Teresa Fernández de Traba (died 6 February 1180 in León) was the

Queen consort A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king, and usually shares her spouse's social Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and status. She holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles and may be crowned and anointed, but hi ...

of León (1178–1180) during the reign of Ferdinand II.

Family

Teresa was the illegitimate daughter of

Theresa, Countess of Portugal Theresa (Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Teresa''; Galician-Portuguese: ''Tareja'' or ''Tareixa''; Latin: ''Theresia'') ( 1080 – 11 November 1130) was Countess of County of Portugal, Portugal, and for a time claimant to be its independent ...

, and

Fernando Pérez de Traba Fernando (or Fernán) Pérez de Traba (; – 1 November 1155), or Fernão Peres de Trava (), was a nobleman and count of the Kingdom of León who for a time held power over all Galicia. He became the lover of Countess Teresa of Portugal, throug ...

, Lord of Trastamara. She was already married to Count

Nuño Pérez de Lara Nuño Pérez de Lara (died 3 August 1177) was a Castilian nobleman, politician and military leader. He began his career at the court of the Emperor Alfonso VII, during whose reign he took part in the ''repoblación'' of the Extremadura and the d ...

in 1152 when both ceded

Castronuño Castronuño is a municipality located in the province of Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census ( INE), the municipality has a population of 1,049 inhabitants. See also *Cuisine of the province of Valladolid The ...

to its inhabitants and established its borders, maintaining certain rights over the village after King

Alfonso VII of León and Castile Alfonso VII (1 March 110521 August 1157), called the Emperor (''el Emperador''), became the King of Galicia in 1111 and King of León and Castile in 1126. Alfonso, born Alfonso Raimúndez, first used the title Emperor of All Spain, alongside h ...

donated it in 1156 or 1157 to the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

. On 29 January 1160 Teresa and husband Nuño founded the

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

convent of Santa María at Perales, donating to Ozenda, the first abbess, all their properties in Perales and Zorita. In 1174, they gave the bishop of Burgos the village of Barchilona in exchange for all the rights and properties of the hospital in Puente de Fitero which they had founded and donated to the

. Following the death of Nuño in 1177, Teresa went to the Leonese court, and there, before 7 October 1178, she married King

Ferdinand II of León Ferdinand II ( 1137 – 22 January 1188), was a member of the Castilian House of Burgundy, Castilian cadet branch of the House of Ivrea and List of Leonese monarchs, King of León and kingdom of Galicia, Galicia from 1157 until his death. Life ...

(1137–1188). Thanks to this marriage, her children lived at the court and boasted of being the offspring of a queen of León as attested by a charter where her son

Álvaro Álvaro or Álvar (, , ) is a Spanish, Galician and Portuguese male given name and surname of Germanic Visigothic origin. The patronymic surname derived from this name is Álvarez. Given name Artists * Álvaro Carrillo, Afro-Mexican songwrit ...

making a donation to the Monastery of Sobrado called himself ''filius comitis domni Nunonis et regine domne Tarasie''.

Death and Burial

She died as a result of childbirth two years later, on 6 February 1180 and was buried at the Royal Pantheon in the

Basilica of San Isidoro In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East ...

in León. Her remains were placed in a stone coffin the cover of which bore a half-length effigy of the late queen wearing a dress with tight gem-studded cuffs and neckline. Her hair was loose and a royal crown was placed around her forehead and the following Latin inscription was carved around the edges of the cover of her tomb:

LARGA MANUS MISERIS, ET DIGNIS DIGNA REPENDENS CONSTANS, ET PRUDENS PIETATIS MUNERE SPLENDENS, HIC REGINA JACET CONJUX TARESIA REGIS FERNANDI SUMMI SIBI DENTUR GAUDIA REGIS. ERA MCCXVIII. ET QTT. VII. ID. FEBRUARII.

Issue

She had children by both husbands, by Nuño Pérez de Lara having: #

Fernando Fernando is a Spanish and Portuguese given name and a surname common in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, and former Spanish or Portuguese colonies in Latin America, Africa and Asia (like the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka). It is e ...

, married countess Mayor González Salvadórez, with issue. Mayor founded the Ermita de la Virgen de la Esperina. #

(d. 1218), married Urraca Díaz de Haro, without issue. Once widowed, Urraca became a nun and was the abbess at the Monastery of Cañas. Álvaro had several children by his mistress Teresa Gil de Osorno. # Gonzalo (d. 1225), married firstly Jimena Meléndez, without issue. He then married María Díaz de Haro, daughter of Diego López II de Haro, parents of Leonor, Nuño, Teresa, Diego, and Fernando González de Lara. After Gonzalo's death, María became a nun and succeeded her aunt Mencía López de Haro as the abbess at the Monastery of San Andrés de Arroyo. # Sancha, wife of

Sancho, Count of Provence Sancho (died 1223), also spelled Sanç or Sanche, was a Catalano-Aragonese nobleman and statesman, the youngest son of Queen Petronilla of Aragon and Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. He was at different times the count of Cerdanya (c.1 ...

# María, abbess of Perales # Elvira, countess, married Ermengol VIII, Count of Urgell around 1176. The couple had strong disagreements and in 1203 promised to treat each other with love and not to hurt the other. After the count's death, Elvira married Guillén de Cervera. By Ferdinand II of León, she had two sons: # Ferdinand,

Infante Infante (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as "infant" or translated as "prince", is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to the ...

of León (1179–1187). # Sancho, Infante of León (1180).

References

Sources

*Barton, Simon. ''The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. * *Sánchez de Mora, Antonio
"La Nobleza Castellana en la Plena Edad Media: El Linaje de Lara (ss. XI-XIII)"
Doctoral Thesis, Universidad de Sevilla, 2003. *Yáñez Neira, María Damián
"El monasterio cisterciense de Perales, cuna de la recolección."
''Publicaciones de la Institución Tello Téllez de Meneses'', 59 (1988), 387–414. *Estepa Díez, Carlos
"Frontera, nobleza y señoríos en Castilla: el señorío de Molina (siglos XII-XIII)."
''Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca'', 24 (2006), 15–86. {{DEFAULTSORT:Traba, Teresa Fernandez de 1180 deaths Queens consort of Leon Galician queens consort Year of birth unknown Burials in the Royal Pantheon at the Basilica of San Isidoro 12th-century Spanish women Deaths in childbirth