we have seen that in northern Spain in this period more men than women took action to commemorate themselves and their families.⁷ Unless much has gone unrecorded, it looks as if women had a role in this respect, but that they did not have a distinctive role. ⁴ Ov8 (937), Ov9 (946); S150 (956), with reference to S144 (955). ⁵ Barbero and Vigil, Formación del feudalismo, 404. Their argument depends essentially on the view that succession to the Asturian kingship had matrilineal traces in the eighth and ninth centuries (ibid., 327–53); the examples they give of transmission of property through females in the ninth and tenth centuries (ibid., 362–401) are entirely reasonable, but the number of them is small and they are not compared with transmission through males. ⁶ S72 (938), C56 (945), S188 (961), OD11 (961), Lii403 (967), Cel303 (996). See also examples cited above of brothers acting together, pp. 65–9. ⁷ See above, pp. 130–3.

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Women could also, like men, take forthright and vigorous action—we saw three powerful women making the running in the monasteries of Galicia in the late ninth and early tenth centuries.⁸ But authority unquestionably resided in maleness: rulers were male; counts were male; panels of boni homines (trusted men, worthies), who were sent to investigate disputes, were male; named representatives of peasant communities were usually male.⁹ But, in the latter case, not invariably.¹⁰ How far is that impression of male dominance in matters of property supported by the detail of the texts? How far, in a world dominated by male authority figures, could women do what men could do?

C O N T RO L O F P RO PE RT Y As we have seen, landed property rights normally passed from parents to children, male and female.¹¹ Hence, both sons and daughters inherited portions of land, and they inherited from their fathers and from their mothers too. The result was that many women controlled landed property in their own names, across the status range. Such property was separately identifiable as their own; accordingly, when Martín and his wife sold some land to the monastery of Abellar in 942, his wife also sold a different piece of her own land, separately identifiable with separate boundaries.¹² This point is reinforced at peasant level by the frequent citation in boundary clauses of adjacent properties which were owned or worked by women. If women were as capable as men of inheriting property, and that in effect seems to have been the practice, one has to ask if they inherited portions of comparable size and if their powers in relation to inherited property were the same as men’s. There are no consistent indications of the relative size of portions: we hear of women securing a third, a half, and equal shares with brothers, but in most cases we simply do not know.¹³ The five-way split of Bishop Rosendo’s inheritance with his two brothers and his two sisters looks as if shares were virtually ⁸ See above, pp. 36–8. ⁹ For example, worthies: V8 (911), V10 (919), Sam46 (933), Cel93 (950); community representatives: Sam144 (878—forty-one men in this case), Sam247 (909), Sam170 (930), C22 (932), SM50 (948), Cel489 (953), C89 (956), S289 (977); see further below, pp. 199–201. ¹⁰ S44 (932), Cel224 (934), Cel95 (950–51). ¹¹ See above, pp. 66–71. ¹² Li157 (942). ¹³ Cel375 (997), Lii293 (955), Li156 (942).

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equal;¹⁴ and Gundulfo’s bequest was split four ways between his wife, his niece, the nuns of Porto Marín, and Rosendo—again the portions look similar.¹⁵ It would be hazardous, however, to argue from these two exceptional cases to a general norm (exceptional because both involved Bishop Rosendo); in practice shares are likely to have varied with personalities and with circumstances. Relative size of inherited portions has to remain an open question. As for powers: we have seen that in practice inherited land was often owned ‘in common’, regardless of sex, as it was also just as frequently divided.¹⁶ Where owned in common, it was necessarily subject to the constraints of all partners; where divided, the outcome was, again, identifiable property for individual males and individual females, as also the diversion of inheritances. Although property normally devolved to children, both men and women disposed of maternal and paternal inheritances, sometimes disinheriting their children,¹⁷ just as married couples disposed together of land that had come from one or other set of parents.¹⁸ Men and women also had acquired property alongside that which they had inherited, both separately and as married couples, acquiring it by purchase, gift, or judicial award; both men and women disposed of land they had acquired, as did their children;¹⁹ and widows and widowers might dispose of their previously shared interests.²⁰ To the extent that men were able to dispose of landed property, women seem to have had comparable powers of disposition.²¹ ¹⁴ Cel478 (934); the second sister’s share is missing because there is a gap in the manuscript; however, the other four each had a long list of properties, including many fifths. ¹⁵ Cel75 (955). Visigothic law had allowed for equal shares for brothers and sisters (Forum Iudicum IV.ii.1, IV.ii.9), but practice was clearly more complicated in the tenth century. Cf., in the Frankish world, R. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc (VII e –X e siècle). Essai d’anthropologie sociale (Paris, 1995), 354, 378–9, on the fact that women’s roles were changing in the tenth century, with evidence of an increasing need for their consent and of increasingly significant roles for widows. ¹⁶ See above, pp. 67–70. ¹⁷ For example, Sob92 (934); cf. Sob79 (927), and see above, p. 73. ¹⁸ Sob65 (905), Li88 (930), Cel33 (936), Cel409 (990), for example. ¹⁹ SM21 (?932), Li103 (935), Cel374 (961); Cel436 (924), Sob85 (929), Sam16 (989). ²⁰ Li156 (942), S121 (950), Lii307 (958), S190 (961), S212 (963), S328 (985). ²¹ M. I. Loring García argued for equal or superior powers for women in the later ninth century in Trasmiera in Cantabria, but not elsewhere in the Asturian kingdom; ‘Dominios monásticos y parentelas en la Castilla altomedieval: el origen del derecho de retorno y su evolución’, in R. Pastor (ed.), Relaciones de poder, de producción y parentesco en la edad media y moderna (Madrid, 1990), 13–49, at 18–24.

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Land that came to a married couple from a parent was not necessarily inherited, for it might have come as a marriage settlement.²² Marriage settlements are only rarely identified in these texts, but when they are the detail is interesting. The detail of dowry (casamento) from mother to daughter, in an Otero charter that is not precisely dated, has a very long list of furnishings and household goods, slaves, and stock, but no land; the casamento that had been transferred from father to daughter in a Galician charter of 952 included a house; Eldesenda married without dowry (dos), ran into problems, and ended up in court.²³ We can also see some couples handling land that had come from the wife’s father; it must be likely that such property had come as dowry, for the use of the household established by the marriage. The power of disposal in these cases was mixed: in the Galician case cited above, the father recovered the dowry and gave it to the local bishop, because his daughter Bitillo had committed adultery with a monk; given that sexual union had taken place, one could view this as a bestowal of the dowry on his daughter’s (?new) partner’s paterfamilias, which might possibly have been used to support the couple in some way. This was a special case. In most others the couple exercised power of disposition, although occasionally the man may have done so.²⁴ Another type of marriage settlement (also acquired land) was that which a husband or his family conveyed to his wife, the ‘morning gift’;²⁵ such gifts might well include substantial movables and stock, as well ²² See M. A. Bermejo Castrillo, ‘Transferencias patrimoniales entre los cónyuges por razón del matrimonio en el derecho medieval castellano’, in J. I. de la Iglesia Duarte (ed.), La familia en la edad media (Logroño, 2001), 93–150, at 110–15 for terminology, and for a proposed change in marriage gifts from ‘morning gift’ to ‘dowry’ during the middle ages; such a change is not indicated by tenth-century material as such (and this is not implied by Bermejo, who focuses on the thirteenth century and later as the time of change). ²³ OD50 (tenth century), Cel72; Lii355 (962). ²⁴ Couple: OD27 (987), Cel409 (990), Sam115 (982); perhaps man only: Lii304 (957). ²⁵ Dos is the most common Latin term in these texts for morning gift (‘dot indirecte’ and ‘Morgengabe’ in French and German historiography), although arras occurs too, as well as giving in or pro nuptias. See F. Bougard, L. Feller, R. Le Jan (eds.), Dots et douaires dans le haut moyen âge (Rome, 2002), passim, for terminology and practice in the early middle ages. Note the highly unusual use of the expression ‘body-price’ (pro comparatione corporis mei) in thirteenth-century Galicia, A. Rodríguez, ‘ ‘‘Ex parte matris mee’’. Propiedad, herencia y dotes en las comunidades locales gallegas (siglos XII–XIII)’, Arenal, 8 (2001), 291–314, at 305, as also Dr Rodríguez’s warning that the terms used in practice often do not reflect the prescriptions of the law, ibid. 313–14.

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as land. Count Gutier’s widely scattered gifts to his wife Ilduara, and Gonzalo’s gifts to Elvira of land in at least eight different locations, have already been noted.²⁶ Both Sisnando and Gunterigo gave their wives, Eldontia and Guntroda, ten named male and ten named female slaves, in a remarkable reflection of the provisions of Visigothic law, as well as extensive stock and thirty villas in the former case and at least eight villas in the latter case (although most marriage settlements were clearly much more varied than allowed for by this ancient law).²⁷ Earlier, a woman called Proflinia had referred to the villas and other properties in two locations in the Liébana that her husband had given her; in Portugal, Oliti Tetoniz provided for his wife Adosinda to have precious silverware and silken clothes, as well as villas, stock, and equipment, and a tenth of his goods, in another reflection of a Visigothic rule; and, in Galicia, Fruela gave his wife Fernanda a villa in Mao, while making provision for his sister from another villa. The property that Seniorina had from her father-in-law may well have come to her for similar reasons.²⁸ All the unambiguous cases show the women controlling disposal of lands acquired in this way—a case, perhaps, of distinctively female property rights, women’s property, as it were.²⁹ Practical control of the morning gift, then, seems to have lain with the woman to whom it had been given. In many other cases, the patterns suggested by the records are so varied that it is difficult to be certain about practical control. A man’s or a woman’s name might be attached to a property but did this mean that the man or woman was in practice in control of it? Reading the documents, one still cannot help coming away with a sense that overall men had greater powers of control ²⁶ Cel576 (916), S207 (962); above, p. 67. ²⁷ Sob119 (887), Cel577 (926); Forum Iudicum III.i.6. Cf. A. Isla Frez, La sociedad gallega (Madrid, 1992), 224–6, on the continuity of Visigothic traditions, citing Sob119, although his main argument is that new procedures were also evident in the tenth century. ²⁸ T7 (831); Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LVI (946); Sam239 (pre-985); Sob14 (942). Cf., differently, Ov18 (974), in which a husband, on his deathbed, divided his property between his wife and the monastery of San Vicente; Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, CXLVI (985), in which a couple made explicit provision for each surviving the other, unus ad alius de nostras ereditates; and Sam198 (1013), in which, very unusually, a gift pro nuptiis had to be renegotiated when another woman called Guntroda left her husband for a life of confession and he took a new wife. ²⁹ Cf. T7, Cel577, Sob14, Sam239. But see Bermejo Castrillo, ‘Transferencias patrimoniales’, 124–6, for more limited powers in the longer perspective.

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than women: there were many more male than female transactors;³⁰ reservations were made in the event of birth of a son, filius, rather than that of a daughter; men made this or that agreement about disposal; brothers made provision for sisters.³¹ Despite all that, male control was not invariable; women did act alone and in their own right.³² To what extent, then, did women exercise these comparable powers? The easiest way into this issue is to look at relative powers within the context of marriage. The over-riding impression that men dominated property rights is largely sustained within the married context. When couples transacted together, the form of the record is sometimes ‘I, a man, together with (una cum) a woman, sell’ rather than the commoner ‘man and woman sell’.³³ This recording practice seems to point to male superiority, something which may also be emphasized by a specific phrase or recorded action: a couple sold land together, although the plot was actually the wife’s; a wife confirmed her agreement to what her husband had decided; husbands consented to wives’ disposal of their own property, or disposed of it themselves; a husband witnessed on behalf of his wife; a husband instructed his wife to donate from his share of his parental inheritance; a man acted on behalf of his sisters and mother, in respect of the mother’s land.³⁴ All of this is what one would expect from a western European early medieval society. However, there are some exceptions to these patterns. Sometimes we read that husband and wife had equal shares: Zelano and his wife Valeria together ‘equally’ sold some land near Valpuesta; Revel and his wife together ‘equally’ gave land to Abellar and he made sure she had half of their common property, a transaction which was witnessed, very unusually, by ³⁰ See further below, pp. 171–3. ³¹ Provision for sisters, e.g. Lii288 (955), Lii329 (960), Sam239 (985). ³² Cf. the separate juridical personality proposed for Leonese women: J. Guallart, ‘Documentos para el estudio de la condición jurídica de la mujer leonesa hace mil años’, Cuadernos de Historia de España, 6 (1946), 154–71, and the extensive literature of the twentieth century on the law of women, married and widowed (for example, E. Gacto Fernández, La condición jurídica del cónyuge viudo en el derecho visigodo y en los fueros de León y Castilla (Seville, 1975),50–64, 207–11, 222–5); but note that F. de Arvizu y Galarraga, La disposición ‘mortis causa’ en el derecho español de la alta edad media (Pamplona, 1977), 71, warned that conditions were not uniform. ³³ e.g. Li57 (921), S41 (930), C204 (993). Cf. A14 (947), in which a man and his wife are recorded together in the witness list, although she does not feature in the main text. ³⁴ Li90 (931); Li131 (939—‘quam abui de parte uxori mee’); Cel256 (936—‘quod vir meus elegit … ego confirmo’); Ov8 (937), Ov9 (946), Sob100 (945); Sob11 (945); Sam29 (post 976); Cel506 (955).

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three couples.³⁵ Some authors, at least, differentiated common marriage property from both the man’s and the woman’s property, and some took care to stress equal rights in it, although all did not do so. By implication the many acquisitions made by married couples, especially peasant couples, through buying and selling small plots of land, fall into the same category of common marriage property. There are also exceptions of a different kind. At times the record presents the woman as taking the lead: the common formats ‘man and woman transact’ and ‘man, together with woman, transacts’ become ‘woman and man transact’ and ‘woman, together with man, transacts’; a couple sell, but the woman is named first and is first to be named in the witness list; a woman gives and her husband confirms.³⁶ In Galicia, in the later middle ages, a distinctive circulation pattern for property inherited from a mother can sometimes be traced: such property would move from mother to son to his wife.³⁷ There are not enough consistent indications to make the same point for the tenth century, even in Galicia, but there are some suggestions, as in the examples which began this chapter, that where property came to a woman from the female side, this was property for female control—perhaps a second type of distinctively female property right at this period, and one as characteristic of the meseta as of Galicia. So, within a general context of predominantly male control, women could control property too. The key question is therefore one of relative proportions. It is obviously impossible to answer this conclusively but one way of approaching it is to look at participation in multiple transactions: in the note of a series of mid-tenth-century sales to a lay couple in Melgar, three were made by men, three (or perhaps four) were made by women, three were made by couples, and two by mixed groups (usually comprising siblings or cousins); in the inventory of transactions made by a lay couple near Otero de las Dueñas, six were made with men and three with women; and in the list of purchases made by the deacon Quintila, in Lemos, nineteen were bought from men, nine from women, and eight from couples.³⁸ We may also get ³⁵ V9 (913), Li118 (937)—una pariter; cf. V12 (929), Li195 (947); see above, pp. 70–3. ³⁶ T27 (921), T57 (959), Sob14 (942), Li179 (944), Li200 (948), Li223 (950), S103 (945), S109 (948), S131 (951); Li203 (948). Cf. the comments of M. del C. Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, una aristócrata del siglo X (La Coruña, 1998), 54–9, on women as principal actors in Galicia. ³⁷ See Rodríguez, ‘ ‘‘Ex parte matris mee’’ ’, 304–12. ³⁸ S94 (945–54), OD22 (976), Cel454 (936–77).

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Men and Women Table 7.1 Percentage of alienators of property, by gender, by collection and region Men

Women Couples Mixed Groups

Cel Sam Sob L OD S C SM V Ar A SJP T Ov Galicia W meseta Castile North

42 70 38 43 37 48 46 49 56 33 61 56 55 44 45 45 48 52

16 16 25 18 15 15 14 7 13 17 7 11 9 32 19 17 12 15

34 14 28 31 41 28 28 22 24 29 11 28 23 20 29 30 25 22

8 0 9 8 7 9 12 22 7 21 21 5 13 4 7 8 15 11

Total

46

16

29

9

some guide by looking at overall proportions of alienators of land, that is at those who are named as giving, selling, and exchanging property.³⁹ Overall, across all collections, 46% of alienators were men, 16% were women, 29% were couples, and 9% were mixed groups.⁴⁰ This would suggest that women were far from exercising equal powers of control over property to those of men, but gives some sense of the proportion of property that may have been distinctively within the power of women; within marriage it looks as if males normally took the lead, but did not invariably do so.⁴¹ One might suggest that, broadly, male ³⁹ Recipients of land are obviously just as important, but since so many recipients were religious institutions it would be difficult to get usable comparative figures by gender. ⁴⁰ On the importance of action by couples, see further below, pp. 185–8. ⁴¹ The overall female proportion strongly supports the estimate made by Herlihy for Spain in the tenth century (17%), although he used a smaller Spanish data set; D. Herlihy, ‘Land, family and women in continental Europe, 701–1200’, Traditio, 18 (1962), 89–120, at 108. Cf., rather differently, the 12% of the names cited in the Celanova collection pre–977, that are women’s names, Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, 54.

