Guzmán el Bueno

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For other uses, see Alonso Pérez de Guzmán el bueno y Zúñiga and his descendant.
Guzmán el Bueno
Portrait of Alonso Pérez de Guzmán. Engraving by Manuel Alegre from a drawing by José Maea after a painting by Anton van Dyck
Born
Alonso Pérez de Guzmán

(1256-01-24)24 January 1256
León, Crown of Castile
Died19 September 1309(1309-09-19) (aged 53)
Gaucín
Other nameel Bueno ("the Good")
SpouseMaría Alonso Coronel
ChildrenSee Marriage and issue.
Parents
  • Pedro Núñez de Guzmán (father)
  • Isabel (mother)
FamilyHouse of Guzmán and House of Medina Sidonia

Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, better known as Guzmán el Bueno ("Guzmán the Good") (León, January 24, 1256[1] – Gaucín, September 19, 1309), first Lord of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, was a Leonese military leader and nobleman, founder of the House of Medina Sidonia, formed by his descendants in the male line.

Biography

Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, born on January 24, 1256, in León, was the natural son of Isabel, who died in childbirth, and of Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, Adelantado Mayor of Castile, and therefore the grandson of Guillén Pérez de Guzmán.[2]

His public life is documented between 1276 and 1309. As a military man he took part in the internal struggles of the Marinid Maghreb. After the North African incursions into Lower Andalusia in 1275, he mediated in the truce established between the Marinid Sultan Yusuf and Alfonso X the Wise in 1276. At the end of 1281 or the beginning of 1282, he took part in the pact between the aforementioned Yusuf and Alfonso X, by virtue of which the Marinid Sultan would help the Castilian Monarch against the rebellious Infante Don Sancho.

In 1282, the Wise King rewarded Guzmán's services with the town of Alcalá Sidonia, today Alcalá de los Gazules, which he would exchange that same year for the Donadío of Monteagudo (today a cortijo in the municipal territory of Sanlúcar de Barrameda). In addition, the King married him to María Alfonso Coronel, a wealthy woman who would bring a very substantial dowry to the marriage, consisting of houses in the collación (parish) of San Miguel in Seville, the olive groves of Torrijos (today a hacienda in Valencina de la Concepción), the olive groves of La Robaína (in Pilas), the town of Bollullos de la Mitación, the aceñas (water-powered mills) on the Guadalete river next to Jerez de la Frontera, the vineyard district of La Ina (today a rural neighborhood in Jerez de la Frontera) and the vineyard district of El Barroso (today a cortijo in Jerez de la Frontera).

With the accession of Sancho IV to the throne, Guzmán went once again to the Marinid Sultanate of Fez, making a great fortune with which he would expand his properties. He bought more olive groves in the Aljarafe, more houses in Seville, La Algaba, Alaraz, the Vado de las Estacas (in Alcalá del Río), Santiponce, the town of Ayamonte and its castle, Lepe, La Redondela (in Isla Cristina), half of the town (today city) of El Puerto de Santa María, the dehesa of Vilaraña (in El Puerto de Santa María), the Donadío of Ventosilla (today a cortijo located between Sanlúcar and Jerez) and the Donadío of Alixar (today Alijar, a cortijo between Sanlúcar and Jerez).

Castle of Tarifa. According to the famous legend, Guzmán threw a knife from its walls so that his kidnapped son would be killed rather than surrender the place to his enemy.

Legend and death

Guzmán el Bueno throwing his dagger at the siege of Tarifa, by the artist Salvador Martínez Cubells.

Later, in 1294, Sancho IV himself turned to Guzmán for the defense of Tarifa, a stronghold threatened by the Infante Don Juan, the Monarch's brother, with the help of the Marinids and Nasrids. There took place the celebrated heroic defense of Tarifa, with the death of Guzmán's innocent younger son, which became a legend. According to it, Guzmán el Bueno threw down a dagger so that they could kill his own son with it rather than give in to the blackmail of the besiegers, who had managed to capture him. To this day, this event is recalled to all visitors to the city of Tarifa, as it is a heroic gesture whose memory has survived to the present day. An old ballad exclaimed: «Kill him with this, if you have so determined, for I would rather have honor without a son than a son with my honor stained.»

After the feat of Tarifa, Sancho IV verbally promised him the Lordship of Sanlúcar, whose territory included the places and settlements of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Rota, Chipiona and Trebujena. However, it was his son Ferdinand IV who made this grant effective in 1297. Over time, Sanlúcar would become the principal seat of the house. In 1299 he received the grant of the almadraba of Conil and its almadraba, and in 1303 Chiclana de la Frontera. In 1307 he received the Lordship of Vejer de la Frontera, in exchange for Zafra and Alconera, in Extremadura. He likewise received the Lordship of Marchena and a retention on the revenues of Medina-Sidonia.

