Illegitimacy of Vermudo II

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Illegitimacy of Vermudo II

Legg inn av Gjest » 21 jul 2006 09:41:22

Todd A. Farmerie escreveu:
... or 20th century excess ingenuity (illegitimacy of Vermudo II).


I knew about 3 possible mothers for an illegitimate Vermudo and I
accepted as most probable Elvira Paes, dau. of Paio González, count of
Desa and Ermesinda Guterrez. This is an hipothesis of Almeida Fernandes
based in a document published by García Alvarez as I saw in Mattoso's
_Nobreza Medieval ... _ pag. 121.

But I would like to be enlightened in what you call excess ingenuity.
Was it Almeida Fernandes?

And what are the arguments for and against a childless marriage of
Ordoño III with Urraca Fernández (of Lara)?

Many thanks in advance,

Francisco
(Portugal)

Todd A. Farmerie

Re: Illegitimacy of Vermudo II

Legg inn av Todd A. Farmerie » 22 jul 2006 02:02:22

francisco.tavaresdealmeida@gmail.com wrote:
Todd A. Farmerie escreveu:

... or 20th century excess ingenuity (illegitimacy of Vermudo II).



I knew about 3 possible mothers for an illegitimate Vermudo and I
accepted as most probable Elvira Paes, dau. of Paio González, count of
Desa and Ermesinda Guterrez. This is an hipothesis of Almeida Fernandes
based in a document published by García Alvarez as I saw in Mattoso's
_Nobreza Medieval ... _ pag. 121.

But I would like to be enlightened in what you call excess ingenuity.
Was it Almeida Fernandes?

And what are the arguments for and against a childless marriage of
Ordoño III with Urraca Fernández (of Lara)?


I have not seen some of the more recent work on the subject which you
mention (or at least don'tr recognize it without consulting my
temporarily inaccessible files), but the hypothesis predates them all.
The argument for the supposed illegitimacy of Vermudo II traces back to
Justo Perez de Urbel. He put together an argument based on three data:

1) Vermudo did not succeed his father, but rather Ordono was followed by
his father's first cousin (and husband of his widow) Ordono IV Alfonso.

2) Alfonso V is called in an arab source a name implying impure blood,
which is taken to harmonize with his father being of irregular birth.

3) Most importantly, a diploma of Vermudo II refers to Count Gonzalo
Betotez as his grandfather (IIRC, "avo"). The pedigrees of both Ordono
and Urraca are known completely (or so it is said) back to the time of
Count Gonzalo, and he does not appear.

Based on these, with particular weight on the last, Perez de Urbel
concluded that since Vermudo was certainly son of Ordono he must not
have been son of Ordono's wife, and hence he was illegitimate, born to a
female descendant of Gonzalo Betotez. For reason never entirely clear
to me (and never pursued that closely as I had problems with the
underlying premise, but based in part on a process of elimination but
using an incomplete data set) one of two daughters of Pelayo/Paio
Gonzalez has been selected as likely candidates. In his hypothesis,
Perez de Urbel has been followed by most modern sources, but there were
scholars of repute who did not join him in his opinion, most notably
Emilio Saez Sanchez, who was the foremost authority of his generation on
the Leon royalty and high nobility of the 9th and 10th century.

It is this argument which provides the sole evidence for a childless
Ordono and Urraca - as far as I know, there is no direct evidence that
Vermudo and his sisters were anything but children of the King and Queen.

Fundamentally, all three arguments of Perez de Urbel are flawed. With
regard to the succession, I once counted them out, and only two of 9 (or
so) successions from Fruela I to Vermudo II went from father to son. It
went from brother to brother to nephew to cousin, etc., so the fact that
Vermudo (an infant, legitimate or otherwise) did not succeed his father,
was hardly noteworthy, let alone grounds for questioning his maternity.

As to the second, my memories are vague on this, but the term used was
ambiguous, and it would seem quite odd for a society that barely
distinguished among progeny based on the marital status of the parents'
to call a foreign king by such a name because not his own but his
father's maternity was in question. It seems more likely that some
other perceived oddity or impropriety was being referenced.

Finally, with regard to Gonzalo Betotez, clearly if he was a (great-)
grandfather of Vermudo, then the argument must be accepted, as there is
no place for him in the pedigree of Ordono or Urraca. That is not to
say that the pedigree is known to completion, but where there are gaps,
it seems unlikely to lead to Betotez for geographic and/or political
reasons. Hoewver, there is one aspect of Iberian relational statements
that Perez de Urbel failed to take into account (or perhaps had yet to
be appreciated in his time). There are several examples where an
individual refers to the relations of their spouse as their own. Just
as the term 'grandfather' could extend to 'great-grandfather', it could
also extend to 'wife's grandfather'. At the time of Perez de Urbel's
writing, the ancestry of Vermudo's (first) queen was completely unknown.
However, (and here I am again going from memory) a recently discovered
document gives her the patronnymic Ramirez, and based on the political
and social factors, she has been hypothesized to be daughter of either
Ramiro Gonzalez or of his nephew Ramiro Menendez, the brother and nephew
of Pelayo Gonzalez, both descendants of Gonzalo Betotez. Thus the
strongest (and in fact, the only stand-alone) point in favor of an
illegitimate Vermudo would seem to evaporate, as the appearance of
Gonzalo Betotez in his wife's pedigree removes the need to force the
Count into Vermudo's.

If more recent evidence has surfaced to independently demonstrate an
illegitimate Vermudo, then that might change my evaluation (all
conclusions, after all, are provisional pending the discovery of further
data) but based on my own analysis of Perez de Urbel's hypothesis and
what little has been added by those who follow him, I find no reason to
prefer an illegitimate Vermudo over a legitimate one.

taf

Gjest

Re: Illegitimacy of Vermudo II

Legg inn av Gjest » 22 jul 2006 10:20:33

Thank you very much.