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interests predominated over those of women in the ratio of something approaching 3:1. Interestingly, although there is great variation between different charter collections (70% men alienators in Samos, but 38% in Sobrado; 41% couples who alienated in Otero de las Dueñas, but 14% in Samos; 32% women in Oviedo, but 9% in the Liébana; 22% mixed groups in San Millán, but 4% in Oviedo), there is very little difference between regions: Galician proportions are much the same as those of the western meseta, which are much the same as those of Castile and those of the north.⁴² The other interesting question is change over time. There was a relative increase in female participation in the latter half of the century, and especially in the last thirty years of the century, in Leonese collections, but not strikingly in others. Bearing in mind that the bulk of recorded transactions falls in mid-century, and that the León collections come from a number of different sources, that is probably significant and may at least partly be a consequence of increasing freedom of disposition.⁴³ Apart from that, there are no noticeably consistent trends. WO M E N I N P U B L I C That women could take the lead in property transactions is quite clear. Such women had public roles, and were not confined to the domestic sphere, aristocrat and peasant alike. Women also feature in witness lists: not just the alienator of property, and her associates, but other women too are recorded as witnesses of transactions; not very many of them, but sufficient to differentiate these societies from some in parts of northern Europe.⁴⁴ Once, most unusually, the Galician woman Argilo was named as guarantor for a priest in a dispute over control of a church, and we ⁴² Variations from the mean are partly due to the very small size, and unrepresentative character, of some collections and partly due to the kinds of transaction recorded—where cartulary compilers recorded more gifts than sales, proportions of male alienators tend to be enhanced. ⁴³ See above, pp. 72–5. ⁴⁴ For example, T32 (925—cousin of principal actors, together with her brother and husband), Cel444 (933—a wife), Cel2 (942—the donor’s mother, sister, aunt, and other women), Lii313 (959—a neighbour’s wife), Sob36 (964—four sorores, probably nuns), Ov18 (974—five deo votae, a woman identified as Olalio’s wife, and another woman), Cel462 (985—the donor’s mother and four other women), Liii538 (990—a mother). Only a handful of women feature in the 6,000 witnesses cited in ninth-century east Breton charters, W. Davies, Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany (London, 1988), 77; note that Sarah Halton has warned, however, that female

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see her speaking to ‘the people’ in the council.⁴⁵ At least twice, women brought court cases, as Fernanda successfully defended her marriage gift against her sister-in-law’s claim; another woman unsuccessfully sued the monks of Sahagún over property in Cerecedo, although she had an advocate to speak for her in court.⁴⁶ Women transacted on their own, without any reference to males, like the confessa Gundisalva, who gave on her own, and the wife Sisgundia, who gave from her own as well as giving with her husband, and the purchaser Leda; one woman actually said that she was giving on her own behalf (in mea voce); Guntroda and her daughter gave to a nunnery on behalf of the committed ancilla dei, Aroza, presumably as executors; and in one early sale in the Liébana, a man, his wife, and another person all had separate prices paid to them for their individual portions of a vineyard.⁴⁷ All of these cases indicate a role in public for women. Royal women, mothers as well as consorts, are especially notable in being formally associated with, or consenting to, the acts of kings: Toda, mother of King García Sánchez I of Navarre, is one such, as also Elvira and Teresa, aunt and mother respectively of Ramiro III of Asturias-León; the latter appears in a particularly wide range of different charter collections.⁴⁸ Later chronicles present these tenth-century royal women as powerful, manipulating, abbesses; there is probably an element of truth in those perspectives of power, although tenth-century charters hardly prefigure the later stories.⁴⁹ They do, however, make the public authority of women such as Toda, Elvira, and Teresa, each of whom took control during royal minorities, perfectly clear.⁵⁰ We have already noted Elvira’s gifts in memory of her brother, but she also bestowed property on her uncle, and, although she was not the wife of a king, several charters term her regina, queen, during her nephew’s minority—Arab historians certainly treated her as ruler before her sister-in-law Teresa took witnesses have often been ignored by commentators: ‘The church and communities: Cluny and its local patrons 900–1050’, University of Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, 2006, ch. 5, ‘Creating the social relationship’. ⁴⁵ Sob130 (992). ⁴⁶ Above, p. 169; S159 (958). ⁴⁷ Sam157 (993), Cel338 (989), Liii519 (987); Sob70 (941); Lii486 (982); T11 (868). ⁴⁸ A5 (928), SJP17 (947), SM72 (957), SM81 (959); above, p. 164, Lii411 (969), S261 (971), S262 (971); Lii442 (975), Cel206 (977), S293 (978), Lii482 (981), Sam115/199 (982). ⁴⁹ See the comments of Ann Christys, Christians in Al-Andalus (711–1000) (Richmond, 2002), 97–8. ⁵⁰ Cf. R. Collins, ‘Queens-dowager and queens-regent in tenth-century León and Navarre’, in J. C. Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship (New York, 1993), 79–92, emphasizing stronger queenships in Navarre.

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over.⁵¹ Teresa appears with, though usually placed before, other royal women and her authority as queen was still being invoked some years after her son’s death.⁵² Other royal consorts witnessed and confirmed—Ramiro II’s wife Urraca in the 940s and 950s, Vermudo II’s successive wives Velasquita in the 980s and Elvira in the 990s, often associated with their husbands in the dispositive texts and high in the witness lists;⁵³ Sancho II Garcés Abarca of Navarre made gifts with the consent of his wife and sister (both called Urraca), as well as his son and brother, his widow still ruling thirty years later with her grandson Sancho el Mayor.⁵⁴ Sancha’s wife Urraca is even portrayed in the formal pages of fine Riojan manuscripts of the period (see Fig. 7.1).⁵⁵ These royal females appear so often that it clearly must have been normal for royal women to be publicly associated with their husband’s, and sometimes son’s or brother’s, transactions in the tenth century. One royal associate, Ilduara, who married the León king’s wife’s brother, and was aunt of three kings, certainly amassed both considerable property and public position in southern Galicia, as is well evidenced by the charter texts; when her nephew, Ramiro II, delegated authority to her son Fruela it was explicitly to be exercised under the guidance of his mother, sub manus mater tua, tie nostre Ilduare.⁵⁶ MALE AND FEMALE IN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES All kinds of women, then, could play a public role, even if they did not do it as often as men. Property was in many respects a domain of shared activity, although the male interest was overwhelmingly dominant. ⁵¹ See Collins, ‘Queens-dowager and queens-regent’, 85. Cf. the much earlier Sam39 (962), in which she confirms, before Teresa, her brother’s gifts. ⁵² Lii482, Sam115/199, Sam156 (983), for example, preceding Sancha, her son Ramiro III’s wife; Liii543 (990), Liii560 (994). ⁵³ Cel249 (941), Sam2 (951—or just possibly Ordoño III’s wife in this case); Sam27 (981), Cel503 (985), Cel5 (986), Sam56 (988); Liii521 (987), Liii567 (994), Sam6 (997). ⁵⁴ SM88 (971), SM91 (972), for example; SJP34 (1005). ⁵⁵ In the Codex Albeldense, for example, of 974–6; S. de Silva y Verástegui, Iconografía del siglo X en el reino de Pamplona-Nájera (Pamplona, 1984), plate 26; cf. ibid., plate 27. ⁵⁶ Cel499 (942); for a full study, see Pallares Méndez, Ilduara. Ilduara, it may be recalled, was the mother of Bishop Rosendo, founders together of the monastery of Celanova.

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Figure 7.1 Sancho II and Urraca, with Visigothic kings and a tenth-century king and scribes, in the Codex Albeldense, Biblioteca de El Escorial, MS D.I.2, fol. 428r

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What about religious commitment? Were there distinctively male and female spheres of activity, or did men and women for the most part do the same things? If we look at lay religious families—laity, committed to follow a religious lifestyle, remaining in their secular households and continuing to live secular lives—the texts convey the same impression of shared male and female activity as conveyed by many of the property interests discussed above. Married couples stayed together, with their children, though frequently marked out by the special terms confessus and confessa and publicly identifiable as different from the uncommitted laity.⁵⁷ A confessus and his wife, a confessa, gave to the nunnery of Santiago in León in 995; twenty years before, the confessus Sunilano and his wife Nunnita, confessa, endowed their priest son with substantial goods in Galicia; much earlier Arborio and his wife María gave everything to the monastery of Abellar, Arborio achieving the status of confessus (grado confessionis) by the time of his death, his wife continuing to live for twenty-three years sub religioso grado.⁵⁸ Men and women made this commitment together. The confessa Guntroda, who left her husband for the religious life, is an extremely unusual case.⁵⁹ Family monasteries were in some respects similar: Metereo and his mother Abodimia, termed abbot and abbess respectively, did things together, giving lands and agreeing to put themselves under the rule of Santa Cristina; Argilo, her brother Valero, and her sister Onega, termed abbess, monk, and conversa, respectively, together gave their church of San Cebrián and its appurtenant property to the monastery of Cardeña; and Abbot Senior and his wife Leovegodo, deo vota (committed to God), together had a daughter Genobreda, also deo vota, who was controlling properties inherited from them in the mid-tenth century.⁶⁰ While couples committed to religion and family monasteries show men and women pursuing the religious life together, use of these terms in some texts suggests alternative paths. The words confessae and confessi are used to refer to groups of committed religious, as well as to couples: when a count’s widow, Velasquita, made generous gifts to Santa María de Osoño, the act was witnessed by three confessi, four abbots, and ⁵⁷ See above, pp. 107–08. ⁵⁸ Liii570; Sam61 (976—see Appendix to Ch. 4, above, pp. 110–12); Li72 (927) and Li256 (952). ⁵⁹ Sam198 (1013). ⁶⁰ SM86 (967); C187 (981); Cel566 (950-59); cf. C207 (994), Sob110 (pre-955), Sob121 (964), Sob8 (964).

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four confessae; when Leodegundia made several gifts to the monastery of San Mateo de Vilapedre, the act was witnessed by a confessus, four confessae, an abbot, an abbess, and five priests.⁶¹ It looks as if confessi and confessae might also be admitted within monastic communities, as directly suggested by Baltario’s gifts to the monastery of San Miguel de Piñeira, which were for the benefit of the priests and confessi serving the church.⁶² How far they were consistently differentiated from monks and nuns must be arguable, although the fact that different terms were selected is striking.⁶³ If we look at those who chose to make a break with family and live a religious life within a separate religious community, more distinctions between the sexes begin to become apparent. Although some communities were for men and women together,⁶⁴ there were many communities just for men and many just for women; accordingly, there were both prominent abbots and prominent abbesses, each acting in their own right (as elsewhere in Europe and the Near East in the ⁶¹ Cel492 (988), cf. Cel505 (935); SamS-3 (961); cf. Sob121 (964), an exchange between monasteries witnessed by nine deo votae. Note that all of these cases are Galician (but see also the Oviedo case above, n. 44). ⁶² Sam93 (951); cf. the deo vota sub regula et abbate [Samos], Sam175 (973) and the deo dicata and perhaps her deacon husband, both of whom lived in the monastery of Sobrado, Sob88 (996). ⁶³ The extent to which the deo vota was different from the confessa is also arguable, although it is again striking that the different terms are used in these charters and that their use does not appear to reflect distinctive scribal habits; cf. SamS-5 (963), which has one confessa and one deo vota as principle actors, or Li42 (917) which implies some difference between the sorores, religiosae, and virgines in the nunnery of Santiago in León. M. Cabre i Pairet argues convincingly that in Catalonia at this time deo votae and deo dicatae could refer both to nuns and to women living a religious life outside a regular community; noting use of the terms in patristic writing on virginity and widowhood, her main argument is that the terminology of female religious was ambiguous until the impact of the Gregorian reform in the later eleventh century; ‘ ‘‘Deodicatae’’ y ‘‘deovotae’’. La regulación de la religiosidad femenina en los condados catalanes, siglos IX–XI’, in A. Muñoz Fernández (ed.), Las mujeres en el cristianismo medieval. Imágenes teóricas y cauces de actuación religiosa (Madrid, 1989), 169–82. The terms deo vota and deo dicata, in northern Spanish texts, were clearly interchangeable, while it looks as if ancilla Dei/Christi was a term to describe the quality of religious commitment rather than a distinctive state; hence, it is applied to abbesses, confessae, and deo dicatae alike. ⁶⁴ For example, the community of Santa Eulalia de Airas, at the time of donations in 976, appears to have had five men and six women associated, including both abbot and abbess (OD20); cf. the fifteen men and two women who signed a monastic pact with Abbot Fulgaredo, Cel61 (871); and the monastery of Sobrado was a community of brothers and sisters, Sob64 (984), Sob88 (996), etc. That of San Cipriano del Condado had connections with the nunnery of Santiago in León, to which it was ultimately given, Li201 (948), Lii412 (970); the monks and nuns in Sam171 (988), under their Abbess Gontina, lived together for a period.

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early middle ages, women could achieve considerable secular power by adopting the religious life).⁶⁵ Apart from the family monasteries, for the most part monks and nuns seem to have kept themselves separate in the tenth century, although they might—like Abbot Cipriano and Abbess Felicia⁶⁶—negotiate with each other. So, when Aseredo joined a monastery, his daughter joined a nunnery; monks and nuns associated with Valdevimbre could not agree to live together; and there were brothers of San Clemente in Melgar, of San Martín of Fonte de Febro, and of San Salvador de Loio, but sisters of Santa María of Porto Marín, of San Miguel of Pedroso, of Santa Olalla in Camellas, besides the brothers of large, prominent monasteries like Celanova, or Sahagún, or Cardeña, and the sisters of prominent nunneries like Santiago in León.⁶⁷ While there were both male and female houses, the sheer variety of terms available for religious women is notable, as it is also notable that women of the high aristocracy had a tendency to adopt a religious way of life on widowhood: hence, the widows Aragunti and Countess Velasquita, confessae; likewise Onega, confessa, widow of a duke, who made a gift to Celanova requesting a place for her own burial there.⁶⁸ So also the dowager queen Teresa, confessa, ancilla Christi, ancilla ancillarum, and—though never married—the powerful queen Elvira, deo vota, deo dicata;⁶⁹ Rosendo’s mother, Ilduara, retired to the nunnery of Santa María of Vilanova at the end of her life.⁷⁰ References to lay women with religious commitment, whether they maintained the lay lifestyle or were adopted within a monastery, are also more notable than those to lay men with religious commitment; there appear to be many more, particularly in León collections, although in Castile there ⁶⁵ See, for example, the East Frankish women discussed by Karl Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society (London, 1979), and the Byzantine women discussed by Evelyne Patlagean, Structure sociale, famille, chrétienté à Byzance (London, 1981), VIII, XI. ⁶⁶ Li180 (944). ⁶⁷ Cel511 (955)—see further below, p. 185; Lii312 (959); S77 (941), Lii295 (956), Cel179 (927), SM39 and 40 (945), OD29 (988), as examples. It has been argued that ‘double’ communities were an older norm and the establishment of separate houses a result of the influence of Carolingian ideas, Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, 130–2, but the picture is very mixed and it is difficult to identify consistent trends across northern Spain during the tenth century. ⁶⁸ Cel230 (995), Cel492, Cel209 (997), Cel530 (999). ⁶⁹ See above, pp. 174–6. Note the provision of Visigothic councils that widowed queens should not remarry but retire to the church: Collins, ‘Queens-dowager and queens-regent’, 84–5. ⁷⁰ Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, 16; cf. ibid., 124–27.

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are relatively few of either; in Galicia, where the religious culture seems to have had a different quality, male and female numbers look more comparable. As noted in Chapter four, some of the texts associated with female religious have a particularly pious turn of phrase.⁷¹ Often adorned with biblical quotations, these texts elaborated standard ideas into developed and individual expressions: the invocation to the record of a different Elvira’s gift to Celanova, daughter of Duke Arias and deo vota, elaborates on the virtue and wisdom of God and lists some of the saints sent to the world; Abbess Argilo’s gift of her family church includes a long preamble on preparation for the day of judgment; the preamble to the record of Sarracina’s gift to Abellar, Christi ancilla deo dicata, plays on the notion of the light of truth; a little later, in the early eleventh century, Guntroda’s grant to Samos uses the first person to emphasize her personal plea for mercy.⁷² The gifts of the confessa, Gudilonis, to the monastery of San Juan de Quarto were preceded by a far from standard preamble: invoking the Virgin Mary, as well as the Holy Trinity, it notes how the Holy Spirit came down and entered Mary’s womb; the Word thereby being made flesh, the immutable essence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was lodged in her virgin entrails, her son ultimately taking on the pain and weariness of the world as, flogged and stoned, he went to the cross.⁷³ It seems likely that some of these texts were written by the women themselves and hence that we may well have examples of distinctively female writing⁷⁴—an expression of the feminine, as it were, without any feminization of religious language itself;⁷⁵ they were, perhaps, modest forerunners of some better known communicators of female piety of the central and later middle ages.⁷⁶ For most records, however, the authors and the scribes were men, over and over again, unambiguously named as such, just as the clergy ⁷¹ p. 107. ⁷² Cel8 (962); C187 (981); Liii520 (987); Sam198 (1013). Cf. the long preambles in records of gifts attributed to Countess Mumadona, Ar5 (923), Ar6 (929). ⁷³ Sob38 (985). The text finishes, very unusually, with a note on fine cloth. ⁷⁴ Although note the case of the abbot who wrote on behalf of nuns, above, p. 107. ⁷⁵ See C. Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1982), 113–14 and passim, on the feminization of religious language. However, see the fabricated record SJP21 (981) for an unusual Spanish example from these collections: mother church nourished the faithful as mother’s milk feeds children; perhaps a twelfth-century fabrication. ⁷⁶ Such as Hildegard of Bingen, a writer of extraordinary power and sensitivity in the twelfth century; see especially B. Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley, 1987).

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were unambiguously men. Religious authority was male; the deity was male, glorious and majestic; provision for pastoral care, in so far as it existed, seems to have been male; most of the perspectives on the tenth century that have been transmitted to us were male.⁷⁷ Religious virtue, on the other hand, seems almost to have been gender blind: sanctity was as much feminine as masculine; humility applied to the best of men and women alike; loving was as much a male as a female characteristic; and nuns, just as much as monks, fought the good fight of spiritual warfare.⁷⁸ If authorship was so intransigently male, and religious virtue was undifferentiated by gender, were masculine, or indeed feminine, attributes ever conceptualized and applied in these cultures? We clearly have only a very partial picture but, despite the formulaic nature of charter texts, there is a fair amount of narrative detail embedded within them. Is it possible to pursue the perspectives of these narratives at all? Were there standard values or models? Is there a consistent picture of masculinity, or femininity, to be drawn?

MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY Despite the capacity of the men and women discussed above to do the same kinds of things, masculine behaviour was in some respects presented as distinct from feminine behaviour in these texts. Men were presented as overwhelmingly confrontational and combative. If we look at the detail of disputes which are narrated in this material, of which there are over a hundred, there are some quite striking patterns.⁷⁹ To begin with distinctions between different categories of offence. Offences such as rape, assault, abduction, killing, and the political offence of rebellion, were characteristically male offences. In this case or that, whether related briefly or in some detail, it is men who were portrayed as the perpetrators. They attacked; they seized people and ⁷⁷ Cf. the comments of J. M. H. Smith, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500–1000 (Oxford, 2005), 116. ⁷⁸ Male and female saints: passim. ‘ego humilima vestra ancilla’, C161 (972–6); ‘ego exigua et inutilis Goncina’, Sam18 (933); ‘ego exiguus licet inutilis presbiter’, Lii329 (960); ‘pusillus atque exiguus famulus vir ego Adelfius’, Sam43 (938). Loving: passim, but especially Sam99 (854), V19 (950), Lii333 (960). Monks or nuns qui militant: SM86 (967), Lii302 (956), Lii321 (959); Li42 (917), Lii412 (970), Lii486 (982); Sob5 (966), Sob107 (968), Sob64 (984). ⁷⁹ There are glancing references to half as many disputes again, but I focus on those for which there is narrative detail.

