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From: John Wolcott< >
Subject: Re: Isabel Moniz
Date: 7 Apr 1998 15:41:20 -0700


Golly, Francisco, I think you're dismissing most of the sources too
quickly. Admittedly, it's impossible to prove some of them, but I don't
think that means they are therefor bogus. I feel certain that Diego
Columbus' will is genuine. In it he mentions "Dona felipa Muniz, my
mother , who is in the monastery of Carmo in Lisbon in a chapel thaat is
called of Piety because of her lineage from the Munizes." I don't
remember the date of the will, but Diego died in 1526, He was a page of
the Spanish court as a child and was connected with it much of his life.
He was a very wealthy man and married to the daughter of one of the
oremost Grandees of Spain. A reason why he would be familiar with an
obscure convent near Lisbon if his mother was not buried there seems
unlikely,much less any reason to mention it in his will if it were not so.
Admittedly Columbus seems to have used the marrige as a way of supporting
his non-existant gentility, yet his son at this stage of his life had
nothing to prove. Incidentally, I think it interesting that Diego's
half-brother Ferninand never mentioned his own mother in his book about
his famous father. It is my guess that the family allowed people to
assume that he too was a son of Phillipa Moniz.
My other source that you reject, the document about the Moniz
burials in the Chapel of Carmo is found in a book that appears to me to be
very authoritative: Gustavo de Matos Sequeira's O Carmo e a Trinadade,
published in Lisbon in 1939. It is a book about the convent and gives all
appearances of being based almost entirely on convent documents. It is
full of trivia that could only come from such documents and has nothing to
do with Columbus, indeed I don't recall him being mentioned in it. The
document I mentions had to do with a dispute about who could be buried in
the Moniz Chapel. Apparently another person had been buried there and the
Moniz objected. You say this document has never been seen but I have no
idea on what you base this. I have to assume that Sequeira did. He
writes very clearly about it in detail and with authority, and he
certainly wasn't trying to advocate any idea about Columbus. I would be
happy to hear your thoughts on this.

John Wolcott
http://www.orst.edu/~wolcottj

On Sun, 5 Apr 1998, Francisco Antonio Doria wrote:

