Barcelona House

The House of Barcelona (in Catalan: Casal de Barcelona), was the dynasty founded by Wifredo el Velloso, Count of Barcelona. Traditional historiography dates the extinction of the dynasty on the death without legitimate male issue of Martin the Human in the year 1410.

The lineage of the House of Barcelona comes from a Visigothic family from the Pyrenees region that, after joining the Frankish forces of Charlemagne in his war against Al-Andalus, went on to govern various territories of the Carolingian Hispanic March after become counties of the Empire. Ramón de Abadal's hypothesis, according to which the Barcelona county house descends through the male lineage of the Carcassonne county lineage, does not have a historiographical consensus.

Cover of the Aureum Opus (1513), compilation of the privileges granted to the city and kingdom of Valencia between 1236 and 1513.

The first king of Mallorca and Valencia was Jaime I the Conqueror.

Background to the creation of the county

The medieval epoch will be for Europe a convulsing time, where two forces of power, Heaven and Earth, and two ways of exercising it, that of the Pope and that of kings, lived together. One had the spiritual authority and key of the Heavenly Kingdom and the others, the legitimacy of blood conferred by the ancient lineages to reign and govern.

Barcelona had been an important Visigothic city since 415, the year in which Ataúlf designated it as the capital of the Visigothic State. In 712 it was taken by the Muslims and conquered in 801 by the troops of Louis the Pious. After its capture, the Carolingian king placed a series of nobles in power, including Wifredo's father, Sunifredo I., to whom Ramón de Abadal attributes being the son of a hypothetical first Count of Carcassonne named Bellón, while other historians, identifying him with the son of Count Borrell de Osona of the same name, suggest that he was his son-in-law.

Decisive Factors

The Council of Troyes of 878

In June 870, in the assembly of Attigny, Wifredo received the honors from Charles the Bald, as count of Urgel and Cerdanya and from his brother Miró for the count of Conflent, while Delá and Suñer II, sons of Suñer I of Ampurias and Roussillon, were named counts of Ampurias.

Bernardo de Gothia (Count of Barcelona, Roussillon, Narbonne, Agde, Besiers, Magalona and Nimes) rebelled against King Charles the Bald, Wifredo the Hairy, helped by his brothers Miró and Sunifredo and by the Viscount of Narbonne (on the side of Carlos and after that of his son, Luis the Stammerer) they advanced through Septimania where they forcibly eliminated the nobles faithful to Bernardo (such as Bishop Sigebuto of Narbonne), expelling from their churches the priests who were not theirs. supporters. About 878 Bernardo's rebellion finally collapsed.

In August, at the Council of Troyes, presided over by Pope John VIII and by King Luis the Stammerer and in which the counts Wifredo the Hairy of Urgell and Cerdanya, Miró de Conflent, Suñer II of Ampurias and Oliba II of Carcassonne, important religious and political decisions were made. On September 11, 878 Bernardo was declared dispossessed of his honors, which would be distributed. In this division, Wifredo el Velloso was invested as Count of Barcelona, Osona, Gerona and Besalú, Narbona, Beziers and Agde. His brother Miró received the county of Roussillon. Wifredo ceded the administration of Besalú to his brother Radulfo (878-920). Sunifredo will be abbot of Arles and Riculfo bishop of Elna.

Decline of the Carolingian Empire

After the Council of Troyes (878), and following the tradition of the counts of Visigothic descent from the Hispanic March, both Wifredo el Velloso and his brother Miró de Roussillon-Conflent and the counts of Ampurias Dela and Suñer II maintained his fidelity to the Carolingian monarchs Carloman II (879-884) and Carlos the Fat (885-888), as witnessed by the visit to the royal court in 881 carried out by leaders and clergy from the counties of Gotia, and the precept granted in 886 by Carlos the Fat to Teotario, Bishop of Gerona. Now, this loyalty takes, after the death of Luis the Stammerer, a passive character. The counts of the Hispanic March, although they never rose up against the Carolingian kings, avoided getting involved in the struggles of the kingdom.

The clearest proof of the decomposition of Carolingian power in the Frankish kingdom was the hereditary transmission of the counties, a practice that began in 895: Miró the Elder died, his county of Roussillon passed, without any kind of intervention from King Odón, to Suñer II of Ampurias, while that of Conflent went to Wifredo el Velloso, count of Osona since 885, without having received the royal investiture of this county. Thus, kings lost the power, which they had had in the IX century, to appoint and dismiss counts, which, therefore, ceased to be delegates of the monarch to become small sovereigns of their domains.

