Gonzalo Pérez 'Gudiel' (1238/9–1299), simply Gonzalo Pérez during his life (''Gonzalbo Petrez'', غنصالبه نيطرص, in his native

mozarab The Mozarabs (from ), or more precisely Andalusi Christians, were the Christians of al-Andalus, or the territories of Iberia under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492. Following the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania, the Christian ...

Arabic), and wrongly Gonzalo García Gudiel in later church tradition,Jean-Pierre Molénat, ''Campagnes et monts de Tolède du XII^e au XV^e siècle'', Madrid, 1997, pp. 150, 155, 157 was a Castilian prelate and statesman in the service of kings

Alfonso X Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, ; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1 June 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germany on 1 Ap ...

and Sancho IV and of

Pope Boniface VIII Pope Boniface VIII (; born Benedetto Caetani; – 11 October 1303) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 until his death in 1303. The Caetani, Caetani family was of baronial origin with connections t ...

. He was Bishop of Cuenca (1272) and

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populous municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of th ...

(1275) and then

Archbishop of Toledo The Archdiocese of Toledo () is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in Spain.

(1280), the first official

Primate of Spain The Primacy of the Spains (; , ) is the primacy of the Iberian Peninsula, historically known as Hispania or in the plural as the Spains. The Archbishop of Braga, in Portugal, has claimed this primacy over the whole Iberian Peninsula since the ...

(1285) and finally

Cardinal-Bishop of Albano The Diocese of Albano () is a Latin suburbicarian see of the Diocese of Rome in Italy, comprising seven towns in the Province of Rome. Albano Laziale is situated on the Appian Way some from Rome. Since 1966, it has both a titular bishop and ...

(1298) in the

Roman Curia The Roman Curia () comprises the administrative institutions of the Holy See and the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. The Roman Curia is the institution of which the Roman Pontiff ordinarily makes use ...

. His early career was that of an international scholar, before he settled into royal service. The future cardinal was born at Toledo in 1238 or 1239 into the city's mozarab gentry, to ''

alguacil Alguacil (in Spanish), aguazil or guazil (in Portuguese) is the title for a number of governmental office-holders. Origin The term ''alguacil'' is derived from the Arabic term (''wazir''), meaning Vizier. The first known use of the term dates ...

alcalde ''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...

'' Pedro Juanes and his wife Teresa Juanes, daughter of ''alguacil alcalde'' Juan Ponce. The surname under which he is known, Gudiel, was attached to him by later church historians under the mistaken belief that he derived from a family of that name; his Toledo birth family had yet to adopt a surname. The historians also assigned to him an erroneous patronymic, calling him Gonzalo García instead of his true name, Gonzalo Pérez. Gonzalo went to study at the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

. In 1260 he became the rector of the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

. After a sojourn in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, he returned to Castile to become a first a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

of the

Cathedral of Burgos The Cathedral of Saint Mary of Burgos () is a Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary located in the historical center of the Spain, Spanish city of Burgos. Its official name is the Holy Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica Church of St Mary of ...

and then the dean of the chapter at the Cathedral of Toledo. In 1272, Gonzalo was elected Bishop of Cuenca. During this period he served the king at times as a royal

notary A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems. A notary, while a legal professional, is distin ...

. In 1274 he received a gift from the king, and the charter was written up by

Ferrand Martínez Ferrand (or Ferrán) Martinez (fl. 14th century) was an elite Spanish cleric at the Cathedral of Seville and archdeacon of Écija most noted for being an antisemitic agitator whom historians cite as the prime mover behind the series of massacres o ...

.Joaquín González Muela (ed.), ''Libro del caballero Zifar'' (Madrid: Editorial Castralia, 1982), 11–14. On 27 September 1275 he was translated to the see of Burgos (vacant since 1269), and in May 1280 to the archdiocese of Toledo, the most important bishopric in Castile. In 1285 he was recognised as the

primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

of Spain (''primas Hispaniae''). Under Sancho IV, Gonzalo was "great chancellor in all our realms" (''chanceller mayor en todos nuestros regnos'') and Ferrand Martínez his scribe, but with the king's death in 1295 the archbishop's influence decreased. In the ''

cortes Cortes, Cortés, Cortês, Corts, or Cortès may refer to: People * Cortes (surname), including a list of people with the name ** Hernán Cortés (1485–1547), a Spanish conquistador Places * Cortes, Navarre, a village in the South border of ...

'' held at

Valladolid Valladolid ( ; ) is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and ''de facto'' capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the pr ...

in the summer of that year, it was declared that ecclesiastical control of the chancery should cease. Chancery notaries should be laymen (''legos''). Gonzalo was one of those who opposed the assumption of the tutorship of the young king, Ferdinand IV, by his uncle, Henry the Senator, regarding the latter as "a great disturber" (''un gran bolliciador''). In the consistory of 4 December 1298 Pope Boniface VIII appointed him to the cardinal-bishopric of Albano. He died not long after in Rome, where he was buried in a "very nobly worked" (''muy noblemente obrada'') sarcophagus in the church of

Santa Maria Maggiore Santa Maria Maggiore (), also known as the Basilica of Saint Mary Major or the Basilica of Saint Mary the Great, is one of the four Basilicas in the Catholic Church#Major and papal basilicas, major papal basilicas and one of the Seven Pilgrim C ...

, “near the chapel of ''presepe domini'', where Saint Jerome lies buried.” In the year 1300, in keeping with a promise he had made to the cardinal some years earlier, Ferrand Martínez went to Rome to fetch his body for burial in the cathedral of Toledo, in the front of the chapel of Santa María la Blanca. The return trip with the cardinal's body was extremely leisurely, making its way through

Logroño Logroño ( , , ) is the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja (Spain), La Rioja, Spain. Located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, primarily in the right (South) bank of the Ebro River, Logroño has historically been a place of pa ...

to Burgos, where the corpse was received by King Ferdinand IV and his court, including Henry the Senator, Diego López V de Haro and Bishop Pedro Rodríguez of Burgos. This was probably between March and May 1301. At Peñafiel outside of Toledo it was received by Gonzalo's nephew, Gonzalo Díaz Palomeque, the new archbishop and by the local lord,

Juan Manuel Don (honorific), Don Juan Manuel (5 May 128213 June 1348) was a Spanish medieval writer, nephew of Alfonso X of Castile, son of Manuel of Castile and Beatrice of Savoy (died 1292), Beatrice of Savoy. He inherited from his father the great Lordshi ...

. It was reportedly greeted in the streets of Toledo by a delighted crowd of Christians, Jews and Muslims. The story of Gonzalo's

relics In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...

is told in the prologue of the near-contemporary chivalric novel '' Libro del caballero Zifar'', possibly written by Ferrand Martínez.González Muela, ''Libro'', 52–53. He notes that "the rescue of Gonzalo's body was a true chivalrous request" (''una verdadera demanda caballeresca''), and was probably included for this reason, although the prologue was not printed with the rest of the work in 1512 in Seville.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gudiel, Gonzalo Garcia 1230s births 1299 deaths Clergy from Toledo, Spain Cardinal-bishops of Albano Archbishops of Toledo Bishops of Burgos Bishops of Cuenca Academic staff of the University of Padua University of Paris alumni Spanish notaries Spanish Latinists 13th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Castile 13th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Castile