High-ranking official in medieval Iberian royal household
This article is about the medieval court officer. For the modern military rank, seeAlférez (rank).
Inmedieval Iberia, analférez (Spanish:[alˈfeɾeθ],Galician:[alˈfeɾɪθ]) oralferes (Portuguese:[alˈfɛɾɨʃ],Catalan:[əlˈfeɾəs]) was a high-ranking official in thehousehold of a king or magnate. The term is derived from theArabicالفارس (al-fāris), meaning "knight" or "cavalier", and it was commonlyLatinised asalferiz oralferis, although it was also translated into Latin asarmiger orarmentarius, meaning "armour-bearer". The connection with arms-bearing is visible in several Latin synonyms:fertorarius,inferartis, andoffertor. The office was sometimes the same as that of thestandard-bearer orsignifer.[1] Thealférez was generally the next highest-ranking official after themajordomo.[2] He was generally in charge of the king or magnate'smesnada (private army), his personal retinue ofknights, and perhaps also of hisarmoury and his guard. He generally followed his lord on campaign and into battle.
The office ofalférez originated in the tenth century.[1] In theKingdom of Navarre in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the office ofalférez changed hands with higher frequency than others, and there is also evidence of rotation. It is the only courtly office for which two officers are cited at the same time: Fortún Jiménez and Ortí Ortiz were bothinferartes in a charter of 1043. In the kingdoms ofCastile andLeón in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the office was generally bestowed on young noble members of the court, often as a prelude to promotion to the rank ofcount.[1] It is known thatAlfonso VIII of Castile rewarded hisalférezÁlvaro Núñez de Lara with the grant of a village for carrying his standard in theBattle of Las Navas de Tolosa.[3]
^abcSimon Barton,The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (Cambridge, 1997), 142–44.
^abcdSimon Barton,The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (Cambridge, 1997), 59.
^The date of the grant was 31 October 1212; the village wasCastroverde; and the surviving charter reads: "for the many services which you have done me in the field of battle, carrying my standard as a brave man" (pro seruitio plurimum comendando quod michi in campestri prelio fecistis, cum uexillum meum sicut uir strenuus tenuistis, cum Almiralmomeninum regem Cartaginis deuici). Cited in Simon Barton,The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (Cambridge, 1997), 142 n217.
^Simon Barton,The Aristocracy in Twelfth-century León and Castile (Cambridge, 1997), 227.
