page_title: Fruela Díaz
section_title: Fiefs of the crown
hierarchical_section_title: Fruela Díaz / Fiefs of the crown
caption_attribution_description: Vista de San vicente del Pino, en Monforte
context_page_description: Fruela Díaz, known in contemporary sources as Froila Didaci or Didaz, was a nobleman in the Kingdom of León, the dominant figure in the centre of the realm during the late reign of Alfonso VI and the early reign of Urraca. A man of great private wealth who expanded his landholdings through numerous purchases, he was able to marry royalty and maintain good terms with his sovereigns of León as well as the rulers of Galicia and Portugal, whose territories lay immediately to the west of his area of influence. He also founded a hospital, a traveller's inn and a settlement that grew into a town. His lands raised some of the most valuable horses in Spain, he was buried in the royal pantheon of the kings of León, and his high rank—highest in the kingdom after the king and the rulers of Galicia and Portugal—is remembered in the most famous of cantares de gesta.
context_section_description: Both of Fruela's grandfathers were counts and by 14 May 1087 he also held that rank. Not long thereafter, in 1091, he was granted the fief (tenencia) of Valdeorras in Galicia, which he held until 1104. Such tenencias were held ad imperandum, to be governed and could be revoked by the monarch at any time. They were distinct from the count's private holdings, lands ad possidendum, which he owned and which the monarch could not alienate. The only other fiefs he held for more than a year or two were Sarria (1098–1103), Larín (1102–06), and the important episcopal city of Astorga (1107–17). The rule of Astorga probably carried limited rights in the city itself but extensive powers in the surrounding region. It is with Astorga that Fruela is most commonly associated after 1107. On 10 April 1104, according to a royal charter now lost, Fruela and his wife founded a settlement at the foot of the castle called castro Dactonio in the fiefdom of Sarria on land owned by the monastery of San Vicente del Pino. This settlement became the town of Monforte de Lemos, which Fruela held as a tenencia until 1111, when it passed to Rodrigo Vélaz.
  Late in his life Fruela briefly acquired the fiefs of Aguilar (1111–12), Riba de Esla (1113), and Cifuentes de Rueda (1117–19). He also governed the Bierzo for a time, probably in 1115. In 1116 he made a donation of land at Puerto de Pajares to the Augustinian canons of the collegiate church of Santa María at Arbas del Puerto. This land, in the mountains of the Asturias, was intended for the construction of a hostel for travellers, which operated until as late as 1835. The full text of the diploma has now been lost, and it is suspected that it may have included a fuller will and testament, since Fruela was then in his old age.
caption: The fortified monastery of San Vicente del Pino sits on a hill overlooking Monforte de Lemos. Archaeological excavations in 2007 indicate that the Castro Dactonio likely stood on the same hill when Fruela founded the town at its foot in 1116.
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