Froila (usurper)

Fruela (or Froila) was briefly the king of Asturias in 866 after usurping the throne from Alfonso III.

Prior to seizing the throne, Fruela was a count in or of Galicia. There he presided over a legal hearing in Lugo on 5 June 861. The hearing took place "in the presence of the lord count Fruela [and he] adjudicated it". He later got into a legal dispute over the villa of Carcacía with the diocese of Iria Flavia. After assuming power, he confiscated the land in question.

When Ordoño I died on 27 May 866, his son Alfonso, either fourteen or eighteen years old, succeeded him. A charter issued by Alfonso on 18 June 866 attests to his succession. Sometime after that date, Fruela seized the throne and forced Alfonso into exile in Castile or Álava. Within a few months, the usurper had been assassinated in Oviedo. Alfonso's restoration had taken place by 20 January 867, when he restored to Iria Flavia the land that Fruela had confiscated. This charter was confirmed by Count Rodrigo of Castile, who had evidently returned with Alfonso to Oviedo. He may have had a role in defeating Fruela.

The usurpation of Fruela is not recorded in the Chronicle of Alfonso III, a historical compilation ordered by Alfonso III towards the end of his reign, although Alfonso's charter of January 867 makes oblique reference to it: "the villa of Carcacía, which [belonged] by reason to the church in Iria and that of Saint Eulalia, that unfortunate Fruela seized for himself." It is mentioned in the work of Sampiro, writing the early 11th century, and from Sampiro it was incorporated into the 12th-century Historia Silense. The fullest and earliest account, however, is found in the Chronicle of Albelda from the neighbouring kingdom of Pamplona. This was written around 881:

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