Fruela Díaz

Fruela (or Froila) Díaz (died 1119), known in contemporary sources as Froila Didaci or Didaz, was a nobleman in the Kingdom of León, the dominant figure in the centre of the realm during the late reign of Alfonso VI and the early reign of Urraca. A man of great private wealth who expanded his landholdings through numerous purchases, he was able to marry royalty and maintain good terms with his sovereigns of León as well as the rulers of Galicia and Portugal, whose territories lay immediately to the west of his area of influence. He also founded a hospital, a traveller's inn and a settlement that grew into a town. His lands raised some of the most valuable horses in Spain, he was buried in the royal pantheon of the kings of León, and his high rank—highest in the kingdom after the king and the rulers of Galicia and Portugal—is remembered in the most famous of cantares de gesta.

Fruela's origins lay in the Asturias, although his parentage is nowhere explicitly stated in surviving sources.Ramón Menéndez Pidal believed that Fruela was the brother of Jimena Díaz, wife of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, but this is unlikely. In fact Fruela's wife was the sister of Ramiro Sánchez, husband of Rodrigo's daughter Christina. It has been suggested that Fruela was a son of Diego Ansúrez and thus a nephew of Pedro Ansúrez, but this hypothesis has little to recommend it besides the patronymic Díaz ("son of Diego"). Fruela's father was probably Diego Pérez, a son of Pedro Flaínez and Bronilde. His mother was Mayor (María) Fróilaz, daughter of Froila Múñoz. A charter of the Cathedral of Oviedo, dated 5 April 1078, reads in part: "I, Mayor Fróilaz, known as María, at the same time with my sons named Fruela Díaz and Antonio Díaz, who are sons of Diego Pérez and grandsons of Count Pedro Flaínez ..."

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