With this data I did some digging in the archives and realised that I
should have done that before I posted the question.

As far as I know, there is no more recent evidence but the problem - if
I may call it so - is that Almeida Fernandes is very respected in
Portugal and his paper to the congress of Genealogy and Heraldics keeps
being accepted and his views were widely divulged by Mattoso's book,
itself an indisputable reference work.

With your permission - wich I will take as granted unless you say
something against here or in pvt - I will take the question to the
portuguese list and post yours ATs with the appropriate credits. It
will not be tottaly *new* as Chico Doria followed some of the threads
some years ago. With some time, I will do the same with queen Teresa's
AT or just the discussions of wich Alfonso, the Catholic or the II.

Francisco
(Portugal)




Todd A. Farmerie escreveu:
francisco.tavaresdealmeida@gmail.com wrote:
Todd A. Farmerie escreveu:

... or 20th century excess ingenuity (illegitimacy of Vermudo II).



I knew about 3 possible mothers for an illegitimate Vermudo and I
accepted as most probable Elvira Paes, dau. of Paio González, count of
Desa and Ermesinda Guterrez. This is an hipothesis of Almeida Fernandes
based in a document published by García Alvarez as I saw in Mattoso's
_Nobreza Medieval ... _ pag. 121.

But I would like to be enlightened in what you call excess ingenuity.
Was it Almeida Fernandes?

And what are the arguments for and against a childless marriage of
Ordoño III with Urraca Fernández (of Lara)?


I have not seen some of the more recent work on the subject which you
mention (or at least don'tr recognize it without consulting my
temporarily inaccessible files), but the hypothesis predates them all.
The argument for the supposed illegitimacy of Vermudo II traces back to
Justo Perez de Urbel. He put together an argument based on three data:

1) Vermudo did not succeed his father, but rather Ordono was followed by
his father's first cousin (and husband of his widow) Ordono IV Alfonso.

2) Alfonso V is called in an arab source a name implying impure blood,
which is taken to harmonize with his father being of irregular birth.

3) Most importantly, a diploma of Vermudo II refers to Count Gonzalo
Betotez as his grandfather (IIRC, "avo"). The pedigrees of both Ordono
and Urraca are known completely (or so it is said) back to the time of
Count Gonzalo, and he does not appear.

Based on these, with particular weight on the last, Perez de Urbel
concluded that since Vermudo was certainly son of Ordono he must not
have been son of Ordono's wife, and hence he was illegitimate, born to a
female descendant of Gonzalo Betotez. For reason never entirely clear
to me (and never pursued that closely as I had problems with the
underlying premise, but based in part on a process of elimination but
using an incomplete data set) one of two daughters of Pelayo/Paio
Gonzalez has been selected as likely candidates. In his hypothesis,
Perez de Urbel has been followed by most modern sources, but there were
scholars of repute who did not join him in his opinion, most notably
Emilio Saez Sanchez, who was the foremost authority of his generation on
the Leon royalty and high nobility of the 9th and 10th century.

It is this argument which provides the sole evidence for a childless
Ordono and Urraca - as far as I know, there is no direct evidence that
Vermudo and his sisters were anything but children of the King and Queen.

Fundamentally, all three arguments of Perez de Urbel are flawed. With
regard to the succession, I once counted them out, and only two of 9 (or
so) successions from Fruela I to Vermudo II went from father to son. It
went from brother to brother to nephew to cousin, etc., so the fact that
Vermudo (an infant, legitimate or otherwise) did not succeed his father,
was hardly noteworthy, let alone grounds for questioning his maternity.

As to the second, my memories are vague on this, but the term used was
ambiguous, and it would seem quite odd for a society that barely
distinguished among progeny based on the marital status of the parents'
to call a foreign king by such a name because not his own but his
father's maternity was in question. It seems more likely that some
other perceived oddity or impropriety was being referenced.

Finally, with regard to Gonzalo Betotez, clearly if he was a (great-)
grandfather of Vermudo, then the argument must be accepted, as there is
no place for him in the pedigree of Ordono or Urraca. That is not to
say that the pedigree is known to completion, but where there are gaps,
it seems unlikely to lead to Betotez for geographic and/or political
reasons. Hoewver, there is one aspect of Iberian relational statements
that Perez de Urbel failed to take into account (or perhaps had yet to
be appreciated in his time). There are several examples where an
individual refers to the relations of their spouse as their own. Just
as the term 'grandfather' could extend to 'great-grandfather', it could
also extend to 'wife's grandfather'. At the time of Perez de Urbel's
writing, the ancestry of Vermudo's (first) queen was completely unknown.
However, (and here I am again going from memory) a recently discovered
document gives her the patronnymic Ramirez, and based on the political
and social factors, she has been hypothesized to be daughter of either
Ramiro Gonzalez or of his nephew Ramiro Menendez, the brother and nephew
of Pelayo Gonzalez, both descendants of Gonzalo Betotez. Thus the
strongest (and in fact, the only stand-alone) point in favor of an
illegitimate Vermudo would seem to evaporate, as the appearance of
Gonzalo Betotez in his wife's pedigree removes the need to force the
Count into Vermudo's.

If more recent evidence has surfaced to independently demonstrate an
illegitimate Vermudo, then that might change my evaluation (all
conclusions, after all, are provisional pending the discovery of further
data) but based on my own analysis of Perez de Urbel's hypothesis and
what little has been added by those who follow him, I find no reason to
prefer an illegitimate Vermudo over a legitimate one.

taf

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