page_title: Menendo González
section_title: Viking attack?
hierarchical_section_title: Menendo González / Viking attack?
context_page_description: Menendo González was a semi-autonomous Duke of Galicia and Count of Portugal, a dominant figure in the Kingdom of León. He was the royal alférez, the king's armour-bearer and commander of the royal armies, under Vermudo II, and he continued to hold the position until his death. He became the tutor and ultimately father-in-law of Vermudo's successor, King Alfonso V. He maintained peaceful diplomatic relations with the Caliphate of Córdoba until 1004, after which there was a state of war.
context_section_description: It has been suggested that Menendo was perhaps killed defending Portugal from a Viking raid. According to the later Icelandic saga Heimskringla, the Vikings under Olaf Haraldsson attacked Gunnvaldsborg, possibly to be identified as a descriptive toponym meaning "city of González" (in Latin *Gundisalvus-burgus) and indicating Tui, which was within Menendo's dukedom and is independently known to have been destroyed by Vikings about this time. There is a Latin document of 1024 that bears the rubric Tudensis sedes post Normannorum vastationem Ecclesiae Divi Jacobi attributa: "the see of Tui was assigned to the church of Santiago after being laid waste by the Northmen". In the words of the Heimskringla:
  He [Olaf] conquered the castle called Gunnvaldsborg—it was large and old—and there he captured the earl who was in command there, called Geirfith. Then he had a meeting with the townspeople and imposed a ransom on them for freeing the earl—twelve thousand gold shillings; and that sum was paid by the townspeople as he had demanded. As says Sigvat: 
  A thirteenth time the Thronders'
  thane did win a battle
  south in Seljupollarin
  sithen, with great carnage,
  when to ancient stronghold
  early at morn he marched, and
  gallant Earl Geirfith of
  Gunnvaldsborg made captive.
  All the details of this theory—Menendo's death in battle, the identity of Gunnvaldsborg and the timing and place of Olaf's raid—are speculative and have been recently dismissed as unfounded.
caption: A medieval representation of Olaf Haraldsson.
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