The city continued to change hands according to the varying fortunes of
war till the conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI. (1085). The country
between the Douro and the Tagus, desolated by three centuries of
unintermittent warfare, had become almost denuded of inhabitants.
Alfonso appointed his son-in-law, Count Raymond of Burgundy, governor of
Salamanca, with a mandate to repeople the town and surrounding district,
and to repair the ravages of war. The count drew his colonists mainly
from Castile, from the neighbouring towns of Toro and Braganza, from
other parts of Portugal, from Galicia, from the ‘Sierra,’ and from his
native province of Burgundy. These, together with the Mozarabes or
original inhabitants, constituted the seven classes into which the
population was divided, each with its separate quarter and local
authorities. The whole community was subject to a code of laws framed by
Count Raymond, and later amalgamated with the code preserved in the
municipal archives, dating from the thirteenth century. From this
document it would appear that an important part was taken in the work of
colonisation by the Benedictine monastery of San Vicente, a foundation
already some two or three centuries old.
Count Raymond and his wife, Urraca, were assisted in their beneficent
labours by the famous bishop, Jeronimo Visquio. This prelate, a native
of Perigord, and a monk of the order of St. Benedict, had come to Spain
with the equally illustrious Don Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo. He
accompanied the Cid as chaplain to Valencia, and on the reduction of
that kingdom became its bishop. On the death of his patron he returned
to Toledo, and was almost immediately appointed to the joint see of
Salamanca and Zamora. In a deed, dated July 1102, the count confers upon
him extensive privileges and revenues, which were confirmed by the king
in 1107, the towns included in the diocese being furthermore specified.
To Jeronimo we owe the old cathedral of Salamanca in which he was at
last, full of years and honours, laid to rest. It had been his wish to
have been laid beside his old master at Cardeña. He lived to witness the
troubles attendant on the second marriage of Queen Urraca, to whom he
was ever faithful; and was the first to acknowledge the primacy of the
powerful Gelmirez, Archbishop of Santiago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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