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Lucy K. Pick

La cornica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures,

and Cultures, Volume 32, Number 3, Summer 2004, pp. 227-248 (Article)

Published by La cornica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures,

and Cultures
DOI: 10.1353/cor.2004.0026

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cor/summary/v032/32.3.pick.html

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GENDER IN THE EARLY SPANISH
CHRONICLES: FROMJOHN OF BICLAR
TO PELAYO OF OVIEDO

Lucy K. Pick
The University of Chicago
The early chronicles and histories of medieval Spain may seem
like an unpromising place to look for information about gender. After
all, E.A. Thompson's acerbic comment about Isidore of Seville's His-
toiy ofthe Goths, that, "He could have hardly told us less except by not
writing at all" (E.A. Thompson 7), could be extended without exag-
geration to the other works I will consider in diis study John of
Biclar's Chronicle, the Chronicle of 754, the two versions of the Chronicle
ofAlfonso III, the Chronicle ofAlbelda, Sampiro's Chronicle, the Historia
Silense, and Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo's Chronicon. Details about even
the male rulers at the heart of these studies are scanty, laconic, and
incomplete; information about women is scarcer still. But if scholars
of early medieval Spain complain diat they cannot find the facts diey
want from the sources at dieir disposal, they can be joined in their
distress by anyone who looks to die historical writing of die medieval
period for information about die past. These works are episodic by
nature, seemingly lacking any kind of structuring order. The stories
diey tell seem almost random; important events are passed over en-
tirely or given a brief reference while insignificant tales are told in
great detail (Peter Merritt Bassett 278). And groups of people, like
women, whom we know to have been important historical actors, are
left out of the narrative almost entirely (Karl Morrison xiv).
Morrison helps us escape our frustrations widi these texts by show-
ing us that the coherence we moderns seek within the text itself was
located rather in the twinned process of esdietic judgement by which
the text was composed, and in the imaginative responses of the in-
tended audience, the reader (xv). The writer, through deliberate

U CORoNICA 32.3 (Summer, 2004): 227-48

228Lucy K. PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

decisions of inclusion and exclusion constructed a series of segmented

episodes, of individual narrative images provoking affective responses
of fear, pity, and love in the reader. The reader performed an esdietic
and visual recreation of both the events described and die affective
responses provoked by die events (102). The fascicular nature of the
histories invited die reader to play widiin the gaps in die narrative
and read widiin die silences of die text in order to complete die im-
ages found diere (28). By means of this play of mind, historical texts
could be instruments of cognition about God, odierwise inexpressible
in words (49, 51). Texts were not merely constructed of segments or
fascicles; diey could likewise be depicted diemselves as being fascicles
of larger works (128). This is certainly true for the early Spanish
chronicles, which explicidy or implicitly situate diemselves as continu-
ations and additions to the ever expanding tale of universal history,
widi its beginning located in Creation and its end in die coming Apoca-
lypse, whedier viewed as imminent or distant. This view of die intention
and relationship of these chronicles was perpetuated by the scribes
who copied them sequentially widiin manuscript codices, and in the
readers who read diem this way. The different historical works I will
consider, which modern conventions isolate as discrete audiorial prod-
ucts, were frequently copied together in a single codex, available to
readers as an ensemble, a collection of connected fascicles.
Morrison's observations on historical writing and reading help us
to consider the early Spanish chronicles, to read dieir silences and
gaps as well as their vignettes. Despite their failure to be what we
might want diem to be, diey are artful. Their principles of selection
and omission are deliberate and thoughtiiilly conceived. Two particu-
lar considerations of his will guide us furdier as we consider die role
and meaning of gender differences in die chronicles. The first are a
set of observations on the limited areas where women, usually ex-
cluded, might be included within a historical narrative. Tales about
women are not chosen at random but reflect strategic patterns of in-
clusion. Morrison cites diree major ones: women as victims of atroci-
ties, in die entourages of great men, and as participants in acts, such as
marriage and procreation, possible because of their sexuality (166).
Subordinate diemes include: women as exotics; as personifications of
a concept like die Church, Rome, or Fortune; as characters used to
distinguish etiinic groups through gender differences; or more gener-
ally in tales showing the play of fortune, or of divine wisdom in the
world (170). The Spanish chronicles share some of these patterns of
inclusion, while they omit some and add odiers. An awareness of die
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles229

deliberate and patterned nature of diese inclusions helps us under-

stand die significance of die tales told.
The second consideration is connected to die first. Morrison shows
that episodes are not simply included widi attention to pattern, but
diat these patterns were diemselves understood to occur in cycles in
which the meaning of the events described, if not the actual events
diemselves, were repeated. Cycles diemselves were patterns of diought,
and historical works were conceived of as texts composed of repeating
patterns. This belief in historical repetition stemmed from dieir no-
tion of sacred recurrence, die notion diat die events of die New Testa-
ment were contained widiin die Old, and the time of die New Testament
continued to the end of the world (69-70). The various subjects of the
historical texts, like the actors in die biblical tales, were subordinated
to the ultimate Subject which both kinds of writing shared -God- and
all die tales told ultimately point to dieir divine source (Evelyn Birge
Vitz 1 17). Readers of the Bible found within die Old Testament story
the allegory of die New Testament event and die moral message for
their own day; readers of historical texts worked in the same way, dis-
cerning the presence of God in die working out of historical time and
perceiving die moral lessons of historical events. The question of die
relationship between sacred history and historical events in the early
Spanish chronicles is wordiy of future study; here, I shall simply be
attuned to die way diat die early Spanish chronicles repetitively show
different women participating in the same kind of stories as a way of
constructing patterns of meaning about gender.
The most prominent common dieme of these chronicles is that of
the acquisition, maintenance, and loss of political power. A majority of
the stories told about men in diese texts are about the batdes diey
wage and die violence diey commit in die name of power. As we shall
see, gender roles become a major way diese chronicles discuss power
relationships. Here, die approach of Joan Wallach Scott to die study
of gender will be helpful. For Scott, gender is more dian the cultural
construction and social organization of sexual difference. It is also a
primary avenue through which power is created, discussed, and de-
ployed. Scott urges us to examine the way a binary opposition be-
tween man and woman is constructed in texts so diat we may understand
the operation of die hierarchical construction diat diis opposition bodi
creates and masks (41-45). Her approach gready assists us in reading
our laconic texts. Gender in these texts is not, for the most part, dis-
cussed dirough description and metaphor but dirough die roles women
play in tales, dirough die short narrative fascicles diat make up die
230Lucy K PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

