Guzman the Good

Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, better known as Guzmán el Bueno (León, January 24, 1256 – Gaucín, September 19, 1309), first lord of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, was a soldier and nobleman from Leon, founder of the house of Medina Sidonia, formed by his male descendants.

Biography

Alonso Pérez de Guzmán born on January 24, 1256 in León, was the bastard son of Isabel, who died in childbirth, and Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, adelantado mayor of Castile, and therefore grandson of Guillén Pérez de Guzmán.

There is evidence that his public life took place between 1276 and 1309. As a soldier he intervened in the internal struggles of the Marinid Maghreb. After the North African incursions in Lower Andalusia in 1275, he mediated the truce established between the Merinid sultan Yusuf and Alfonso X the Wise in 1276. At the end of 1281 or the beginning of 1282, he intervened in the pact between the aforementioned Yusuf and Alfonso X, by virtue of which the Merinid sultan would help the Castilian monarch against the rebellious infante Don Sancho.

In 1282, the Wise King rewarded Guzmán's services with the town of Alcalá Sidonia, today Alcalá de los Gazules, which he would exchange that same year for Donadío de Monteagudo (today a farmhouse in the municipality of Sanlúcar de Barrameda). In addition, the king married him to María Alfonso Coronel, a rich woman who would contribute a very important dowry to the marriage, made up of houses in the collación (parishion) of San Miguel in Seville, olive groves of Torrijos (today a farm in Valencina de la Concepción), olive groves of La Robaína (in Pilas), the town of Bollullos de la Mitación, the aceñas (water-powered mills) that used to be on the Guadalete river next to Jerez de la Frontera, the La Ina vineyard (today a rural neighborhood in Jerez de la Frontera) and the El Barroso vineyard (today farmhouse in Jerez de la Frontera).

With the accession to the throne of Sancho IV, Guzmán marched again to the Merinid sultanate of Fez, making a great fortune with which he would expand his properties. He bought more olive groves in Aljarafe, more houses in Seville, La Algaba, Alaraz, Vado de las Estacas (in Alcalá del Río), Santiponce, the town of Ayamonte and its castle, Lepe, La Redondela (in Isla Cristina), the half of the town (today the city) of El Puerto de Santa María, the Vilaraña meadow (in El Puerto de Santa María), the Donadío de Ventosilla (today a farmhouse located between Sanlúcar and Jerez) and the Donadío de Alixar (today Alijar, farmhouse between Sanlúcar and Jerez).

Castillo de Tarifa. According to the famous legend, Guzman threw from his walls a knife to kill his kidnapped son before giving the place to his enemy.

Legend and death

Guzmán el Bueno throwing his dagger at the Tariff Hillby the artist Salvador Martínez Cubells.

Later, in 1294, Sancho IV himself resorted to Guzmán for the defense of Tarifa, a place threatened by the infant Don Juan, brother of the monarch, with the help of the Merinids and Nasrids. There the famous heroic defense of Tarifa took place, with the death of Guzmán's innocent youngest son, turned into a legend. According to this, Guzmán el Bueno threw a dagger so that they would kill his own son with it rather than succumb to the blackmail that the besiegers did to him for having managed to capture him. An ancient romance exclaimed: «Kill him with this one, if you have determined it, that I want more honor without a son, than a son with my honor stained».

After the feat of Tarifa, Sancho IV verbally promised him the Señorío de Sanlúcar, which included the places and towns of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Rota, Chipiona and Trebujena. However, it was his son Fernando IV who made said favor effective in 1297. Over time, Sanlúcar would become the main site of the house. In 1299 he received the grant of the Conil almadraba and its almadraba and in 1303 Chiclana de la Frontera. In 1307 he received the Lordship of Vejer de la Frontera, in exchange for Zafra and Alconera, in Extremadura. He likewise received the Lordship of Marchena and a withholding on the revenues of Medina-Sidonia.