At the death of Guzmán el Bueno in Gaucín, in the Serranía de Ronda, fighting on the frontier with the Kingdom of Granada against the Marinid general Ozmín, the extent of his lordships and properties in the Sevillian alfoz of the Aljarafe, the border area of Huelva, the Bajo Guadalquivir and the area of the Guadalete made the House of Guzmán the most important lineage of the high nobility in Andalusia during the Late Middle Ages.

Nevertheless, the house lost part of its original properties due to marriage dowries and to the will of María Alfonso Coronel, made in 1330. In these ways, his daughter Isabel Pérez de Guzmán, married to Fernán Ponce de León, brought to the future House of Arcos the lordship of Marchena, the retention on the revenues of Medina-Sidonia, the towns of Rota and Chipiona and, it seems, half of Ayamonte. Likewise, another daughter of the couple, Leonor Pérez de Guzmán, married in 1306 to Luis de la Cerda, bequeathed to the future House of Medinaceli El Puerto de Santa María together with Villafranca, the Alijar and other estates.

The tombs of Guzmán el Bueno and María Alfonso Coronel, made by Juan Martínez Montañés, are located in the church of the Monastery of San Isidoro del Campo in Santiponce. There is a legend that attributes to Guzmán el Bueno the feat of having killed a dragon, called "the serpent of Fez" ("la sierpe de Fez").[3]

Marriage and issue

From his marriage to María Alonso Coronel the following children were born:

Hypotheses about his origin

Historiography generally holds that Guzmán el Bueno came from the City of León. This same thesis is reflected in the Crónica General de España, in the volume devoted to the Province of León by José García de la Foz, which on p. 70 says:

Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (el Bueno) was born in León on January 24, 1256; he was the son of D. Pedro Núñez de Guzmán and Doña Urraca Alfonso, daughter of King D. Alfonso the Eleventh. He left León at the age of 19 with other knights to fight the Moors on the frontiers of Extremadura. He gave great proofs of valor in the lands of Jaén, and has a long military history full of interesting adventures, having also fought in Africa in the service of the Moors; but not against the Christians, rather against their natural enemies. What has made him most famous... was the heroic defense he made of the stronghold of Tarifa, which King D. Sancho had entrusted to him. Neither the offers nor the cruelest threats of the Infante D. Juan could break his loyalty; his virtue carried to such a point that from the wall he watched the barbarous and bloody sacrifice of his own son. This act of sublime heroism. Bueno, as stated in the famous letter that the aforementioned King addressed to him from Seville... He died in the Serranía de Gaucín, after having won Gibraltar from the Moors.

However, the historian Wenceslao Segura González maintains that there are no documents from the period attesting to his place of birth, and he therefore doubts that he was born in León and points rather to the branch of the Guzmán family that had settled in Andalusia after the conquest of the region by Ferdinand III of Castile.[4]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Nasquió Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán mio señor, i padre, segund que en sus escrituras yo fallé, dia de San Ildefonso a veinte i quatro de Janero era de mil doscientos e noventa e quatro año (...)
    Converting the date given by his son to our current calendar, it corresponds to January 24, 1256.
    LUNA, José Carlos de, Historia de Gibraltar, Madrid, Gráficas Uguina, 1944, p. 101.
  2. ↑ Sánchez Saus, Rafael. "Alonso Pérez de Guzmán en la Real Academia de la Historia" (in español).
  3. ↑ Antonio Romero-Dorado. Guzmán el Bueno y la sierpe de Fez. Cartare. Boletín del Centro de Estudios de la Costa Noroeste de Cádiz. No. 5. 2015. Pp. 31-64. (in Spanish)
  4. ↑ Huerga, Luis V (January 24, 2016). "Guzmán el Bueno cumple 760 años con la incógnita sobre su origen". Diario de León.es (in español).

Bibliography

  • González Mínguez, César (1995). Fernando IV, 1295-1312 (in español) (1st ed.). Palencia: Editorial La Olmeda S.L. ISBN 84-8173-027-0.
  • De Loaysa, Jofré; García Martínez, Antonio (1982). Academia Alfonso X el Sabio, Colección Biblioteca Murciana de bolsillo No. 27 (ed.). Crónicas de los Reyes de Castilla Fernando III, Alfonso X, Sancho IV y Fernando IV (1248-1305) (in español). Latin and Castilian (2nd ed.). Murcia. ISBN 84-00-05017-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)
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