Fernando Yáñez (flourished 1112–1157) was a minor Galician nobleman—a miles, or mere knight—who rose in rank in the service of Queen Urraca (1109–26) and King Alfonso VII (1126–57).
[6] Although Fernando is much praised in the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris (Chronicle of Emperor Alfonso") and the Prefatio de Almaria ("Poem of Almería"), nothing is known of his parents with certainty and he was probably born into the lower class of nobility.
It was apparently mediated by two foreigners, Abbot Henry of Saint-Jean d'Angély and Stephen, chamberlain of the abbey of Cluny.
This strange agreement between queen, archbishop and some Galician leaders does not seem to have prejudiced the rights of either Pedro Fróilaz or his charge, the future Alfonso VII, already crowned king of Galicia, but merely to have counterbalanced them.
[11] The archbishop, who claimed secular jurisdiction in the city, thereupon excommunicated him and pillaged his lordship of Puente Sampayo, which lay on the border between the dioceses of Tui and Santiago de Compostela.
[17] When Alfonso visited Galicia in 1137, Fernando's presence with him is attested by his witnessing the royal charters of 26–7 June at Tuy and 17 and 29 July at Santiago.
[21] In 1141 Fernando joined the royal court at Zamora, simultaneous with Alfonso's grant of the castle of Sandi to the abbey of Celanova.
This grant was intended to ensure the loyalty of the abbey, since it was near the Portuguese border at a time when Count Afonso Henriques of Portugal had begun his royal pretensions.
[22] Later that year he joined the siege of Córdoba and on 17 July 1147 was with the royal army at Andújar when he witnessed a charter of Alfonso VII.
[23] The anonymous author of the Prefatio de Almaria, a heroic roll-call (dénombrement épique) of the participants at Almería, claims that Fernando Yáñez was never defeated in battle.
Fernando's reward for his service to the crown was fiefs (tenencias): the Limia in his homeland; Maqueda and Talavera, which defended the approaches to the primatial city of Toledo; and the castle of Montoro on the river Guadalquivir in the far south of the realm.
A spurious royal charter of 1129 makes him lord of San Pelayo de Lado, in the extreme south of the realm.
This tenancy is possible, as is that of Ginzo de Limia, also in the extreme south of Galicia, which he is recorded as holding in a private charter of 8 June 1136.
[30] A private document dated 19 April 1145 cites him as sharing the lordship of Toroño (roughly coterminous with the diocese of Tui) with Count Gómez Núñez,[d] but this charter is highly suspect.
It records the grant of the church of San Martín de Loureza to an abbot named Pedro Initiense, who was forming a monastic community with some companions.
Bishop Pelayo Menéndez of Tui granted the monks the church buildings as well as a tithe of the produce of the land there and in the village of Oya.
[2][30] Having secured a heightened status by his deeds on behalf of the crown, Fernando was able to marry Teresa Gómez, the daughter of a man of much higher rank than he.
[28] On 9 June 1147, at Calatrava, while he was leading his army south to attack Almería, Alfonso VII judged a property dispute between Fernando and Bishop Martin I of Ourense (1132–56).
[34] The last recorded action of Fernando Yáñez was to donate his estate at Oliveira to the cathedral of Tui for the good of his soul and that of Queen Urraca.