Ponce Giraldo de Cabrera

[b] In the nineteenth year of King Louis VI of France (1126/7), Ponce witnessed Count Raymond Berengar III of Barcelona grant the guardianship (baiulia) of the young heir to the viscounty of Bas to his seneschal, Guillem Ramon II de Montcada.

If authentic, this charter, found in the Cartoral de Carles Many cartulary, shows that Ponce was already sharing in the government of the Cabrera lands with his father as early as 1122.

[17] A tenancy, known in contemporary sources as a prestimonium, feudum, honor or tenencia, was a piece of crown land given in fief to a nobleman who did homage (hominium) for it to the king.

[14] Although Ponce benefited early in his career from royal patronage, he was at first "a fairly peripheral figure ... one among a large number of second-rate Leonese nobles who lacked the wealth and political clout of the great magnates of the realm.

"[19] During the first half of Alfonso VII's reign, Ponce was rarely in attendance at the curia regis (royal court), where noble attendees "were expected to counsel the monarch in the day-to-day business of government.

[5][7] The reasons for such prolonged absences cannot be ascertained with certainty today, but at least four possibilities are likely: poor health, the need to visit his Catalan territories, the demands of military campaigns elsewhere, or the loss of royal favour.

His presence in Portugal is attested in the Chronicon Lusitanum, which reports that he was captured at the Battle of Valdevez, and in a charter given by Alfonso at Santiago de Compostela on 23 September 1141.

[28] The Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, a contemporary account of Alfonso VII's reign, relates how the Salamancas were defeated four times in the years 1132–33 before "they offered tithes and their first fruits to God, and [were] favored [with] the gift of valor and prudence while waging war, [for which] reason, subsequent to their prayers, they were a constant threat to the Moors in their own land under the leadership of Count Poncio, [fighting] several battles and [winning] great victories which included great spoils, [t]he city of Salamanca [becoming] famous for its knights and infantry [and growing] very rich from the spoils of war.

He was there when Alfonso VII visited on 5 October 1143, and gratefully bestowed on him the deserted village of Moreruela de Frades, located about thirty kilometres north of Zamora.

[33] On 28 July 1156, acting for the monks, he procured a "pact of friendship" (pactum amiciciarum) with the townsmen of Castrotorafe,[34] and he endowed the Cistercians with more land,[2] but there is no record of his favouring the monastery much beyond this.

[33] After the Emperor's visit to Moreruela, Ponce continued with the court as it moved across the realm as far east as Nájera, where Alfonso made a donation to the great Abbey of Cluny on 29 October 1143.

[33] Ponce's own "vast lordship ... snaked its way some 200 km south along the border with Portugal from La Cabrera ... down as far as the river Tormes" and included the cities of Zamora, Salamanca and Malgrat.

[35] Ponce only rarely left the court throughout 1144, and in early 1145 he was appointed imperial majordomo (maiordomus imperatoris), the most prestigious office in the empire, to replace Diego Muñoz.

He witnessed an imperial charter of 19 April, which was drawn up "after returning to the earthworks, where the above named emperor made the prince of the Moors, Abengania, his vassal, and a certain part of Córdoba was plundered with its great mosque.

"[39] Early in the summer that year,[40] Ponce, along with Manrique Pérez, Ermengol of Urgell and Martín Fernández, led the force that defeated and killed Sayf al-Dawla, a vassal of the emperor who had revolted, in the battle of Albacete.

[2][14] A contemporary Latin poem, the Prefatio de Almaria, probably by the same author as the Chronica Adefonsi, describes the preparations for the campaign against Almería with a roll-call of the major nobles participating.

Cum dat consilium, documenta tenet Salomonis Pro furcis enses mutat numerandoque menses Escas ipse parat, per se sua uina propinat militibus lassis, dum tollitur horrida cassis.

[49] He continued in his office of majordomo in the first year of Ferdinand's reign, and he attended the great gathering of all the highest nobility and clergy of the kingdom and the king of Portugal on 9 October 1157.

[50] The reason for the exile is not clear, but according to the Historia Gothica of the thirteenth-century Navarrese historian Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Ferdinand II, generally "pious, merciful and generous", came to believe certain false rumours about Ponce spread by his enemies at court.

[51] On 12 November, at Sahagún on the border between León and Castile, Ponce made over to the monastery his lands at Cisneros, at Cordovilla, and at a place called Villafilal, probably Villafalé.

At Sahagún on 13 March, Sancha Raimúndez, one of the most powerful women in the kingdom, made a grant to the monastery of Santervás de Campos, and Ponce was among the signatories, along with Ramiro Fróilaz and Osorio Martínez and the bishops of León and Palencia, who may have been acting as intermediaries between Ferdinand and Sancho.

[58][60] Among those listed by Sancho III to succeed in the conquered lands if any of the above three magnates should die, four were the same vassals of Ponce de Cabrera who had entered into exile with him at Sahagún six months earlier.

Ponce appears around this time to have returned to Leonese service, for he received back all his confiscated tenancies, including Senabria, and his former position as majordomo of the king's household.

They in turn farmed it out to a knight who was living there with his mistress when the bishop of Salamanca, Pedro Suárez de Deza, complained to the Roman curia that "by violence count Ponce had stolen" the church.

[65] On 5 May King Ferdinand granted privileges to the monks of San Xulián de Samos, where "Don Giraldo, my beloved vassal, who in my service died, is buried."

[23] In 1145, Ponce gave the government of his Catalan viscounties to Guerau (Giraldo), who immediately set to work founding the monastery of Santa Maria de Roca Rossa.

[2] There is a surviving copy of royal charter dated 18 October 1152 at Guadalajara, wherein Alfonso VII grants Ponce the village of Almonacid on the Tagus, but it is probably a forgery.

He also owned land in his other tenancies, already mentioned: in Tierra de Campos at Villafalé on the river Esla and at Cisneros on the road from Sahagún to Palencia, near Zamora at Villarrín, and near Salamanca at Cordovilla.

"[23] These grants suggest that Ponce's landed estates were meagre in comparison to native-born lords, requiring him to rely on his suzerain to sufficiently compensate his vassals for their service.

When the count's daughter and Vela founded a Benedictine monastery at Nogales in 1150, they thanked her father in their foundation charter for his "counsel and aid" (consilio vel auxilio) in obtaining the land.