Pedro González de Lara
Pedro González de Lara (died 16 October 1130) was a Castilian magnate. He served Alfonso VI as a young man, and later became the lover of Alfonso's heiress, Queen Urraca. He may have joined the First Crusade in the following of Raymond IV of Toulouse, earning the nickname el Romero ("the wanderer, pilgrim"). At the height of his influence he was the most powerful person in the kingdom after the monarch. The preponderance of his power in Castile is attested in numerous documents between 1120 and 1127. He opposed the succession of Urraca's legitimate heir, Alfonso VII. This dispute ended with his premature death. It was in Pedro's generation that the use of toponymics, as opposed to just patronymics, began in Spain. Pedro was the first member of his family to use the surname "de Lara", a practice continued by his descendants. A good example of Pedro's style is found in a royal charter of 1 February 1124: , "the venerable count Don Pedro de Lara". Standard-bearer of Alfonso VI (1088–91) Pedro González was son of count Gonzalo Núñez de Lara, the first clearly identifiable member of the Lara family and his wife, Goto Núñez. He had a brother, count Rodrigo González de Lara, and was a kinsman of count Gonzalo Salvadórez, who also held land in Lara. The Lara family lands were located in Old Castile. Between 27 December 1088 and 10 November 1091 Pedro served as alférez, standard-bearer of the king's retinue. At the end of his service he was signing royal documents immediately beneath the names of the counts of the realm. He was replaced as alférez by Gómez González by early 1092. A charter dated May 1098 referring to "Count Pedro, alférez" is almost certainly a forgery or a corruption, since Gómez is known to have still held that post in March, April and May of that year, and Pedro is never referred to as count before 1107. There is some doubt that the alférez Pedro González was the man who was later count of Lara. There is at least one other man of that name alive at the same time, who, with his wife Elvira Fernández, sold a plot of land for 400 solidi to Count Fruela Díaz and his wife Estefanía. In the entourage of Elvira and the First Crusade (1092–1105) Count Raymond IV of Toulouse, possibly in 1092, completed a marriage alliance with Alfonso VI by marrying his illegitimate daughter, Elvira. When he decided to take up the cross and join the First Crusade in 1095, he was accompanied by "a group of Spanish knights". Among these Spaniards was probably to be found Pedro González, who disappears from the records of the kingdom of Castile–León at precisely this time, and does not reappear until 22 September 1105 at Burgos. This corresponds to a time after Raymond's death (28 February 1105), which led Elvira and her infant son by Raymond, Alfonso Jordan, to return to Toulouse to lay claim to the county. At the