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From: (Bryant Smith)
Subject: Re: Pelayo?s uncle?
Date: 23 May 2002 05:59:45 -0700
References: <20020522161926.70632.qmail@web13902.mail.yahoo.com>


A most fascinating and important contribution. I have
only a few questions, perhaps merely quibbles,
interspersed below.

(=?iso-8859-1?q?maria=20emma=20escobar?=) wrote in message news:<>...
> Coming back once again to the Pelayo´s origins, I want
> to remark other at least curious points that could
> give us some clues about his possible asturian
> origins.
>
> The first point is the description of the fight
> between Witiza and Favila, Pelayo´s supposed father:
> in a quarrel because of Favila´wife, Witiza killed
> Favila, hitting him in the head with a stick. But is
> curious that this is exactly the method described in
> the Carolingian "capitulares" of 801 and 813 to cut
> the links of fidelity with a sir: a man could cut his
> links with his sir when the sir wants to kill the man,
> or tarnish his wife or daughter, or hit him with a
> stick.
>
If I read the above correctly, it should have been
Favila who hit Witiza with a stick, should it not?

> The second point is the succession in the line of the
> first asturian kings. If we study carefully these
> kings, we can see two lineages: Pelayo´s and Pedro´s,
> and two tendencies: matrilineal and patrilineal.
> Pelayo was succeeded by Favila and this one by Alfonso
> I, because this one had married Ermesenda,
> Pelayo´daughter. But Alfonso was a foreigner. His only
> merit was his wife. And Favila had been married with
> Froiloba and they had been sons, as we know.

How do we know this? I have only Casariego´s sketch
of a monumental stone, which I read as referring to
"children" without specifying their sexes.
¿Why one
> of these sons was not the King?
I´ve read [unsupported] assertions that King Favila´s
children were too young to be considered. This is
certainly possible in view of the likely age at which
Favila met his unusual death.
> ¿Could Favila be the
> king only in representation of his sister? And years
> later, Silo was king, because he was the husband of
> Andosinda, Alfonso and Ermesinda´s daughter, in spite
> to be probably a semi foreigner.
This is reinforced in Roda which says
Post cujus [Aurelio´s] obitum Silo Adefonsi filiam nomine
Adosindam in conjugio accepit, pro qua re etiam adeptus
est regnum.
-- He married Adosinda *after* Aurelio´s death, whereby
he came into the kingship. The connotation of "adeptus,"
used in conection with Silo and Nepotiano but not, as I
recall, elsewhere, might bear some study.
But the elevation of Aurelio, son of the brother of Alfonso,
ahead of Silo undercuts the matrilineal hypothesis.
> These two facts
> suggest a semi matrilineal succession, typical of more
> primitive groups.
> This form of transmission was the used by the
> "Vedinenenses", a group who lives in the west
> Cantabria in roman times, the same area of the first
> asturian kings.
How then was Alfonso a "foreigner?" And if a foreigner, did
he introduce te Vedinenses´custom, and if so isn´t that a
"bootstrap" argument?
> This costum didn't exist in the
> Visigoth kingdom, when women could not transmit their
> rights to their sons.
Your line of reasoning presupposes an established
*dynastic* mode of succession, which was contrary to
the Visigothic tradition of elected kings, and which
did not become firmly established until later; and
even as late as Isabella the cortez had at least a
perfunctory role in determining the succession. Also
we have the much older precedent of Cixillo.
> If we look for supports to this theory we must
> remember at least three facts:
> a) The "rotense" version of the Alfonso III´cronica
> supports this matrilineal succession when tells that
> Pelayo rebelled because Munuzza married Pelayo´s
> sister and Pelayo didn't approved this marriage. This
> rebellion was logic if this marriage could give
> politic power to a foreigner: Munuzza and weaken
> Pelayo.
This may be stretching things a bit. I read what
Munuzza did as nothing short of rape, and who wouldn´t
be upset at a man who had raped his sister? Munuzza
was not just a foreigner but an infidel -- can you imagine
the Christians accepting a moslem in the line of succession
merely by reason of a marriage?
> b) A document of 812 mentioned Alfonso II as the son
> of Pelayo´s daughter, without any mention of his
> father, Alfonso I.
I´d like to see more of this document, in light of the
donation you turned up, in which (I believe) it was
natural, quite apart from questions touching the
succession, to describe Alfonso II as a great-grandson
of Pelayo without mentioning Alfonso.
> c) When Alfonso II dead, Nepociano and Ramiro fighted
> by the kingdom. And Nepociano was probably a brother
> in law of Alfonso, husband of his sister.
The two main versions of the Alfonso III chronicle describe
Nepociano only as palatii comes. Where does his probable
relationship to a sister of Alfonso II come from?
> That could
> be the last manifestation of the matrilineal tendency.
> Once Ramiro is the king, the male line is the winner.
The male line, or the dynastic principle?

Saludos
Bryant Smith
Playa Palo Seco
Costa Rica

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