Gutierre Fernández de Castro ([) was a nobleman and military commander from the Kingdom of Castile. His career in royal service corresponds exactly with the reigns of Alfonso VII (1126–57) and his son Sancho III (1157–58). He served Alfonso as a courtier after 1134 and as majordomo (1135–38). He was the guardian and tutor the young Sancho III from 1145. Before his death he was also briefly the guardian of Sancho's infant son, Alfonso VIII.
Gutierre took part in several military campaigns of reconquest against the Almoravid Emirate to the south of Castile. In 1139, on the king's orders, he began the successful Siege of Oreja. More often he was occupied defending the eastern frontier from invasion by Aragon or Navarre, and for this purpose the king invested him with many royal fiefs in this region. Towards the end of his life Gutierre was the elder statesman of the Castro family, and he died before his family's rivalry with the Laras developed into open civil war early in the reign of Alfonso VIII. Despite his high standing at court and his illustrious military career, Gutierre was never promoted to the rank of a count, which was the highest title borne by the Castilian aristocracy in the twelfth century.
Family and early life Gutierre, who could not have been born much earlier than 1100, was the eldest son of Fernando García de Hita and his first wife, Tegridia, a relative of the powerful Count Pedro Ansúrez. He had one full brother, Rodrigo Fernández. Gutierre was probably the elder brother. After 1125 their father, Fernando, disappears from the record. Although his death is not recorded, his sons went without him to make their submission to the new king, Alfonso VII, in 1126, after the death of Queen Urraca. According to the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris ("Chronicle of the Emperor Alfonso"), a contemporary history of Alfonso's reign, Gutierre and Rodrigo were accompanied not by their father, but by their uncle, García Garcés de Aza. Although some authors have suggested that Gutierre was an upstart, both he and his brother obtained advantageous marriages to daughters of the highest nobility years before rising to prominence at the royal court and were evidently considered high-born.
In the early 1120s, Gutierre married a woman from the county of Álava, Toda Díaz, daughter of Diego Sánchez, and Enderquina Álvarez, the daughter of Álvar Díaz de Oca and Teresa Ordóñez. She was born before 1109, since by that year her father was dead. On 5 November 1124, Gutierre and Toda received half of the lands owned by her grandmother, Teresa, at Quintanilla Rodano, Quintana Fortuno and Sotopalacios. In 1125, Gutierre and his wife promulgated a fuero (a feudal statute) governing their estate at San Cebrián de Campos. It is the only preserved non-royal fuero from the reign of Urraca. The fuero enumerated the tenants' liabilities. They owed various services (sernas) two days a month on the demesne. These included ploughing, reaping, threshing, digging and pruning. Their lord was to provide them with bread and wine during their every serna, but he only owed them meat on eight of the twenty-four sernas during the year. Tenants had to provide mandadería (messenger duty) once a year at most. If the message took more than one day to deliver, the lord would provide food. The penalty for failure to provide services was a fine. Besides San Cebrián, Gutierre held land at Castrojeriz, his family's "traditional stronghold", where his father and mother had held substantial properties and whence the family derived its name. He also owned land at Arconada.
There is some confusion between Gutierre de Castro and an earlier Gutierre Fernández (flourished 1089–1117), who was Queen Urraca's majordomo. The medievalist Agustín Ubieto Arteta maintains that Gutierre was a page or squire (Latin armiger, perhaps alférez) to King Alfonso VI (1065–1109), which is chronologically impossible. He says that he served Queen Urraca as majordomo and was a tutor to a young Alfonso VII, but in this he is confusing the head of the Castro with the earlier Gutierre. The American historian Bernard Reilly also confuses the majordomo of Alfonso VII with the earlier majordomo of Urraca. Early modern historians, like Esteban de Garibay y Zamalloa and Prudencio de Sandoval, also confused the two, having been misled by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century historians. The earliest of these, Lucas of Tuy, says that shortly after 1100, King Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre attacked the church of San Isidoro de León in order to take its precious stones and gold and silver treasures, but the church was successfully defended by Gutierre Fernández, the "heir of Castile" (heredero de Castilla). Although Lucas believed this person to be Gutierre de Castro, it is chronologically impossible, since the latter would have been only a young child at most. Shortly after Lucas wrote, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, in his Historia de rebus Hispaniae ("History of Spanish Things"), says that Gutierre Fernández de Castro and Gómez González de Manzanedo defended the rights of the magnates against Count Pedro González de Lara, the lover of Queen Urraca. Elaborating on the story of Rodrigo Jiménez a century later, the Primera Crónica General ("First General Chronicle") associates Gutierre with proclaiming Alfonso VII king in opposition to his mother, Urraca, although that was done by Count Pedro Fróilaz de Traba.
