Ponce de Minerva
As his toponymic surname indicates, Ponce was from the Minervois ("de Minerva" is Latin for "from Minerve") in southern France, then a part of the County of Carcassonne, one of the possessions of Raymond Berengar III, Count of Barcelona.
[4] He arrived in León in November 1127 in the entourage of Berenguela of Barcelona, daughter of Raymond Berengar III, who wed Alfonso VII that month at Saldaña.
[8] Ponce does not appear in contemporary records until 1140, but his presence in the following of the Catalan princess is established by a charter in the archives of the convent of Santa María de Carrizo.
This document, dated 13 March 1207, records a pesquisa (inquest) carried out by orders of Alfonso IX to determine what was owed by the village of Quintanilla to the convent in light of a donation made by Ponce.
His first appearance in a court document dates to 9 September 1140, when he witnessed an act of Alfonso VII's as alférez, that is, armiger and standard-bearer of the royal mesnada (military retinue).
According to a document in the Tumbo Antiguo cartulary of Carrizo, Argavallones was located near Grulleros, just west of Villaverde de Sandoval (Sot noval).
This document aside, the earliest reference to Ponce's marriage to Estefanía is from 13 February 1146, when Alfonso VII rewarded them with a grant of land at Villamoros de Mansilla "for the service to me which you [plural] have done and are doing".
[20] From the time of his appointment as alférez sometime between 26 June and 9 September 1140 until his replacement sometime after 19 December 1144 and before March 1145,[21] Ponce de Minerva was a constant presence at the royal court and on all of Alfonso VII's military campaigns.
[22] He definitely participated in the Siege of Coria in 1142, as recorded in the Tumbo Negro, cartulary of the Cathedral of Zamora, and he probably also accompanied the royal forces on a razzia of the environs of Córdoba and Granada in 1144.
This last (obscure) campaign is mentioned in a charter issued at Toledo in November 1144 "as the emperor arrived from the fortification that he had made against Córdoba and Granada".
The above charters are classified as spurious because they name Alfonso VII as ruling in Baeza and Almería, places he did not conquer until 1147, and they list Martin, Archbishop of Santiago, as confirming.
[1] More securely datable is Alfonso's grant to Ponce the village of Villaverde de Sandoval, on the bank of the Porma near the possessions which he had given his wife at their marriage, in 1142.
[1] Specifically this tenancy, called the "towers of León" (turres Legionis), consisted in the fortified royal citadel ("fortress-palace") that guarded the northern gate of the city.
[1] In 1147, which has been described as an annus mirabilis for the Iberian Christians because of Alfonso VII's summer campaign, Ponce was with the royal army at Calatrava the week of 4–9 June.
The following year, on 30 January 1151, at Calahorra, Alfonso awarded Ponce, called "our faithful vassal", with the village of Grulleros, which he later gave to his wife.
The original document recording this grant, issued at Soria on 18 November 1153, has survived, and is one of possibly ten charters of Alfonso VII to have been authenticated with a seal.
[39] Under Alfonso VII Ponce was "a curial personage of stature" who "enjoyed the fullest confidence of the crown", yet despite his residence at court "he was of secondary rank" and generally his confirmation of royal acts was not sought.
On this date, Ferdinand issued the earliest of his surviving charters, by which he granted some estates to Rodrigo Pérez de Traba, who in turn donated the village of Gomariz to the monastery of Toxosoutos in Galicia.
On 14 June, while the court was staying at Sahagún, he and his wife were rewarded "for good service" (pro bono servitio) with a grant of land at Santa María del Páramo in the vicinity of León.
On 15 March 1161, while the court was at Malgrado, Ferdinand again rewarded Ponce with an estate at Ferreras near León, but this time also with lands at Salio in the Picos de Europa.
[4][47] In 1165, for a second time Ponce was with Ferdinand in Galicia to make peace with Portugal, and he was given the tenancy of Coyanza, modern Valencia de Don Juan.
[54] Ponce, following his fall from favour, went to the court of Alfonso VIII of Castile, son of Sancho III, which had moved to the fortress of Abia possibly to receive the defecting count.
The fuero requires that any settler who wished to sell his property and leave the area had to give Ponce the first option to buy, even if he was away on campaign in the south, in which case the would-be seller had to await his return.
[63][64] The tenants also owed Ponce tribute or rent in the form of one cahiz each of wheat and barley per field and portions of the produce of their vineyards and orchards.
The fuero of Azaña contains one of the best surviving descriptions of this practice from the twelfth century, and it also indicates Ponce's expectation of continued itinerancy between his various properties and tenancies.
His absence may have opened up the possibility of reconciliation to Ponce de Minerva, who had returned to the city of León by October, when he rejoined the court after five years of voluntary exile.
[47] Besides properties he received from Alfonso VII and Ferdinand II, which was a total of ten donations between 1148 and 1174, Ponce and Estefanía acquired lands at Mayorga on the Esla, and at Quintanilla and Villalba de Loma on the Porma.
[73] Of Ponce's children, Ramiro was his primary heir, even claiming, without any apparent royal approval, his father's title of count, but he never returned to favour in León.
[47] Ponce's younger daughter, María, separated from her husband by mutual agreement since late 1173 or early 1174, when he founded the Order of Mountjoy, was installed as the first abbess of her mother's foundation at Carrizo in 1184, a position she held until her death in 1191.
The pact stipulates that annually on Martinmas (11 November) the inhabitants should pay a rent of two solidi and a portion of produce for every parcel of land they owned.
