Guy de Lons (died 1141), also known as Gui or Guido de Loth, was the

Bishop of Lescar The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lescar (Latin: ''Dioecesis Lascurrensis;'' French: ''Diocèse de Lescar''; Basque: ''Leskarreko elizbarrutia''), in south-western France, was founded in the fifth century, and continued until 1790. It was originally ...

from 1115 to 1141. He made extensive travels in Spain on four occasions, three as Papal legate (1119, 1121 and 1138).

Richard A. Fletcher Richard Alexander Fletcher (28 March 1944, in York, England – 28 February 2005, in Nunnington, England) was a historian who specialised in the medieval period. Early years Richard Fletcher was the eldest child and only son of Alexander Kendal ...

, "''Reconquest'' and Crusade in Spain, ''c''. 1050–1150", ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'', Fifth Series, 37 (1987): 44–46. (Also in

Thomas F. Madden Thomas F. Madden (born 10 June 1960) is an American historian, a former Chair of the History Department at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Director of Saint Louis University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. A sp ...

, ''The Crusades: The Essential Readins'' iley-Blackwell: 2002 64–66.) He began construction on the extant

Lescar Cathedral Lescar Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Lescar) is a Roman Catholic church and former cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is located in the town of Lescar, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. It has ...

in 1120. On his first legatine visit Guy was present for the foundation of the Confraternity of Belchite by the Navarro-Aragonese king Alfonso the Battler. In 1134 Guy took part alongside Alfonso's forces in the

Battle of Fraga The Battle of Fraga was a battle of the Spanish Reconquista that took place on 17 July 1134 at Fraga, Aragon, Spain. The battle was fought between the forces of the Kingdom of Aragon, commanded by Alfonso the Battler and a variety of Almora ...

, where he was captured by the Almoravids and imprisoned in

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

. According to the contemporary '' Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris'' (I, §59) he was forced to pay 3,000 ''

maravedí The ''maravedí'' () or ''maravedi'' (), (from '' Almoravid dinar''), was the name of various Iberian coins of gold and then silver between the 11th and 14th centuries and the name of different Iberian accounting units between the 11th and 19th c ...

es'' to free himself, but according to another contemporary source,

William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as " ...

, he was liberated by the miraculous intercession of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

and

Saint Ann According to Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come ...

, to whom he had been praying. This is an early connexion between Marian devotion and the ''

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

''. On 9 October 1138 Guy, acting as Papal legate again, confirmed, ahead of the local archbishop,

Diego Gelmírez Diego Gelmírez or Xelmírez ( la, Didacus Gelmirici; c. 1069 – c. 1140) was the second bishop (from 1100) and first archbishop (from 1120) of the Catholic Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, modern Spain. He is a prominent fig ...

, the foundation of a nunnery at Genroso by the nobleman

Bermudo Pérez de Traba Bermudo Pérez de Traba (died 1168), the eldest son of Count Pedro Fróilaz de Traba and his first wife Urraca Fróilaz, was a member of the most important Middle Ages, medieval lineage in Galicia, Spain, Galicia. He governed as a ''Tenant-in-chie ...

. Guy placed his own autograph at the bottom of the document, next to the text: "I, Guy, bishop of the church of Lescar, praise and confirm this above written page for the honour of God and the Holy Virgin and for the perpetual sustenance of the other servants of God, and legate of Rome I make this sign ignature follows" On this same legatine mission Guy also conveyed a summons to Diego to attend the

Second Lateran Council The Second Council of the Lateran was the tenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convened by Pope Innocent II in April 1139 and attended by close to a thousand clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralise the after-e ...

in 1139. The ''

Historia compostellana The (fully titled in la, De rebus gestis D. Didaci Gelmirez, primi Compostellani Archiepiscopi) is an anonymously-written historical chronicle based on the relation of events by a writer in the immediate circle of Diego Gelmírez, second bisho ...

'', a contemporary account of Diego's episcopate, portrays Guy as the archbishop's ally in his conflicts with the saecular powers of Spain.Fletcher, ''Episcopate'', 202.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Guy Of Lescar 1141 deaths Bishops of Lescar People of the Reconquista Year of birth unknown