texts, and the way these tales are opposed to the military action and
statecraft of the male protagonists. Stories about women are patterned
and cyclical, as Morrison suggests, and are constructed to create a
binary opposition to tales told about men. These tales, taken as a whole,
reveal the gender systems at work.
Studying the relationship of gender and power in the chronicles
helps us see something of the way gender and power were related in
die worlds from which the chronicles emerged. If Scott is right, atten-
tion to gender not only tells us about the gender systems in play in
early medieval Spain, but also the political systems. What we will see
when we examine how the patterned roles of women change within
these texts is a discontinuity between the texts ofJohn of Biclar, Isidore
of Seville, and the Chronicle of 754, on the one hand, and the Asturian
and later chronicles on the other. We see this discontinuity reflected in
the way the chronicles portray gender; I will argue that it reflects a
real political discontinuity.
John of Biclar's chronicle is a model of how repetition of a small
number of motifs about women generates meaning. John, who was,
according to Isidore of Seville, a Catholic Godi persecuted under King
Leovigild (ruled 569-86), wrote his brief history of the reigns of the
Arian Leovigild and his Catholic son and successor, Reccared using the
format of the universal chronicle (Kenneth Baxter Wolf 1-2). He an-
nounces in his prologue that he is following in the footsteps of Victor
of Tunnuna and Prosper of Aquitaine, who diemselves were bringing
the universal chronicle of Eusebius-J erome up to date (Julio Campos
78). The episodes diat John links togedier to create his work are ex-
tremely brief, many only a sentence long. Yet by focusing on a very
limited number of kinds of activity and by showing how these activities
repeat, John suggests a coherence in what might otherwise seem to us
a random and somewhat eccentric collection of information.
While tales told about men largely surround their acquisition,
maintenance, and loss of power, usually by means of violence, tales
about women center on three different foci; women as booty, women
as sources of factionalism, and women as marriage partners. This lat-
ter category, as we shall see, is frequendy connected to the first two.
Women appear as booty in three places in John's text. First, when
Leovigild defeats Aspidius, the lord of the Aregensian mountains, and
takes him away, together with his wife, children, and riches, bringing
the region under his power (Campos 85). John uses virtually identical
phraseology to describe events at the opposite end of die Christian
world when he recounts diat Romanus, die magister militum, captured
 Cerulei in the Early Spanish Chronicles231

the king of the Suani, in the Caucasus mountains, and brought his
treasure, his wife and his children to Constantinople, bringing their
province under Roman rule (86). Later, John recounts that Audeca
seized the kingdom of the Suevi in Galicia by force, and took Siscguntia,
widow of King Miro, as his wife (92). The notion of women as booty is
an example of one of the principles of inclusion of women noted by
Morrison, that of women as victims of atrocities. It will be developed
greatly by Isidore, and will not be entirely absent from any of the
chronicles we will examine, though it is far less prominent in the
Asturian chronicles and those that follow.
John of Biclar tells two stories about women involved in factions
in the wider Mediterranean world, before he shows how female fac-
tionalism plays into one of the major stories ol his chronicle, his ac-
count of the struggle between Arians and Catholics in Spain. First,
Justin, cousin of the emperor Justin II (565-578), is killed by a faction
loyal to the empress Sophia (Campos 79). Then, Alboin, king of the
Lombards, is killed by a faction loyal to his wife. John tells us that in
this case, both the queen and the royal treasure came under the power
of Rome, so the Lombards were left without ruler or treasure (82).
Finally faction invaded Spain when Hermenigild revolted against his
father, Leovigild, assisted by a faction loyal to Gosuintha, Leovigild's
second wife. Gosuintha appeared again as a rebel in the days of King
Reccared, when she conspired with the remnants of the Arian party
against the Catholic hegemony established by Reccared. Gosuintha
came to the end of her life at this time (89, 96-97).
Marriage can be either a source of power, or the reason for its loss.
As we saw above, when Audeca married Siscguntia, marriage to the
widow of a king was a way of symbolizing control over the defeated
king's realm. Emperor Tiberias married his daughter to Maurice, his
magister mililum, and Maurice eventually succeeded Tiberias as em-
peror (Campos 90-91). In both of these cases, marriage is more of a
sign of power than a source for power. But wives could lead revolts
against their husbands, as we saw with Albion's death at the hands of
his wife, and Gosuintha's support of Hermenegild's revolt. His revolt
followed directly on the grant to him by Leovigild of bodi the daugh-
ter of the Frankish king, Sigibert, and part of the kingdom to rule
(89). Again, this marriage is a sign that Hermenegild has come of age
rather than die source of his power over the lands he will rule.
The effect of all these stories showing the interactions of men and
women is felt cumulatively. One tale by itself has little weight, and die
tales of women must be read against the tales about armed victory and
232Lucy K PickLa colnica 32.3, 2004