Patrimonial transfer

In the case of Barcelona, and unlike other domains such as Carcassonne, after Wifredo's death (897) the concept of how the succession should be carried out had not been sufficiently clear. For this reason, at first, his sons -Wifredo II Borrell, Miró, Sunifredo and Suñer- opted to jointly govern all his father's domains and administer them under the presidency of the eldest son, Wifredo Borrell, primus inter pairs. But soon, when each of the co-governing counts had descendants, it was necessary to abandon the idea of joint inheritance and, then, each son individually transmitted to his heirs the part of the condal group that he governed: Wifredo Borrell, together with Suñer: Barcelona, Gerona and Osona; Sunifredo: urgent; and Miró: Cerdanya, Conflent and Berga. This patrimonial appropriation of the territory governed by the counts (formally still subject to the King of the Franks) was not legally resolved until the XIII century, when James I of Aragon signed the Treaty of Corbeil (1258) with the King of France, by which the succession rights of each king (France and Aragon) in their respective territories were established.

However, after the Carolingian crisis, all the counts of Septimania became independent, ceding the counties in inheritance to their eldest sons. Wifredo thus begins the House of Barcelona dynasty that, in the later Middle Ages, will house the rest of the Septiman counties of Occitania under its protection, until 1213 and the battle of Muret, where, suddenly, all the possessions of the House of Barcelona in Occitania (except for the lordship of Montpellier) ended up being conquered and taken away by the Frankish Crusaders.

9th to 11th centuries: from Wifredo El Velloso to Ramón Borrell

Genealogical tree of the Counts of Barcelona (in green), kings of Aragon (in yellow) and kings of Mallorca (in pink) of the house of Barcelona. It includes the succession of the first King Trastamara of the Crown of Aragon.

• Wifredo el Velloso (-897)
• Wifredo II (874-911)
• Suñer I (870-950)
• Borrell II (946-992)
• Ramón Borrell (972-1017),

Events

Legend of the origin of the four bars

Based on the verified facts (Council of Troyes of 878), it can be affirmed that Wifredo el Velloso is the progenitor of what will be the future House of Barcelona. For this reason, theory (and character) often used (often with exaggeration) by writers and historians, are the point of reference that will mark the lineage. The idea that Wifredo el Velloso was the architect, not just of the independence of the Catalan counties but of the birth of Catalonia, was among others popularized (during the Renaixença) by the playwright Serafí Pitarra, with his phrase Fills de Guifré el Pilós, això vol dir catalans (Sons of Wifredo el Velloso, this means Catalans). Wifredo is credited with the origin of the flag of the four bars:

... the Count Iofre Valeroso asked the Emperor Lois to give him weapons that he could bring in the shield, which bears gold without any currency. And the emperor, seeing that it was in that battle so courageous that, with many sores that he received, he would do wonders in weapons, came to him, and wet the right hand of the blood that went out to the count, and passed the quatro dedos ansi ensangrentados above the golden shield, from high to low, doing quatro stripes of blood, and dixo: "These will be your weapons, Count." And from there he took the quatro stripes, or bands, of blood in the golden field, which are the weapons of Cathaluña, which exhausts dezimos of Aragon.

This legend has its origin, according to Martín de Riquer, in the Valencian historian Pere Antoni Beuter, who included it in 1550 in his work Crónica general de España, inspired by a Castilian chronicle from 1492. Later it was revived, among others, by the Catalan writer Pablo Piferrer (1818-1848), recognized as the great compiler of traditional Catalan legends. However, it should be noted that the shield of the four bars dates from 1150, when it appears on a seal of Ramón Berenguer IV, and became dynastic weapons after the union with Aragon, already being the emblem of the lineage, with King Alfonso II of Aragon.

According to the study by Ramón de Abadal, Wifredo is considered to be the son of Sunifredo, a Hispano-Gothic nobleman, named Count of Urgell and Cerdanya in 834 by Emperor Louis the Pious, and of Barcelona, Gerona, Narbonne, Nimes, Agde, Besiers and Magalona in 844 by the Frankish King Charles the Bald.

Wifredo was considered by Pedro IV of Aragon in his Chronicle as the first member of the House of Barcelona.

