Pedro Fróilaz de Traba
According to the Historia compostelana, he was "spirited ... warlike ... of great power ... a man who feared God and hated iniquity," for Diego Gelmírez himself had "fed him, like a spiritual son, with the nutriment of holy teaching.
In September 1111 they even had the child Alfonso crowned king at Santiago de Compostela, but it was Pedro who was imperator in orbe Galletiae ("emperor in the ambit of Galicia").
[2] Widely travelled and well-connected, especially through the prestigious marriages of his many daughters—he had at least sixteen legitimate children by his two wives—Pedro was, besides a political and military figure, a religious one.
[4][5] The first reference to Pedro is from 9 November 1086, when he subscribed to his father's donation to the monastery of San Martín de Jubia, now Couto.
[6] The only contemporary reference to Pedro which names him in the way by which he is now generally known is an undated fragment of a charter of Alfonso VI, which calls him Petro Froillaz de Traua.
[19] Pedro was a supporter and vassal of Raymond of Galicia and his wife, Urraca, whom he probably knew from his time in the household of her father, Alfonso VI.
After the death of Raymond, his widow Urraca donated a Galician monastery to the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela, signing the charter, dated 13 December 1107, as imperatoris filia et totius gallecie domina.
The important Galician bishops of Lugo, Mondoñedo, Tui, and Ourense, along with Pedro Fróilaz and the Asturian magnate Suero Vermúdez were present to confirm the donation, which was probably designed to secure the support of Diego Gelmírez for Urraca's rule in Galicia.
[23] A judicial document, and thus one not having royal approval in its particulars, dated 1 November 1109 refers to "duke Don Pedro Fróilaz who [is] ruling the nearby territory of Sobrado".
[24] A royal charter dated 23 May 1121 and calling Pedro a count in maritimis ("in the maritime province") is probably an accurate description of the realm of his public authority: the Atlantic coastlands of Galicia, specifically those north of the river Tambre and encompassing A Coruña.
[25] It is a sign of his fame that he was referred to as Petro Galliciensi comite ("Pedro, Galician count") in a letter from William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, to Diego Gelmírez on the occasion of his pilgrimage to Santiago.
[27] Late that summer, a faction of Galicians, led by Pedro with the young Alfonso in tow, visited Urraca at Castrojeriz and there became convinced that she was making peace with her estranged husband.
This prompted Pedro to seek the advice of Henry, Count of Portugal, a relative of Raymond of Galicia and the most powerful man in the west of the kingdom.
One of the queen's supporters, a minor nobleman named Arias Pérez, attacked suddenly and forced Pedro to retreat, leaving his wife and charge besieged in the castle.
[31] After the coronation, Pedro and Diego gathered an army to subject Galicia to his rule, first attacking Lugo, which was still loyal to Alfonso the Battler.
[32][33] Diego escaped with the young Alfonso Raimúndez and brought the boy to Urraca in Galicia, marking the first time the queen had physical custody of her son since she began ruling in 1109.
On 25 July 1122, Pedro's eldest son, Vermudo, made over the bridewealth to his wife Urraca Enríquez, daughter of Theresa of Portugal.
[42] A contemporary charter records that "the queen Doña Urraca reigning with her son Don Alfonso in the kingdom of Spain [and] discord also remaining between them.
Negotiations were then opened and the queen, Pedro, Muño, and Rodrigo all swore oaths to respect the rights of the archdiocese to its tenancies.
But when Urraca campaigned against Gómez Núñez, whose lands guarded the roads into Portugal from Galicia, she was surprised and besieged in Sobroso by Pedro in alliance with the Countess Theresa.
[48] In the autumn of 1116 Urraca held court at Sahagún and there opened negotiations with the party of her son Alfonso, led by Diego and Pedro.
[49] Urraca was able to draw her son Alfonso at least temporarily out of the orbit of Pedro Fróilaz and Diego Gelmírez by granting him the Kingdom of Toledo as an appanage.
It seems especially unlikely in light of the apparent weakness of Diego and Pedro's alliance at the time, and the lack of support for them in Santiago de Compostela itself.
[49] In the spring of 1117, probably in June, Urraca, after campaigning against Theresa in southern Galicia, came to Santiago to mediate between Diego and the council (concejo), which had been ruling the town de facto for the past year.
[50] During a private meeting between Urraca and Diego in the episcopal palace, the townspeople revolted and forced the two to take refuge in a cathedral tower then under construction, which they promptly lit on fire.
[50] In the years 1118–19, Pedro Fróilaz is revealed in the surviving documents of the period to have been the most important lay supporter of the royal prerogative and the imperial pretensions of Alfonso Raimúndez.
She marched to the castle of Cira, thence to Tabeiros and Salnes, and finally camped at the mount of Picosacro, close by Santiago de Compostela.
[65] Sometime in the early 1120s, persuaded by Diego Gelmírez, Pedro granted the church a Cospindo near Traba to the archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela.
Early in 1108, with papal and episcopal support, a certain Abbot Nuño (Munio), with a community of monks, expelled the ladies and re-established a monastery there.
Initially he was persuaded by the expelled monks and sent a letter dated 1 May 1109 to the bishops of Compostela, Mondoñedo, and Lugo ordering them to protest Count Pedro's actions.
