The origins of the diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo have been studied in depth in two papers by Fidel Fita.[3] The exact date when the town was conquered is unknown, but it was purchased by the citizens of Salamanca about 1135.[4] They controlled it until 1161, when it was annexed to the royal domain by king Ferdinand II, who built a castle for the defence of the frontier and founded the diocese as well as two monasteries. The move provoked hostility: the Salamancans revolted in 1162[5] and Portugal, threatened by a new royal fortress so near its border, invaded in 1163.[6]
When Ferdinand II founded the diocese in 1161, he claimed only to be re-establishing the ancient diocese of Caliabria, the location of which was in fact unknown. On 13 February Ferdinand issued a charter (called the fuero eclesiástico) for the new diocese, in which he gave the metropolitan Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela full authority to appoint the bishop without reference to the cathedral chapter. The king did not consult the pope, Alexander III, who showed he was displeased by the fuero in a bull of 1175. By that time it may have even been allowed to lapse, since a further royal charter of 20 September 1168 does not mention the special provision of 1161. It is uncertain how the first bishop, Domingo, came into his office, or even when. He is not recorded in any document before 1168 and he was dead by 1172 or 1173.[6] Of the early bishops, only Pedro de Ponte is well known. Martín (1190–1211) and Lombardo (1214–27) are known only from the witness lists of royal charters and from Martín's stint as a papal judge-delegate.[7]
The Almohads attacked the city (Alsibdat in Arabic sources) in 1174, the same year that a dispute over the boundary between the diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo and that of Salamanca was settled. The diocese was bounded to the north and east by the rivers Huebra, Yeltes and Duero. Its southern frontier was desolate and extended to the diocese of Coria. To its west lay Portugal.[6]
^"La Diócesis y Fuero Eclesiástico de Ciudad Rodrigo", Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia61 (1912): 437–48; "El Papa
Alejandro III y la Diócesis de Ciudad Rodrigo", Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia62 (1913): 142–57.
^H. Grassotti, "Sobre una concesión de Alfonso VII a la iglesia salmantina", Cuadernos de Historia de España49, 1 (1969), 347–48.
^Fletcher, Episcopate, 36–37. He notes that Lombardo may have been the archdeacon of Medina and Alba in the diocese of Salamanca before becoming bishop.
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