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animals; they killed, with open violence, on the road, in the fields, within the homestead. The portrayal of this aspect of the masculine is decidedly physical and decidedly violent, ‘incensed with diabolical fury’, as one author put it.⁸⁰ Argimiro went to Licinia’s house at night and took her virginity per violentia, raping by force.⁸¹ Dom Patre’s ‘gang’, consisting of himself, his sons Prudentio and Sebastiano, their cousins Fafila, Ansuro, Gontino, Menendo, and the latter’s son Armentario, terrorized the neighbourhood of Valdávida in the hills off the Cea valley, 25 km north of Sahagún, killing and perpetrating ‘many very bad evils’, until they were thrown out of the kingdom and their property was confiscated by the king.⁸² Farther west, in Galicia, Pelayo’s more aristocratic gang of ruffianly companions battered a young man called Fruela to death; unfortunately for them, this young man was the countess Ilduara’s retainer and in consequence Pelayo had to give her half of his rights in twelve separate villas.⁸³ A case which looks like a case of legitimate distraint which went wrong is also characterized by violence: the men Senuldu and Eizon entered the house of Sandino Moniz, with saiones (legal officers) accompanying them; Senuldu roughly removed three men from the house, doing so with such ferocity that one died.⁸⁴ Whatever legitimate case there may have been to start with, he had to compensate Sandino with two vineyards in Quiroga, together with their associated fruit trees, chestnuts, garden, and rough land. With less fatal consequences, but still with violence, Tegino, son of Braolio and Farella, entered Doña Paterna’s woods, seized two of her herdsmen, and held them for fifteen days, accusing them of stealing a cow—perhaps also a case of arguably legitimate distraint; the court cleared the men of the suggested theft and Tegino’s parents had to pay Paterna a third of the inheritance they had in several villas.⁸⁵ Violence is used as a distinctively masculine trait—just as abbots were expected to castigate and correct their monks: one abbot was encouraged to teach, censure, and correct, by chastising, training, and punishing; another was asked to correct a donor, in front of everyone, if the latter ⁸⁰ Lii442 (975). ⁸¹ OD33 (992). ⁸² S84 (943). Cf. S287 (977), cited above, p. 127, in which a man broke down the doors of a church and killed a monk inside it, and Lii400 (966), in which a disruptive family group promised not to cause more trouble. ⁸³ Cel456 (940). ⁸⁴ Cel165 (963). Distraint: seizing someone’s goods or person, in order to force him to go through due legal process. ⁸⁵ Lii378 (964).

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should be stubborn or disobedient.⁸⁶ Portrayal of the feminine, on the other hand, does not have these attributes of violence, although women certainly committed offences. It is relatively easy to make this negative point—that is, about the characteristics that women did not have—but the feminine is not drawn in any detail in these texts. The author of the text of Gunterigo’s marriage settlement with Guntroda stresses her sweetness—three times in quite a short text—but this looks like a topos from the store of language appropriate for such transactions: ‘with love for your sweetness and with gratitude that we are bound together in a marriage agreement’.⁸⁷ A Portuguese text of mid-century uses the same words, and a Sobrado text of the late ninth century elaborates the notion.⁸⁸ Several of these marriage texts explicitly mention the modesty of the wives, and the fact that the husband’s gift to them was made in respect of their virginity—a particularly apt way of referring to the morning gift;⁸⁹ ‘et tue virginitatis intemerata pudicia elegi’ (and I have chosen the spotless purity of your virginity) was Sisnando’s comment when he recorded his gifts to Eldontia.⁹⁰ Again, these look like stock phrases, although they certainly suggest a stereotype of marriageable woman as sweet, modest, and virgin. Looking beyond the charter texts does not add much to this limited picture. The Chronicles of the late ninth and tenth centuries portray a world almost entirely inhabited by men; the rare references to women are brief, mentioning them only as objects of marriage or seduction, or as models of virginity.⁹¹ Sampiro’s Chronicle, of the early eleventh century, is much the same, again emphasizing woman as subject of marriage and procreator of children: ‘King A took wife B and produced son C’ is a repeated format.⁹² Sampiro, however, shows some interest in Elvira, the later, ‘Pelagian’, ⁸⁶ Sam210 (907); T56 (959). Ar8 (930) is very unusual with its stress on the humiliation of women before the abbess. ⁸⁷ Cel577 (926) and above, p. 169; cf. Isidore, Etymologiae, XI.ii.18, emphasizing the necessary submission of women to men: he says that the word mulier, woman, comes from mollities, softness. ⁸⁸ Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LVI (946); Sob119 (887). ⁸⁹ See above, p. 168, for terminology. ⁹⁰ Sob119; see above, p. 169. Cf. pro decorem … castitatis et pudorem tue virginitatis (for the distinction of [your] chastity and the modesty of your virginity), Portugaliae Monumenta Historica, LVI, and the rather later propter pudorem et decorem virginitatis tue, Sam31 (1059). ⁹¹ Crónicas Asturianas, ed. J. Gil Fernández, J. L. Moralejo, J. Ruiz de la Peña (Oviedo, 1985). ⁹² Chronicle of Sampiro in J. Perez de Urbel, Sampiro, su crónica y la monarquía leonesa en el siglo X (Madrid, 1952), especially 315, 318, 320, 329, 333, 335.

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redaction of this text calling her regina, like the charters, and attributing some authority to her; notably, however, it is only the chaste Elvira, deo devota, who evokes this interest.⁹³ The virtue of female chastity was very much the subject of the ‘Passion of Argentea’, a Passion whose context is Andalusian but which may have had a northern Spanish origin. Cardeña scribes certainly had an interest and perhaps made their copy—the only copy—in the later tenth century.⁹⁴ These are interesting perspectives—as male images of the feminine—but they are obviously very limited and give a rounded picture neither of feminine attributes nor of male attitudes to them. If rape, assault, and killing were distinctively masculine offences, other kinds of offence are not so gendered. Responsibility for fornication was attributed to women as well as to men: when the girl Bitillo slept with the monk from Celanova, it was the girl’s parents who made reparation for her offence, not—as might be expected—the monk’s abbot; when Gigulfo slept with his godmother (comatre), not only did he make a substantial penitential payment of property himself, but his wife Sisgundia—for some reason acknowledging that she shared his sin—made over her vineyard as well; Cida Aion slept with Peter, her godfather, and as a result handed over her own property (although not that shared with her husband) to the local presiding judge; but the man Flaino, admitting in court that he had slept first with another man’s wife and then with her daughter, agreed to pay a fine to the value of five solidi.⁹⁵ Blame for the lapses of monks and nuns similarly lacks gender specificity. Abbots and priests could be accused of sleeping with concubines and nuns of sleeping with allcomers, as pride and the Devil took hold of a community.⁹⁶ The lapsed nun Menosa, who kept slipping in and out of the community of San Julián in Castile, was eventually forced to make a deal with her abbess, handing over to the ⁹³ Perez de Urbel, Sampiro, 329–32, 338–9. ⁹⁴ See Christys, Christians in Al-Andalus, 101–7. The copying of this, and other Spanish Passions, is difficult to date, beyond the likelihood of something before the late eleventh century; date and place of original composition is even more difficult, ibid., 82–8. The Passionaries are, however, relevant, for one of the Silos manuscripts is a compendium of material for nuns; female saints’ Lives and works on virginity were also clearly copied in the tenth century, ibid., 94–5. ⁹⁵ Cel72 (952), Cel338 (989), Liii561 (994), OD38 and OD39 (995). For fines, see above pp. 144–6. Solidi were units of account, to a value of twenty-two to the pound-weight of silver; there is no need to suppose that this fine was paid in silver, though it may have been; see W. Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation in Galicia and Castile-León’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 149–74, at 159–65. ⁹⁶ Lii278 (954), Sob122 (960); Crónicas Asturianas, chs. 5, 16.

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sisters cloaks, an overcoat, bedding, substantial quantities of grain and wine, and two vineyards, in order to be permitted to leave once and for all; a priest negotiated on her behalf and she named two (male) guarantors for the property she was giving.⁹⁷ When Aseredo entered the monastery of San Adrián in Galicia, perhaps in Lemos, and his daughter entered the nunnery of San Miguel, he split his property between the two houses.⁹⁸ Subsequently he dropped out; ‘stung by the arrows of the devil’, he lapsed into secular life and the to-and-fro of the world. Hearing this, the king intervened and empowered the local bishop to take action. Aseredo returned to the monastery and his property was then split three ways—between the house of San Adrián and that of San Miguel, and the bishop. The destination of a monk’s or a nun’s property was obviously critical to the resolution of such cases, but in all this males and females behaved in similar ways, and are presented in comparable terms. Offences involving households and household goods—breaking and entering, theft—were as likely to be attributed to married couples as to men, and certainly responsibility for the offence was often recorded as borne by a couple. The childless couple Reparado and Trasvinda took on their cousins, the couple Aderico and Sesina, as heirs (by profiliatio, by ‘taking on as child and heir’). Rather ungratefully, listening to the advice, as it were, ‘of vipers’, as soon as the documents were completed, Aderico and Sesina started to insult their benefactors, stole their stock, ejected them from their home, tied them up, and held them by force for two days and a night; in due course Reparado and Trasvinda were rescued, revoked their bequest to the ungrateful cousins, and then reassigned their property to Bishop Rosendo.⁹⁹ Another couple, Eirigu and his wife Seniorina, stole sheep from the monk Marín and ate them; Gonzalo and his wife Elo did likewise; the man Ramiro stole a horse from a monk, but he and his wife made reparation together.¹⁰⁰ These cases are not gendered: males or females might commit the offences, but males and females together might well take responsibility for paying the penalties—as must in any case have been the consequence of most peasant offences; a fine on the perpetrator was a fine on the household. ⁹⁷ C129 (966). ⁹⁸ Cel511 (955); see above, p. 179. Cf. Cel179 (927), Lii432 (974), S322 (984), Lii507 (985), and perhaps Sam156 (983), although we do not know why the monk was in chains. ⁹⁹ Cel228 (936). For profiliatio, see above, pp. 84, 160–1. ¹⁰⁰ Cel169 (962), Liii556 (993), S358 (998). Cf. Sob21, Sob24, Sob29 (all 931).

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So, when Lupi and several of his mates surrounded a priest’s house, laying siege to it all day, eventually setting fire to it, and burning it down, it was Lupi and his wife Elo who met the consequences, not Lupi and his mates.¹⁰¹ It is interesting that these problems are presented as household responsibilities, just as the very male acts of homicide might, in some circumstances, be paid for by associated females. Velite was the gardener of the monastery of Abellar and, while gardening for the monastery, also planted fruit trees for himself and his family on a plot nearby. At some point he killed someone (and perhaps was killed himself—we do not know, but he disappears from the record); his wife and children were taken to court in the city of León; there they came to an agreement that they would sell to the monks of Abellar the trees Velite had planted, for which they received some grain, bread, and wine.¹⁰² Again it was the household, not the perpetrator of the deed, that took the brunt of the penalty; if Velite was still alive, he was not pursued; if he was dead, his offence did not die with him. Property disputes were similarly presented; the actors were as likely to be couples or groups of men and women as men or—more occasionally, reflecting their less active presence in property deals—women. So, Hazeme and his wife Felicia unsuccessfully took the priest Cedino to court in 997 over a disputed property and ended up by having to compensate both the priest and the local count.¹⁰³ So also the several communities involved in disputes with landlords over the boundaries of estates: although the latter are often simply termed homines, an all-inclusive (but gendered) ‘men’ of villa Santa María and Vilazá, they ¹⁰¹ Lii360 (963). There is something missing or confused in this record. As it stands, the consequence was that damage was assessed at the value of 130 and 60 solidi, respectively, for slaughter and for the fire, and that Lupi and his wife sold their vineyard to Fruela Vélaz for the substantial sum of 100 solidi; this sale looks like a benefit to Lupi, not a penalty. The priest and a nun had expressed the wish that Lupi should stand in court before Fruela. Fruela must have been a judge, like Munio Fernández and Flaino Muñoz, who also made purchases; see above, pp. 144–9. The sums are high but enforced sale of valuable property could be a penalty; see the next case, n.102, and also Cel393 (961), Liii525 (989). However, it is perhaps more likely that two different records have been conflated in this cartulary copy, a standard record of sale and a note of an affray, and that the sale is not directly connected with the affray. ¹⁰² Lii450 (977); cf., for another case of a man losing a case and the wife and children meeting the penalty with him, C151 (972). See further below, pp. 219–20, for the penalty of forced sale and the relative value of land and movables. ¹⁰³ Liii578; to get some idea of the values above (nn. 95, 101), they had to give a horse to the value of forty solidi; they paid this off with half their inheritance in La Bañeza—perhaps half a villa, so quite substantial.

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clearly included men and women, young and old; the women of Piasca who made a pact with Abbess Ailón are called homines.¹⁰⁴ Debts were a different case. As already indicated in the context of debts to the church and to lay persons,¹⁰⁵ women are disproportionately prominent in the discharge of debts. If we look at the pattern of debt redemption overall, to lay and ecclesiastical creditors, then we find that very few men acting alone are presented as responsible parties; women discharged them (perhaps because they were often widows, left with clearing the obligations) and couples also discharged them. Offino and his wife Savilli gave Ilduara land with apple trees and cherry trees in lieu of the forty sesters of cider they owed her; Guestrilli gave the priest Munio a vineyard in place of wine to the value of thirteen and a half solidi, which she owed him; Vegilio and his wife Gontrodo gave Fruela Vimáraz and his wife a vineyard in lieu of the stock which Vegilio had contrived to lose; and many more such.¹⁰⁶ At least two thirds of these cases are attributable to couples—once again because these were mostly peasant obligations which fell on households rather than individuals.¹⁰⁷ The practicalities of living and of resources intrude in records of this kind—there is little gendering of the presentations because the authors thought in terms of the responsible unit rather than in terms of this or that person.¹⁰⁸ So, masculinity was conceived as both extremely violent and extremely quiet and contemplative, with the contemplative sometimes interrupted by the violent. Femininity was not conceived as violent; in its religious manifestations it took on a particularly pious air; in its secular manifestations it was, as much as anything, busy with things to do. The portrayals of male behaviour and female behaviour are close to common stereotypes in western European history. In view of the fact that religious authority was proper to men, that clergy were male, and that the creators of most records were men, it is extremely interesting that so much of the life that they portray was not particularly gendered. Men and women ¹⁰⁴ Cel93 (950), cf. Cel272 (993) and Ar18 (965); see below, pp. 199–202, for communities and disputes; S79 (941), Hecce nos homines qui subter notatee sumus et signa facturee —the names listed are female. ¹⁰⁵ See above, pp. 127–8, 157–60. ¹⁰⁶ Cel229 (947); Lii457 (978); OD40 (995). ¹⁰⁷ For example, couples: Cel411 (989), Cel409 (990), Li116 (937), Lii473 (980), OD41 (995), S198 (962); women: Lii465 (979), OD14 (964). ¹⁰⁸ Cf. the importance of couples as actors in the statistics compiled by E. Montanos Ferrin, La familia en la alta edad media española (Pamplona, 1980), 337–53 (spanning eighth to thirteenth centuries, be it noted).

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did things together, exercised property rights together, and did both separately as men or as women. Both peasant and aristocratic women seem frequently to have operated in the public sphere, and were not confined to the domestic interior—which is farther away from European stereotypes. As we have seen, women were listed as witnesses, and thus were present at public meetings; women could be taken to court and sometimes they themselves brought court cases; a queen could preside over a court case.¹⁰⁹ Although they certainly sometimes had people to speak for them in court, so did men; but people of both sexes seem often to have spoken for themselves.¹¹⁰ Although women do not seem to have exercised any special role as preservers of family memory, they did of course transfer property, and property was transmitted through them, and they did sometimes take memorializing initiatives. But so did men. ¹⁰⁹ Above, pp. 173–4; Lii410 (968). ¹¹⁰ Spokespersons for men: S88 (943), Li179 (944), Li253 (952); for women: S159 (958), Lii492 (983), C197 (985). On women’s capacity to conduct a case, cf. Forum Iudicum II.iii.6.

8 Peasant Society It was the peasant couple which so often featured as the responsible household unit, and peasant behaviour has often been identified and differentiated in this book. What do we know of peasants and peasant society? What shape did a peasant property have, in contrast to the farms and estates of lesser and greater aristocracy?¹ What were its constituent parts? Most of the material suggests that a household’s property would have consisted of a mixture of different plots scattered within a community territory. Valencia and her nine children sold three lots of arable in different parts of Villobera in 950, and Ziti accepted five small plots for half his portion in La Braña.² When Rebelle and his wife swapped houses with Salvador and his wife in Leonese territory in 965, he gave a small house (casa) in Villaverde with its immediate surround, some plots of arable, half a mill, water rights, half a meadow, and half a bramble patch; he received in return another house with its surround, some plots of land, and some money.³ When Jimeno and his wife sold Leonese property to the priest Vallito, shares in a garden, in a water meadow, and in a vineyard, were included with the house and arable, as well as some cherry trees.⁴ Farther west, in southern Galicia, acting for his sister María as well as himself, Justino and his wife sold several plots in Rabal to Bishop Rosendo: some arable which lay beside another man’s house, with an orchard at the head of the arable; more arable, lying beside the road; a vineyard on a different stretch of the road, leading to his father’s house; some uncultivated land with apple trees round it; and another orchard, by his father’s house.⁵ As it happens, many plots ¹ Much can be gleaned from the excellent discussions of the countryside in J. M. Mínguez Fernández, El dominio del monasterio de Sahagún en el siglo X (Salamanca, 1980), especially 65–133; S. Moreta Velayos, El monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña. Historia de un dominio monástico castellano (Salamanca, 1971); J. García de Cortázar, El dominio del monasterio de San Millán de la Cogolla (siglos X a XIII). Introducción a la historia rural de la Castilla altomedieval (Salamanca, 1969). ² Li216, Li158 (942). ³ Lii388. ⁴ Lii435 (974). ⁵ Cel380 (961).

