Arias Pérez

Arias Pérez or Peres (fl. 1110–1129) was a Galician knight and military leader in the Kingdom of León. According to modern scholar Richard Fletcher, he was "active, resourceful, spirited and persuasive", and the contemporary Historia compostellana says that he was "so eloquent that he could turn black into white and white into black", although he "was not of the great nobility" (non fuit tamen magnae nobilitatis).

Arias's father, Pedro Arias, was described as a "knight of Deza" (miles de Deza) in a document of 1115. Arias first met Diego Gelmírez, future Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, in childhood. Diego's father Gelmirio was also a Galician knight. At some point Pedro granted an estate, a portion of a certain Villa nova, probably Vilanova de Arousa in Deza, to the church of nearby Compostela. His brother Luzo (Lucius) Arias made a similar donation. On 11 January 1096 Pedro and his brother subscribed a charter whereby Raymond of Galicia gave the village of Pastoriza in the parish of Brandariz in Deza to the monastery of Carboeiro (or Deza); they also signed side by side a document of 24 October 1102. Arias's origins among the lesser nobility is further confirmed by the description of his uncle in the Historia compostellan as of the milites (knights) and not the consules et comites ("consuls and counts", synonymous titles). Arias had a cousin named Leovigildo Luz, mentioned in the Historia, who was the son of his uncle. Arias's paternal grandfather, after whom he was named, was most likely the Arias Luzu who undersigned certain royal documents between 1066 and 1075, including a grant to Carboeiro. In 1062 he witnessed and possibly conducted the survey of an estate at Pastoriza later included in Raymond's 1096 grant to Carboeiro. Between 1095 and 1101 he became villicus terrae of Deza. His wife, Mayor, held land in the Salnés, as did Arias Pérez, who tried several times to acquire more.

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