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| Mid-eleventh-century illumination from the St. Sever Beatus |
In the tenth century, so much definitive action took place
in northern Spain that every historical person played a fascinating role. One
of these historical persons was Ava de Ribagorza, Countess of Castile and wife
of Count García Fernández. Although an epic poem about García’s wife circulated
all over Iberia—The Traitor Countess—its
storyline bears little relation to fact. I’m writing a novel with Count García
and Countess Ava as central characters, and to write about her convincingly, I
need to make crucial decisions based on little evidence. How to separate legend
from history?
García Fernández was the second Count of Castile from his
father’s death in 970 until his own passing in 995. At the time Castile was a
territory on the fringes of the Kingdom of León and politically dependent on it.
The Castilians’ location on the frontier with the Caliphate of Córdoba meant
that by necessity, the political leaders were principally warlords. They had to
be ready at any moment to defend their hard-won territory from brutal raids
that terrified everyone from the haughtiest king to the lowliest laborer.
This is the era of Almanzor, a political opportunist and
great military strategist whom everyone in the north of the peninsula assumed
was the caliph because of his seemingly limitless power. The map shows
Almanzor’s principal forays into León, Castile, Navarra, Ribagorza, and
Barcelona (the “Christian kingdoms”) and the generous swath of territory he
took back for his prosperous empire. The constant ebb and flow of conflict was
only aggravated because the Christian kingdoms often had bloody spats amongst
themselves.
The militarization of Castilian society was so extreme that
it’s said that the men didn’t have time to take care of their own horses. That
job, and other important ones, belonged to their tough-as-nails wives.
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| Count García in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca |
Ava was born circa 945, the daughter of Count Ramón II of
Ribagorza. The family name refers to the county between the France-dependent
County of Barcelona and the independent Kingdom of Navarra. The Queen of
Navarra may have helped arrange Ava’s marriage to Count García in 960 or 965.
Ava’s prime age and noble birth made it a good match that became a fruitful
union. Somehow, between battles and governance, the count and countess raised
six children to adulthood. Four of the five daughters made advantageous
marriages, one became a nun, and the son, Sancho, inherited the title and
responsibilities of Count of Castile.
Not many other facts have survived about this woman, whom
circumstance must have made extraordinary. It’s my job as a historical novelist
to breathe life into Ava on the page, but I don’t have a lot to go on. Her
death may even be more mysterious than her life.
I haven’t been able to find a record of when Ava died. There
is no mention of her in the histories after García Fernández’s passing. This
doesn’t necessarily mean she died around the same time. Because her husband’s
death meant the end of her time as Countess of Castile, she might have taken on
a lesser role at court, perhaps supporting the new count, her son, in ways no
one valued enough to write down.
As I’ve written at Unusual Historicals before, the minstrels
and then the historians who wrote down The
Traitor Countess took Ava’s absence from the historical record and ran with
it. They claimed that she wanted to elope to Córdoba with her Moorish lover, and
they set Count García’s death squarely on her shoulders. She takes advantage of
her role as horse husband by giving García’s steed food that makes it look
bulky, but actually weakens it. As Ava has planned, the horse fails the count
in battle, leading to his death on the frontier. She then attempts to poison
her son so she can leave Castile, but Sancho turns the poison back on his
mother in a scene reminiscent of Hamlet.
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| Presentation miniature from thirteenth-century Estoria de Espanna |
It’s hard to imagine why Ava became the target of so much
scorn. Perhaps something similar to this happened and became lost to history.
Or, more likely, confronted with a vacuum in the record and well removed from
the time period, the thirteenth-century historians preferred to write down
scandalous material instead of nothing at all. A traitorous countess could
explain two things that might have puzzled them: the death of the great
warrior, Count García; and the curious fact that his youngest daughter, Oneca,
was married to Almanzor soon after García’s death.
Yes, that
Almanzor. In the tenth century, political strategy could easily have led to
such a match. In the thirteenth century, however, historians were more
concerned with presenting a coherent story of Castilian power and religious
righteousness than with the complexity of history. If they read about Oneca’s
marriage to Almanzor, terror of the north, they would have thought something
had gone terribly wrong. What better way to explain a now unsavory alliance
than by blaming a woman? The poor girl must have had a terrible mother, since
her father was a proven example of knightly virtue.
Of course, this is impossible to prove, but I imagine a lot
of drama in the scriptorium while the historians were coming up with their
narratives. It looks as if I’ll have to use some of that imagination in the
service of redeeming Ava—or further condemning her. I haven’t decided yet.