Alfonso VII's court
Gutierre did not regularly attend Alfonso VII's court until 1134, but from then until the end of his reign he subscribed as a witness to 497 of 807 known royal charters. Contemporary documents refer to him as "great in the imperial court" (magnus in corte imperatoris). The earliest appearance of Gutierre with the King Alfonso's court was on the occasion of a royal donation to the church of Burgos on 12 July 1128. Gutierre signed the donation in the first column, immediately after the four counts who were present (Pedro González de Lara and his brother Rodrigo González, Rodrigo Martínez and Pedro López). From the beginning of his public career he was preeminent among nobles of the second rank (that is, not counts). His first important public duty, in 1131, was a diplomatic mission to Sayf al-Dawla, the Muslim lord of Rueda de Jalón, who wanted Alfonso's protection from the invading Almoravids of Morocco. According to the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris:
King Zafadola [Sayf al-Dawla] sent ambassadors to the King of León with this message: "Lend me some of your nobles with whom I may come to you in safety." Alfonso was very happy to hear this, and he quickly sent Count Rodrigo Martínez and Gutier Fernández to Zafadola. The latter noble was one of the King's counselors. When they arrived in Rota [Rueda] they were received honorably by King Zafadola. He presented them with magnificent gifts, and then he traveled to the King of León accompanied by them.
Gutierre became Alfonso's majordomo in early 1135 (certainly by February) and he held the office until the autumn of 1138. He is last recorded with the title in a royal charter of 24 October 1138. Alfonso rewarded him for his services by granting some heritable properties at Valderrama to Gutierre and his wife and to his wife's sister, Sancha Díaz de Frías, and her husband, Pedro González. The duties of the majordomo (Latin maiordomus, Spanish mayordomo) are not well known, but he was clearly the highest-ranking of the officers of the court. Traditionally, he was probably in charge of the organization of the court and perhaps also the administration of the royal demesne, but the title may have been largely honorific by the twelfth century, with day-to-day responsibilities delegated to a deputy or submaiordomus. His term as majordomo presented Gutierre opportunities to travel throughout all of Alfonso's realms. In the summer of 1137 he and his brother Rodrigo joined the royal expedition to defend Galicia from a Portuguese invasion. On 26–7 June 1137 Gutierre was at Tuy, after it was reconquered from the Portuguese, and on 29 June he visited Santiago de Compostela. In the autumn of that year he had accompanied the court across the realm to the eastern frontier, where he was at Logroño on 3 October, back at Burgos, the capital of Castile, on 20 October and at Nájera, capital of the Rioja, on 29 October.
On 22 February 1140 Gutierre and his brother Rodrigo were at Carrión de los Condes to witness the treaty between Alfonso and Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. In León on 24 June 1144, King García Ramírez of Navarre married Alfonso's illegitimate daughter, Urraca the Asturian. Gutierre was probably in attendance, since he and Rodrigo Gómez led the honour guard that accompanied the new couple back to Garcías capital of Pamplona after the Leonese ceremonies. A second set of celebrations was then held in Pamplona, as described by the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris: "King García prepared a royal feast for the Castilians and for all the knights and officers of his kingdom. The celebration lasted several days. When it was over, the King gave magnificent gifts to the Castilian nobles, and each of them returned to his land."
Gutierre was almost constantly at the royal court again in 1146–47, when Alfonso led a major campaign of reconquest against the Muslim territories of the south. Some time before 1151 the village of Cántavos requested the municipal council of Almazán and Gutierre to settle disputes and determine the boundaries of the village. On 18 December 1152, Gutierre was part of the council that advised Alfonso VII on his revision of the fueros of Sahagún.
Tenancies Gutierre held several important fiefs (tenencias) from the crown, mainly in eastern Castile, near the frontier with Navarre. On account of his court attendance and military activities, his supervision of these territories must usually have been indirect. His first major tenancy was Calahorra, a city that had once been a part of Navarre and which was located just north of the Navarrese town of Tudela. He replaced Count Rodrigo Martínez—his co-envoy to Sayf al-Dawla in 1131—as fief-holder in Calahorra in 1140. There is ample evidence of Gutierre's methods of indirect rule in Calahorra. As early as 26 February 1140 he had appointed one Martín Fernández his alcalde (mayor or local magistrate). A private charter of 1 March 1142 cites a four-person council (the alcaldes de concejo) sharing in the government of Calahorra. Martín Fernández was probably a relative of Gutierre's, from the house of Ansúrez. Eight private documents between 1 April 1139 (probably mis-dated) and 1151 cite Martín as tenant (tenens) or vicar (vicarius) of Calahorra under Gutierre. Gutierre continued to hold Calahorra down to at least 27 February 1152. The next tenant, Fortún López, had been appointed by 6 July 1152. He may have been a confidante of Gutierre, and had previously held the city under the rule of Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre until 1134.
Gutierre may have held the fortress of Castrojeriz—where he also held property—as early as 23 August 1132. The evidence for his tenancy there is not entirely reliable: four imperfectly preserved royal charters of 1140, 1154 and 1155. There is, however, one original charter from 1146 that records that Gutierre then held Amaya, Burgos and Castrojeriz. There are three further private charters that name him as holding the fortress of Amaya (50 km northwest of Burgos) between 23 April 1148 and 1156, as well as two defective royal charters from 1148. He may have been alcalde of Burgos.