defeat told about the men. Repeated widi different actors in different
times and places these stories convey messages about the relationship
of women to power, either as signs of subjugation successfully achieved,
as with the women whose marriages betoken a new status for their hus-
bands and diose who, with their husbands, children, and wealth, form
the booty of conquering lords, or as threats to the stability of power,
like those women who lead factions against authority. The need to read
tales cumulatively is the same in all the chronicles I will discuss here.
Most of the tales Isidore of Seville recounts about relations be-
tween women and men in his Histoiy of the Goths and his parallel ac-
counts of the Vandals and Suevi, are about women as booty seized by
men, with this seizure sometimes completed by marriage. This theme
is so important to Isidore that he uses it as the organizing metaphor of
the Histoiy ofthe Goths in the well-known praise of Spain that opens and
concludes this work. In this panegyric, Spain is addressed directly and
is personified as a woman, a mother and queen: "felix principium
gentiumque mater Spania: iure tu nunc omnium regina prouiiiciarum".
She is beautiful, fertile, fruitful, and prosperous and is therefore de-
sired by many peoples, personified as individual men who desire to
seize her. Spain was first betrothed to Rome, but now the Godis, flushed
with victory, have seized her and loved her ("rapuit et amauit") and
continue to enjoy her favors to Isidore's own day (Cristbal Rodrguez
Alonso 168, 170). Isidore concludes his history with an account of die
origins of the Goths and praise for their strength and courage to the
point that now, "the Roman soldier serves the Goths whom he sees
served by so many nations, and even Spain herself" (70.286).
Pacatus Drepanius's Panegyricus had also called Spain mother and
happiest of nations, "mater Hispania est terris omnibus terra felicior"
(Drepanius 15-16), and this is probably Isidore's source, but the prel-
ate of Seville develops this imagery far beyond Drepanius's simple
metaphor. Isidore's depiction of Spain as a kind of prized feminine
booty alerts us to pay close attention to subsequent places in his text
where women are associated with the spoils of war. The first such inci-
dence occurs during his description of the sack of Rome in 410 by the
Goths under Alaric. In a story taken from Orosius, Isidore describes
how one act of plunder was thwarted after a soldier demanded any
gold or silver possessed by a certain elderly, consecrated virgin. She
brought out the gold and silver vessels she had, but warned that they
came from die sanctuary of Saint Peter; she would not hand them to
him, but he could take diem, if he dared. When this interchange was
reported to Alaric by the terrified soldier, the king ordered the vessels
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles233

and the virgin restored to die apostle's sanctuary. The restoration oc-
curred in a public procession, accompanied by the sound of hymns
and songs and an armed escort from the king (Rodriguez Alonso
16-17.196, 198). Given Isidore's personification of Spain, it is diffi-
cult not to read diis elderly virgin as herself representing a personifi-
cation of Christian Roma, direatened but not annihilated by the Goths
and maintaining its essentially Christian character. The same double
role of historical actor and personified concept is played by Galla
Placidia, die emperor's daughter, seized as plunder during die sack
and married to Athaulf, Alaric's successor, but later restored to her
brother Honorius, the new emperor, in a peace treaty signed by then
king Wallia (18-21.200, 202, 204). This time, the Godis lost the bride
so recently won from the Romans; their possession of Spain would be
more enduring. These events repeat. Theodoric (ruled 453-466) at-
tempted to plunder the city of Mrida, but was frightened away by the
signs displayed by the long-dead martyr, Eulalia, "beatissimae Eulaliae
martyris terretur ostentis" (32.222); subsequendy Theodoric sealed a
peace treaty with the Suevi king, Remismund, by offering him arms,
gifts, and a woman to marry (33.224, 226). In all these cases, as widi
John of Biclar, the women involved are significant as signs of power
won, lost, transferred by, and, in the cases when they approach divine
power, protected from die male rulers at the center of the stories.
The Chronicle of 754 -also known as die Chronica Mozarabica diough
written over a century after Isidore and in a Spain now under Muslim
rule, shares many of the perspectives of its predecessors. Rome is
"mother and queen of cities". Men fight, women continue to serve as
booty and as markers of power relationships, and Arab society is de-
picted as sharing the gender values of die Christian, Mediterranean
societies it was replacing. The Arab leader Marwan was said to have
given the Byzantine emperor, Constantine (668-685), one diousand
solidi of pure gold, a mule laden with silk, and a beautiful girl every
day for nine years in tribute to maintain die peace (Juan Gil 27.26).
After the conquest of Spain in 711, Musa brought the emir, Walid,
samples of the riches of Spain and some of its beautiful young girls to
show him the wealth of his new conquest (49.35). Abd al-Aziz, who
replaces his fadier Musa as governor, married die widow of the Gothic
king, Rodrigo, and used the daughters of kings and princes as concu-
bines, before repudiating them (51.35-36).
Women are also involved in factional dissension from central au-
thority both actively and passively. A woman is at the center of the
very first tale of die chronicle, albeit in a passive role. Heraclius starts
234Lucy K PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

a rebellion against the Byzantine Emperor Phocas, evidently because

Phocas had sent Heraclius's fiance, Flavia, to Constantinople and away
from Africa where her betrothal to Hcraclius had taken place. Moved
by love for Flavia, Heraclius and his magister militimi, Nicetas, lead a
fleet successfully against Phocas and Heraclius becomes emperor (Gil
1.16). This avails Heraclius little, however, because despite a spectacu-
lar victory against the Persians, the tale of Heraclius's reign is one of
repeated defeats in the face of incursions by the Saracens, defeats
instigated by God to subdue Heraclius's pride. In an instance ofwomen
as active promoters of faction, Abd al-Aziz's new Gothic bride, Egilona
advised her governor husband to throw off the yoke of his masters in
Damascus and rule Iberia independently. This advice caused her
husband's death, although we do not hear how (51.35-36).
The Chronicle of 754 closely follows its predecessors in the range of
gendered roles it depicts and the uses it makes of them. Worldly power
is frequently transmitted by means of force, with marriage serving
only as confirmation of its transfer. All three chronicles represent ac-
counts of a succession of kings, emperors, and governors whose cen-
tral connection is that they are all holders of power. What they do not.
share is also significant; these male protagonists can and do differ
from each other in religion, nation, the territory they rule, and the
family they belong to. These chronicles, unlike those that will follow,
are not histories of single families in specific territories, but narratives
of power wherever it may be found.
When wc move to examine chronicles written in the newly emerg-
ing Asturian kingdom and its successors, we see differences. These
chronicles are explicitly organized around family groups and much
attention is given to indicating the bloodlines that connect the pro-
tagonists. VVe hear a lot more about women in general who are given
names and sometimes, especially in later texts, personalities. Booty
remains as a theme, but it is far diminished in importance and women
are much less often depicted as a subset of the spoils of war. Nor are
women central to the emergence of faction. New themes emerge, es-
pecially those of genealogy and lineage, and women's central role in
creating lineage. These females are not merely signs or markers of
power; they are active and necessary players in the events in which
they participate. Another crucial theme that emerges is diat of sexual
sin and its punishment. It is sexual impropriety instigated by men -
and the divine wrath it brings on, not sheer military might- that is the
primary factor motivating political transformation. The chronicles show
the workings of this divine wrath and favor in such a way that the
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles235

