Suero Vermúdez (or Bermúdez) (died 12 August 1138) was an Asturian nobleman, territorial governor, and military leader. His career was marked by loyalty to the crown of León-Castile during the reigns of Alfonso VI, Urraca, and Alfonso VII. He never took part in any revolt, but fought in many wars against rebels, against rivals, and against the Moors.
The primary sources for the life of Suero are the contemporary Historia compostellana and Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris plus some 150 surviving charters which mention, were drawn up by, or were confirmed by Suero. He held extensive lands and many interests in ecclesiastical properties. Out of his enormous wealth he was a generous patron of monasteries, and appears to have favoured the Benedictines and the Cluniac reform. The Chronica describes Suero, one of the few noblemen it praises, as "a man strong in counsel and a seeker of truth" and "a lover of peace and truth and a faithful friend of the king".Barton (2000), quoting CAI, I, §2 (vir in consilio strenuus, veritatisque inquisitor) and §16. Cf. also Fletcher (1978), 162.
Under Alfonso VI Suero Vermúdez was the eldest son of Bermudo Ovéquiz, son of Oveco Vermúdez and Elvira Suárez, and Jimena Peláez, daughter of Pelayo Fróilaz and Aldonza (Eldoncia) Ordóñez.Barton (1997), 300–1.Sánchez Candeira (1950), 494–95, gives his mother the name María. Suero was related—it is not known how—to Rodrigo Vermúdez, a majordomo early in the reign of Alfonso VII (1127–30),Fletcher (1984), 254. Reilly (1982), 220, suggests they were brothers. Rodrigo also confirmed some seventeen diplomas issued by Urraca. and his younger brother Muño was briefly the majordomo of Urraca in September 1109.Reilly (1982), 58. He was also a great-grandson of infante Ordoño Ramírez son of King Ramiro III of León, and infanta Cristina Bermúdez, daughter of Bermudo II of León, and thus a descendant of royalty and very distant relative of his contemporary sovereigns. Cristina had founded the Benedictine monastery of San Salvador at Cornellana in 1024 and it had been divided up between her heirs.Barton (1997), 215–16. Regaining complete control of the monastery and its properties would be a major preoccupation of Suero. Besides his descent from King Vermudo II, Suero could claim kinship with Vermudo's enemy in Galicia, Count Suero Gundemáriz. Suero is commonly referred to in contemporary documents simply and unambiguously as "Count Suero" (Comes Suarius), without reference to his father.For example, he confirms eighteen royal diplomas of Queen Urraca as Suero Vermúdez and another thirteen as just Count Suero, cf. Reilly (1982), 220.
The earliest secure reference to Suero is as a young man in 1092. There is a mangled record of a donation by Suero to the monastery of Lourenzá dated 10 March 1094, but which, if accurate, must be dated later than 1100, since Suero appears in the donation with a title he did not then possess. According to a document dated 28 March 1098, Suero was then serving Count Raymond of Galicia as armiger or standard-bearer (alférez). There is no other mention of this appointment, although a certain Suero Núñez who was his alférez on 1 May 1096 may be the same person with his patronymic erroneously copied.Reilly (1988), 277. There is also only one record of Suero's first tenencia, a jurisdictional fief held directly from the crown and at royal pleasure. According to a charter copied into the tumbo (cartulary) of Lourenzá, Suero was governing Vilarente on 28 August 1099. He may also have governed Monterroso, an important fief in Galicia, under Count Raymond.Reilly (1982), 219–20. By 1 April 1101 he was a count (comes), the highest rank in the kingdom, bestowed only by the sovereign. During the rest of the reign of Alfonso VI Suero held only one other tenencia: Rábade, where he is known to have been ruling between 23 January and 5 March 1104.
Supporter of Urraca Suero married Enderquina Gutiérrez, daughter of Gutierre Rodríguez and an important member of the Castilian aristocracy. On 30 December 1110 she received a grant from Queen Urraca and was styled comitissa (countess). Since women were not granted that title independently but used it only in the case that their husbands were counts, by this time Enderquina must have been married to Suero. On 27 June 1114 the couple made a gift of land at Torre de Babia to a certain vassal of theirs, Pelayo Fróilaz, for his loyal service.This, at least, is a probable explanation for the donation, which is not explained in the surviving charter. For more on this minor but well-connected Pelayo, cf. Barton (1997), 73–74 and 77. It is the first of series of donations between 1114 and 1129 that the couple made displaying their magnificent landed wealth.Barton (1997), 69. On 9 February 1116 Suero is cited in one charter as ruling the city and towers of León, the old imperiale culmen (imperial summit). It is probable that he also ruled the surrounding country. He certainly owned property in León, and he may have previously been its count in 1114.Barton (1997), 80 and 209. He is described as legionensium comes (count of the Leonese), possibly a mere title with no attendant jurisdiction.Reilly (1982), 293. Over the next fifteen years he appears governing briefly at Gordón, Astorga, Cordove,There are charters respectively for 3 December 1119, 12 May 1127, and 15 February 1130: Barton, 300. and, in 1131, in Laciana and Paredes.
