Arias Pérez
Arias Pérez or Peres (fl. 1110–1129) was a Galician knight and military leader in the Kingdom of León. According to modern scholar Richard Fletcher, he was "active, resourceful, spirited and persuasive", and the contemporary Historia compostellana says that he was "so eloquent that he could turn black into white and white into black", although he "was not of the great nobility" (non fuit tamen magnae nobilitatis). Family Arias's father, Pedro Arias, was described as a "knight of Deza" (miles de Deza) in a document of 1115. Arias first met Diego Gelmírez, future Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, in childhood. Diego's father Gelmirio was also a Galician knight. At some point Pedro granted an estate, a portion of a certain Villa nova, probably Vilanova de Arousa in Deza, to the church of nearby Compostela. His brother Luzo (Lucius) Arias made a similar donation. On 11 January 1096 Pedro and his brother subscribed a charter whereby Raymond of Galicia gave the village of Pastoriza in the parish of Brandariz in Deza to the monastery of Carboeiro (or Deza); they also signed side by side a document of 24 October 1102. Arias's origins among the lesser nobility is further confirmed by the description