Vela Gutiérrez

Vela Gutiérrez (died 1160) was a Leonese nobleman. He first founded the convent of Santa María de Nogales in 1150, but it failed and was re-founded as a monastery at later date.

Vela was a son of Count Gutierre Vermúdez. Highly unusually for the son of a count in twelfth-century León, he never attained the rank of count himself. He was addressed only as "my knight" (militi meo) on 14 May 1149, when the Emperor Alfonso VII granted him the village of Morales del Rey with the territory of Nogales in hereditary right "with all its appurtenances ... for his services" (cum toto eius honore ... pro servitio). This likely indicates that he was then serving in the royal military household, it may also indicate that he himself was knighted by Alfonso. After the knighting of the emperor's second son, Fernando, Vela was appointed to serve as his majordomo.

Vela married Sancha Ponce de Cabrera, daughter of Ponce Giraldo de Cabrera. He adopted the arms of her family and had them displayed on the tombs of himself and his wife in the monastery of Nogales. Vela and Sancha donated some houses they owned in the city of León to the monastery of Vega. Beginning sometime after 23 April 1148, probably in 1149, he ruled the fief of La Cabrera, which was granted him by the Crown probably at the request of his father-in-law, who had ceded it for just this purpose, probably to serve as a wedding gift. Vela governed the territory until sometime before 29 September 1156, when it had passed back to Ponce Giraldo.

In April 1150 Vela and Sancha founded a Benedictine nunnery at Nogales with some nuns from the Galician house of San Miguel de Bóveda, then just a priory of San Clodio del Ribeiro. In the foundation charter of the nunnery, which was written up at Salamanca before his father-in-law, Vela thanks Ponce for the help he received from him in acquiring the property on which the convent was to be built from Alfonso. The statement of donation reads thus:

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