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and orchards were sold in Rabal in the 960s, a village territory which Pallares Méndez has plausibly reconstructed as being about 3 km x 3 km at maximum extents (see Fig. 8.1).⁶ So many of these plots were sold to Celanova that none of them can have been large; an entire peasant property may at maximum have been of the order of 15 ha and one of its constituent plots of arable or vines of the order of 2 ha maximum, although in practice there must obviously have been great variation.⁷ When these texts refer to plots, they are referring to units that were relatively small, of field size rather than farm size, allowing for variations. Some have associated measurements, expressed in terms of the amount of grain needed to sow them.⁸ A sense of similar size is conveyed by the many statements of boundaries: back in Leonese territory, one piece of Andisilo’s arable in Sollanzo had the Abellar monks’ land on one side, that of Queia and of Manne on two other sides, and the road to Sollanzo on the fourth; Ansilda had two vineyards in Valdevimbre, inherited from parents, which were surrounded in the one case by the lands of García, Balderedo, Orondone, and Abolcazeme respectively, and in the other by those of Faino, Gratiosa, and the monks of Valdevimbre; Hamama’s meadow in San Ginés was bounded by the lands of Brother Abolbalite (to whom she sold it in 982), of Mexite, of the nuns, and by the road.⁹ We have seen that portions of inherited land might be reserved for siblings or cousins, and that portions were often identified as fractions, from halves to ninths; there were shares in mills, in salt pans, in fruit trees, in meadows, and in gardens; there were vineyards and orchards. All indicate the mixed character of a peasant holding, scattered across ⁶ M. del C. Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, una aristócrata del siglo X (La Coruña, 1998), 38–47; she notes thirty-two Rabal documents from the period 956–97, ibid., 37; cf. her comments on intensity of exploitation, ibid., 23. ⁷ This estimate is based on an assumed surface area for Rabal of 9 km2 . The equivalent of about twenty entire properties (whole hereditates and packages of separate plots) was alienated to Celanova in the later tenth century, mostly as separate plots in the 960s; there must have been at least twice that number that were not alienated (i.e. a total of say sixty properties), and each property must have been composed of at least six plots (several arable, the house plot, a vineyard or two, an orchard). Compare the 170 casas listed in the 1764 Rabal cadaster, Pallares, Ilduara, 44, n. 108. These calculations are, of course, no more than a very rough estimate. ⁸ See above, pp. 5–6. ⁹ Lii383 (965), Lii366 (963), Lii485 (982); Hamama was abbess, presumably of the nuns, so this meadow was property of a small monastery, but the point is still made: these were small plots, whether owned by peasants or small religious communities.

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Figure 8.1 The territory of Rabal (after M. del C. Pallares Méndez)

community territory, hard by the plots of friends and neighbours, accessed by roads that were old, new, and ‘public’.¹⁰ We might therefore think of a free peasant’s property as consisting of a house, several plots of arable, one or two vineyards, an orchard, ¹⁰ For example, Li229 (950), SM18 (912), C89 (956), C175 (978), C211 (999), Lii361 (963), Lii422 (973), Lii430 (974); T69 (963), Cel197 (975–1011), OD12 (961); Lii391 (965), Ov19 (978), Lii445 (976).

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Figure 8.2 Small fields and orchards in Rabal

perhaps a meadow, perhaps a patch of uncultivated land or a copse, with a share in rights to use water, mills, and scarce things, with some family members having rights to share in some of the plots (but not all), all lying within a single community territory.¹¹ Rich peasants will have had several houses, rather more plots of arable and vineyards, bigger shares of mills and scarce resources, and sometimes plots in a neighbouring community; poor peasants will have had fewer of all these. The priest Juliano endowed the church of Santa Juliana at Peñacorada with property inherited from his father; the list includes an unspecified number of arable plots, two meadows, a quarter of an orchard, use of the mill by the church of San Cipriano for two days and a night, two vineyards in Grajal, more vineyards in Zeion, three farmhouses, barns with grain within them, three barrels, two beds and their bedding, a chalice and patten, horses, oxen, cattle, sheep, and pigs.¹² Apart from the liturgical vessels, this is probably a fair representation of the goods of a wealthy peasant (we should envisage local priests rather as we might envisage rich peasants, particularly in the period before private churches were absorbed by local monasteries¹³). More than twenty years later, Juliano gave his church and its property to Sahagún; by then his ¹¹ See above, pp. 65–71, for family sharing and dividing. ¹² S274 (974). ¹³ See above, pp. 62–3.

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Figure 8.3 Traces of former fields beneath the Porma reservoir in northern León

property interests had expanded and he had benefited from several gifts; besides the land which went with Santa Juliana, there were shares in two more mills, of six days and three days respectively, and there were six vineyards.¹⁴ COMMUNITIES I have used the notion of ‘community territory’ in the above discussion in order to convey the fact that peasant property did not comprise a series of isolated holdings but lay within a network of inter-related, adjacent plots; it also lay within an economic framework that shared scarce resources and recognized the rights of individual households to known shares, whether larger or smaller. Sharing was not the same thing as common rights: in these texts shares are often very precisely defined as that proportion which a party had a right to use him- or herself, although peasant collaboration and co-operation in a more general sense is implicit throughout the corpus of charters and is sometimes explicit. The fact of collaboration does not of itself mean that these people ¹⁴ S350 (996); cf. gifts of land and water courses given in 987 (S338).

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had a developed sense of community, nor that community territories were necessarily strictly defined and differentiated one from another. So, to what extent, did a group of neighbours, or others, have any sense of community identity, indeed of a larger collective as opposed to household or family identity? And to what extent, if at all, was group territory defined as group territory? These are difficult questions to answer but there are some things to be said. The notion of peasant community has been important in Spanish historiography of the second half of the twentieth century, with a tendency to draw a distinction between the aldea communities of the meseta (loosely, ‘village’ communities), many of which are supposed to have grown out of a colonizing effort, and the more scattered populations (comunidades del valle) of the more mountainous north. The two have been seen to have had different characters, the valle communities being dispersed, without village centres, and subject to the control of chiefs, while the aldeas were more likely to have had nucleated centres, lacked chiefs, and by convention had a more egalitarian character.¹⁵ There have been assumptions that these populations, particularly those of the aldeas, had community identities, although there has been relatively little investigation of direct expressions of identity or of the structure of such communities, except in the context of proposed change in the very late tenth century. This is because community identity has been equated with egalitarianism, and because the destruction of ‘community’, and increased hierarchization within it, has been central to the model of increasing lordship that is seen to characterize northern Spanish development of the late tenth and eleventh centuries.¹⁶ Some extension ¹⁵ See J. A. García de Cortázar y Ruiz de Aguirre, La sociedad rural en la España medieval (Madrid, 1988), 25–9, for a brief survey and for a third type of community, the comunidades de ciudad y tierra characteristic of lands south of the river Duero and of a later phase of development; see J. Escalona Monge, ‘De ‘‘señores y campesinos’’ a ‘‘poderes feudales y comunidades’’. Elementos para definir la articulación entre territorio y clases sociales en la alta edad media castellana’, in I. Álvarez Borge (ed.), Comunidades locales y poderes feudales en la edad media (Logroño, 2001), 115–55, at 121–7, for a recent critique. The issues addressed in these debates are important, and relate not only to depopulation and repopulation (see above, pp. 26–30) but also to feudalization and seigneurialization; cf. A. Barbero and M. Vigil, La formación del feudalismo en la península Ibérica (Barcelona, 1978), especially 279–85, on the north. ¹⁶ C. Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘El régimen de la tierra en el reino asturleonés hace mil años’, in his Viejos y nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1976–80), iii. 1315–1521 (first published 1978), at 1465–7, argued that pasture rights implied a communal regime; cf. below, n. 45. For lordship, see references above, p. 28; and I. Álvarez Borge, ‘Estructuras de poder en Castilla en la alta edad media: señores,

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of the powers of lordship in that period has been demonstrated, and such an extension ultimately had some impact upon the freedom and status of the peasantry;¹⁷ however, it does not have to follow from this impact that peasant communities must have been egalitarian before.¹⁸ That such an idea has been current at all owes much to the completely inappropriate model of the English village community of the late middle ages, with its open fields and rights in common pasture; as also, quite differently, to the assumption that a past phase of ‘tribal society’ must have been characterized by co-proprietorship.¹⁹ We need to look again at these issues, without those particular assumptions. A look at the contemporary evidence suggests that there is some material pertinent to community activity and identity but that there are a lot of things that we do not know. Recorded place-names may have some bearing on the issues, since settlements or territorial units could in practice have provided frameworks for community development. Whether we look at the north, to the classic valle country in Cantabria or in northern Castile, or at the west to Galicia, or at the classic aldea country of the Duero valley, there was a wide range of ways to locate settlements and name land units: some arable in or beside a named place; a plot of land in a named place in a villa; some arable in a villa, or in a valley, or in the mountains (for example, ‘in La Braña; beside the river Esla; in the agro de Bromedo in the villa of Rabal; in the villa de Bera (Villobera), or in the valley of Covellas, or on the Aurio mountain’).²⁰ Sometimes plots were located more topographically—‘arable below the monastery, between two roads, one going to León and the other running through the valley of Ardon’²¹—although it may be difficult to trace these points on the ground now: property boundaries indicated precise location partly by using streams and roads but largely by naming those siervos, vasallos’, in Señores, siervos, vasallos en la alta edad media. XXVIII Semana de estudios medievales, Estella, 16 a 20 de julio de 2001 (Pamplona, 2002), 269–308, at 282, and idem, Poder y relaciones sociales en Castilla en la edad media. Los territorios entre el Arlanzón y el Duero en los siglos X al XIV (Valladolid, 1996), for detailed examination of southern Castile. ¹⁷ See above, pp. 17–22, for peasant freedom. ¹⁸ See the comments of Escalona, ‘De ‘‘señores y campesinos’’ a ‘‘poderes feudales y comunidades’’ ’, 142, on the inappropriateness of the egalitarian assumption. ¹⁹ See A. Isla Frez, La alta edad media. Siglos VIII–XI (Madrid, 2002), 201, on the adoption of the English model; Barbero and Vigil, La formación del feudalismo, 228, 370–80, for tribal society. See above, pp. 67–9, for owning in common. ²⁰ Li158 (942), Li91 (931), Cel386 (961), Li152 (942), Lii323 (959), Li153 (942). ²¹ Lii327 (960).

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people who had adjacent plots, as we saw above, in a manner that was as meaningful at the time as it is useless to us now. Sometimes place-names fitted within a hierarchy of naming—land in Torío in the territory of León; orchards in the villa called Amoroce in the territory of Sorga; a vineyard in the place Rennones in the villa called Setimo in the territory of Astorga; a villa called Castrello in the district (alfoz) of Siero; a villa in the vega (meadows) of San Adriano in the district (pago) of León; a villa in the territory of Coyanza in the region of Cantabria [sic].²² However, the categories of settlement name—hamlets, villages, and larger settlements—and of territorial name are not consistently expressed and it is often unclear if a place-name refers to a settlement or a district; practice might in any case be expected to vary from region to region and from time to time. Territorial names were clearly of several orders: the smaller villa in the larger territorium or valley in the even larger region (the latter sometimes comparable to the modern ‘autonomous region’ (see above, Fig. 0.1)), although both relatively small and relatively large settlements could have a ‘territory’ attached and ‘territory’ itself could be larger or smaller.²³ Such units potentially gave shape to their residents as communities, or had themselves been shaped by communities. It does not follow that they should have done so,²⁴ much less develop structures of community regulation, but it is possible. The most consistent suggestions that this sometimes happened relate to the word ‘villa’. As in many parts of western Europe, the significance of the term ‘villa’ has been much discussed.²⁵ In Spain, the territorial import of the word has been ²² Li162 (943—Torío is a river name), Cel254 (942—Sorga also), OD37 (994), C53 (945), S335 (987), Liii530 (989). See C. Estepa Díez, ‘El alfoz castellano en los siglos IX al XII’, in España Medieval, IV, Estudios dedicados al professor D. Angel Ferrari Núñez (Madrid, 1984), 305–41, for regions, territories, and alfoces; and see also above, pp. 14–16, for administrative units. ²³ S123, S225, S337 for examples of villas in valleys; cf. Lii508: ‘valle cum suas villas’. Sam18 (933), S192 (961), Sob8 (964) for villas within other villas. S219 for the territory of Melgar and S126 for its boundaries; Li162, Li138, for the larger territories of León and Astorga. ²⁴ See W. Davies, ‘Introduction—community definition and community formation in the early middle ages: some questions’ and ‘Populations, territory and community membership: contrasts and conclusions’, both in W. Davies, G. Halsall, A. Reynolds (eds.), People and Space in the Middle Ages, 300–1300 ( Turnhout, 2007), 1–12, 295–307. ²⁵ Cf. the change from classical Roman ‘estate’ to French ville, ‘village’ and then ‘town’. See G. Ripoll and J. Arce, ‘The transformation and end of Roman villae in the West (fourth–seventh centuries): problems and perspectives’, in G. P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier and N. Christie (eds.), Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity

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emphasized in the context of the Alto Esla on the southern side of the Cantabrian mountains, while its initial reference to nucleated settlements has been noticed in the western Tierra de Campos.²⁶ In many of the examples cited above, ‘villa’ was a territorial designation (although it could be a term of proprietorship—X’s villa—or a settlement name); that this was so is made quite clear by the fact that villa boundaries could be described, just as churches, houses, orchards, plots of arable, and vineyards, were frequently sited within them.²⁷ As for size: the Rabal villa discussed above was something like 3 km across; three adjacent villas of Pazos, Verín, and Abedes, farther south in Galicia, were no more than 2 km across.²⁸ Some of the villas on the meseta look bigger: those to the west and south-west of Sahagún are up to 5 km across, although villas within the territory of Melgar must have been smaller.²⁹ The largest of these, at approximately 20 km2 , are of a size comparable to village territory (the rural parish) as it emerged in southern England in the later middle ages, although smaller than the English hundred or Breton plebs of the early middle ages.³⁰ As always, the differences should not be a cause of surprise or concern: we should expect plenty of variation, both within regions and within Spain. What is important in the present context is not so much size as the fact that the word villa could signify a definable territory. The inhabitants of a local territory clearly did sometimes develop a collective identity in tenth-century northern Spain, both using the framework of the villa and sitting across and outside it. There were at least three kinds of context for this: inhabitants of a territory who shared a relationship with a landlord; those who came together because of physical proximity and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 2000), 63–114; for Frankish examples, and some criticisms, see G. Halsall, ‘Villas, territories and communities in Merovingian northern Gaul’, in Davies, Halsall, Reynolds (eds.), People and Space, 209–31, especially 209–19; see also the discussion of C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), 465–81, 510–13. ²⁶ C. Estepa Díez, ‘Poder y propiedad feudales en el período astur: las mandaciones de los Flaínez en la montaña leonesa’, in Miscel-lània en homenatge al P. Agustí Altisent ( Tarragona, 1991), 285–327, at 291–4; cf. for Galicia, Pallares Méndez, Ilduara, 24–5; P. Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos occidental (Valladolid, 1985), 106. ²⁷ Lii333 (960); S299 (979); the villa in S100 (945) had at least seven houses; Cel390 (961) and the examples above, p. 189. ²⁸ Cel95, cf. Cel502; see further below, pp. 199, 201. ²⁹ S265 (972). See the maps of Mínguez, El dominio del monasterio de Sahagún, 232, 242, and of Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos, 119–25. ³⁰ Of the order of 50 km2 , though always with wide variations; see Davies, Small Worlds, 65–6.

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and/or economic necessity; and those who shared use of a particular church. The three contexts were not necessarily exclusive. The residents of a landlord’s estate (sometimes called a villa) might take collective action by virtue of the fact that they were his tenants, or dependents; in other words, because they had common interests in the face of the lord. That the residents of such estates were not passively compliant, but took action on their own account, is demonstrated by occasional records of negotiations between lords and residents, as in the rent negotiations noted in Chapter one.³¹ In 977 the people of the villa of Fuentes, given to Sahagún by the king six years previously, agreed to serve the monastery and no one else, on pain of a heavy fine; seven of them named guarantors for their undertaking.³² The year before, all the inhabitants of Villa Castellana, between Melgar and Gordaliza (south and west of Sahagún), are recorded as giving their villa and themselves to the bishop of León, to serve him and his church of Santa María, as their ancestors had done for two previous bishops; who knows what pressurized them to make such a gift, although we may suspect episcopal drafting of a document confirming commitments that were already expected.³³ It is nevertheless significant that the record presents the action as a voluntary gift by the tenants. Others, not necessarily residents of existing estates, might act together (or be forced to act together) to inaugurate similar relationships: twenty-one named men, who lived in three different settlements but worked on the Pardomino hills, agreed to pay a quarter of their produce annually to the monastery in the valley below.³⁴ Six named men, with the son of one of them, negotiated use of a hillside with the abbot of San Martín de Cercito because their own lands were worked out; three or four named people from each of seven different locations witnessed this deal.³⁵ We see these people taking joint action together by virtue of their shared membership of a tenant or dependent relationship. As discussed above, the term villa was also used as a territorial designation without any necessary contemporary implication of single ³¹ pp. 1–2, 18. ³² S289, cf. S262 (971); some of them stood as guarantors for each other; for similarly intricate patterns of suretyship, cf. W. Davies, ‘Suretyship in the Cartulaire de Redon’, in T. M. Charles-Edwards, M. E. Owen, D. B. Walters (eds.), Lawyers and Laymen (Cardiff, 1986), 72–91, at 83. ³³ Lii443 (976). ³⁴ Lii290 (955); see further below, p. 200, and above p. 20. ³⁵ SJP32 (s.d.); given its relationship with the preceding charter in this collection, this record cannot be earlier than the late tenth century and could be of the early eleventh century.