ultimate subject of these later chronicles, like dieir predecessors, re-

mains God.
The first three chronicles of this period die Chronicle of Albelda,
and the two versions of the Chronicle ofAlfonso III, the "Rotense" and
the "ad Sebastianum"- were written at the height of the success of the
emergent Asturian kingdom in the 880s.1 They are all concerned with
explaining and arguing for the transfer of the Godiic order from To-
ledo to the Asturias after the Muslim conquest. The stories they tell to
explain the fall of the Goths and their reemergence in Toledo differ in
their particulars, but they all involve women in crucial roles.
The Chronicle ofAlbelda, the earliest of the three, introduces themes
of lineage, genealogy, and the improper behaviour of a man towards a
woman, albeit in a laconic way that hinders our ability to see immedi-
ately the significance of these developments. The chronicle recounts
that the Visigothic king, Ervig, gave his daughter in marriage to Egica,
the future king. From this union Witiza was born (Gil Fernndez y
Moralejo XIV.3 1-32. 170-71). We will have to wait to understand die
significance bodi of tiiis marriage and ofWitiza's reign until the Chronicle
ofAlfonso III, because the Albelda merely explains the Muslim conquest
by relating the tradition (in one manuscript, at least) that dissension
arose among the Goths on account of the claims of the sons of Witiza
such that some wanted to see die kingdom destroyed, and according to
another manuscript tradition, that the Godiic kingdom was destroyed
by God on account of unspecified sins (XVII. 1-3. 182-83). But the
Chronicle of Albelda does explain why Pelayo avoided being destroyed
with the rest of the Gothic nobles and ended up as leader in Asturias.
Before Witiza was king, he lived in TUy where Egica had sent Fatila,
Pelayo's father. Here, as the Latin says, "Quadam occasione uxoris fuste
in capite percussit, linde post ad mortem pervenit" (XIV.33.171). This
passage is difficult to entangle because the subjects of its verbs are
unclear. Presumably because of some kind of misconduct or insult, pos-
sibly sexual, directed towards Witiza's wife, Witiza struck Fafila with a
blow that killed him. In any case, on attaining the kingdom, Witiza
expelled Pelayo from Toledo on account of his father. According to die
Albelda, Pelayo ended up in the right place at the right time to preserve
Christian Spain from annihilation because of an episode which had a
woman's honour at its center.

1 For summaries of older theories and new hypotheses about their dates, methods,
and order of composition, see the edition ofJuan CiI Fernndez and Jos L. Moralejo
33-41.60-65.
236Lucy K PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

The two versions of the Chronicle ofAlfonso III, "Rotense" and "ad
Sebastianum", expand both on this genealogical information and the
relationship of both lineage and Witiza's own reactions to the Muslim
conquest. They explain how King Chindasvinth gave his niece in mar-
riage to die Byzantine exile, Ardabastus. This niece gave birdi to Ervig,
who later removed King Wamba from the throne by trickery and took
his place. Ervig gave his daughter, Cixilo, in marriage to Egica, the
nephew of Wamba and from diis union Witiza was born, as the Chronicle
ofAlbelda had informed us. "Rotense" additionally recounts that Wamba
ordered Egica to repudiate his wife, which he did. Both versions de-
scribe Witiza's sins, which revolve around women. He took many wives
and concubines himself and, lest a council be called against him, he
also ordered the bishops, priests, and deacons to take wives. "This, dien,
was the cause of Spain's fall" (2-5.116-21). King Rodrigo -grandson,
so we learn, of Chindasvinth and son ofTeodofred and a noblewoman,
Ricilo- was not able to withstand the combined onslaught of Muslim
armies and divine wrath brought on by Witiza's own sexual sins and his
willful corruption of the clergy, and so Spain fell to the Muslims.
Just as the seeds of the destruction of Gothic Spain were Christian
sexual misconduct with women, so too, according to "Rotense", the
seeds of the redemption of Spain were Muslim misconduct with women.
Pelayo, according to this version, rebelled against the Muslims be-
cause the Muslim prefect of Gijn, desiring Pelayo's sister, sent Pelayo
on some pretext to Crdoba so he could marry the young woman.
Pelayo did not consent to this union on his return and, rather than be
captured by forces sent from Crdoba for this purpose, fled into the
mountains where he rallied the Asturians and led die resistance (8-9. 1 22,
124, 126).
This story echoes Heraclius's revolt against Phocas because of his
devotion to his fiance as told in the Chronicle of 754, but die attention
paid to women in the Chronicle ofAlfonso III focuses on their place in
lineage and their role in marriage in the fledgling Asturian kingdom,
mirroring the chronicles' attention to the genealogy of Visigothic To-
ledo. In "Rotense" and the Chronicle ofAlbelda, Pelayo married his daugh-
ter Ermesinda to Alfonso, son of the duke of Cantabria, and diis Alfonso
succeeded Pelayo's son, Fafila, as king. Both versions state that he was
ex semine regio, of the royal Visigothic line (1 1.130, 13.131, XV.3.173),
and according to the "Rotense" version (16.134) Alfonso I's son, Fruela,
ended the practice of compelling priests to take wives. Both versions
relate that Fruela took as wife Munia, a young woman he won when he
defeated the Basques. This is a rare appearance of women as booty in
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles237

