The House of Medina Sidonia (Spanish: Casa de Medina Sidonia) is a Spanish noble house originating from the crown of Castile, whose name comes from the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a hereditary noble title that John II of Castile granted to Juan Alonso Perez de Guzman, 3rd Count of Niebla, on February 17, 1445, as a reward for his services to the crown. The Dukedom of Medina Sidonia is the oldest hereditary dukedom in the kingdom of Spain.
The founder of the House of Medina Sidonia was Guzmán el Bueno, since he was the one who laid the foundations on which the house would be built. His descendants accumulated possessions and titles that increased the power of the lineage, which received the definitive backing in 1445 with the concession of the Dukedom of Medina Sidonia, which in 1520 was granted the original Grandee of Spain. In addition, the house gathered and gathered other titles, such as the Lordship of Sanlúcar, the County of Niebla, the Marquisate of Gibraltar, the Marquisate of Cazaza and the Marquisate of Valverde.
The House of Medina Sidonia was from its very beginning in the hands of the Pérez de Guzmán family, commonly known as the Guzmanes, until in 1779 it passed to the Álvarez de Toledo, when upon the death without descendants of Pedro de Alcántara Pérez de Guzmán y Pacheco, 14th Duke of Medina Sidonia, it was inherited by his cousin José Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga, XI Marquis of Villafranca del Bierzo, who also died without descendants, passing the barony of the House of Medina Sidonia to his brother Francisco de Borja Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga. Leoncio Alonso González de Gregorio y Álvarez de Toledo is the current Duke of Medina Sidonia, being the twenty-second person who has carried this title.
History
Guzmán el Bueno, founder of the house and 1st Lord of Sanlúcar Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, known as "El Bueno", was the founder of the House of Medina Sidonia, for, although he never held the title of Duke of Medina Sidonia, it was he who laid the foundations on which the House of Medina Sidonia was to be built over the centuries. His public life took place between 1276 and 1309. As a military man he intervened in the internal struggles of Marinid Morocco. After the North African incursions into Lower Andalusia in 1275, he mediated in the truce established between the Merinid sultan Yusuf and Alfonso X the Wise in 1276.
At the end of 1281 or beginning of 1282, he intervened in the pact between the aforementioned Yusuf and Alfonso X, by virtue of which the Merinid sultan would help the Castilian monarch against the rebellious infante Don Sancho. In 1282, the Wise King rewarded Guzmán's services with the villa of Alcalá Sidonia, today Alcalá de los Gazules, which he would exchange that same year for the Donadío de Monteagudo (today a cortijo in the municipality of Sanlúcar de Barrameda). In addition, the king married him to María Alfonso Coronel, a rich woman who would bring to the marriage a very important dowry, consisting of houses in the collation (parish) of Saint Michael in Seville, olive groves of Torrijos (today an estate in Valencina de la Concepción), olive groves of La Robaína (in Pilas), the town of Bollullos, the aceñas (flour mills) on the Guadalete River near Jerez de la Frontera, the vineyard of La Ina (today a rural neighborhood in Jerez de la Frontera) and the vineyard of El Barroso (today a cortijo in Jerez de la Frontera).
Later, in 1294, Sancho IV himself resorted to Guzman for the defense of Tarifa, a place threatened by the prince Don Juan, uncle of the monarch, with the help of the Merinids and Nasrids. There took place the famous heroic defense of Tarifa, with the death of the innocent son of Guzman turned into a legend. After the feat of Tarifa, Sancho IV verbally promised him the Lordship of Sanlúcar, whose term included the places and towns of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Rota, Chipiona and Trebujena. However, it was not he but his son Ferdinand IV who made this grant effective in 1297. With time, Sanlúcar would become the main site of the house. In 1299 he received the grant of the almadraba of Conil and in 1303 the almadraba of Chiclana, whose respective villages he populated. In 1307 he received the Lordship of Vejer de la Frontera, in exchange for Zafra and Falconera, in Extremadura. He also received the Lordship of Marchena and a retention on the rents of Medina Sidonia.
At the death of Guzmán el Bueno in the mountains of Gaucín, fighting on the border with the Kingdom of Granada, the dimensions of his lordships and properties in the Sevillian alfoz of Aljarafe, the border area of Huelva, the Lower Guadalquivir and the area of Guadalete, made the House of Guzmán the most important lineage of the high nobility in Andalusia during the Late Middle Ages.
However, the house lost part of its original estates due to the marriage dowries and the will of María Alfonso Coronel given in 1330. By these means, her daughter Isabel Pérez de Guzmán, married to Fernán Ponce de León, contributed to the future House of Arcos the Lordship of Marchena, the retention on the rents of Medina Sidonia, the villas of Rota and Chipiona and, it seems, half of Ayamonte. Likewise, another daughter of the marriage, Leonor Pérez de Guzmán, married in 1306 to Luis de la Cerda, bequeathed to the future House of Medinaceli El Puerto de Santa María together with Villafranca, el Alijar and other estates. Alt URL
County of Niebla In 1369, King Henry II of Castile granted Juan Alfonso Perez de Guzman, 4th Lord of Sanlucar, the County of Niebla for his loyalty in the First Castilian Civil War that he had maintained with his half-brother Peter I the Cruel. In addition the king married him to one of his illegitimate daughters, linking the house with the Enriquez Family, therefore, with the House of Trastámara, incorporating to its coat of arms a border with the castles and lions typical of the Castilian-Leonese royal house. It was the first county with territorial jurisdiction that was granted to a nobleman outside the royal family.
