Velasquita Ramírez

Velasquita Ramírez (pronunciation: [βelaskita ramireθ]) (d. c. 1035) was Queen consort of León as the first wife of King Bermudo II and mother of infanta Cristina Bermúdez, wife of Ordoño Ramírez.

The family origins of Velasquita are uncertain. The inscription on a stone in the church in Deva, simply calls her filia Ranimiri ("daughter of Ramiro"). Manuel Risco, an 18th-century Spanish historian, believed that Velasquita was the daughter of King Ramiro II of León, but Velasquita never appears in medieval charters as filia Ranimiri regis, which would have been the custom at that time. Modern historians reject this filiation and believe that she could have been born to Ramiro Menéndez, son of Count Hermenegildo González and Muniadona Díaz, and his wife Adosinda Gutiérrez. This would harmonize with a document dated 5 January 999 in which Bermudo refers to Gonzalo Betótez, father of count Hermenegildo, as his (great-) grandfather.

She married Bermudo II between 980 and 11 October 981 when both appear together for the first timeone year before Bermudo’s reign, in a donation made by Galician count Menendo Menéndez to the Monasterio de San Julián de Samos in which Bermudo confirms as Veremudus, prolix Ordonius rex and Velasquita as uxor ipsius.

Monastery of San Pelayo where Velasquita lived as a nun.

They appear together for the last time at the end of 988 and she was probably repudiated a year later in 989. In 991, King Bermudo and his second wife, Elvira García, confirm a charter together for the first time. Velasquita left the court and settled in Oviedo with her daughter Cristina, and became a nun at the Monastery of San Pelayo,whose abbess at that time was the dowager Queen Teresa Ansúrez. Medievalist Margarita Torres believes that Velasquita and Teresa both planned and encouraged the marriage of Cristina, Velasquita’s daughter, with Teresa’s grandson, Ordoño Ramírez thereby joining both royal lineages. Velasquita appears on 14 March 996 at the Monastery of San Pelayo confirming a donation made by her former husband, King Bermudo and his second wife Elvira. In 1024, she was also present and confirmed the charter whereby her daughter Cristina, already widowed, founded the Monastery of Cornellana where she would eventually retire.

By King Bermudo Velasquita had one known child, Cristina Bermúdez, who married infante Ordoño Ramírez, son of her father's rival Ramiro III of León and Sancha Gómez.

Velasquita was a grandmother of Alfonso Ordóñez, Aldonza (or Ildoncia) Ordóñez (died after 1056), Ordoño Ordóñez (an important magnate and alférez of Ferdinand I of León and Castile) and Pelaya Ordóñez, known as "Doña Palla".

The exact date of Velasquita's death is not known, but it was probably between 1028 and 1035. According to tradition, she was buried at the Monastery of San Salvador de Deva in Asturias, which she had founded before 1006 and had donated on 29 of August of that year to the Cathedral of Oviedo along with other properties such as the monasteries of Santa Cruz, San Juan de Abonio, and the church of San Martín de Salas.