Ponce de Minerva

Who is Ponce de Minerva?

Ponce de Minerva was a nobleman, courtier, governor, and general serving, at the same and different times, the kingdoms of León and Castile. Originally from Occitania, he came as a young man to León, where he was raised probably in close connexion to the royal family. His public career, first as a courtier and knight in the military retinue of Alfonso VII of León and Castile, began in 1140. By later historians he was implicated in the strife between Alfonso's successors, Sancho III of Castile and Ferdinand II of León, but he was generally loyal to the latter, although from 1168 to 1173 he was in voluntary exile serving Alfonso VIII of Castile.

Ponce had a long and distinguished military career. He participated in at least twelve campaigns, more than half of them campaigns of Reconquista fought against the Moors, but also campaigns against Navarre, Portugal, and Castile, as well as one famous campaign against some Castilian rebels, in which he was captured. He acquired landed wealth largely through royal preferment—even in the major cities of the realm, such as León and Toledo—and an advantageous marriage—his wife was a descendant of García Sánchez III of Navarre—and he rose to hold the highest rank in the kingdom, count, and the highest civil post, majordomo, in both Castile and León. In 1167 he founded a monastery, Santa María de Sandoval, and he was also a donor to the Order of Calatrava. In 1173 he re-populated half of the village of Azaña and granted it a fuero.