Gonzalo Núñez de Lara

Gonzalo Núñez (fl. 1059 – 1106) was an early member of the House of Lara, whom modern historians and genealogists agree is the first clearly identifiable member of this lineage. The House of Lara was one of the most important ones in the kingdoms of Castile and León and several of its members played a prominent role in the history of medieval Spain. Possibly related to the Salvadórez, the sons of Salvador González and, by marriage, to the Alfonsos from Tierra de Campos and Liébana, as well as the Álvarez from Castile, Gonzalo was most probably a descendant of the Counts of Castile.

The filiation proposed by Luis de Salazar y Castro in his work on the House of Lara, has been accepted for centuries although several modern historians question its accuracy. According to Salazar y Castro, Gonzalo was the third member of this lineage with that name and was a descendant of the counts of Castile as the son of a Nuño or Munio González who would have been the son of Gonzalo Fernández, the first-born of count Fernán González. The author, however, confuses several namesakes, assuming that they are the same person, and does not provide any documentary evidence sustaining that filiation. Moreover, according to medieval charters, Gonzalo Fernández, the son of Fernán González, appears for the last time on 29 June 959 and in February 984 his widow, Fronilde Gómez, made a donation for the soul of her deceased husband to the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña and only mentions one son named Sancho.

Ramón Menéndez Pidal in La España del Cid (1929) believed that Gonzalo Núñez was the son of a Munio or Nuño Salvadórez who would have been the brother of Gonzalo Salvadórez. The historian María del Carmen Carlé in her work "Gran Propiedad y grandes propietarios" (1973) suggested a relationship with the Salvadórez. According to her hypothesis, the relationship would be through Goto González, a daughter of Gonzalo Salvadórez and wife of Nuño Álvarez, who would have been the parents of Gonzalo Núñez de Lara. Nevertheless, according to several charters, Goto González Salvadórez was married to the Asturian count Fernando Díaz, brother of Jimena Díaz the wife of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. Nuño Álvarez, who died in 1065, was the tenente in Amaya and Carazo and his family owned properties in the land between the Arlanzón and the Duero rivers, which would explain the "power of the Lara in the region".

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