these texts but, as we shall see Munia and her family, unlike in the
earlier chronicles, do not fall out of their narrative widi dieir defeat
and submission but retain a role in the affairs of the kingdom
(16.134-35). The Chronicle of Alfonso HI agrees with the Chronicle of
Albelda that Silo (774-783) became king because he married Adosinda,
daughter of Alfonso I. On Silo's death, Adosinda with the magnates of
the palace chose Fruela's son, Alfonso, to succeed Silo. When
Mauregato, Alfonso I's son by a slave woman, seized the throne in-
stead, Alfonso fled to his Basque mother's family before he was even-
tually recalled to the throne as Alfonso II (18-21.136-39, XV.5-9.174).
The attention to genealogy of these chronicles is striking. Sud-
denly, the identities and backgrounds of mothers and wives are impor-
tant for the way they show enduring family connections, not merely as
signs of power effectively transferred. These chronicles speak about
power, as did the early ones, but now they speak of power as it is main-
tained by and disseminated through families. Women have an active
role in transmitting authority, through their bloodlines and through
their influence on policy. There is a significance to this change, be-
yond what it can tell us about shifting gender systems. While these
chronicles are explicitly written to show Gothic continuity, their ver)'
inclusion of this kind of information about women displays disconti-
nuity. Under the Visigodis, while a king might have a personal family,
he had no royal family. Kingship was not to be passed down to one's
sons; it was intended to be an elected position. The queen was not a
figure in Visigothic law. Moreover, the law took pains to prevent ambi-
tious men from using the widowed queen as an avenue to power and
separated the king's personal property from that he held by reason of
his kingship. Only the former could be passed to his natural family
(Jose Orlandis 97-105). The Asturians knew all of this. They had the
Visigothic code, and the canons issued by church councils on these
questions. At times the chronicles even note that individual Asturian
kings were elected, as with Alfonso I and Ramiro I (Gil Fernndez y
Moralejo 13.130, 23.142-43). But it is clear that royal power is nor-
mally thought to be best transmitted through royal pedigree. The
Asturians, moreover, reflect their own interest in lineage back onto
the Visigoths, retroactively outlining ties of relationship and using
them to explain the course of historical events.
These trends will continue. The next chronicle we have is attrib-
uted to Sampiro, notary to Vermudo II and later bishop of Astorga,
written over a century after the three ninth-century chronicles. It ex-
ists in two versions, one in the redaction preserved by Bishop Pelayo of
238Lucy K. PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

Oviedo, and the odier as part of the Historia Silense. The latter version
is generally assumed to be closer to Sampiro's original; Pelayo's addi-
tions and fabrications, at least, stand out more clearly than any editing
the Silense author chose to do. Only Pelayo's version, however, pre-
serves the name of Sampiro as its author (Justo Prez de Urbel 202).
The text of the Silense version (which I will discuss here, leaving
Bishop Pelayo's version to be considered with his own chronicle) cov-
ers events from the reign of Alfonso III to Vermudo II, Sampiro's pa-
tron. It continues and amplifies the genealogical themes we first saw in
the Asturian chronicles and adds a new one, that of women as espe-
cially associated with religious life and piety. Information about kings'
wives is consistently provided. We learn that Alfonso III desired closer
ties widi "Galiam" and Pamplona and took a wife, Jimena, from that
line. The Silense states that she was a niece of Charlemagne (Prez de
Urbel y Atilano Gonzlez Ruiz-Zorrilla 1.277). Royal marriages now
can include an affective component. Ordoo II returned from a suc-
cessful campaign against the Muslims to find his wife, Elvira, dead,
and his grief at her death was as great as his joy at his victory. He
married a woman from Galicia named Aragonta, whom he later repu-
diated because she didn't please him. Later, after assisting King Sancho
Garcs I of Navarra on campaign, he married that king's daughter,
Sancha (18-19.315-17). Moreover, women do not vanish as actors once
married. Ramiro II married his son, the future Ordoo III to Urraca,
daughter of the recently rebellious Fernn Gonzlez of Castilla. She
was later married to Ordoo IV Alfnsez, but when he was deposed,
she married again for a third time (24.329, 26.335, 337).
Women do not merely appear as marriage partners, however.
Ramiro II gave his daughter Elvira, not to a noble or royal bride-
groom, but to God, and founded a monastery in the palace for her,
dedicated to the Saviour. He was buried there on his death (24.329-30,
332). Sampiro tells us that Elvira did not merely live there in quiet
retreat but rather remained actively involved in the affairs of the king-
dom. Like Adosinda before her, she is more than a symbol or a sign for
the transferrai of power; she is depicted as an agent in the affairs of
the kingdom. Elvira is called devota Deo ac prdentissima. Prtidentissma-
is an adjective used also to describe those kings deemed above average
by their biographers; devota Deo indicates her special religious status.
With her advice, her brother Sancho I sent messengers to Crdoba
seeking the body of a recendy martyred youth named Pelayo. On
Sancho's death, Elvira served as die principal royal personnage sup-
porting her five-year-old nephew Ramiro III during his minority. The
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles239