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proprietorship. The inhabitants of such territories, and of other territories with different descriptors, also sometimes took collective action, on their own account, as corporate bodies.³⁶ They gave and sold plots of land, and engaged in disputes with neighbouring lords or communities. Nine named people from Melgar gave a meadow to a local monastery in 932; up to seventeen named inhabitants of Quiroga and Caldelas gave several plots to San Xoán de Lamas in Galicia a couple of years later; in the following decade, twenty-four named people of Villabáscones, in Castile, gave land to found a monastery; a little later twenty-six named people sold their mills in the river Cea, with adjacent land and water, to Valdávida, and a generation later thirty-two people seem to have sold their entire settlement, of Villamol, to Sahagún.³⁷ Most of these groups are large and their collective action explicit; it is particularly telling that such care is taken to record the personal names of the actors. There are not usually so many people named in records of disputes, but the Galician case of Bishop Rosendo against the inhabitants of three different villas is nevertheless instructive. In this case the bishop went to the king in or before 950 because he thought that the people of Santa María of Verín were encroaching on his own estate of Baroncelli (Pazos) from the east and that the people of Vilazá and of Albarellos were intruding from the west. An extremely high-level delegation was sent from court to determine the true boundaries of the estate on the ground; the delegates seem to have spent a long time searching for stones and other markers out in the field.³⁸ Here it is clear that there were three distinct communities surrounding the bishop’s estate, each taking action on its own account. When bishops themselves disputed, local community representatives were called in to give evidence, as were two from each of five communities in a late tenth-century Sobrado case.³⁹ The case concerning the villa of Santa Olalla in Lemos in 959 ³⁶ Cf. Escalona, ‘De ‘‘señores y campesinos’’ a ‘‘poderes feudales y comunidades’’ ’, 129, on villas as communities. ³⁷ S44; Cel224 (934)—this text is ambiguous about which names participated, possibly members of the same family; C45 (944–50)—see further below, p. 204; S142 (954); S327 (984). ³⁸ Cel93; see R. Pastor, Resistencias y luchas campesinas en la época del crecimiento y consolidación de la formación feudal. Castilla y León, siglos X–XIII, 2nd edn. (Madrid, 1990; first published 1980), 79. Cf. the rather similar case of boundary pressures by the inhabitants of Manzaneda and of Garrafe recorded in Li89 (931), of the villas of Castroncán and of Pascais recorded in Sam46 (933), and of the Liébana recorded in T62 (962). ³⁹ Sob109 (986–99).

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has a few names—apparently the names of the heads of five families; here they were taken to court as a group for entering that villa, planting vines and arable, and building houses; they agreed, ultimately, to pay the monastery of San Pedro a quarter of their produce every year, in grapes and chestnuts.⁴⁰ The case of the seven communities who entered monastic land on the hills of Pardomino, ploughing, pasturing their animals, and cutting trees, is similar, except that at that stage (in the 940s), it was the bounds of ‘lay land’ that were defined, excluding the communities from (monastic) mills and ploughed land; similarly, thirty named men from eight locations in the Lózara valley in Galicia agreed with the monks of Samos their rights to live in the valley, but also agreed not to encroach on monastic land.⁴¹ Rather unusually, the men of San Juan en Vega (de Infanzones), led by one Gondemaro, took action against the abbot and monks of Valdevimbre on the grounds that the monastery had interfered with the water flow at the confluence of the rivers Torío and Bernesga (14 km south of León) and thereby damaged their mills; even more remarkably the king found in favour of the men against the abbot.⁴² The fact of collective action by communities is demonstrated even more strongly by records of disputes between communities themselves. Named men of the villas of Sauto and Leginoso came before Count Gutier in dispute about their boundaries. A panel of boni homines (respected elders) was despatched to ascertain where the line had run of old; they found the point where the bounds of Sauto and Leginoso, and also Ranosendi, intersected, and then went on to trace the lines between three other villas.⁴³ A couple of years later, the bishop of Santiago heard a similar case between two communities from farther north, each with its own spokesperson; it was again solved by boundary walking and finding stone markers.⁴⁴ It is interesting that there seem to have been physical markers between these Galician communities, markers which were regarded as ancient in the earlier tenth century.⁴⁵ There ⁴⁰ Cel446 (959—see above, pp. 1–2); cf. Cel150 (987), C22 (932). ⁴¹ Li184 (944) (cf. above, p. 198, for three of the Pardomino communities subsequently ‘agreeing’ to give a quarter of their annual produce to the monks); Sam247 (909); cf. Cel507 (985); cf. Pastor, Resistencias, 85, and C. Estepa Díez, Estructura social de la ciudad de León (siglos XI–XIII) (León, 1977), 197–8. ⁴² Li128 (938). ⁴³ Cel502 (940); cf. Pastor, Resistencias, 79. ⁴⁴ Sob129 (942). ⁴⁵ Also interesting that these boundary disputes are very rarely about grazing rights (although see the explicit gift of grazing rights in C109 (963)); many are explicitly about ploughing rights, like Sam247 (909). References to pasture rights are quite rare

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is a similar case between the inhabitants of the villa Santa María (led by Countess Trudildi) and three neighbouring communities a decade later. This time a large group of the elders (maiores natu) of the bishop’s estate of Baroncelli (Pazos) was sent off to search for the markers; taking in the bounds of a further two communities on their travels, they finally decided in favour of the Santa María community.⁴⁶ In this case representatives of the four communities in dispute were named. It is an important case since the bishop’s tenants appear to have included elders of sufficient status to resolve disputes between communities. Differently, and more tentatively than the very clear cases above, it is likely that members of the lay community who related to a specific church or monastery sometimes took action together; in such cases, rather than the territorial unit providing the framework for community development, a focal point did so. This kind of grouping is inherently credible—after all, it is precisely what happened to the people of the parish for much of the subsequent millennium in western European society—but it is difficult to demonstrate unambiguously at this time. The suggestions lie in the fact that a few groups, called councils and assemblies in the texts, are defined by the name of a church. When the king heard the case over water rights brought by the men of San Juan en Vega against the abbot and monks of Valdevimbre, the men are described as the men of the ‘assembly in San Juan’; a generation later, a sale between lay parties of a vineyard in the villa Rebolare, near León, was witnessed by several named persons and ‘others of the council of San Julián’; a gift to the monastery of Santos Justo y Pastor of land at San Juan, in the villa Fuentes, was confirmed by the ‘assembly of San Juan’, while a gift of vines in the valley of Covellas to the monastery of Abellar was witnessed by many of the ‘council of San Juan’; a sale to Sahagún of land in Ataula was witnessed by named persons and ‘many others of the council of San Andrés in Villa Mutarraf’, while a sale to the monastery of San Andrés itself was witnessed by the ‘assembly in in the tenth century and only occur notably in Castile, especially in the San Millán charters (e.g. SM38, 39, 40 (all 945), SM73 (957), SM95 (979)), but note also, in Castile, V2 (notionally 804), Ar4 (924), Ar12 (932), and see Escalona, ‘Mapping scale change: hierarchization and fission in Castilian rural communities during the tenth and eleventh centuries’, in Davies, Halsall, Reynolds (eds.), People and Space, 143–66, at 155–9 and n. 58, on Orbaneja; cf. also the undated SJP31 in Aragón. Reference to pasture, as opposed to pasture rights, is common enough; the implication must be that, outside Castile, the rights were not a matter of competition in the tenth century. ⁴⁶ Cel95 (950 and 951).

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San Andrés’.⁴⁷ The named people, from these assemblies and councils, are not identified as priests or monks, although priests feature elsewhere in these witness lists. It seems plausible that, at the least, these were people who met in church, given that nearly all meetings recorded in this way took place in winter, between November and February; hence the occasion and the location defined the groups.⁴⁸ It is also conceivable, or even likely, that the people of the councils were those who had a relationship with the churches, as was clearly the case in later centuries.⁴⁹

COUNCILS Whatever we may think of the likelihood that some groups were defined by their relationship to a church, groups of people—however they were defined—undoubtedly took collective action. The examples cited above show collective action in Galicia, on the meseta, in the Liébana valley, in Castile, and in Aragón. We do not know much about the internal workings of such bodies, or how much structure there was, but we have already seen that the words ‘council’ and ‘assembly’ (concilium and collatio) in some circumstances came to be used of their meetings. Indeed, in later centuries the local council, or concejo, came to be a familiar aspect of the rural landscape.⁵⁰ Reference to rural councils in the tenth ⁴⁷ Li128, collacio—see above for this case; S268 (973), concilium (it is not clear which San Julián is intended, but perhaps the church in the suburbs of León, S341); Lii493 (983) and Liii515 (986), collacio and concilium (it is unclear which San Juan); S300 (979) and S301 (979), concilium and collatio (a farm associated with the proprietary church of San Andrés had been given to Sahagún in 959 (S165) and the Villa Motarraf had been given in 970 (S255); Ataula is about 40 km south-west of Villa Motarraf, where it seems that the Ataula transaction was performed). I have used ‘assembly’ to translate collacio/collatio, to make the point that the witnesses may have been other than monks, since it is clear in other contexts (see below) that this word can refer to lay groups. For the view that these, and many other collationes, represented communities, see C. Estepa Díez, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo en Castilla y León’, in En torno al feudalismo hispánico. I congreso de estudios medievales (León, 1989), 157–256, at 191–2. See further comment below, n. 55, and below, pp. 202–7, for councils. ⁴⁸ Cf. Li88 (930), lay/priest sale in front of the church of San Lorenzo; Lii262 (953) and Li137 (940), in the first of which there was a lay/lay sale and in the second executors discharged their obligations before witnesses, both in conventum/o ecclesiae, i.e. in meetings in church; SM88 (971), a royal grant witnessed in the church of Santa Olalla. ⁴⁹ Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos, 513, notes that the word collación came to refer to the association of parishioners. ⁵⁰ See M. del C. Carlé, Del concejo medieval castellano-leonés (Buenos Aires, 1968); cf. also C. Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Repoblación del Reino Asturleonés’, in his Viejos y

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century is not particularly common, and there may be no more than twenty such cases (although ‘council’ is of course a common word, and there were also kings’ councils, judicial courts described as councils,⁵¹ city councils,⁵² bishops’ councils, and occasionally aristocratic councils). In the rural context, that is when associated with people of a named rural settlement or district, the word council clearly refers to an assembled group of people, a collectivity; from the numbers of individual names associated, it must refer to quite a wide collectivity, comprising different households. Hence, a gift was confirmed in the council of Villalba in 950; seventeen named men and all the council of Villabáscones made the agreement with their local abbot over water rights in 956; a gift to the bishop of León of a vineyard in Perares was witnessed by thirteen named men and ‘more from the council’ in 979; a substantial gift of several villas in 987 was witnessed by representatives of the Villa Motarraf assembly as well as by other groups.⁵³ The word collatio, here translated ‘assembly’, sometimes occurs as a direct synonym for council:⁵⁴ the nine named people who made the Melgar gift in 932 were joined by all the collatio of Melgar, a meeting subsequently referred to as council of Melgar.⁵⁵ Both words imply meetings.⁵⁶ Attendance was often by quite a large group—too large to constitute simply the ‘dominant lineages’ nuevos estudios sobre las instituciones medievales españolas, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1976–80), ii. 581–790, at 753–8, and his ‘El régimen de la tierra’, at iii. 1447–75, as also Estepa, ‘Formación del feudalismo’, 236–40. ⁵¹ See especially OD38 (995), where concilio is a synonym for iudicio; cf. A27 (978), OD43 (997). ⁵² Of Burgos, especially, e.g. C151 (972), but cf. León in Lii312 (959), Lii416 (972). ⁵³ C70 (950), C89 (956), Lii466 (979), S335 (987); see also concilia in Lii391 (965), Lii396 (966), S275 (974), S283 (976), C192 (984), Liii532 (990), Liii572 (996), and the examples in n. 47 above. ⁵⁴ Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos, notes, 507, both the interchangeability of concilium and collatio in the tenth century and the fact that these words refer to a collective. ⁵⁵ S44, S298 (979); cf. the aristocrat Rodrigo Alvarez’s concilium and collatio, Liii577(997), which may have been the assembly of people, or their representatives, in Rodrigo’s sphere of delegated authority, his comissorio (see above, pp. 14–15), or may simply have been the community of Ferreras, already evidenced fifty years earlier as one of the Pardomino communities, Li184 (944); see above, p. 200. Collatio is also frequently used of the coming together of a monastic community, large or small; a gathering, as it were. It is, for example, a common term for Sahagún’s monastic community; cf. also Cel173 (922), ‘cum collatione fratrum Sancte Marie’ and T24 (918), ‘ex fratrum collacione’. Hence, my hesitation at supposing that all of those associated with church names referred to the local lay, rather than a local religious, community, pace Estepa Díez, Estructura social de León, 198–9. ⁵⁶ Cf., explicitly, Sam35 (944), fecit collationem ‘he called a meeting’, several times. See also the collatio in Lii331 (960).

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that feature in some of the Spanish historiography—although there is no need to suppose that all residents attended.⁵⁷ We also do not have to suppose that all members of a council were proprietors; clearly some were tenants. The council therefore seems to have been the assembly of the group that—for whatever reason—took decisions for the whole community. If we look in detail at a few cases, we can begin to glimpse the process that lay beneath these gatherings. The places named in association with such groups were often settlements—Melgar, Perares, the farm at San Andrés, San Juan en Vega, and the unidentified San Juan and San Julián; they are often places which remain in the landscape as, or to become, villages, and often roads led to them; there was a castrum, perhaps some kind of fortification, at Melgar, as well as houses and farmsteads, and the place had associated territory.⁵⁸ They were sometimes villas—Villalba, Villabáscones. As noted above, the Villabáscones council was negotiating with the abbot of the local monastery of San Martín in 956. About ten years earlier, twenty-four members of that community had given land to endow their local church, and in 955 a few of them had sold some water rights to it. Not long after, in 963, the abbot of San Martín gave the whole monastery, and all of its lands and property rights, to the much larger monastery of Cardeña, witnessed by some of the twenty-four of two decades earlier.⁵⁹ The local householders of Villabáscones thereby lost their local monastery, which they had certainly patronized and had perhaps created. When they first appeared, no collective term was used to describe the twenty-four. When they came to negotiate over water rights, the seventeen and others were called the council. It is as if they developed a collective identity in the course of their changing relationship with the monastery. Of course, conscious collective identity or not, leaders seem to have emerged, or at least spokespersons for the groups, just as community representatives sometimes went to witness transactions in which the ⁵⁷ Compare ninth-century Breton village communities, in which those who were male and free attended village meetings; serfs and women did not, and perhaps some free males did not; see Davies, Small Worlds, 88–9. ⁵⁸ The reference to the much discussed joint council of the three settlements of San Zadornil, Berbea, and Barrio, of 955 (SM67), appears to derive from an eleventhcentury rather than a contemporary text and is in any case doubtful; see Álvarez Borge, Poder y relaciones sociales, 36–7, and idem, ‘Estructuras de poder’, 281–2, n. 22. ⁵⁹ C108. Cf. Sánchez-Albornoz, ‘Repoblación’, 693, and Pastor, Resistencias, 39.

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community had an interest.⁶⁰ In many (though by no means all) of the instances of collective action cited above, two or three are named as representatives of the group: Gondemaro led the men of San Juan en Vega; the Quiroga and Caldelas donors have one or two people named for each different set of relations; one or two were named for each of the four villas involved in the Santa María dispute; Vasalle and Haliffa were named for the Villa Castellana group that ‘offered’ service to the bishop; and, very interestingly, seven people were named as representatives (vigarii) and guarantors (fideiussores) for the seven communities working the Pardomino hills; even more interestingly the latter are identified as representatives of the plebium, literally ‘ordinary peoples’, a term used in other parts of Europe in the early middle ages for rural and other communities.⁶¹ There are also occasional Galician references to plebes at this period.⁶² The case of Filauria is also interesting. She was the first-named (and by implication the spokeswoman) of the nine named members of the Melgar assembly who gave the meadow to the small monastery of San Juan. She seems to have been a rich peasant, later purchasing several small plots in the neighbourhood, and later still giving many of those to the much larger monastery of Sahagún to the north-east.⁶³ Spokespersons were not necessarily, however, the richest. It is also striking that these councils are relatively unusual (they were certainly unusual in other parts of Europe at such a date). The earliest reference to a rural council seems to come in 950 (collationes from 932) and the rest are scattered across the remainder of the tenth century.⁶⁴ Their occurrence appears to be a new development of that ⁶⁰ E.g. S364 (946), a sale witnessed by groups from seven locations; cf. the witness groups in SJP32 (above, n. 35) and the community representatives who gave evidence (above, pp. 198–9). ⁶¹ Li128, Cel224, Cel95, Lii443, Li184 (cf. Li102 (935)); cf. Sob109 (above n. 39). For the term plebs, see P. Aebischer, ‘La diffusion de plebs ‘‘paroisse’’ dans l’espace et dans le temps’, Revue de linguistique romane, 28 (1964), 143–65; A. Castagnetti, L’organizzazione del territorio rurale nel medioevo ( Turin, 1979), 9–30; W. Davies, ‘Priests and rural communities in east Brittany in the ninth century’, Études celtiques, 20 (1983), 177–97, at 177–82. In many areas, by the ninth century, the word plebs was most frequently used to denote the territory dependent on a baptismal church, although in the Breton case it referred to a unit of civil association, the primary unit of social organization (which could of course have had its origin in adherence to a church). ⁶² Sam128 (849), Sob109 (986–99). ⁶³ S44 (932), S94 (945–54), S162 (959), S164 (959); S265 (972). See Mínguez, El dominio de Sahagún, 147, for Isca, Filauria’s husband. ⁶⁴ The concilium of Iubera (Castile) is mentioned in A8, of uncertain date but perhaps as early as 941.