The Condado takes its name from the Huelva town of Niebla, and included the town of Niebla and its villages, namely: Trigueros and Beas, Rociana, Villarrasa, Lucena, Bonares, Calañas, Facanías (today Valverde del Camino), the farmstead of Juan Pérez (today in La Puebla de Guzmán), Paymogo and El Portechuelo, Peña Alhaje and the Campo de Andévalo.
All this gave the house a new great impulse, to which was added the institution of a Majorat on the part of the Count in 1371, with the real estate and jurisdictional goods that he had inherited together with those contributed in dowry by his wife. Alt URL
Dukedom of Medina Sidonia In 1440, John II exchanged to Juan Alfonso Perez de Guzman, 3rd Count of Niebla, the Lordship of La Algaba, Alaraz and El Vado de las Estacas for Medina Sidonia. In 1444, this count recovered for the entailed estate of Ayamonte, Lepe and La Redondela, places that had been separated from it in 1396. Likewise, during the crisis that John II had with the Infantes of Aragon, between 1441 and 1444, the 3rd Count supported the monarch so that the kingdom of Seville remained mostly in his favor, a service for which he was rewarded in 1445 with the concession of the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The granting of this title meant that the dignity of Count of Niebla was associated with the Duke's first-born son, destined to succeed him as head of the house, in a sort of internal "principality".
In 1457, the 1st Duke, married to María de la Cerda, of the House of Medinaceli, established a entailed estate, with the King's permission, in favor of his bastard son Enrique, since he had no legitimate descendants with his wife. These circumstances would generate two long lawsuits in the house. The first one was maintained with the House of Medinaceli that demanded the return of the villa of Huelva, since Maria de la Cerda had contributed it to the marriage in dowry, but had died without having had children with the Duke. The return was not carried out and for that reason, around 1466, a long confrontation arose between both houses that would not end until 1509. The second lawsuit was with Teresa de Guzmán, Countess of Alba de Liste and sister of the 1st Duke, who despite having been previously compensated with Garrovillas de Alconétar, argued the bastardy of the Duke's son to claim half of Lepe and Ayamonte in 1462; places that had been recovered for the entailed estate of the house in 1444 and that had been separated from it again in 1454, to endow another Teresa, daughter of the 1st Duke. After a long period of claims, the Ayamonte lawsuit was settled in 1510.
The instability caused by the civil war between Henry IV of Castile and his half brother Alfonso, was used by the house to expand its domains by annexing Gibraltar and Jimena. Gibraltar, which had been conquered from the Grenadians in 1462, passed to the house in 1467 by grant of Alfonso, who reigned as Alfonso XII, which did not prevent his opponent Henry IV to revalidate the grant in 1469 when he fully recovered the government. The attractiveness of Gibraltar resided, among many other aspects, in the fact that it was endowed with an annual royal revenue of approximately 1,500,000 maravedíes, for the military expenses of the commandery, provisioning and garrison, which would last until the definitive conquest of the Kingdom of Granada. In 1488 the Catholic Monarchs granted the Duke the Marquisate of Gibraltar, but upon his death in 1492 they tried to recover it for the crown without success, leaving the matter in suspense until 1501, when it was definitively returned. On the other hand, Jimena, which had been conquered from the Nasrids of Granada in 1456, was taken from the Duke of Alburquerque in 1468, which generated a long lawsuit that concluded at the beginning of the 16th century, with the house paying 6,000,000 maravedís as compensation for the town. During this period the house made monetary loans to the Crown for the War of Granada and provided military services in the campaigns of Alhama, Malaga and the Vega de Granada, among others.
At the end of 1494 or beginning of 1495, the 3rd Duke lent his support to the Adelantado Alonso Fernández de Lugo, who definitively conquered Tenerife, which brought the house sugar mills and real estate in the Canary Islands. In 1497 an armada commanded by Pedro de Estopiñán departed from Sanlúcar and occupied Melilla, in the kingdom of Tlemcen near the border with the kingdom of Fez. The kings named the Duke governor and lieutenant of Melilla and made a release on his revenues of 4,400,000 maravedies for the military expenses of the place. Melilla was an outpost that would serve as support to the trade that from Sanlúcar was maintained with Maghreb, which, although it was prohibited for religious reasons, was for the ducal treasury more important than the one maintained with the Indies. In 1498 the kings granted the lordship of Gaucín, Benarrabá, Algatocín, BenamaoyaAlso called "Benamaya". and Benhamahabu,Also called "Benamahabú", a village between Algatocín and Benalauría, today uninhabited. all of them places in the Serranía de Ronda. In 1503 a new entailed estate of the house was approved and included Huelva, Jimena, San Juan del Puerto, the dozavo de Palos, Olivares and Villafranca.