which he held as late as 1153. In 1140 Fernán signed Alfonso VII's charter ordering that he and his queen be buried in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Fernán signed as "count Don Fernando of Traba" (comes dominus Fernandus de Traua), the only time he is ever referred to in contemporary a document with the toponym "de Traba" by which he is now universally known. In June 1137 Fernán probably participated in the recapture of Túy, although the Historia compostellana alleges that the Galician magnates responsible for the defence of the frontier with Portugal were too slow in answering the royal summons and had to be bribed by Diego Gelmírez to join the royal army. Fernán appears to have been the only Galician to follow the king to the Navarrese frontier later that year. He was with the royal army at Logroño on 3 October, though by 20 October Rodrigo Vélaz had also joined the army on the Ebro. Fernán defended with difficulty the valley of the Minho against the onslaughts of Afonso Henriques, as recorded by the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris: Prior to [1140], the Portuguese monarch had come to Galicia several times, but always he had been driven back by Fernando Pérez and Rodrigo Vélaz and other Galician leaders. Often he was forced to return to Portugal dishonored. In 1139 or 1140, at Cerneja (Cernesa) in Galicia, he and Rodrigo Vélaz were defeated by Teresa's son Afonso Henriques, who by that time had proclaimed himself king of Portugal. The Battle of Cerneja is recorded in the Chronica Adefonsi: Once more Alfonso, King of Portugal, gathered his army and went to Limia. When this news reached Galicia, Fernando Pérez and Rodrigo Vélaz and other of the Emperor's Galician nobles were summoned immediately. They marched out with their troops against the Portuguese King and met him at Cernesa. After the battle lines were drawn up, they began to fight. Because of their sins the Counts fled and were defeated. The record of Fernán's rule in Deza consists of an original royal charter of July 1144. In 1146 he held the tenencias Monforte de Lemos and Sarria. Between 1144 and 1155 Fernán was frequently at court, and he participated in almost all of Alfonso VII's major campaigns of the Reconquista, commanding the Galician contingents on numerous occasions against the Almohads. The major exception was the conquest of Calatrava in January 1147.