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time. Although there is good evidence of peasant community action in all parts, the occurrence of councils is more restricted: there are Castilian and Leonese examples, especially but not exclusively near the towns of Burgos and León, but they are not recorded in the west or the north; councils, then, seem to have been a particular characteristic of the meseta at this period.⁶⁵ Moreover, even there, while we hear of a concilium here and a collatio there, most places had no such identifiable meeting. It is tempting to suppose that reference to councils simply arose because of diplomatic practice, a term favoured by a few recording sources. However, the references come from a range of different sources, including at least nine on single sheets, written by different scribes in different places. They include records of sales between lay persons as well as of gifts to churches and monasteries, and one record of a bequest from a father to sons; most are short, unelaborated, records.⁶⁶ It therefore looks as if the practice of identifying the meetings of some rural groups as ‘councils’ was a local habit and quite widespread. Moreover, we have noted that when the people of Villabáscones first met to endow their local monastery, their meeting was not called a council; by the time they were negotiating with the abbot, it was. It is worth considering whether groups of people became more accustomed to meet, began to institutionalize meetings, and thereby developed a greater sense of group identity as they had to negotiate with their own lords or with local larger landowners who were competitors. While meetings began as occasions, they were clearly on the way to becoming institutions by 1000; and local scribes in some parts were aware of the development. Indeed, from the 960s the word collatio was developing a spatial sense too, land in the sphere of this or that assembly (or community meeting), like the vineyard in ‘valle de Antimio in collationem San Juan Evangelista’ sold in 979.⁶⁷ In any case, well before 1000, reference was made to people of or from the council, as befits an institution rather than an occasion.⁶⁸ We might therefore imagine that, as the powers of lords developed, as they ⁶⁵ There is a passing reference in a Liébana text, T71 (?966), which suggests that the charter of donation was made in an unlocated concilio. ⁶⁶ See above, pp. 108–9, for the significance of brief records. ⁶⁷ Lii468, cf. Lii391 (965); Liii546 (991), Liii547 (991). Interestingly, all these are cases of sales, small-scale, in short basic records; the usage again seems to reflect a local habit of locating properties rather than an established, formulaic, written tradition. Cf. the semantic range of ‘parish’, which includes the land associated with the community for which pastoral care was provided. The spatial sense of collación was common in the central middle ages. ⁶⁸ S300, Lii466, Liii572, for example.

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undoubtedly did, rural communities became more likely to have regular meetings, councils, to develop a common position.⁶⁹ This represents a change in the later tenth century, as the identity of rural groups in the meseta—far from being destroyed—crystallized and formalized.

PE A S A N T D O N AT I O N Actions by rural groups in the tenth century and the increasing incidence of meetings indicate a growing sense of self-awareness by peasant communities in some parts of northern Spain. Patterns of peasant behaviour were often distinctive. It was peasants, in particular, who split and shared family property, dealing in fractions of increasing complexity—half a vineyard, a ninth of the meadow, a fourteenth of the arable, and so on; and it was individual peasants, especially, who would ‘share’ some of their property with a bishop or monastery, undertaking to pay regular renders and thereby committing their families to lasting obligations. We can see a peasantry increasingly attached, even if lightly, to ecclesiastical landlords.⁷⁰ We also get a glimpse of the procedures available to peasants for making deals. While many transactions may have been orally conducted, and never committed to writing, some peasants certainly used records. Local priests and local monasteries made records for them, using standard formulas in brief and unelaborated texts, perhaps quickly indicating a pious reason for making the gift but, in records of gifts to churches, avoiding references to the torments of hell and the delights of heaven. Sales also feature prominently in peasant dealing, sometimes as an aspect of the splitting and sharing, but sometimes—especially with sales to clergy—in effect a kind of payment for help in bad times past. Again, we see the role of the clergy becoming ever more prominent, a source of surplus in times of scarcity.⁷¹ Peasants made gifts to the church for different reasons, and sometimes for purely pious reasons, as any aristocrat might do. But peasants are ⁶⁹ Cf. Martínez Sopena, La tierra de campos, 506, 510. This is essentially the point made by Martínez Sopena about merino (lord’s agent) and concejo in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the point can reasonably be extended back to the tenth century. Cf. also A. J. Kosto, ‘Reasons for assembly in Catalonia and Aragón, 900–1200’, in P. S. Barnwell and M. Mostert (eds.), Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages ( Turnhout, 2003), 133–49, who uses many tenth-century examples. ⁷⁰ See above, pp. 69–71. ⁷¹ See above, pp. 108–9, 156–8.

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particularly notable for making gifts to pay off debts and to provide compensation for committing petty offences; sometimes they also made them to secure support. Peasants were not much involved in making gifts in order to secure liturgical or some other form of religious commemoration, or burial within the church, although two things here are notable: one or two peasants actually were involved in those kinds of gift; and, where they were, there were both regional distinctions (it did not happen in Galicia) and differences in the kind of ecclesiastical communities patronized (they tended to give to small monasteries and avoid the powerful corporations).⁷² Overall, the tenth-century material suggests that peasants had, or were developing, a rather different kind of relationship with priests and monks from that which aristocrats had; this is not at all surprising, for a relationship that was clearly more economic and less spiritual. Ritual celebration and participation were less important here, although a few peasants did enlist the services of priests and other religious for their own family purposes. Indeed, it looks as if social access to ritual may have been slightly expanding by 1000. Can we pursue the incidence of peasant transactions in the record? We cannot always be sure of the status of the actors who appear in these charters, but bearing in mind the criteria stated in Chapter one,⁷³ it looks as if there were changes in the patterns of peasant donation across the tenth century and different patterns in different regions. Most abbots and bishops had more recorded dealings with kings and aristocrats in the tenth century than with peasants, and some may have determined to deal with kings and aristocrats rather than with those who lived nearby. It is obviously difficult to quantify peasant participation because of the inevitable uncertainties about status, especially where numbers of records in a given collection are low. However, estimates can be made and, while remembering the uncertainties, the large collections suggest broad proportions which are credible. Tentatively, then, we may say that peasant giving constitutes a relatively small proportion of donation to the church recorded in this period, something in the order of 25%. By no means all of this was for pious reasons, as indicated above. There are very strong regional differences, which remain marked even where collections of records are small: in other words, the patterns are regionally consistent. The proportion of peasant donation seems to have been relatively low in Galicia, as also in what we have from Aragón. Although there ⁷² See above, p. 132.

⁷³ pp. 21–2.

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are many gifts by aristocrats recorded in the Samos collection, no more than a handful could be from people of peasant status; Sobrado also has at most a handful of peasant gifts to the church, although peasant transactions with the laity feature very strongly in this group; and although we also see peasants very clearly in the Celanova collection, because of the many sales recorded in mid-century, at most 20% of donations to the church could be attributed to peasants. In Aragón, the San Juan de la Peña collection does not appear to have any records of peasant gifts at this time—numbers are small anyway, but even so there are at least eleven records of royal or aristocratic gifts in the tenth century. By contrast with this Galician pattern, the number of peasant grants to the church looks relatively high in Castile, as also in Cantabria, in so far as we have statistically significant material from the north.⁷⁴ About 35% of the Cardeña donations could reasonably be classified as of peasant status; Table 8.1 Peasant donation to the church, by collection, as % of all gifts to the church % of all gifts to the church Cel Sam Sob L OD S C SM* V SJP T Ov Total *

20 5 10 27 33 25 35 23 58 0 33 22 25

higher % if multiple transactions disaggregated

San Millán records have more uncertainties, and are notably marked by royal and comital gifts, but small-scale peasant giving—often recorded in very brief notes—looks close to or above the mean; numbers from Valpuesta, Arlanza, and Albelda are too low to be statistically significant, ⁷⁴ Cf. above, p. 52, n. 49 for peasant activity in Castile.

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and peasant donation is certainly not notable in the latter two; however, Valpuesta seems to have an extremely high proportion, over 50% of gifts, although the percentage is skewed by the set of gifts of the 950s to the monastery of Buezo. Total numbers of donations are also rather low in records from Cantabrian Liébana, but here too the peasant proportion looks higher than the mean (about 33%). Unsurprisingly, peasant donation in the large collections of records from the western meseta comes closest to the 25% mean (see Table 8.1). Most of the charter collections considered here begin with records of the late ninth century but do not record significant numbers of transactions until the decade following 910. Whenever a collection begins, the earliest transactions are dominated by aristocrats, be they lay or ecclesiastical; ordinary people do not play much part in the recorded transfer of property rights. But in many cases, particularly where the collections are large, there comes a clear time when the business transactions of ordinary people start to feature in the records. This is most striking in the large, and richly varied, collections of the western meseta, where the evidence in this respect is particularly strong: although ‘ordinary people’ start to feature as alienators around 920 in the León collections, peasant donation to the church is not notably recorded before the mid-930s; at nearby Sahagún it was also the 930s when this activity began to be noted; at Otero de las Dueñas, where numbers are vastly lower, it was in the 940s. Interestingly, where the proportion of peasant donation to the church is either relatively high or relatively low, and numbers of charters are high, it was also the 930s when records of peasant donation became notable: from 932 round Cardeña, San Millán, and also Celanova. Where numbers of charters are lower, there is—not surprisingly—much greater variation, and in most cases there is too little material to identify a point at which peasant records became common; however, for Valpuesta it was the 950s. In the northern collection of the Liébana (San Martín de Turieno and associated institutions), however, where numbers are relatively small, there was not such a change in the 930s; records of peasant donation to the church appear to have begun earlier, although it was the 960s before the proportions become notable.⁷⁵ This pattern, that is of peasant transactions entering the written record at a noticeable point, is reinforced if we also look at the recording ⁷⁵ For example, T10, T12 (both ninth century), ?T24 (918), T29 (921); there are also early gifts to lay recipients.

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of transactions of sale. In the León collections, there were earlier peasant sales but the main series began in the late 920s, as also for Sahagún; for the small but important collection from Otero this started in the 940s. Outside the western meseta, the situation is different. Where records of peasant donation are relatively few, in Galicia to the west, there are relatively few sales recorded: there are few sales of any kind in the Samos collection; in that of Celanova, although there are some sales from the 930s, the main bulk of peasant sales falls only in the 960s; in the Sobrado collection, sale to the laity is recorded from as early as the early ninth century, but is only notable from the 920s, for just over a generation. Where records of peasant donation are relatively many, in Castile to the east, sale is also relatively rare: it is not noticeable in Cardeña records until the 960s; San Millán, Arlanza, and Albelda collections have few sales at all in this period; Valpuesta records do include sales from 913, but most of the collection records gifts. By contrast, in the collections from the north, Oviedo records peasant sales from 917, and arguably earlier, and the Liébana does so from the early ninth century (see Fig. 8.4).

Figure 8.4 Zones of different recording practice in respect of peasant transactions

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There are some major regional cultural differences here: in León and the western meseta north of the Duero, peasant sale and peasant donation to the church were recorded in notable quantities from the 920s/930s. In Galicia, peasant donation and sale were for the most part recorded in relatively low quantities from the 930s, although in the case of Celanova numbers of sales rose markedly in the 960s; and in the case of Sobrado, peasant gifts and sales to lay persons began earlier and were much more evident than transactions with the church until the mid-tenth century. In Castile, peasant donation was recorded in relatively large quantities from the 930s, and peasant sale was not often recorded, with the exception of that to Cardeña in the 960s. In the north, both peasant sale and peasant donation were recorded from the ninth century. Clearly, in most regions there is a horizon in the 930s at which peasant transactions start to show noticeably in the written record. Different kinds of explanation are conceivable: most obviously, the 930s could be the period when peasants first began to make transactions; alternatively, it could be the period when transactions began for the first time to be committed to writing; or it could be the period from which records happen to be preserved. The latter kind of explanation must certainly play some part, because of the acquisition policies of major monasteries, building up title to more and more property; however, the second kind of explanation is probably also relevant as well: ecclesiastical beneficiaries had reason to see transactions from which they benefited committed to writing—the increase in buying from peasants in the case of both Cardeña and Celanova in the 960s is directly attributable to entrepreneurial monastic policy; and even the first explanation probably plays a part, for the interest of churches and monasteries in acquiring even small portions of land must have introduced more mobility in the transmission of peasant property. All three explanations appear relevant: more transactions from the 930s, more records, and more preservation of records. Now, it is extremely unlikely that there were no peasant transactions at all before the 930s: the smaller but longer series from Cantabria indicates that there were some, while the numbers of sales and gifts between purely lay parties which are particularly well demonstrated in Sobrado, León, and Otero collections show that peasant transactions could be recorded from an early date.⁷⁶ Indeed, I have argued above that ⁷⁶ See above pp. 100–1.

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there may well have been a long tradition of donation to lay patrons in some parts, some of which was certainly recorded.⁷⁷ Castile appears to have been different, perhaps because of a different economic base (there was either more pasture or more competition for pasture) or because of lower levels of recording independent peasant activity. Peasants did not begin transacting in the 930s and their transactions did not begin to be recorded then. There is background, in both respects. But there seem to have been changes at that time. What changed most obviously were the record-keeping habits of the larger monasteries. Our impressions are conditioned by the recording practice of major monasteries—hence, houses like San Juan de la Peña, Albelda, Arlanza, and Samos appear to have been more interested in recording and preserving gifts from aristocrats than from others. Our impressions are also conditioned by copying and keeping habits—houses like Cardeña, Celanova, and Sahagún did not copy much material from before their own foundation dates, while others assiduously kept or copied outdated archives; in some cases—Sobrado and Otero de las Dueñas especially—the chance incorporation of substantial lay archives in the monastic record reveals practices (the volume of lay/lay sale especially) which would not otherwise be suspected. If changes in record-keeping habits are the most obvious of changes, we should not forget the others. Overall the material also suggests an increase in the volume of peasant transactions, notably from the 930s, not least because most of the major monasteries sought to develop their relationships with local residents. This is most evident in and near urban León. We do not merely see procedures that had previously been hidden, we see new things happening. While peasants had clearly been buying and selling landed property for generations, and giving it to powerful lay patrons, they seem to have begun giving to churches in previously unimaginable quantities. That was partly an inevitable consequence of the increased significance of churches and monasteries as landlords, for more ecclesiastical landlords meant more ecclesiastical creditors and more ecclesiastical sources of support; it was also because some peasants actively chose ecclesiastical patronage. ⁷⁷ p. 163.

9 Rhetoric and Action We have seen, again and again, how much the form and language of the record conditions our interpretation of northern Spain in the tenth century. This is precisely what we would expect as historians, although the particularities of some of the recording practice have sometimes had a quite disproportionate impact upon the historiography: the favourite phrase of this or that monastic house (like trado corpus et animam or incommuniatio) have taken on a life as distinctive institutions;¹ the words have seemed to indicate distinctive practice, when they have simply been a mode of reference. However, the way that scribes used standard formulas can be instructive, just as deviation from the favourite phrase can in itself provide insights. The interplay between the rigidly formulaic and the free flow of language is even more illuminating; all this, and the content of the non-standard, even florid, pieces of prose that scribes inserted, can take us beyond the record to tenth-century actions and attitudes. The considered inversion of the standard formula ‘man and woman give/sell’ to the occasional, self-conscious, ‘woman and man give/sell’ makes a significant point; and, despite the very formal genre, we sometimes glimpse the personal insight: witness the contrast between the stereotypical ‘sweetness’ of the bride and the very individual expressions of female piety.² There are, clearly, many things that we cannot see: most obviously, these texts overwhelmingly deal with transactions in land; we do not know about transactions in movables, nor about their relative volume, nor about many other aspects of ordinary and extraordinary life. In view of these unavoidable limitations of the source material, it becomes essential to take a comprehensive overview, and avoid arguing from the single case or even from the single collection, given how much the attitudes of the recording house condition the textual outcome. ¹ See above, pp. 54–6, 80–3.

² See above, pp. 183, 180.

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House style is apparent in most collections;³ and, while some chose to preserve a range of types of record, others—like Cardeña’s focus on donation—chose to focus on a single type. This informs, but also distorts. Despite the limitations, language and form are themselves revealing. It is language and form that provide a clue to the status of principal actors, for the transactions of aristocrats are recorded in different ways from those of peasants.⁴ Language and form are also significant indicators of regional difference. There is insufficient material from Aragón and Navarre to draw distinctive regional pictures at this time. However, there is plenty of material from other parts. Although there are some strong similarities, the culture of Galicia frequently looks distinctive: there is more evidence of servile dependence, rather less of free peasant deals, a different quality to the religious culture, and a wider range of valuation systems.⁵ And then there is Castile. Again and again Castilian patterns look different from those found elsewhere: the region has more transactions in churches but fewer instances of donation for the purposes of commemoration, fewer gifts to discharge debts, lower proportions of female alienators and of gifts to lay persons, fewer indications of peasant buying and selling, and so on. This is not the place to pursue why this should have been so, and our perceptions are strongly conditioned by the particular preoccupations of the major recording centres, but there are nevertheless hints of underlying socio-economic difference, as also of less of a local recording tradition.⁶ Records of donation slightly outnumber other kinds of record;⁷ not surprisingly, therefore, giving to the church inevitably emerges as a major theme. It looks as if some ninth-century aristocratic families in northern Spain were as interested in ensuring perpetuation of their memory as were families elsewhere in Europe, at that time and earlier. That interest continued throughout the tenth century, although the mechanisms for commemoration tended to shift from founding churches and monasteries to providing, through land grants, for liturgical commemoration ³ See above, pp. 91–3. ⁴ See above, pp. 106–9. ⁵ For valuation systems, see W. Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation in Galicia and Castile-León’, Early Medieval Europe, 11 (2002), 149–74, at 165–70, and references there cited. ⁶ See above, pp. 211–13. ⁷ Contrast Catalonia, where there are more records of sale surviving from pre-1000; Ll. To Figueras, ‘L’historiographie du marché de la terre en Catalogne’, in L. Feller and C. Wickham (eds.), Le marché de la terre au moyen âge (Rome, 2005), 161–80, at 162.

