Gonzalo Menéndez

A dispute between Gonzalo's mother, abbess of Guimarães in her widowhood, and a relative of the Galician magnate Rodrigo Velásquez, spurred a rivalry between the two families that would span several years.

Rodrigo's brother's sister-in-law, Guntroda, abbess of Pazóo, had appropriated the monastery of Santa Comba, which belonged to a monk name Odoino, who appealed to Mummadomna for support.

[3] In 981, after the Christian defeat at the Battle of Rueda, he led the rebellion against Ramiro III that installed the king's cousin Ordoño Bermúdez, perhaps Gonzalo's nephew, on the throne.

The first document which titles Vermudo "king" (Vermudus rex, prolix domni Ordoni)[5] is a donation to the monastery of Lorvão of the fourth part of the villages of Palos and Lamas made by Gonzalo on 22 December that year.

Gonzalo is sometimes credited with chasing Pelayo Rodríguez, the son of his old enemy Rodrigo Velázquez, from the diocese of Iria Flavia in the fall of 982, for Vermudo's coronation.

On 12 August (16 Shawwal) 971, according to the al-Muqtabis, the Caliph of Córdoba, al-Hakam II, received six separate Christian embassies in his palace of al-Zahra.

[8] From Sancho Garcés II of Pamplona, "prince of the Bascones", he received the abbot Bassal (Basilio) and Velasco, a judge of Nájera.

Besides these he had a younger son, Diego, and two daughters: Toda, who married the alférez Rodrigo Ordóñez, and Mumadona (Muniadomna), who was dead by 1013.