chronicle tells us that during this period she made peace with the
Saracens and received the body of Pelayo from them (Prez de Urbel
337-40). The transfer of the body of this virgin martyr from Muslim
to Christian Spain seems to have served the same kind of peace-mak-
ing functions performed by some of die marriages described elsewhere
in the chronicle.
The Historia Silense embeds the Chronicle ofSampiro within a longer
narrative intended, so its author tells us, to recount the deeds of Alfonso
VI, whose death in 1 109 had occurred before die historian picked up
his pen. But the author never quite makes it to the reign of Alfonso.
The work begins with an image of Spain so besieged by barbarians
that learning and scholarship had died away (Prez de Urbel and
Gonzlez Ruz-Zorrilla 1.11 3). Whether the author intends to describe
in this passage the earlier overrunning of Spain by Goths, or the more
recent triumph of the Muslims is probably deliberately left unclear, so
that the sense of historical events that repeat here, the destruction
of learning in the wake of invasion can suggest an enduring moral
lesson. The text next describes the Christianization of the world and
the subsequent turning away of part of the world to Arianism in a
passage critical of Emperor Constantine for turning astray into heresy
at the end of his life. This section cites Isidore of Seville's universal
chronicle and by doing so, associates the Silense with that historio-
graphical genre (2.1 14-15). A description of the Gothic invasion of
Spain and the conversion of the Godis to Catholicism is followed by
an explanation of the reasons why the author decided to write about
Alfonso VI. The Silense next gives a lengthy account of the vicissitudes
of that king's rise to sole control of the kingdom passed down by his
father, Fernando I. The text then backtracks to an account of the end
of the Goths and rise of the Asturian kings, from Witiza (698-710) to
Ordoo I (850-866), substantially taken from the Chronicle of Alfonso
III, followed by an independent account of the reign of Alfonso III
and his sons. This twelfth-century historian is not afraid to make alter-
ations to the Chronicle of Alfonso III, however. For example, he pro-
vides an additional reason for the Muslim conquest of Spain, one taken
from Arabic sources in which one Count Julin invited the Muslims
into Spain to get revenge on King Rodrigo for taking his daughter as
a concubine (15.127). Like the older explanation, that the conquest
was caused by the sins, especially sexual, of Witiza, this justification
also stems from royal sexual sins. Actual historical accounts may change
and vary from narrative to narrative, but die underlying moral mes-
sage they convey remains the same.
240Lucy K PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

After the account of Alfonso III and his progeny, the chronicler
includes Sampiro's text, discussed above, ending with Vermudo II (984-
999). At this point, the text backtracks again to the reign of Sancho I
(955-957 and 960-967) and traces die royal line down to Alfonso Vs
children, Vermudo III (1027-1037) and Sancha, Alfonso VTs mother.
He then much more briefly traces the genealogical origins of Alfonso's
father, and explains how Fernando and Sancha married and took the
throne of Len. The purpose of all of this preceding narrative of royal
lineage, the chronicle states, is to outline Alfonso's genealogy,
"gencalogiam seriatim texere statili" (31.141). The rest of the chronicle
is a description of Fcrnando's reign, emphasizing his success in battle,
his family, and his piety'. The chronicle concludes with a lengthy de-
scription of his death. We learn no more about Alfonso VI.
This chronicle amplifies the genealogical themes found in Sampiro
and the Asturian chronicles in a way that lets us see how far we have
come from the works of John of Biclar, Isidore of Seville, and the
Chmnicle of 754. Unlike those three, this is not an account of a succes-
sion of rulers of different territories, nations, and religions, whose
sole connection is that they are all holders of power. It is the story of
the creation and expansion of a lineage through a series of stories told
about people who are all related. Lineage is itself a source of power. It
has this in common with Sampiro and the ,Asturian chronicles, but
renders what was implicit diere, explicit. Women are necessarily more
important in a history of lineage. The chronicle states that the pur-
pose of recounting the history of Spain from the fall of the Goths to
the death of Alfonso V, some sixty-nine chapters of the printed edi-
tion, was simply to explain Alfonso VI's lineage on his mother's side:
"Ceterum, patefacta Adefonsi nostri inperatoris materna prosapia, vt
quoque eiusdem patris nobilis origo patefiat, paulisper sermo vertatur"
(74.177). The maternal line is crucial: according to the chronicle,
Ramiro I of Aragn got the smallest share of his father's kingdom
because, although he and his brothers shared the same royal father,
his mother was only a concubine (75.179). By tracing Alfonso's pater-
nal line, like his maternal line, to Duke Pedro of Cantabria, with the
duke's supposed Gothic descent, the chronicler shows both lines to be
successors of the Visigoths (74.178). This focus on lineage is also evi-
dent in particulars. Like Sampiro and the Asturian chroniclers, the
author makes note of the names and family background of the women
who marry' kings.
The chronicle focuses especially on two particular women, Queen
Sancha, who married Fernando I, and Urraca Fernndez, their datigli-
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles241

ter. Indeed, we learn almost as much about Urraca Fernndez as we do

about Alfonso VI, the ostensible subject of the history. There may be a
good reason for this focus. The work has acquired its name, Historia
Silense, from the supposed origins of its audior as a monk of the Castilian
monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos. This argument derives from a
late tradition and from an interpretation of the author's statement
that he became a monk in "domus seminis" (7.1 18). But the work's
Leonese slant makes a Castilian residence for its author unlikely. Other
proposed origins for the monastic author have been Sahagiin (with
"domus seminis" as a misreading of "domnis Sanctis") and San Isidoro
de Len. Richard Fletcher has recently argued for the latter, following
Manuel Daz y Diaz's suggestion that "seminis" is a misreading of "sci
ihnis" or "Sancii Iohannis". The monastery of San Isidoro was origi-
nally dedicated to Saint John the Baptist and to the boy martyr whose
body was retrieved by Elvira, Saint Pelayo, before Fernando had the
body of Isidore brought up from Seville in 1063, an event the chronicle
recounts in full. Corroborating evidence is the fact that the author
refers to Len as "this" royal city and San Isidoro as "this church", as
well as the fact that the author is so interested and well-informed about
Urraca Fernndez, who was closely associated with San Isidoro and was
involved in the building campaign there (Simon Barton and Richard
Fletcher 13-16). Queen Sancha was herself closely associated with San
Isidoro as its lay "domina", a role inherited by her daughters, Urraca
and Elvira.
Again, information about Sancha and Urraca follows repeating
patterns. They are featured both for their piety, including a specific
interest in burial sites and practices, and for their role as advisors to
the king and, in the case of Sancha, governor of the realm. Sampiro's
description of Elvira, daughter of Ramiro II (930-950), who was
"domina" over the royal monaster-)' and mausoleum of San Salvador
del Palaz del Rey, advisor to her brother Sancho I, and queen and
governor of the realm during the youth of her nephew Ramiro III
(967-984), forms the model for all of these activities. San Isidoro it-
self was a royal monaster)' and mausoleum, inheriting this role from
Elvira's San Salvador.
Both women serve as advisors to kings, Sancha to her husband and
Urraca to her brother, especially, it seems, when the question at hand
relates to the family. Sancha is depicted as jointly ruling the kingdom
with her husband after he is crowned and anointed by the bishop of
Len ("qui postquam cum coniuge Santia sceptra regni gubernandi
succepit", 80.183). Sancha intervened before the battle of Atapuerca
242Lucy K. PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