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and sometimes burial.⁸ To that extent, the Spanish picture fits wider European models reasonably well, although the chronology of memorialization falls later and the commitment does not look as strong as it does in, say, eighth- and ninth-century Germany—there are, after all, no Spanish Libri Memoriales of this period. In fact, most families seem to have had no concern at all to ensure their own commemoration, and those that were so concerned did not invariably or even mostly entrust the act to women. This was only one aspect—and a narrowly restricted one—of the complex of motives impelling people to give landed property away to the church. People gave land for spiritual reasons and they gave for purely practical reasons; they gave land because they were forced to do so, to meet debts or pay fines; they gave land to reward past service or past assistance; they gave land to gain material benefits in life and to secure support in the short term or in old age.⁹ Giving for the sake of the soul—pro anima mea—accounted for at most two-fifths of all donation for which we have evidence, a significant proportion but not as much as we often tend to assume. People made gifts of land to the laity too, and had clearly done so for a very long time.¹⁰ Such giving goes back as far as we can see and is well-evidenced in parts of northern Spain which had unquestionably long-standing, stable, populations—in other words, in parts where there has been no suggestion of depopulation and repopulation. Giving to the laity does not seem to have been a particular response to tenthcentury developments but rather a standard mechanism for balancing resources in essentially self-regulating societies, and as such a mechanism for securing social support when family was not there to provide it. Families often were there, however, and family interests are reflected throughout the corpus of tenth-century records. Despite some of the earlier historiography, there is very little to suggest any significant change in family structure in this period: family interests are as evident in the year 1000 as in 900 and families at many social levels adopted strategies to protect the patrimony, as they did elsewhere in western Europe. The strategies they employed, however, were different from those beyond the Pyrenees, as the instruments that they used were different; sharing land beyond the circle of natural heirs served to maintain family interest, as did splitting and sharing with patrons. Hence, total alienation of their power over family property seems to have been rare; more usually, some control ⁸ See above, pp. 61–2. ¹⁰ See above, pp. 139–63.

⁹ See above, pp. 113–26, 126–34.

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was retained, even if the family interest was squeezed. Fragmentation of family land is therefore not particularly evident, despite its recurrence in the literature—division and reassembly of property seems to have been the practice, rather than an unending process of morcellation.¹¹ Giving to the church and to the laity did not therefore constitute the total commitment signalled by commendation of the classic kind, nor did it lead to gifts returned as precaria, as it did in many parts of western Europe—a major contrast.¹² It certainly did not cause seigneurialization, although it may well in the long run, and indirectly, have contributed to an increase in seigneurial power by first establishing an increase in landlordship. The clearly observable increase in patronage networks of the second half of the tenth century must have contributed too—witness the disproportionate number of gifts to the powerful to procure support in the 980s.¹³ The level of seigneurialization in northern Spain was quite low by continental western European standards in the tenth century; as Spanish scholars have shown, the major changes came in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as purely proprietary powers—landlord powers—developed to become seigneurial.¹⁴ Donation to the laity was socially and economically important, but donation to the church is stronger in the record; it led to enormous changes in both ecclesiastical proprietorship and ecclesiastical patronage in the course of the tenth century, itself a time of increasingly intensive agricultural exploitation. Huge estates were amassed, not least from the gifts of aristocrats, and some monks and clerics took on significant roles in secular society: an abbot could preside over a court case to settle purely lay disputes between lay persons.¹⁵ Again, as Spanish scholars have shown, one reason for the increase was the practical estate management of major monasteries, and of individual abbots, kicking in, as it did, at different points in the tenth century: land was exchanged, property consolidated, new lands acquired, both by encouraging gifts and by buying, in order to exploit the landed resource more effectively; hence the purchasing by Sahagún in the 930s and 940s, by Celanova in the 960s, by Cardeña in the 980s. And at least some abbots, perhaps ¹¹ See above, p. 86. ¹² See above, pp. 85, 134. ¹³ See above, pp. 58–60, 128–30, 149–56. ¹⁴ See the classic discussion of Estepa, ‘Formación y consolidación del feudalismo’, at 161–3, where he stresses the distinction between propiedad dominical, dominio señorial, and señorío jurisdiccional (roughly ‘landlord power, seigneurial lordship, and the full seigneurie’, where the latter is the ‘concrete expression’ of seigneurial lordship). ¹⁵ T66 (962), for example.

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not many at this stage, established new rights to the product of peasant labour as they allowed peasants access to work monastic land.¹⁶ We saw an increasing number of transactions in churches in the 940s, as powerful monasteries absorbed minor churches and monasteries and broke the proprietary interests of lesser clerics, building widespread networks of ecclesiastical institutions as they also began to build more local networks of lay clients.¹⁷ Churches were acquired in mid-century from lesser clerics, and from lay proprietors too, for the latter were tending to divest themselves of ecclesiastical property from that point. The changing attitude to lay proprietorship accompanies a shift in the quality of (largely aristocratic) lay piety, as ritual celebration began to replace ownership; the shift is perhaps also signalled by the increasing number of references to female religious from the 970s and by the hints of the widening of social access to ritual late in the century.¹⁸ Some other things emerge from this study, which are not quite so familiar as the drift towards seigneurialization. One of these is that, although women are more visible in Spain than they were in many parts of Europe at that time, and could play a public role at several social levels, behaviour is frequently presented in ungendered terms. Masculinity may be indicated through a habit of violence and femininity through a stereotypical sweetness, but men and women are more often shown doing things together, with both shared and complementary roles, sharing responsibilities as a household unit. Another thing that emerges is that in the tenth century donation and sale sometimes do not look very different, even if at other times they were clearly distinct. The categories were occasionally openly confused; gifts could be retrospectively framed as sales; and records of sale could be used to mask a whole series of gifts.¹⁹ It is not just that there was no such thing as a free gift, most people expecting a return on what was given, be it in this life or the next; and it is not that these were ‘gift economies’ poised to transform into the fully commercial.²⁰ Although those who recorded transactions used a repertoire of model formats that ¹⁶ See above, pp. 17–22. ¹⁷ See above, pp. 62–4. ¹⁸ See above, pp. 120–6, 179. ¹⁹ See above, pp. 135–8, 156–60. Cf. some comparable ‘confusions’ in eleventhcentury French records: S. Weinberger, ‘Donations-ventes ou ventes-donations? Confusion ou système dans la Provence du XIe siècle’, Le Moyen Âge, 105 (1999), 667–80. ²⁰ See F. Curta, ‘Merovingian and Carolingian gift giving’, Speculum, 81 (2006), 671–99, especially 674–8, for a robust criticism of the notion that gift economies characterized the early middle ages.

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maintained a distinction between gift and sale, our perceptions of what was gift and what was sale are mediated through the scribes’ need to choose between these two available formats. In effect deals were done in making gifts and most people seem to have known that they were doing deals. ‘Gifts’ often therefore had an element of sale about them, but the deals were not purely commercial, and were embedded in the nexus of social relationships.²¹ Accordingly, sale formats were also sometimes used to record this kind of gift; but, on the other hand, some sales had much more to do with a land market, a distinction concealed by the standard format of the records.²² There are also deeper economic realities. I have observed from time to time that many payments were made in land. When peasants were overwhelmed with debt—the annual render that could not be met, the grain or wine owed to a landlord—they often paid off the debts with a gift of some of their land.²³ And when peasants had to pay fines and provide compensation they often did so with a land grant.²⁴ Sometimes the relative values look extraordinary to those used to modern western European land values: vineyards were handed over for stealing a few sheep, fields for stealing clothes or for cutting wood, a farmstead and houses for committing adultery.²⁵ Of course, there may well be an additional element of penalty in these cases and we may not simply be seeing the value of the loss returned; however, vineyards and fields were handed over for missing rents too.²⁶ Not only that. The relative value ²¹ Cf. L. Feller, ‘Enrichissement, accumulation et circulation des biens. Quelques problèmes liés au marché de la terre’, in L. Feller and C. Wickham (eds.), Le marché de la terre au moyen âge (Rome, 2005), 3–28, especially 28, who demonstrates that the economic function of the sale of land in the middle ages varied with the status and relationships of the actors; as also, in an earlier work, that there are some close parallels in the contexts of Spanish tenth-century sales with those of ninth-century central Italy, L. Feller, ‘Précaires et livelli. Les transferts patrimoniaux ad tempus en Italie’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 111 (1999), 725–46, at 743. ²² For an illuminating discussion of the economic as against social bases of sale, see C. Wickham, ‘Conclusions’, in Feller and Wickham (eds.), Le marché de la terre au moyen âge, 625–41. ²³ Cf. L. Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales. Territoire, économie et société en Italie centrale du IX e au XII e siècle (Rome, 1998), 392, arguing that land had low value in bad years, such as those of 850–70, and that peasants had nothing else to sell. ²⁴ There may well have been payment in movables too, which went unrecorded; we have no way of knowing the relative proportions (although it is notable that there are no incidental hints of this, as one might expect, while there are plenty of explicit comments that the alienator did not have the wherewithal to pay rent or fine, e.g. Sob31 (951); cf. the land given to cover a fine of a horse, worth 40 solidi, Liii578 (997) and above, p. 145). ²⁵ Cel169 (962), Liii556 (993); OD34 (993), Liii590 (999); Liii561 (994). ²⁶ Lii457 (978), Cel411 (989), Cel409 (990), OD41 (995).

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of stock and land does not match our modern expectations: whole or half inheritances were handed over to meet the value of a good horse or a few sheep, shares in twelve separate estates (villas) to meet the value of five cows, an entire villa to meet the value of stolen horses (half of it was later sold for three horses, three oxen, and a skin).²⁷ (In recorded prices, be it noted, there was wide variation in values so we should not in any case expect arithmetic consistency.²⁸) Clearly we need to rethink our assumptions about relative values and go back to a world where there was not such a shortage of land as characterized the more recent past; rather, at many social levels there may have been a shortage of stock and goods, of produce. Even monasteries might sell land in order to restock with animals.²⁹ Peasant households seem to have numbered their stock on their fingers: nine cows and eight horses, of which one was a riding horse, for a rich peasant household, for example.³⁰ That does not mean, all the same, that these people were happy to dispose of their land. Indeed, selling land could itself be a penalty, as it was for the gardener’s wife who was compelled to sell her vineyard as a penalty for homicide and for the men who had committed arson who had to sell another.³¹ There are several points to note here. Firstly, having goods was desirable; goods were important; peasants—doubtless reluctantly—gave up land rather than any of their produce; but, in the tenth-century world, alienating land was the only option if they had insufficient consumables.³² Secondly, there was clearly pressure on food supply, as the many peasant encroachments on monastic land and the many border haggles testify;³³ whether because of demographic pressure, or because their own land was worked out, or because they had been forced to alienate some of it, peasant farmers sought to extend the area under cultivation and produce more.³⁴ The rhetoric of repopulation, which is prominent in some of these charters, conceals competition for practical control ²⁷ Cel248 (before 991), Sob23 (949), Cel456 (940), S358 (998). ²⁸ See Davies, ‘Sale, price and valuation’, 165–70; and Feller, ‘Enrichissement, accumulation et circulation des biens’, especially 21, on price varying with social relationship. ²⁹ S340 (988). ³⁰ Lii488 (944–82). ³¹ Lii450 (977), Lii360 (963); see above, p. 186. ³² As in other cultures at other times: Liesbeth van Houts points out to me, from family memory, that during the Second World War food shortages forced the poor to sell to the rich whatever assets they had, in order to get necessities for survival. ³³ See above, pp. 8–11, 199–201. ³⁴ See above, p. 198, and SJP32, for worked-out land. Cf. Larrea, La Navarre, 589–91, for increasing peasant production.

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of economic resources. ‘Repopulation’ seems to have been more about establishing control of the exploitation of land by the powerful than about introducing new residents; free peasant farmers, in the end, were under some pressure. Thirdly, although the consequences may not have been anticipated at the time, any transfer of land from poor peasant to rich landlord, shared or not, had immensely important long-term consequences, as—quite simply—the rich got richer and the profile of social and economic differentiation became steeper. So what changed in the tenth century? At one level, not so much, although some of the conditions for later change were established. Giving and selling had been going on for generations, at all social levels. What really changed was not the mere fact of donation to the church—which had also been happening for generations—but peasant donation to the church. We have seen the strength with which peasant transactions began to show in the record in the 930s;³⁵ peasants engaged with ecclesiastical proprietors at levels unseen before; peasants joined monastic clientship networks as they chose monastic patrons; peasants often gave or sold to the church in order to clear debt, and what they gave or sold often went out of circulation into a ‘dead hand’. It was this new volume of peasant engagement with ecclesiastical landlords that ultimately made for significant change: as those landlords became powerful religious corporations, collective identity sharpened in the localities, and long-established balances of give and take finally shifted. ³⁵ See above, pp. 210–13.


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Index abbots 52, 63, 217–18 grants by 62, 61 writing by 94, 98, 107 see also Opila adoption, see profiliation adultery 127, 145, 168 agriculture 2, 5–6, 11, 69 intensive 8, 9, 11, 217; see also arable extensive 8–9 Abellar, monastery of 58, 68, 82, 106, 123 charters of 92 patronage of 59, 128, 177 Albelda, monastery of 25, 61 cartulary of 24, 54, 209, 211, 213 aldeas 194–5 alfoces 196 Alfonso I, king of Asturias 26 Alfonso III, king of Asturias 36, 50 Alfonso IV, king of Asturias-León 15, 106 Alfonso V, king of Asturias-León 16 Ambrosio, priest and notary 95 ancillae Dei 107, 178 n. 63, 179–80 arable 5–6, 7, 8, 9 plots 8, 189–90, 192 Aragón xiv–xv, 13, 208 Arborio and María 177 aristocrats 12, 21, 81, 105, 149, 156, 160 families of 15, 123–5, 133, 215–16 gifts of 106, 128, 130, 132, 141 Arlanza, monastery of 25, 61 n.78 cartulary of 24, 54, 209, 211, 213 assault 127, 145, 181 assemblies 201–7 Astorga 10, 196 n. 23 Asturias xiv–xv, 2, 12 slaves in 19 Asturias-León, kingdom of 12 Aurifila, daughter of Abraham 82 authority 165 ecclesiastical 44–50, 181 episcopal 45–6 authors 99–102, 107, 180–1

Bagaudano and Faquilona 156, 157 n. 69 Barbero and Vigil 27–8, 75, 84 n. 77, 157 n. 69, 161 n. 85, 165, 194 benefactoría agreements 83, 150 beneficiaries: drafting by 91–3, 94, 109 n. 89 lay 79, 95, 139–56 monastic 51–2, 54–64, 77, 116–29, 130–1 Bible, The, quotations from 90, 92, 93, 107 bishops 45–6, 64, 106 see also Diego, Froilán, Rosendo bishoprics, see León, Valpuesta Boñar, monastery of 59, 147, 148 boni homines 200 see also elders bonum facere 149–54 see also support systems books 8, 50, 123 boundaries 8–9, 186, 190, 195–6 disputes about 199–201 Buezo, monastery of 65 Burgos 9 n. 22, 10, 11, 25, 206 burial 49, 57, 121, 130, 139 place of 50, 122, 124, 179 Cantabria xiv–xv, 2, 149, 195, 209 slaves in 19 Cantabrian mountains 3 Cardeña, monastery of 9 n. 22, 11, 25, 137, 204, 217 cartulary of 24, 42, 63, 91, 101, 105, 126, 140, 159, 209–13 occurrence of corpus et anima in 54–6, 58 occurrence of quintae in 76 monks at 47, 184 patronage of 59–60, 61 care of souls 49, 116 care (physical) see economic relationships, support systems cartularies 22–5, 93, 103, 119, 173 n. 42

238 Castile xiv–xv, 2, 7, 11, 140, 155, 195, 209, 211, 213, 215 County of 12, 14; see also counts castles see fortifications Catalonia xiv–xv, 2, 13, 25, 34, 96 n. 35, 136 n. 85, 158 n. 75, 215 n. 7 formulary from 102 cattle 5, 6, 8, 192, 220 cattle standard 6 n. 9 Cea 10, 11 Celanova, monastery of 25, 217 cartulary of 23, lay beneficiaries in 79, 140, 141 peasants in 209–13 dependents of 20 diplomatic practice of 54, 82–3, 85, 91, 94, 105, 119, 129, 132 patronage of 59, 128, 159 property of 5, 36, 61, 72, 80, 190, 212 sharing with 81–3 cereals 5–6, 21, 151, 157, 158, 159, 190 charters 22–6, 79, 88–91, 110–12, 214–16 monastic 120 royal 93–5, 120 see also cartularies, diplomatic practice, language, records chestnuts 2, 7 childlessness 72–3 churches 10, 46 authority over see authority (ecclesiastical) differentiation of from monasteries 47–8 foundation of 50–2 gifts to 113–34, 152, 155, 213, 221 lay community of 201–2 proprietary 36–64, 218 chronicles 174, 183–4 Cida Aion 73, 184 cider 127, 144, 158, 159, 187 civitates 9–10 see also León clientship networks 59–60, 62, 128–9, 160–3, 218 collective action 198–202, 204, 206 colonization 17, 27, 50, 221 peasant 2, 9, 29 comissum 14–15, 203 n. 55 comitatus 14–15

Index commemoration see memorialization commendation 128–9, 150–1, 152 n. 54, 153–4, 217 commerce 10–11 common property see property communities, local 28, 49, 105–6, 108–9, 193–207 disputes between 200–01 identity of 194–200, 204, 207 representatives of 204–05 compensations 127, 143, 182, 186, 219 confessae 107–8, 110, 169 n. 28, 177–80 confessi 47, 107–08, 110, 177–9 copyists 99–101 corpus et anima, gifts of 52–61, 62 corrody 139 n. 2 see also support systems cortes 10, 192 councils 201–07 countergifts 113–14, 135–6, 151 n. 47 counts 15, 145–9 of Castile 12–13, 15 of Catalonia 14 see also comitatus, Gutier, Odoario, Rodrigo couples, married 79, 141, 155, 164–5, 168–72, 185–7, 218 see also households courts, judicial 16, 143–9, 163, 174, 184, 186, 188 rulings of 126, 137, 182 see also fines Coyanza 9 n. 21, 10, 146, 147, 156 David and Regina 58, 163 decanias 62–3 debt 127–8, 132, 144, 152, 155, 157, 187, 219 deo votae 177, 178 nn. 61 & 63, 179–80 depopulation 26–7, 29 Diego, bishop of Valpuesta 59 n. 73, 63 diplomatic practice 54, 76, 77, 79, 82, 91–8, 106, 119, 206, 214–15 see also formularies, formulas disputes 12, 181–2, 186, 199–201 distraint 182 donation 113–15, 135–8