> John,
>
> This is a messy situation. What you give below is a new solution to the
> enigma. You simply join the two Moniz lines into a single one. I don't
> think that's correct, but I despair of ever obtaining a definite
> conclusion about this; Isabel Moniz was far too obscure.
>
> >
> > Let me clarify the descent of Columbus' wife from Gil Ayres,
> > personal secretary to Nuno Alvarez Periera, Constable of Portugal. Gil
> > was the Constable's secretary in 1404 and is referred to as a Knight
> > in 1406. He died in 1437 and was buried in the church of St. Mary de
> > Carmo, the place where Columbus' wife was buried. Based on this I would
> > guess Gil's birth was some time around 1370. A 15th century text says that
> > he was younger than the Constable, who was born about 1360. His
> > father-in-law was the personal secretary of King John.
>
> Make Gil Ayres' birth c. 1365. His children were born probably c. 1400.
> Vasco Gil Moniz married Leonor de Lusignan c. 1430 (you can check the
> Lusignan line, and also the fact that she came, if I rightly recall, from
> Aragon). So we discard the possibility that Isabel Moniz was his sister,
> as both Braancamp Freire and Morison assert. She was born c. 1435.
>
> > A document of 1469 gives burial rights in the church of St.
> > Mary de Carmo to descendants of his children, Diego Gil, Vasco Martins
> > Moniz, and Guiomar Gil, all living in 1469, and their siblings, presumably
> > deceased. One of these was Leonore, wife of Ferdinand de Sousa. Another
> > was Martin Gil, private secretary and treasurer to Prince Peter, regent
> > for his nephew, King Alfoso, who came of age in 1446.
>
> Nobody has seen this document, and Isabel's tomb, if she was ever buried
> at the Carmo, doesn't exist. It's a late quotation, after Columbus had
> surged from an obscure Genoese merchant into the Admiral of the Indies.
>
> > Martin was a court functionary under both Peter and Alphonso,
> > probably until as late as 1462. He is apparently the Martin Fagundes who
> > with wife Leonore Lorenzo and sons Vasco Martins Monz and Garcia Moniz
> > are mentioned in a document of 1433.
>
> No. One of the Portuguese chroniclers (Ferna~o Lopes, I think) mentions
> that both Vasco Martins Moniz and Garcia Moniz were knighted before the
> conquest of Ceuta in 1415; Garcia Moniz died there, a few days later.
> They were knighted at Tavira.
>
> This Martim Fagundes is probably Martim *Moniz*, as indicated by Vasco
> Martins Moniz name. Those first generations in this family are quite
> messy. Martin Gil, whose acme was c. 1435, cannot be identified with
> either Martim Moniz or Martim Fagundes, ancestor of the Moniz of Silves
> line, who lived much earlier. Vasco Martins Moniz III, gson of Vasco
> Martins Moniz I, who lived in the Madeira, died in 1510.
>
> > This is the first date I have found
> > recorded for the use of Moniz as a surname in this family, predating the
> > use of it by Martin Gil's brother, Vasco Gil Moniz in 1438. Literally it
> > means "of Nuno" and was, I believe, taken as a surname in honor of their
> > father's patron, Constable Nuno. Martin Gil must have been born about
> > 1400.
>
> I don't think so. Nuno and Munio were different names at that time; they
> were only confused in the early Portuguese middle-ages (11th century).
> The patronimic of Nuno was Nunes, very different from Moniz. And
> Munio/Monio/Moninho had ceased to be used at that time as a first name.
> Just to mess up things a little more, the late Professor Pinheiro e Rosa,
> a historian from Algarve, told me in 1992 that those Moniz were probably
> marranos.
>
> > Martin Gil was the father of Vasco Martins Moniz of Madiera who
> > was father of Vasco Martins Moniz, Commendador of Panoias, Joan Periera
> > the wife of Francisco de Almeida the 1st Viceroy of India, Garcia Moniz,
> > page of the royal household in 1477, and Jorge Moniz, Commendador of
> > Piniero. Vasco Martins Moniz, the elder. would have been born about 1425.
>
> You are mixing up two lines here: Vasco Martins I married the Pereira
> lady (not related to Nun'Alvares) and fathered Henrique Moniz,
> alcaide-mor at Silves, who married Ines de Meneses, whereas the Moniz
> Barreto de Meneses name. which persisted in Brazil until the late 18th
> century. Another sibling was Vasco Martins II, who had all those children
> below. Vasco II is the ancestor of the marquesses of Angeja.
>
> > Martin Gil's second son, mentioned in the 1433 document, was, I believe
> > the person referred to in a document of 1717 which says that Columbus'
> > mother-in-law- Isabell Moniz was the sister of "Don Garcia Moniz and Don
