Juan Fernandez de Heredia was an important religious, political, and cultural figure in Aragon and in the Roman Catholic Church during the fourteenth century.
Born around 1308 in the region of Albarradn into a family of the lesser nobility, he had joined the Order of the Hospital by 1326. In the following years, he held administrative responsibilities for the order in southern Aragon as lieutenant commander of Villel (1329) and commander of Alfambra (1334). He had probably become acquainted with King Peter IV of Aragon before Peter ascended the throne in 1336, because Fernandez de Heredia was soon acting as counselor to the new monarch. Royal patronage saw him appointed in 1346 to the castellany of Amposta (the official name of the Hospitaller priory of Aragon), and soon he was able to show his allegiance to the king in the revolt of the Uniones (noble fraternities established to defend aristocratic privileges). The compilation of the six-volume Great Cartulary of Amposta was a test of his abilities as an efficient administrator of the Hospitaller domains in the castellany. In the early 1350s, he extended his range of activities to the papal court in Avignon where he became the assistant to several popes, who in return granted him posts and privileges. When the Hospitaller master died at Rhodes in 1377, Pope Gregory XI appointed Fernandez de Heredia to this post; he was the first non-French Hospitaller to attain the mastership.
Fernandez de Heredia went to Rhodes in 1379 and remained in the East for three years, where he found the closed atmosphere of the central convent less congenial than Avignon. He returned to the papal court in southern France in 1382 and remained there until his death in 1396. Fernandez de Heredia never lost interest in Aragon, where he managed to promote his own family to the highest social ranks, perhaps his main interest in life, above the order or the Aragonese monarchy. His translations of historical works, especially those relating to Greek history, helped to give literary standing to the Aragonese language.
-Luis Garcia-Guijarro Ramos
Bibliography
Cacho Blecua, Juan Manuel, El gran maestre Juan Fernandez de Heredia (Zaragoza: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragon, 1997).
Juan Fernandez de Herediay su epoca, ed. Aurora Egido and Jose Marla Enguita (Zaragoza: Institucion Fernando el Catolico, 1996).
Luttrell, Anthony, “Greek Histories Translated and Compiled for Juan Fernandez de Heredia, Master of Rhodes, 1377-1396,” Speculum 35 (1960), 401-407.
-, “Juan Fernandez de Heredia at Avignon: 13511367,” in El Cardenal Albornozy el Colegio de Espana, ed. Evelio Verdera y Tuells, 2 vols. (Bolonia: Real Colegio de Espana, 1972), 1:287-316.
-, “Juan Fernandez de Heredia and Education in
Aragon: 1347-1369,” Anuario de Estudios Medievales 17 (1988), 237-244.
World History