Index donation (cont.) chronology of 51, 61–2, 119, 125, 129–30, 133–4, 140–1, 173, 208–13 framed as sale 156–60 in vitam 84 by peasants 207–13, 221 post mortem 34, 84 by priests and abbots 61, 132 records of see charters for secular reasons 126–34, 139–63, 216 see also churches, corpus et anima, laity, transactions donation practice 35 European 30–4 see also gift exchange dos 168–9 dowry 168 Duby, Georges 31 n. 97, 34 Duero valley 2, 3, 26, 195 Ebro valley 2, 3, 12, 13 economic relationships 152, 153–4, 156, 160, 161, 207, 216, 220 elders 201 Elvira, abbess of San Martín of Grau 36, 38 Elvira, daughter of King Ramiro II, 124, 164, 174–6, 184 Ermegildo, deacon 19, 72 Ermegildo and Paterna 82, 140, 156, 160 estates 5, 18, 69, 198–9, 217 Esla, river 146, 147, 197 Estepa Díez, Carlos 79, 83, 150, 217 n. 14 eternity, desire for 89, 116, 120 exarator 99–100 exchanges 113 records of 96 familiaritas 53, 152 n. 54 family 65–87, 153, 216 burial places 50 remembrance 30–4, 123–5, 215–16 tree 71 see also aristocrats, households, patrimony, property rights farms 10 n. 27, 189–93 in mountains 3 small 5, 8

239 see also agriculture femininity 181–8, 218 feudalism 27–8, 161–2 fideles 141, 162 fifths see quintae Filauria 205 fines 126, 136, 143–6, 184, 185, 186 Flaino and Brunildi 139, 146 Flaino Muñoz, count 144–5, 146–9 food 150–3, 157–61 see also cereals, cider, wine formularies 100–02, 109, 150–1 formulas 6–7, 9, 88–109, 110, 135–8, 214 memorization of 99–101 pious 101–02, 103 n. 66, 107, 115–20, 138, 180 Tours 151–2, 152 n. 54, 163 n.95 ‘Visigothic’ 99 n. 50, 101, 105 see also corpus et anima, incommuniationes, preambles, pro remedio animae, quintae, sanctions, witness lists fornication 127, 184 see also adultery fortifications 10, 16 Forum Iudicum see Visigothic law fractions of property 65, 75–80, 86, 159, 190–3 Francia, East 30–3, 61, 85, 86, 117, 131, 134, 163 Francia, West 13–14, 30–3, 61, 62, 85, 86, 117, 134, 162 freedmen 19, 20, 128 n. 61 freedom 18–21, 195 Froilán, bishop 70 Fruela, armiger 95 Fruela, son of Gutier 15, 142, 176 Galicia xiv–xv, 2, 7, 11, 12, 79, 140, 195, 208, 211–12, 215 arable in 8, 9 prices in 6 n. 9 servile dependents in 20–1 sharing in 82–5 slaves in 18–19 García Sánchez I, king of Navarre 95, 144, 174 gardens 6, 7, 10, 65, 189–91 Gaudinas, monk 72 Gauventio, scribe 89 Geary, Patrick 33–4

240 gender 130–3, 181–8 of donors 52, 172 Gesmira 139, 146, 149, 151 gift economies 114, 218 gift exchange 32 n. 101, 38, 114 n. 3, 115–16, 120, 121 goats 5, 8, 151 grammar 102–5 grants ad imperandum 15 guarantors 174, 185, 198 n. 32, 205 gubernare 151–2, 154 Guimarães, monastery at 25, 82–3, 149 n. 40 Guntroda, abbess of Pazó 36–8 Gutier, count 15, 38, 44, 67, 69, 169, 200 hell, fear of 89 helping out in bad times 127–8, 136, 149, 151–2, 157, 159 heritability of property 67, 69, 166–8 historiography: European 18, 30–4, 132, 162 Spanish 17, 26–30, 194–5, 217; see also Barbero and Vigil, Sánchez-Albornoz horses 5, 8, 143, 158, 192, 220 households 153, 185–7, 218 religious 47, 102, 103, 107–8, 177–9 see also couples, property houses 189–93 house plots 6, 189–90 urban 10, 17 husbands see couples Ikila Fafilaniz 80–1 Ilduara, countess 67, 69, 140, 143, 169, 176, 179, 182 incommuniationes 80–5 Ireland 62 Isla Frez, Amancio 83, 84 Italy 33–4, 61, 117, 134, 152 n. 53 Jobert, Ph. 115 n. 6, 117 judgement, day of 89, 90–1, 116, 180 judges 145–6, 148, 152, 163 killing 127, 181, 182, 186 kings 52 chanceries of 95 charters of 93–5, 102 n. 65, 106

Index dynasties of 12 see also Alfonso I, Alfonso III, Alfonso IV, Alfonso V, León, García Sánchez, Navarre, Ordoño II, Ordoño III, queens, Ramiro II, Ramiro III, Sancho I, Sancho II Garcés Abarca, Vermudo II kingdoms 11–14 government of 11, 14–16, 163 territorial expansion of 11 see also Asturias-León, Navarre labour service 21, 161–2 laity 57–8, 95 alienation of proprietary churches by 51, 218 as communities of churches 201–2 gifts to 79, 139–56, 213, 216 as transactors 96–8, 103–6 see also beneficiaries, households (religious) landscape 3–5 land-use 1–11, 189–93 language 214–15 elaboration of 89–91, 101–2, 106–8, 132 simple 88–9, 96–8, 108–9, 124, 206 stereotypical 183, 218 see also formulas, Latin, Leonese Vulgar Latin, Romance Latin 98, 102–5 law see Visigothic law legumes 2, 6 Leire, monastery at 25, 124 León 25, 79, 196 n. 23 bishopric of 40, 198 charter collections of 23, 59, 173 diplomatic practice in 42, 54, 76, 92, 105, 119, 179 lay beneficiaries in 79, 143 peasant donation in 141, 159, 209–12 city of 9, 10, 12, 14, 16–17, 186, 206, 213 kings of 12–13, 14; see also kings Leonese Vulgar Latin 103 n. 68 Libri memoriales 30–1, 123, 134 Liébana 3, 4, 43, 68 life interest 67 n. 6, 73 lights, commemorative 19, 121, 125 liturgical vessels 8, 50, 123, 192

Index liturgy 120 n. 19, 121 n. 26, 123, 124, 125 livestock 5, 8, 187, 220 see also cattle, goats, horses, pigs, sheep lordship: growth of 19, 134, 194–5, 206, 207, 217 monastic 9, 129 Magnus est titulus donationis 104–5 mandationes 14–16 Marialba 39 marital property 70, 170–3 see also couples, marriage settlements markets 10, 11, 219 marriage settlements 67, 168–73, 183 see also morning gift masculinity 181–8, 218 masses 121, 123, 124, 125, 136 see also liturgy, ritual meetings 202, 203, 206 Melgar 10 n. 22, 39, 196 n. 23, 197, 199, 203, 204, 205 church of Santa Columba in 40, 47 Melic, priest 128, 129, 163 memorialization 31–4, 123–6, 130–2, 133–4, 215–16 men 132, 164–88 dominance of 166, 170–3, 181 as donors 130, 141, 172–3 role of in memorialization 131, 133 meseta 3, 6 n. 9, 7, 79, 128 arable in 8 western xiv–xv, 140, 209, 211–12 millrace 65, 78 mills 7, 189–93, 200 modii 5, 62 monasteries 23, 46–8, 103, 177–80 as beneficiaries 51–2, 54–64, 77, 116–29, 130–1 entry into 55–7, 185 foundation of 50–2 networks of 60, 62–3, 218 see also Abellar, Albelda, Arlanza, Boñar, Buezo, Cardeña, Celanova, Leire, Otero de las Dueñas, Oviedo, Piasca, Sahagún, Samos, San Juan de la Peña, San Miguel de Támara, San Millán de la Cogolla, Santa Comba, Santiago, Santo Toribio, Santos Cosme y

241 Damián, Santos Justo y Pastor, Sobrado monks 49, 56–7, 178–80 grants by 74, 106, 132 see also abbots, Gaudinas morning gift 168–9 mountains 8 as power base 3 Mumadona 82 n. 71, 83 n. 73 Munio, priest 128, 129, 157 Munio Fernández , count 95, 137, 145–6, 147, 155 Munio Flaínez 146–8, 155, 159, 165 Muslims 11, 26, 30, 126 Navarre xiv–xv, 2 kings of 13, 20 n. 65 kingdom of 13, 14 notaries see scribes notarius 99 Nuño Sarracíniz 139, 152 nuns 56–7, 107, 178–80, 185, 190 oblates 55 Odoario, count 36–9 Odoíno, monk of Santa Comba 36–8 Opila, abbot of San Martín de Turieno 58, 63, 68 orality 101–2, 103 orchards 6, 7, 9, 149, 159, 186, 189–93 ordinary people 16–22 see also peasants Ordoño II, king of Asturias-León 20, 93, 141 Ordoño III, king of Asturias-León 15, 93, 95 originals see single sheets Orlandis, J. 53–4, 152 n. 54 orthography see spelling Otero de las Dueñas, monastery of Santa María at 25 charters of 24, 76, 79, 95, 119, 121 n. 25, 141, 143, 210–11, 213 Oviedo 12, 25, 41 monastery of San Vicente in 24 charters of 24, 76, 119, 121, 211 oxen 5, 192, 220 pacts, monastic 56, 187 Pamplona see Navarre paradise, desire for 89

242 Pardomino mountain 20, 198, 200, 203 n. 55, 205 monks of 20 parishes 45, 201–2 Passionaries 184 n. 94 pasture 6 n. 9, 194 n. 16, 200 n. 45 pastoral care see care of souls patrimony, preservation of 34, 85–7 patrocinium see patronage patronage 57–8, 128–9, 134, 151, 154, 160–3, 217 see also proprietorship Pazos 197, 199, 201 peasants 17–22, 108–9, 160, 166, 189–213, 221 in clientship networks 58–60, 129 in court cases 126, 185–7 debts of 127–8, 132, 157, 187, 219–20 property of 189–93 sharing property 81, 193 transactions by 52, 78–9, 102 n. 65, 105, 132, 141, 149, 207–13 see also colonization, communities Pedro Flaínez 96, 140, 144, 148 pequeño propietario 17, 18, 27, 78 Piasca, nunnery at 8, 47, 59, 187 piety 113, 115–26, 180, 216 see also formulas pigs 5, 6 n. 9, 8, 21, 192 place-names 195–7 plebes 205 Portugal xiv–xv, 12, 25, 82–3, 85, 169 poultry 5 prayers, regular 50, 57, 116, 120 n. 19, 122, 124 preambles, formulaic 89, 100 n. 56, 107, 116, 180 n. 72 precaria 85, 86, 163 n. 95, 217 prices 5–6, 80, 113, 121, 135, 151, 157, 158–9 priests 46, 48–9, 192 appointment of 45–6, 48 grants by 52, 61, 74, 132 notarial functions performed by 95–7, 103, 106 see also Melic, Munio pro anima cuota 117 see also quintae pro anima gifts 32, 116–20, 133, 135 n. 83, 216 productivity, agricultural 11, 29

Index profiliation 73, 79, 83–4, 155, 160–1 property: appurtenances of 6–8 control of 166–73 division of 69–70, 75, 76–80, 166–7, 170–1, 189–90 freedom of disposition of 72–5, 76, 78, 79, 80, 84, 161, 162, 167, 173 see also quinta held in common 67–9, 74–5, 80–5 of a household 189, 191–2 interests of bishops 45–6 transactions, small-scale 17–18, 103–6 transmission within families of 66–7, 82, 166–7 see also heritability, marital property, marriage settlements, transactions property rights 127, 165 of children 72–4, 80 family 38–44, 61–3, 65–87 female 169, 171 transfer of vii, 62, 89–91 see also life interest proprietorship: entrepreneurial 9, 63–4, 75, 86, 133–4, 212, 217 lay 40–52, 63, 218 monastic 61–3, 75, 162–3, 212, 217 see also churches pro remedio animae 116–20 protection see clientship networks, patronage public power 16, 28, 29 queens 174–6 quintae 76–8, 79 Rabal 189–92, 197 Ramiro II, king of León 15, 38, 142, 176 Ramiro III, king of León 20, 40, 94, 174 rape 145, 181, 182 rebellions 15, 181 Reconquest 26 records, creation of 49, 91–8, 105–6, 207, 211–13 personal 102, 110–12 preservation of 211–13 see also cartularies, charters, sales

Index Recosinda 139, 149, 151, 157 regional differences 42, 79, 82–3, 119, 128, 140, 173, 195, 208–9, 211–13, 215 rents 20, 21, 62, 81, 127, 144, 157, 187, 198 Reparado and Trasvinda 185 repopulation 17, 26–7, 29, 36–9, 220–1 ritual, religious 33–4, 49–50, 121, 131, 143, 208, 218 see also liturgy, masses, memorialization, prayers roads 8, 189–91 Rodrigo, count 73, 122 Romance 103–4 Rosendo, bishop and abbot of Celanova 5, 38, 69, 70, 83 n. 73, 166–7 intervention by 129, 199–201 Rosenwein, Barbara 32, 58 n. 70, 114 n. 3 Sahagún, monastery of 25, 61, 62 n. 82, 124, 217 charters of 23, 42, 54, 76, 79, 91, 105, 119, 141, 210–13 gifts to 146, 148, 205 patronage of 59 saiones 16, 182 sales 113–15, 135–8, 152 n. 49, 158–60, 186 n. 101 language of 121, 136, 151, 156–60, 157 records of 89, 96, 100–1, 104, 108, 158, 211, 218–19 salt 158 saltpans 21, 65, 77, 78, 190 salvation see pro anima gifts, pro remedio animae Samos, monastery of San Julián at 25 cartulary of 23, 42, 54, 63, 119, 209, 211, 213 gifts to 73, 78 Sánchez-Albornoz, Claudio 10 n. 25, 17, 26–7, 30, 83–4, 128 n. 59, 150–1, 194 n. 16 Sancho I, king of León 94 Sancho II Garcés Abarca, king of Navarre 124, 175, 176 sanctions 88, 89, 106 n. 77, 112, 145 n. 25 San Juan Bautista de León 144, 146

243 San Juan de la Peña, monastery of 25 cartulary of 24, 209, 213 San Juan en Vega de Infanzones 200, 201, 205 San Martín de Turieno, monastery of 60, 68 charters of 91, 105, 119, 121, 141 n. 6, 209–11 patronage of 59–60 see also Opila, Santo Toribio San Miguel de Támara, monastery of 6, 7 San Millán de la Cogolla, monastery of 11, 25, 61, 124 cartulary of 24, 42, 54, 63, 92, 94, 119, 140, 209–11 dependents of 20 n. 65 patronage of 59 Santa Comba, monastery of 36–40, 37, 39 Santa Olalla of Lemos, villa of 1, 11, 18 199–200 Santiago in León, nunnery of 40, 164, 179 Santo Toribio, monastery of 25 cartulary of 24, 54, 76 see also San Martín de Turieno Santos Cosme y Damián, monastery of 79 Santos Justo y Pastor, monastery of 65, 68, 72, 80, 124 Savarigo and Guestrilli 149, 155, 157 Schmid, Karl 30–1 scribes 89, 93, 94, 95–8, 102–4, 107, 206, 214, 219 training of 99–101 scriptor 99 scripts 99 see also writing seigneurialization 12, 28, 194 n. 15, 217 serfs 8, 18, 20–1 see also tenure service (servitium) see labour service services, church 48–9 settlements 6, 9–10, 189, 191–2, 195–7, 202–5 see also houses, villas share-cropping 81 sharing property 80–5, 86, 167 sheep 5, 6, 8, 17, 185, 192, 220 shops 11 siege 145

244 sin, burden of 89, 90, 116 single sheets 22, 92 n. 18, 102, 103, 104 n. 70, 106 n. 79, 119–20 slates, inscribed 99 n. 50, 101 slaves 18–20, 168, 169 Sobrado de los Monjes, monastery of 14, 25, 61 cartularies of 23, 54, 81–2, 105, 140, 141, 143, 209, 211, 213 gifts to 65, 68, 73, 80, 160 solidi 6, 184 n. 95, 186 n. 103 spelling xvi, 102–5 status 18, 21–2, 106–9, 195, 215 of donors and founders 52, 130–3, 141 suburbio 9, 10 Sunilano, confessus 110–12, 177 support systems 57, 80, 128–9, 139, 149–54 Tajón, fidelis of Ordoño II 20, 141 Taurelo and Principia 70, 139, 157, 159 tenants 18–21, 198, 204 tenure, servile 19–20 Teresa, queen, wife of King Sancho I 174–6 terra calva 9 terrae indomitae 8–9 territorial control 14–16, 146–9, 203 n. 55 territorial units 195–7, 206 theft 127, 144–5, 182, 185 towns 9–10, 11, 16–17, 206 tradespeople 17 trado me 53–6 transactions 78 in churches and monasteries 41–2, 63, 218 lay 103, 218 numbers of 25–6, 51–2 trees, fruit 7, 9, 11, 18, 186, 189–93 see also orchards tribal society 28, 84 n. 77, 165, 195 Turieno see San Martín of Turieno Urraca, wife of Sancho II Garcés Abarca 175, 176 usufruct 86

Index Valdevimbre, monks of 200, 201 Valdoré 146 n. 30, 147, 148 Valpuesta, bishopric of 25, 61 cartulary of 24, 54, 76, 126, 209, 211 patronage of 59 valle country 194, 195 value of property 18, 158, 186 n. 103, 219–20 Verín 197, 199 Vermudo II, king of Asturias-León 20, 94, 95, 141, 176 Vermudo Nún˜ ez 146, 148, 155 victum et vestimentum 152 n. 54 Villabáscones 39, 49, 52, 199, 204 Villa Motarraf 201, 202 n. 47, 203 villas 1, 195, 196–8 vineyards 6, 9, 11, 57, 68, 158, 189–93 violence 181–3 virginity 182, 183, 184 see also morning gift Visigothic law 66, 67 n. 7, 76, 145 n. 26, 167 n. 15, 169 see also formulas vows 107 water rights 11, 78, 189–93 White, Stephen 31–2, 114 nn. 4 & 5, 115 n. 8 widows 176, 178 n. 63, 179 wine 127, 157, 158, 159, 187 witness lists 88, 93, 94, 98, 106 n. 78, 112, 173 wives see couples, women women 132, 153, 164–88 as donors 130, 141, 172–3 in public 173–6, 188, 218 religious 107, 179–81, 218 role of in preservation of memory 33–4, 130–1 taking the lead 171, 187 see also queens, widows wounding 145 writing 49, 99, 100, 211–13 habits of, see diplomatic practice Zalame, priest and notarius maior 95 Zamora 9 n. 21, 10

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