> > Christopher Moniz, Bishop of Annel of the Carmelite order"
>
> The document is much earlier, as it is referred to by Henrique Henriques
> de Noronha, who died in 1700. The reference goes back to Gaspar Frutuoso.
>
> > Both were
> > apparently priest as Father Garcia Moniz was a witness to the will of
> > Febus Moniz, his cousin, 1n 1509. Martin Gil Moniz was also the father of
> > Rut Gil Moniz, Treasurer of the Lisbon Mint, born about 1430, Diego
> > Gil Moniz, Treasurer of Prince Ferdinand, King John's only brother, and
> > probably also Gil Ayres Moniz. a knight of the royal household in 1462.
>
> OK, but these people are in the Gim Moniz line, which is, as I said, a
> different line.
>
> > The Christopher Moniz mentioned in the 1717 document was Prior of the
> > convent at St.Mary de Carmo where the Moniz were buried, and appointed
> > administrator of the bishopric of Evora and titular bishop of Riona.
>
> Braancam tried to identify this Cristova~o Moniz. Recently Consuelo
> Varela (Colon Y los Florentinos) places him as a son of Isabel Moniz and
> Bartolomeu Perestrelo. Braancamp said that he used the Perestrelo coat of
> arms.
>
> > If
> > the document of 1717 is correct, Isabell Moniz was the sister of the above
> > sons of Martin Gil, son af Gil Ayres. Her burial in the Moniz chapel at
> > the Carmo monastery where bishop Christopher Moniz had been prior, appears
> > to confirm this.
>
> If she was his mother, as Varela says, that would be a most reasonable
> choice.
>
>
> > I see no reason to suggest that a daughter of the king's
> > private secretary and sister to priests and royal tresurers would have
> > children outside of wedlock with a knight of the Order of Santiago and
> > hereditary governor of Porto Santo. The fact that her daughter used the
> > Moniz surname does not support this conjecture, as it was common at this
> > time to use either parent's surname or both or even a maternal
> > granmother's surname if one wanted to.
>
>
> I know that; I'm aware of the very confusing naming system used by our
> ancestors. Only it is documentally attested that Bartolomeu *Moniz* was
> so called until the early 1500s, when he changed his name to Perestrello
> and inherited the captaincy. Why should Bartolomeu Perestrelo I give his
> own first name to his yougest son and then exclude him from his
> inheritance? As you know, there was a long judicial fight between
> Bartolomeu II and his in-laws Pedro Correia and Mem Rodrigues de Vasconcelos.
>
> Best,
>
> Francisco Antonio Doria
>
> >
> > John Wolcott
> >
> > On 2 Apr 1998, Francisco Antonio Doria wrote:
> >
> > > Dear John,
> > >
> > > I must say I've really enjoyed your page with Columbus' bio. However I
> > > must also say that you've been deceived by a (possible) old forgery
> > > concerinig Isabel Moniz, Columbus' mother-in-law.
> > >
> > > The info you give is originally based on Dego Colon's testimony. However
> > > you can't fit Isabel Moniz as the daughter of Gil Ayres because of
> > > obvious chronological inconsistencies - her supposed brothers were born
> > > c. 1390/1400, that is to say, more than a generation before her estimate
> > > birth.
> > >
> > > Isabel Moniz was - most certainly - a member of the Moniz Barreto de
> > > Meneses family from Madeira. They were distantly related to royalty
> > > (Leonor Teles de Meneses, a relative, was queen of Portugal, wife of d.
> > > Fernando I `o Formoso'. Shew was called `the Portuguese Lucrezia
> > > Borgia.') Nobody knows for sure who were Isabel's parents. Chronological
> > > considerations discard the solution given by the 17th century
> > > genealogist H. H. de Noronha. Then she either was sister of Vasco
> > > Martins Moniz, who settled in the Madeira c. 1440, or the illegitimate
> > > daughter of another Vasco Martins Moniz, ancestor of the marquesses of
> > > Angeja.
> > >
> > > Also, she never married Perestrello, but had four children from him:
> > > Filipa Moniz, Columbus' wife, d.c. 1480, probably after giving birth to
> > > her only son; Briolanja Moniz, who married Giannotto de' Bardi, a
> > > Florentine merchant, and then Miguel Muylaert, Cristova~o Moniz, who
> > > became a bishop c. 1506, and Bartolomeu Moniz, who succeded in
> > > reclaiming his father's lordship from his half-sisters, who had married
> > > Mem Rodrigues de Vasconcellos and Pedro Correia da Cunha, lord of
> > > Graciosa. Filipa's illegitimacy is suggested by the fact that they only
> > > adopted the Perestrello name after young Bartolomeu's judicial victory.
> > >
> > > Best, Francisco Antonio Doria
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

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