[University of Oviedo]

Pardo de Cela and the Modern State

Don Pedro Pardo de Cela was encomender of the Mindon cathedral. He marries Isabel de Castro, cousin of the Mindónian bishop D. Pedro Henríquez de Castro (1427-1445), who gives him "as a dowry the rent of the bishopric for days of his life, except for a certain amount that he took for sustenance", but since he died, the successive bishops began to claim those goods (1449, 1450, 1477) to which the Marshal always refused (first key to his beheading). To this we must add that the church wanted to get rid of the encomenderos because of the cost it entailed. Confrontations with the nobility had been occurring in other cities such as Lugo (1403) or Ourense (1419). In 1465 Henrique IV appointed him mayor of Viveiro and dismissed Xoán de Viveiro for supporting Afonso and Isabel to the Castilian crown. The Pérez de Viveiro owned the lordship of Viveiro and from now on began a whole series of alliances and confrontations with the Marshal. On October 19, 1469, the Catholic Kings got married in the Pérez de Viveiro palace in Valladolid, the godmother being María de Acuña, sister of what would become Chief Justice of Galicia in 1480-1483 (second key to his beheading). Henry IV died (1474), the Catholic Monarchs in October 1476, after the battle of Toro, Césano as mayor and in June 1478, sent him three royal certificates forbidding him to enter the municipalities of Ortigueira, Viveiro and Mondoñedo (third key to his beheading ). In the autumn of 1480, the Royal Commissioners Fernando de Acuña, López de Chinchilla and Luis de Mudarra arrived in Galicia with civil and military powers to pacify it and create the Royal Audience. On November 4, the Catholic Monarchs issue one Insurance and Support Letter which makes us suppose that the siege of la Frouseira had begun. In the middle of the fight in Frouseira, the capido in March of 1482 tries to take away from him Burela succession Dona Beatriz de Castro and Pedro Bolaño with a sentence of conviction in October in which F. de Acuña participates, although they do not accept it, and Dona Beatriz rebels and occupies property in San Cristobal and Portocelo. In February 1483 the Count of Lemos died and on March 31 he was ordered to return to F. de Acuña in Galicia. Between June and July he betrays Frouseira and in September he is captured in Castrodouro at the house of Afonso Yáñez, the bishop's secretary. He is taken prisoner to Mondoñedo, where on the 1st of October he signs the will and the 3rd, the codicil in a room in the house of Canon Fernán Balea and leaves to be beheaded together with his son, Xoán Núñez Pardo, and others. At the end of this month, Dona Constanza de Castro's daughter and the man, Fernán Ares de Saavedra, "steal" and become strong in the fortress of Vilaxoán-Caldaloba (Cospeito). There, for more than a year (November 1483-January 1485), they faced the troops of López de Haro and others. Dona Constanza dies due to the poisoning of the water, the siege is lifted, the tower is not demolished because Alfonso Pérez de Viveiro asks for it, Fernán Ares' life is saved but the entire mortuary is sold to him in June 1485 in Lugo (totally different ending to the Marshal's) . Meanwhile, Pedro Bolaño continues not to accept the sentences, disobeying the mandates of the Kings and supporting the 2nd Count of Lemos. The family of Pardo de Cela took 4 years of struggle, deaths and confrontations against the policy of the Catholic Kings, which was imposed from 1480 by the "manu militari" of the Commissioners and with laws from the Audience and Meetings of the Kingdom. Galicia loses its governance status due to the imposition of the monarchs of Castile, who had just laid the foundations and the Modern State was on its way.

Antón Xosé Meilán García

(Mondoñedo, 1950)

He is professor emeritus at the University of Oviedo, where he graduated with a thesis Archaism and linguistic conservatism in the Council of Castropol (1980) and got a doctorate with a thesis The simple and complex sentence in the Castilian prose of the fifteenth century (1989). Among other works he has published: The “myth” of Mariscal Pardo de Cela (History, legends and literature), Cultural Association "O mundo de Galea", A Marina Lucense. The Progress, 2004; "The origin and development of the myth of Pardo de Cela until the 20th century", in The Mariscal Pardo de Cela and his time, Coordinator M. A. Valín Valdés, C. A. González Paz, J. R. Fernández Pacios, Provincial Council of Lugo, 2006; "The last year of Marshal Pero Pardo de Cela: the siege and betrayal of Frouseira", Murguía, Galician Journal of History, Santiago de Compostela, XIII, 2007; The Last Days of the Marshal (The Testament and the Mindonian Church), Notebooks of the Valadouro Studies Seminar, 9, 2019; "Years of struggle in Frouseira and Caldaloba against the Kings of the Kingdom of Castile", Gaudeamus, Seniors UVigo-Pontevedra Campus. Edc. 8th, Winter 2021; Dona Constanza de Castro takes the fortress of Vilaxoán. Struggle, resistance and death. Deputation of Lugo. vice presidency 2021; "The siege of the fortress of Vilaxoán: the capture and resistance of Dona Constanza de Castro and Fernán Ares after Pardo de Cela", Murguía, Galician Journal of History. Vol. 43-44. January-December 2021. Participates in the conferences "The other languages ​​of Spain and Portugal" with the communication "The situation of Galician in Asturias" at the Faculty of Philology and Translation of the University of Vigo in 2006, and in Santiago de Compostela in 2011 with the work "Pardo de Cela: from history to myth".