Ponce Giraldo de Cabrera (floruit 1105–1162), called Ponç Guerau (or Grau) in Catalan or Pons in Occitan, was a Catalan nobleman, courtier and military leader in the kingdoms of León and Castile.

Ponce came to León in the entourage of Berenguela, daughter of Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, when she married King Alfonso VII of León at Saldaña in November 1127.Simon Barton, "Two Catalan Magnates in the Courts of the Kings of León-Castile: The Careers of Ponce de Cabrera and Ponce de Minerva Re-Examined", Journal of Medieval History, 18 (1992), 233–66.Simon Barton, The Aristocracy in León and Castile (Cambridge: 1997), 284–85. Immediately after his arrival, Ponce assumed a position of some importance in the kingdom. By 1143 he held the title of count (Latin comes), the highest rank of the Leonese nobility. By 1145 he had been appointed the king's majordomo, the highest official in the realm.Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VII, 1126–1157 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 163.

Early career (1126–1140)

Catalan origins Ponce was a son of Guerau II de Cabrera, the first viscount of Àger and Girona, and thus a great-grandson of Arnau Mir de Tost.Barton (1992), 236. His mother was Guerau's second wife, Elvira, probably a daughter of the Leonese magnate Pedro Ansúrez and his wife Elo Alfonso. Ponce was born between 1098 and 1105; he had two brothers, Ferrer Guerau and Bernat (Bernard) Guerau, both born before 1100.Jaume Coll i Castanyer, "Els vescomtes de Girona" Annals de l'Institut d'Estudis Gironins, 30 (1988), 39–98. In his father's will of 1131, he was nominated as heir to the greater part of his father's lands and titles. Ponce succeeded his father in 1132 as Viscount Ponç II. By 1145 he had ceded control over Àger and Girona to his son, Guerau III de Cabrera.

In the nineteenth year of King Louis VI of France (1126/7), Ponce witnessed Count Raymond Berengar III of Barcelona grant the guardianship (baiulia) of the young heir to the viscounty of Bas to his seneschal, Guillem Ramon II de Montcada.John C. Shideler, A Medieval Catalan Noble Family: The Montcadas, 1000–1230 (University of California Press, 1999 ), 90. The previous viscount, Udalard, had explicitly requested in his will that his heir, Peter, be entrusted to the care of God and Guillem Ramon. Since Catalonia still nominally belonged to France at that time, charters were customarily dated by the regnal year of the French king. In the charter, Ponce's surname is given as de Capraria. There is a charter dated to 25 October 1122 in which Ponce, using the vicecomital title, pledges fealty to the bishop of Girona, Berenguer Dalmau. If authentic, this charter, found in the Cartoral de Carles Many cartulary, shows that Ponce was already sharing in the government of the Cabrera lands with his father as early as 1122.

Establishing a base of power in western León

The first evidence of Ponce's presence in the kingdom of León is the dating clause of a private charter dated 27 October 1128, which states that it was drawn up while "Ponce Giraldo and his merino Pelayo Peláez [were] ruling the castle of Ulver", that is, modern Cornatel on the southern edge of the Bierzo.The charter's Latin reads: Pontio Quiral imperante castello de Ulver, et majorinus ejus Pelagio Pelayz, quoted in Barton (1992), 237. This charter is preserved in the cartulary (tumbo) of the monastery of San Pedro de Montes, where Ponce seems to have been much esteemed—a charter of a later date refers to him as "the most noble Count Ponce".Tumbo Viejo de San Pedro de Montes, ed. A. Quintana Prieto (León: 1970), 239–40 (Pontio Quiral. . .) and 271–3 (Poncius nobilissimus comes). Ulver had been held by the powerful magnate Ramiro Fróilaz as late as May earlier that year, and by July 1133 it was back in his hands. It is possible that it was returned to his hold much earlier and that Ponce's rule was very brief. It was certainly only at the behest of Alfonso VI that an important castle in the region of one of the most powerful men in the kingdom could be bestowed on a relative newcomer like Ponce.Barton (1992), 238. Ponce later acquired lands in the district of Senabria, south of the Bierzo and across the Sierra de la Cabrera, where charters preserved in the cartulary of San Martín de Castañeda record two property exchanges he made in 1132 and 1135.

Some time earlier Ponce purchased some land at Covelo (now Cubelo de Sanabria) from one Pedro Bellido. On 31 March 1132 he sold the same land to García Pérez and his wife Velasquita for a breastplate, a mule and thirty rolls of linen. In August 1135 he more land "in the territory of Senabria" beside the river Tera to the same couple for a mule valued at fifty morabetinos and a horse worth eighty.in territorio Senabria, in the original words of the charter, found, along with that of 1132, in El tumbo del monasterio de San Martín de Castañeda, ed. A. Rodríguez González (León: 1973), 211–12. Both these donations indicate that at the time "Ponce [was] ruling Senabria."mandante Sanabria Ponce, in the original words of the charters, in Barton (1992), 238 n. 21. His control of Senabria and the surrounding territory lasted until shortly before his death.

