Silo of Asturias

Silo or Silón (d. Pravia, 783) was King of Asturias between 774 and 783. He succeeded King Aurelio when he acceded to the throne because he was married to Adosinda, daughter of King Alfonso I the Catholic. He transferred the court to Pravia and was a contemporary of Abderramán I, Umayyad emir of Córdoba, and of Charlemagne, king of the Franks.

Biography

Access to the throne

He succeeded King Aurelio I of Asturias in 774 and reigned until his death in 783. At that time, accession to the throne was elective, as it had been in the Visigothic kingdom, but restricted to the ruling families. It passed from father to son preferably or, if this was not possible, to the husband of the king's daughter, as in the case of Alfonso I and Silo, or to another male from the royal families in a position to govern.

However, it is a much-discussed matter and there are various theories: Visigothic type election, the indigenista one of matrilineal succession and the hereditary one within the royal lineage explained above. The case of Silo's accession to the throne is one of the most discussed and justified in each of these theories.

Main events of his reign

He lived in peace with the Muslims, according to the Albeldense Chronicle, ob causam matris (because of his mother), which can mean either that his His mother was a Muslim with some kind of ascendancy over Abderramán I, or that his mother was sent to Córdoba as a hostage, but it really is a very dark phrase for which there is no plausible explanation.

Statue of King Silo. Pravia (Asturias)

The Muslim inactivity regarding the kingdom of Asturias can be explained by the fact that Silo's reign coincided with the intervention of Charlemagne in Spain in 778, in which he could not maintain the siege of the city of Zaragoza and had to withdraw through Roncesvalles, where he suffered a great defeat, and the subsequent campaign of Abderramán I in 781 to the Ebro valley in revenge against those who had promoted the Frankish invasion.

However, in the interior the second Galician rebellion took place, after the one that took place in the times of Fruela I, without the chronicles clarifying the motives and protagonists. The rebels assembled an army that faced Silo's troops in Montecubeiro (Lugo) where they were defeated and the rebellion put down.

The oldest known medieval written document from the Iberian Peninsula comes from the reign of Silo: it is the Diploma of King Silo, in which on August 23, 775 the king donates to several religious some properties in the place called Tabulata, today Trabada, village of the Roman Lucus Augusti (Lugo). It is a contractual document of donation pro anima that is studied in the diplomatic service.

Transfer of the court to Pravia

Tomb of King Silo. Church of San Juan de Santianes de Pravia.

When Silo acceded to the throne, he moved the capital from Cangas de Onís to Pravia, since he was part of the local aristocracy and had land in those territories. In addition, the transfer of the court was due to strategic reasons, since Pravia, an ancient Roman settlement, was at the bottom of the Nalón valley and next to a terminal Roman road of Asturica Augusta. Lastly, as the kingdom had expanded to Galicia, Cangas de Onís was in too eccentric a place.

Death and Succession

Since they had no descendants, Silo and Adosinda favored Alfonso, son of Fruela I, and nephew of Adosinda, naming him as a very young governor of the Palatium.

King Silo died in Pravia in the year 783. The First General Chronicle relates the death of the king as follows:

And eight annals of king Silo's regimente, which was in the age of eight hundred and seven hundred and twenty annos, murio esse king Silo, and was buried in the church of St. Johan apostol et evangeliste, which he set in his life.

Queen Adosinda managed to have her nephew Alfonso elected king before Silo died, but a revolt gave the throne to Mauregato, the illegitimate son of Alfonso I of Asturias, born with a slave of Galician origin.

Burial

After his death, the corpse of King Silo was buried in the church of San Juan de Santianes de Pravia, which the Asturian monarch had ordered to be erected, and in which the tomb in which they are supposed to lie is still preserved the king's remains and those of his wife, Queen Adosinda, who was buried in the same temple.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Master Custodio pointed out that the remains of King Silo were transferred to the monastery of San Juan de las Dueñas, in the city of Oviedo, and that behind the main altar was the king's tomb.