in 1054, at which time Fernando I defeated and killed his brother,

Garcia III of Navarra, although the direction of her intervention is
left unclear, probably on purpose. Fernando, the Silense tells us, wished
to capture his brother alive, while his army wanted revenge against
Garcia for his earlier killing of their former lord, Vermudo III (1027-
1037), Sancha's brother. The Silense does not remind its readers that
Fernando himself was implicated in die killing of his wife's brother.
Richard Fletcher's translation of the section describing the different
goals of the combatants and Sancha's intervention preserves the am-
biguity of the original: "These troops indeed, for the most part at-
tached to the affinity of King Vermudo, when they learnt of the fervent
wish of their lord to take his brother alive rather than dead at the
prompting, as I believe of Queen Sancha- resolved each and all to
avenge the blood which was common to them" (84.147).- Did Sancha
prompt her husband to show mercy to his brother, perhaps to spare
him the pain of a loss of a brother that she had suffered? Or did she
urge the army to avenge Vermudo's death by killing the brother of the
man who had helped cause the death of her own brother? The answer
turns on whedier the final phrase refers to die blood common to Sancha
and Vermudo, or whether it refers to blood common to Vermudo and
his fellow Leonesc.
Urraca Fernndez is famous in later tale and legend for having
participated in the death of one of her brothers, Sancho II, to assist
another, Alfonso VI. The Silense, which would be inclined to be favor-
able to Urraca if the connection of the author to San Isidoro is cor-
rect, does not mention this tale. Urraca is introduced to the narrative
after Sancho is already dead and Alfonso is safely in Zamora and be-
ginning to assert control over the realm. To this end, he summoned
Urraca and other prominent men to him so they could discuss the
future of the kingdom (12.122). The Silense relates that it was on
Urraca's advice that Alfonso imprisoned his remaining brodier, Garcia,
until his death (13.123).
The Silense explains Urraca's help towards Alfonso as a consequence
of the fact diat he had always been her favourite, and that she, the
eldest of the children of Fernando and Sancha, had been like a mother
to him. The author praises Urraca extensively for her wisdom and

- The Latin reads: "Qui nimirum milites, ex cogiiatione Veremiidi regis plerumque
existentes, vbi volntalem domini sui flauem suum anidam vimini capiendi potius quam
extinctum animaduertunt, vt credo, instinctu Sancie regine, comunem sibi sanguinem
vindicare singularit! anelabant" (84.187).
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles243

goodness, which he savs he knows from experience, rather than merely

by reputation. He also praises her for her pious way of life. Aldiou gh
she never took on a monastic habit (suggesting that, unlike her royal
predecessor, Elvira, she did not take religious vows), she lived her life
according to monastic discipline and never took a husband but, as the
Silense relates, "clung to Christ as her spouse"; she also richly endowed
religious sites with precious objects (12.122-23). She had a large num-
ber of religious houses to endow, for when her father divided the king-
dom between his three sons, the religious houses possessed by Fernando
and Sancha passed into thejoint hands of their daughters, Urraca and
Elvira (103.205). Her model for piety' was her parents: at the banquet
following the translation of Isidore of Seville's relics to Len, Fernando
himself, together with his wife and children, served die clerics assembled
there (101.203-04). Elsewhere the author praised Urraca for the no-
bility of her beauty and behaviour (81.184).
Burial is a new and important theme of the Silense, and one in
which women plav an important role. Alfonso VI had intended Garcia
to be his successor until "imperatrix natura" intervened and Garcia
died of a fever. Urraca herself, together with her sister Elvira, pre-
sided over the royal funeral of the brother who had been imprisoned
on her instigation (13.123). He was buried in the monastery of San
Isidoro whose status as royal mausoleum had been confirmed when
Sancha persuaded Fernando to promise to be buried there and to re-
build its church, instead of at Olia or Arlanza, two prior Castilian burial
sites. The Silense explains that Sancha wanted her husband and herself
to lie alongside her father, Alfonso V, and brother, Vermudo III
(94.197-98).
Burial and lineage are almost the only topics discussed by the final
historical work to be considered in this study. Bishop Pelavo of Ovicdo's
Chronicon, written between 1121 and 1132 (Barton and Fletcher 72).
The bishop tells us little that does not relate cither to these two issues,
or to the prestige of his own see of Oviedo, often combining these
themes. His chronicle covers the reigns from Vermudo II to Alfonso VI
and for each reign he discusses the full genealogy of the royal wives,
concubines, and the progeny of both, as well as where both kings and
queens were buried. For example, his account of the depredations of
Almanzor against the kingdom of Len focuses on the information
that the citizens who fled Len and Astorga in the wake of Almanzor,
brought with them to Oviedo the relics of the saints and the bodies of
the royal dead, who were then reburied in state in Oviedo among
their Asturian ancestors. Pelayo gives the exact location of the grave
244Lucy K. PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