Around the same time, between 1129 and 1138, Ponce also came into neighbouring districts of La Cabrera and Morales, which had previously been under the lordship of Ramiro Fróilaz.Ramiro is last recorded in La Cabrera on 5 March 1129, but Ponce is not recorded as lord there before 13 May 1138, although the exchange of power could have taken place any time within those nine years, cf. Barton (1992), 238. Ponce later served closely with Ramiro on several military campaigns. The two even shared the tenancy of Astorga in 1154,As cited in a charter of 6 January 1154, cf. Barton (1992), 247 n. 77. and probably somewhat later that of Villafranca del Bierzo.There they are cited as co-tenants in a document erroneously dated 13 March 1165, cf. Barton (1992), 247 n. 77. A tenancy, known in contemporary sources as a prestimonium, feudum, honor or tenencia, was a piece of crown land given in fief to a nobleman who did homage (hominium) for it to the king. A tenant (tenente) was charged with raising troops from his tenancy in wartime and collecting taxes and administering justice in peacetime. In sparsely populated areas, a tenant was expect to encourage the settlement of his land. Tenancies were not hereditary and varied greatly in size.Barton (1992), 107. The tenancies held by Ponce "display a markedly military aspect", being mainly on the southern or western frontier.

Relationship with the royal court Although Ponce benefited early in his career from royal patronage, he was at first "a fairly peripheral figure ... one among a large number of second-rate Leonese nobles who lacked the wealth and political clout of the great magnates of the realm."Barton (1992), 239. During the first half of Alfonso VII's reign, Ponce was rarely in attendance at the curia regis (royal court), where noble attendees "were expected to counsel the monarch in the day-to-day business of government."Barton (1992), 239, basing his assessment on a survey of Alfonso's surviving charters, which have not yet appeared in an edited collection, although Bernard F. Reilly, "The Chancery of Alfonso VII of León-Castilla: The Period 1116–1135 Reconsidered", Speculum, 51 (1976), 243–61, provides an overview of just the period of Alfonso's reign under consideration. The first record of Ponce at court dates to 25 March 1129, when the court was staying at Palencia and the king made a grant to the archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela, witnessed by Ponce among others. Although he was at court still, or again, on 8 July, that was the last time before 23 March 1131, making his an absence of almost three years. During the decade of the 1130s his attendance at court was sporadic, marked by another three-year absence (28 May 1132 – 29 May 1135) and one of two years (2 October 1136 – 14 September 1138).Barton (1992), 239 n. 27, lists all of the royal charters witnessed by Ponce during this period. The dates when he was present at court were: 15 May and 3 December 1131; 16 September and 20 October 1138; and 14 August, 12 September and 30 November 1139. In 1135 or 1136, he was in Catalonia again, signing a conventientia with his overlord and relative, Count Ermengol VI of Urgell.

The reasons for such prolonged absences cannot be ascertained with certainty today, but at least four possibilities are likely: poor health, the need to visit his Catalan territories, the demands of military campaigns elsewhere, or the loss of royal favour.These are those listed by Barton (1992), 239. In 1139 Ponce took part in the successful Siege of Oreja, where Alfonso reconquered the city from the Muslims.Barton (1992), 243. On 22 February 1140, Ponce was at Carrión de los Condes to witness the treaty between Alfonso VII and Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona, which treaty is preserved in the Liber feudorum maior.Barton (1992), 239 n. 27; Barton (1997), 140. The next year (1141), Ponce joined the punitive expedition Alfonso led against his cousin Afonso Henriques, who had proclaimed himself King of Portugal in contravention to a treaty he had signed with Alfonso. His presence in Portugal is attested in the Chronicon Lusitanum, which reports that he was captured at the Battle of Valdevez, and in a charter given by Alfonso at Santiago de Compostela on 23 September 1141.Barton (1992), 243 n. 51. For the Portuguese campaign, cf. A. Botelho da Costa Veiga, "Ourique – Vale de Vez", Anais: Ciclo da fundação de nacionalidade, I (Lisbon, 1940), 167–68. It is possible that the Catalan fought with distinction in these two wars in Andalusia and Portugal, since shortly afterwards he became a prominent figure at court. As a tenant (tenente) of the crown, he would have been expected to raise a contingent of knights (milites) and infantry (pedites) for the campaigns. In the fall of 1142 Ponce's relationship with the court permanently changed. He confirmed 376 of the 543 charters issued by Alfonso VII after that date, making him the most regular curial attendee among the counts of the kingdom.Reilly (1998), 166.

Prince of the empire (1140–1157)

Prince of Zamora

There is a dubious charter dated 12 February 1140 that refers to Ponce as lord of Castrotorafe and Zamora. The former he is not otherwise recorded as ruling; the latter he is known to have ruled between 6 June 1142 and 6 November 1159. There is a charter slightly earlier, dated 5 April 1142, that refers to Ponce as "Ponce, count in Zamora" (Poncius comite in Zamora), but the use of the comital title is anachronistic, as there is no other evidence he held it before June. There is a more ambitious forgery in the purported fuero of Castrotrafe, dated 2 February 1129, which cites Ponce as "ruling Zamora" (mandante Çamora) over a decade before he is otherwise known to have done so. There is no other evidence of Ponce holding Castrotorafe in lordship, but he is known to have had close contact with the town.Barton (1992), 241, citing I. Alfonso Antón, La colonización Cisterciense en la Meseta del Duero: el dominio de Moreruela (siglos XII–XIV) (Zamora: 1986), 310–02.