Rodrigo González de Lara
He was a leader in the Reconquista—about which the contemporary Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris has much to say—and also took part in the military activities of the Crusader states on two occasions.
[4] A Rodrigo González who signed eight royal diplomas between 1092 and 1099 has also been identified with the alférez, the son of Gonzalo Núñez, and the later Crusader.
[10] It was during the final six years of Urraca's reign, a period of general peace, that Rodrigo held power in the Kingdom of León.
A private document dated 17 June 1126 refers to both Rodrigo and Pedro as holding Lara, Campos, and Asturias de Santillana, seemingly jointly.
[14] There is a false document dated 18 April 1125 that names Rodrigo González as villicus imperatoris, that is, imperial majordomo.
[15] After the queen's death on 8 March 1126, the "towers of León", that is, the royal fortress in the city of León, refused to submit to her son, Alfonso VII, preferring the rule of Pedro González, who had been the queen's lover, and his brother Rodrigo, whom the author of the Chronica Adefonsi (I, §3) says "preferred war rather than peace with the King".
[16] Eventually the brothers were forced to make submission to Alfonso VII and did not do so willingly, as the other magnates: Other counts saw that the King's power was increasing daily.
There is evidence, in the former of a thirteenth-century copy of a private charter, that Alfonso tried to lure Rodrigo to his side by making him alférez in the winter of 1127–28.
The rebellion seems to have been designed to place on the throne Fernando Pérez de Lara, Rodrigo's nephew, an illegitimate son of Pedro González and Queen Urraca.
[21] Having dealt with the other rebels, Alfonso turned to Asturias, where "he captured their fortified castles, set fire to their fields and hacked down their trees and vineyards.
"[24] The author of the Chronica twice states that only a fraction of his military actions are recorded: "He had fought many battles in Moorish territory.
[30] The Almoravid governor (or king) of Seville, Umar, raised a large army from among his allies and fought Rodrigo in a pitched battle.
The militia of Toledo and the troops from the Trans-Sierra and Castile were left in reserve at the rear, under the personal command of Rodrigo "to reinforce the weak and to bring medical aid to the wounded.
[31] The author of the Chronica, probably bishop Arnaldo of Astorga, quotes from I Maccabees 9 in describing an encounter he evidently considered of biblical proportions (II, §121): The battle began as the Saracens shouted and sounded their brazen trumpets and drums.
Some muladíes, Muslims living under Christian rule, that had fled Rodrigo's camp had given away the Salamancans' position to the Almoravid sultan, Ali ibn Yusuf ben Tashfin, who promptly attacked and defeated him.
Thereafter the army followed same route as in the previous year: the Guadalquivir valley as far as Seville, but then continued on to Jerez de la Frontera, which was sacked, and Cádiz, whose countryside was terrorised.
The army returned to Toledo by late summer with a vast booty of camels, horses, cattle, sheep, and goats.
[23] In July 1135 Alfonso gave him and Rodrigo Martínez some properties confiscated from another rebel, the Asturian Gonzalo Peláez.
[36] By July 1135 Rodrigo had contracted a second marriage to Estefanía, daughter of Ermengol V of Urgell and widow of the Castilian magnate Fernando García de Hita.
[38] On 7 September 1135 Rodrigo witnessed a donation of the churches of Tovar and Laguna by his eldest daughter, Elvira, and her husband, the brother of his new wife, Ermengol VI of Urgell, to the convent of Santa María de Valladolid.
According to at least one manuscript of the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, this occurred in October 1134, but documentary evidence seems to indicate that it actually took place in 1137.
He built the castle called La Torón (possibly the present-day Latrun) facing Ascalon, which was then still in Muslim hands.
[43] However, Michael Ehrlich, specialist in medieval Mediterranean military history at Bar Ilan University, Israel, offers several good reasons to identify Rodrigo's castle with the ruins at Summil, c. 25 km inland (east) from Ascalon, which fits much better the one mentioned in the chronicles.
He eventually made his way to the Urgell, where on 24 March 1143 he witnessed, as comes Roricus, the final will and testament of his brother-in-law and son-in-law, Count Ermengol VI.
[46] Shortly before her husband's death Estefanía founded a Cistercian monastery at Valbuena de Duero (15 February 1143).