of each king and queen, and explains their relationship to each other
and the rest of the royal family (Snchez Alonso 65-68). His discussion
of royal actions is limited largely to whether individual kings were
persecutors or patrons of the church, widi special attention to the see
of Oviedo. Nobility of birth in bodi the paternal and maternal line
remains important.
This focus on burial, lineage, and patronage means that Pelayo
gives almost as much attention to the women as to the men in the
chronicle. For instance, one longish section recounts the life of Teresa,
sister of Alfonso V who married her off to a Muslim king in Toledo.
Teresa threatened her husband widi death if he touched her; when he
laughed off the threat and bedded her, he was struck by the angel of
the Lord. Knowing his death to be imminent, he ordered his counsel-
lors to load her up with gold, silver, jewels, and precious textiles and
return her to Len. She lived in Len for a long time, wearing a nun's
habit, until she finally died in Oviedo where she was buried (63-65).
This royal woman started out as die visible sign of a peace treaty, in
effect as a war prize won by the Muslim king. Her piety was not able to
protect her fully, but was still sufficient to restore her to her home,
and the compensatory goods she brings along with her are a sign of
her own triumph. She follows the model of other royal daughters and
sisters by living the rest of her life as a religious. Her shift from being
booty to winning booty mirrors the shift in the fortunes of the whole
Leonese kingdom over the course of die eleventh century, as the king-
dom moved from being a payer of tribute to being a recipient of huge
sums from the Muslims during the reign of Fernando I. Historians
question the historical veracity' of Teresa's Muslim marriage, but its
moral message is clear. This story once again explains a real shift in
the balance of power between Muslims and Christians in the peninsula
through the body of a woman and the sexual impulses of a man.
Pelayo's historical writing was not limited to the Chronicon, how-
ever, which was just one short part of a much more extensive Liber
chronicoruiii that collected a wide range of historical writings. Aldiough
the manuscript of Pelayo's original compilation is lost, later manu-
scripts containing partial copies of his work (including BN-Madrid 1 358,
1513, and 2805) incorporate texts we have considered here, namely
Isidore's History ofthe Goths, Vandals, and Suexies, die Chronicle ofAlbelda,
the Chronicle of Alfonso III, and Sampiro's Chronicle, as well as odier
historical texts of various kinds. This compilation shows diat Pelayo
saw himself as adding a new fascicle to an ongoing historical enter-
prise. He was not afraid to change earlier works to reflect his own
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles245

preoccupations and interests, especially when it concerned royal mari-

tal and burial patterns, and the interests of the see of Oviedo. For
example, his version of Sampiro's chronicle adds names of royal wives
and children as well as burial locations for both king and queen to the
information found in the Silense version. In his long account of the
reign of Alfonso III, Pelayo added the names of their children to the
Silense's account of Alfonso's marriage to Jimena. He interpolated a
long section about a specious council said to have occurred in Oviedo,
and notes that Alfonso's wife and children were present there. Finally,
he states that Alfonso died in Astorga and was buried diere widi Jimena,
until the two were later transferred to Oviedo (Prez de Urbel
1-2.277-78, 9-13.289-305, 15.308). Pelayo's interest in burial loca-
tion can be pardy explained by die fact that those royals buried (or
said to be buried) in Oviedo would bring renown to that see. This
belief that the presence of a dead king or queen will bring prestige
reflects a broader interest in burial found both in Pelayo's text and in
the slightly earlier Silense, itself reflecting the importance placed on
burial and commemoration by contemporary society.
Over the course of this study we have seen a shift from histories in
which men and women appear playing gendered roles diat show their
relationships to power to histories in which different gendered pat-
terns are included that primarily show men and women in relationship
to each other in a single family in which power is shared and through
which it is distributed. The works ofJohn of Biclar, Isidore of Seville,
and the Chronicle of 754 describe the actions of men for the most part
unrelated to each odier, but connected by their common hold on secu-
lar power. Divine power can be manifested through or against these
male rulers, but it is not something possessed by them. Women appear
in standard roles, showing how secular power is exchanged between
the men. The histories that follow begin with a family unit of both
women and men, through which power is distributed, usually with a
male king at its head (though not always, if we remember Elvira ruling
for her young nephew Ramiro III). The tales told in these chronicles
show how power is augmented, contested, and transferred through
the family, and how the family copes with outside direats. Divine power
can be harnessed by die family through its patronage of religious in-
stitutions and especially through die religious lives of its own daugh-
ters.

The emphasis on family in the later chronicles tells us several im-

portant things. First, as I have already suggested, it shows what a dif-
ferent world we are in by die time we get to the ninth-century Asturian
246/.p ?'. PickLa cornica 32.3, 2004

chronicles, despite the efforts of these same chronicles to indicate con-

tinuity. Second, they show the royal family as a public, not a private
entity. The classic understanding of the relationship between gender
and power in the medieval world, which sees power wielded by men as
public in contrast to private female power transacted through the family
(Georges Duby 7-8), is unhelpful and anachronistic in this context in
which notions of a private familial sphere set off from the public sphere
do not exist. Lastly, and connected with the prior point, we are truly
dealing with a family of both men and women, not with a chain of men
incidentally linked by the women who married and mothered them.
This is evident from the fact that the most prominent women in the
chronicles are the daughters, sisters and aunts of kings, not their wives
and mothers. Those wives we do know more about, like Adosinda and
Sancha, gained their own prominence through their royal fathers, at
least initially. The unmarried daughters and sisters, through their re-
ligious status, connect the family to God and to the divine power that
is an essential bulwark to transitory, unstable secular power. The prayers
of the women contrast with the tales of battle told about the men,
which fill much of these chronicles. This is the binar)' opposition cre-
ated within these texts that shows how the gender system worked. The
prayers of the women ensure the success of the family in life; a success
that was measured primarily in terms of military success. Their pious
custody of their clan's physical remains promised the salvation of the
family after death. This role was so important that it was contested by
Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo.
When we read these chronicles not as random and sketchy stories
compiled haphazardly by unskilled writers, but. as works deliberately
constructed of tales chosen for their affective impact and organized
into repeating patterns, in other words as medieval readers might read
them, we learn about the different preoccupations and interests that
led the histories to look the way they do. The patterns that were sup-
posed to teach medieval readers moral lessons about the past through
the affective responses they instilled, teach us about medieval values
and how they shifted. Wc have considered only one aspect of these
chronicles, the way they show a relationship between gender and power.
The chronicles reveal what this relationship was and how it changed
over time.
 Gender in the Early Spanish Chronicles247
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