On the death of Guzmán el Bueno in Gaucín, in the Serranía de Ronda, fighting on the border with the Kingdom of Granada with the Merinid general Ozmín, the dimensions of his domains and properties in the Seville Aljarafe district, the area Huelva's border area, the Lower Guadalquivir and the Guadalete area, made the House of Guzmán the most important lineage of the high nobility in Andalusia during the Late Middle Ages.

However, the house lost part of its original properties due to the marriage dowries and the testament of María Alfonso Coronel made in 1330. By these means, her daughter Isabel Pérez de Guzmán, married to Fernán Ponce de León, contributed to the future Casa de Arcos, the Señorío de Marchena, withholding on the income from Medina-Sidonia, the towns of Rota and Chipiona and, apparently, half of Ayamonte. Similarly, another daughter of the couple, Leonor Pérez de Guzmán, married in 1306 to Luis de la Cerda, bequeathed El Puerto de Santa María to the future House of Medinaceli together with Villafranca, Alijar and other estates.

The tombs of Guzmán el Bueno and María Alfonso Coronel, made by Juan Martínez Montañés, are in the church of the Monastery of San Isidoro del Campo in Santiponce. There is a legend that attributes to Guzmán el Bueno the feat of having killed a dragon, called "la sierpe de Fez".

Marriage and offspring

The following children were born as a result of his marriage to María Alonso Coronel:

• Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (m. 1351), II Sr. de Sanlúcar de Barrameda. He first married Beatriz Ponce de León, granddaughter of King Alfonso IX de León and daughter of Fernán Pérez Ponce de León, a major advance of the border of Andalusia, and his wife Urraca Gutiérrez de Meneses. He subsequently married a second marriage to Urraca Osorio.
• Pedro Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (m. 1294). He was killed before the walls of the city of Tarifa in 1294, in order to get his father, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, to surrender the fortress, which was besieged by the troops of Infante Don Juan, who wanted to usurp the throne of his brother Sancho IV.
• Leonor de Guzmán (m. after 1341). He contracted marriage with Luis de la Cerda, grandson of Alfonso X de Castilla, King of Castile and Lion and Lion]].
• Isabel de Guzmán, Mrs. Rota and Chipiona. He married Fernando Ponce de León, IV master of Marchena, and son of Fernán Pérez Ponce de León and Urraca Gutiérrez de Meneses.

Hypothesis about its origin

Generally, historiography considers that Guzmán el Bueno came from the city of León. This same thesis is reflected in the General Chronicle of Spain in the volume referring to the province of León by José García de la Foz, which on p. 70 says:

Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (the Good) was born in León on January 24, 1256, he was the son of Pedro Núñez de Guzmán and Doña Urraca Alfonso, daughter of King D. Alfonso el Onceno. He left León at the age of 19 with other gentlemen to fight the Moors at the borders of Estremadura. He gave great samples of value in the lands of Jaen, and has a long military history full of interesting vials, having also fought in Africa at the service of the Moors; but not against Christians, but against their natural enemies. What made him most famous was the heroic defense he made of the square of Tarifa, which was entrusted by King D. Sancho. Neither the offerings, nor the most cruel threats of Infante D. John, were able to break their fidelity; they brought to that point their virtue which from the wall saw the barbarous and crude sacrifice of their own son. This act of sublime heroism. Well, according to the famous letter addressed to him from Seville by the king... He died in the Serrania de Gaucin, after having won the Moors to Gibraltar.

However, the historian Wenceslao Segura González maintains that there are no documents from the time that attest to his place of birth, so he doubts that he was born in León and points rather to the branch of the Guzmán family than had settled in Andalusia after the conquest of the region by Ferdinand III of Castile.

For her part, Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, XXI Duchess of Medina Sidonia, recently developed the singular theory, presented in the Bettany Hughes documentary "When the Moors Ruled in Europe" (2005), that Guzmán the Bueno would have actually been Arab. According to Víctor Amela, the Duchess also claimed that Guzmán el Bueno had been born in America, centuries before Columbus discovered it. Historians never gave credibility to the theories of Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo.

Predecessor: -

Lord of Sanlúcar 1297-1309

Successor: Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y Coronel