Vímara Peres

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Vímara Peres
Count of Portucale
Reign868-873
SuccessorLucídio Vimaranes
Died873
Vama
FatherPedro Theon [pt]

Vímara Peres[a] (died in Galicia, 873)[1] was a ninth-century nobleman who served as the first Count of Portugal.

Life

Family

His father,

Curia Regis of King Alfonso III and appears in January 867 confirming a royal charter jointly with other nobles, including Count Rodrigo of Castile.[2] Pedro was actively involved in the Reconquista and was also responsible for ousting and defeating the Vikings when they invaded Galicia in 858.[3] Besides Vímara, Pedro was also the father of Hermenegildo Peres [pt].[4] The old Christian version of ‘Vímara’ is believed to be derived from ‘Weimar’ [5] a name from any of several places like one Weimar in Hesse and another in Thuringia
, from Old High German wīh "holy" and mari "standing water". Although old-fashioned, it is still used in Portugal today as Guímaro.

Count

Vímara was a vassal of the King of

Douro River, including the city of Portus Cale, later Porto and Gaia, from where the name of Portugal
emerged.

The

Count of Portugal by King Alfonso III after the reconquest of the region north of the Douro river.[1][6]
Later Portuguese historians viewed this event as the earliest milestone in the history of the state of Portugal, although Portugal did not achieve independence until the 12th century.

He was able to expel the Moors and founded a fortified town under his own name Vimaranis (of Vimar) which later became Guimaranis, present day Guimarães (the Portuguese call it "The Cradle City"). Vímara Peres died in 873 in the territory of A Coruña.[1]

Issue

Most historians agree that he was the father of:

Although the identity of his wife was not recorded in any contemporary charters, her name could have been Trudildi. If that was the case, Vímara would have been the father of:

See also

Notes

  1. Peter
    . The name can then be equated to Weimar/Guimar Peterson.
  2. ^ Count Gutierre Aloítez (died after 963) is recorded with a wife named Audivia, whose parents were named Vimara and Trudildi. Trudildi is a name quite frequent among the nobility of Portugal and Galicia in the middle of the 10th-century, but Vimara is not. For chronological reasons and because of this uncommon name, historian Margarita Torres Sevilla-Quiñones de León believes that Audivia was the daughter of Count Vímara Peres, and thus Vímara's wife was this Trudildi, Audivia's mother.[9]

References

Bibliography

External links

New title Count of Portucale
868–873
Succeeded by