After the marriage of Alfonso VI's heiress, Urraca, to the King of Aragon and Navarre, Alfonso the Battler, in 1110, Suero consistently supported the queen against her husband. He was one of those who had confirmed Urraca's first act as successor of her husband Raymond in Galicia in December 1107.Reilly (1982), 48. Only a day after the burial of Alfonso VI, on 22 July 1109, Suero was again one of those who confirmed Urraca's first act as successor.Reilly (1982), 56. After the coronation of the queen's son by Raymond of Galicia, Alfonso VII, in September 1111, Suero, owing in part to his proximity to the Galician power base of Alfonso VII's backers, was the queen's most important supporter. By the fall of 1116 negotiations had begun between Urraca and Alfonso at Sahagún. According to the Historia compostellana, Suero and fellow Asturian Munio Peláez were the main defenders of the former, while the latter was supported by Diego Gelmírez, Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, and Pedro Fróilaz de Traba.Reilly (1982), 114. At Sahagún it was agreed to divide the realm into two spheres of authority, but these are not defined, although Galicia went undoubtedly to Alfonso VII. The accord was to last three years.
In February 1117, however, Suero confirmed a diploma of Alfonso the Battler's as "Count Suero of Luna", perhaps having received Luna, in the mountains of León, from Alfonso.Barton (1997), 300 n14: Comes Suarius de Luna. Suero can be further cited ruling Luna between 14 April 1117 and 27 March 1131. Suero and Enderquina received a gift of royal largesse as a reward for their loyal service ("in return for service", propter servicium) on 27 April 1120 from Urraca.Fletcher (1984), 145. On 26 March 1128 they received a second gift from Alfonso VII.
On 29 May 1117 Suero and Enderquina exchanged the monasteries of San Salvador de Perlora and San Andrés de Pravia with Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo for the monastery of San Juan de Teverga.Barton (1997), 189–90. This transaction was made in León, where it was confirmed by Urraca.Reilly (1982), 123. On 4 March 1120 or 1121 Suero and Enderquina granted some properties they owned in Burgos to the Cathedral of Burgos. This charter survives in its original in the archives of the cathedral.Reilly (1982), 155.
Donations of Cornellana In 1120 Suero made several deals with his relatives to gain control over their shares of the monastery of Cornellana, thus gaining sole proprietorship.Barton (1997), 41. That year he made two donations to the monastery (22 January and 8 November). At Lugo on 7 March 1122, in the presence of the royal court, Suero and Enderquina donated Cornellana to the Abbey of Cluny.Barton (1997), 39 n68 and 187. The authenticity of the charter of this donation has been called into question, but these doubts have been dismissed by Barton, 216. According to the charter's first editor, it survived as an original in Paris, cf. Reilly (1982), 164. Along with Cornellana itself they donated a block of properties "acquired by inheritance or by [their] own efforts" (de parentibus nostris vel de nostris ganantiis, "from our parents and from our purchases").Fletcher (1978), 162–63 All the lands Cluny received amounted to "fifty-six different properties scattered across a vast area, as well as four monasteria [monastic centres], six churches and a castle (castellum)." Suero had received one church (ecclesiam) and three or four monasteries (monasteria) from Queen Urraca "by charter" (per incartationes), another three and a half churches plus a portion (portionem) in another he had inherited (called hereditates) or purchased (called gananciales). These were all proprietary churches he owned, but the difference between ecclesiae and monasteria is not clear. Cluny also received estates (villas) and male and female slaves (servos et ancillas). The donation was confirmed by Urraca, Alfonso VII, the queen's daughter Sancha Raimúdez, Diego Gelmírez, Pelayo of Oviedo, Diego of León, Peter III of Lugo, the prior of the monastery of San Zoilo de Carrión, and a "curious mixture of [lay] Galicians and Asturians".Reilly (1982), 164. The charter was drawn up by a canon of the Cathedral of León who had probably followed the royal court to Lugo.
In December 1128 Suero and his wife reversed their prior donation of Cornellana to Cluny and bestowed it instead on the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo; the total endowment of properties this time was about half the size of the prior donation to Cluny, and included two inns they owned in León. Further, the donation stipulated that "if they or any of their kin became destitute, ill or disabled they were to be cared for in the abbey for the rest of their lives."Barton (1997), 202. This second donation of Cornellana was confirmed in the presence of the royal court by no less than seventeen of the eighteen bishops of Alfonso's kingdoms.Reilly (1998), 27.
Suero also made a generous pious donation to the Cathedral of Lugo on 19 May 1118 on the condition that the cathedral canons should perform a Mass for the sake of his soul every day for a year after his death and thereafter once a year on the anniversary of his death.Barton (1997), 207–8. In 1130 a synod held at Carrión dealt with the claims of Cluny to the monastery of Cornellana, disputes which had arisen from Suero and Enderquina's reversal of a prior grant.Barton (1997), 132. This grant had been one of the largest Cluny had received in Spain, and they argued to the Papal legate Uberto Lanfranchi at Carrión that in 1128 they had been "unjustly despoiled". The synod appears to have sided with Cluny, for Humbert sent a letter to Peter the Venerable, the abbot of Cluny, claiming that Suero and Alfonso VII were simply slow to comply. Cluny was still laying claim to Cornellana over 160 years later.
Control of Asturias Suero was one of the leading magnates of Asturias. He ruled Babia from at least 14 April 1117 and Tineo from at least 26 May 1120. He was still ruling these places as late as 21 May 1136, when he is cited in the same document as also governing the western half of Asturias centred on Oviedo. He was described as count "in Asturias" and Vadabia (Babia) in another private document of the same year.Reilly (1998), 177. Bernard Reilly has suggested that it was around 1120 that Urraca began extending Suero's authority north out of the province of León and the Bierzo and into western Asturias.Reilly (1982), 365–66.