Marriages and offspring

• Wiffed the Velloso. Casó with Guinidilda (Winilda). Nine hundred and twenty-eight.
  • Wifredo II (-911). He died without leaving offspring. The counties passed to his brother Suñer.
  • Sunny I (870-950). He fell into second nuptials with Riquilda de Tolosa, daughter of the Count of Roergue. He had Armengol (925), Miró (926), Borrell (927), Adelaide (928) and Guillermo (929).
    • Borrell II (927-992). He fell with Letgarda of Tolosa, daughter of Raimundo III of Aquitaine. He had Ramon Borrell, Ermengol, Ermengarda and Riquilda. After the death of Letgarda he remarried, this time with Eimeruda de Auvergne.
      • Ramón Borrell (972-1017). In 993 he married Ermesenda de Carcasona with whom he had a son: Berenguer Ramón.

11th and 12th centuries: from Berenguer Ramón I to Ramón Berenguer III

• Berenguer Ramón I el Curvo. (1005-1035)
• Ramón Berenguer I el Viejo. (1023-1076)
• Ramón Berenguer II Cabeza de Estopa. (1053-1082)
• Berenguer Ramón II el Fratricida. (1053-1097)
• Ramón Berenguer III el Grande. (1082-1131)

After the feudal revolution of 1020-1060, the supremacy of the House of Barcelona over the rest of the counties began to grow. After the revolt of the barons, Ramón Berenguer I received the homage and the oath of fidelity from the counts of Besalú, Cerdanya, Ampurias and Roussillon, in addition to the fact that the counts of Urgell continued the policy of fidelity to Barcelona, which began with the homage of Ermengol II of Urgell to Berenguer Ramón I, received in 1018 and in 1026.

Events

The Spain of the Gesta

The first signs of what will soon be the beginning of the disintegration of the Almohad empire are evident to the Christian kings. The appearance of the new and small kingdoms called taifas in al-Andalus will allow an unstoppable rise of the Catalan and Aragonese troops, first by the Ebro and much later, with the conquests of Valencia and Murcia, along the entire Mediterranean shore..

This is the beginning of the period known as the «España de la Gesta»^{[citation required]} a time when minstrels sang in the town squares the exploits of the kings in battles (and other troubles, with that recognized picaresque). One of the most representative preserved writings of the time is the Song of Mío Cid, in which the battle (and subsequent capture) of Count Berenguer Ramón II is narrated in verse, after an incursion into the Taifa of Zaragoza, in which the Cid was an ally of the Muslim king. In this passage, the Cid calls the count "Don Remont".

Ramón Berenguer III enslaving the teaching of Barcelona in the castle of Fos (Fos-sur-Mer, Provence), by Mariano Fortuny (1856 or 1857), Real Academia Catalana de Bellas Artes de San Jorge (in deposit at the Palacio de la Generalidad de Cataluña).

Marriages and offspring

• Berenguer Ramón I el Curvo. In 1021 he married Sancha, the daughter of Sancho García, Count of Castilla, with whom he had two sons: Ramón Berenguer I (1023) and Sancho. In 1027 he remarried, this time with Guisla, daughter of the veguer Balsareny. She had a son, William (1028).
  • Ramon Berenguer I el Viejo. She got married three times. In the first nupcias in 1039 with Isabel de Nimes, probably daughter of the Viscount Ramon Bernat I de Nimes, with whom he had Pedro Ramón de Barcelona (? -1071), condemned for the murder of his stepmother Almodis, Arnau de Barcelona (?-1045) and Berenguer de Barcelona (?-1045). In 1051 he married Blanca de Narbona, daughter of Llop Ató Zuberoa and Ermengarda de Narbona. She was repudiated the following year without being offspring. The 1056 house, in third nupcias, with Almodis de la Marca, daughter of Count Bernat I de Razès, with whom she had the Infanta Agnès de Barcelona (1056-1071), married in 1070 with Count Guigues VII de Albon, Ramón Berenguer II (1053-1082), Berenguer Ramón II (1053-1099?), Sancha de Barcelona (1076-1095), house
    • Ramón Berenguer II Cabeza de Estopa. He contracted marriage by 1075 with Mafalda de Apulia (1060-1108), daughter of Roberto Guiscardo, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, (1020-1085), and his wife Sikelgarda de Salerno, (1040-?), and brother Roger I of Sicily (1089-1101), both sons of Tancredo de Hauteville and Fredesinda de Normandy. The future heir to Barcelona County, Ramon Berenguer III, would be born of this marriage.
    • Berenguer Ramon II, called the Fratricida. He co-rubbed the county with his brother (probably twin) Ramon Berenguer II until his death in mysterious circumstances in 1082, and alone thereafter. After being accused of having instigated the murder of his brother, starting in 1086 he only maintains the government as the guardian of his nephew and heir to the throne, the future Ramon Berenguer III, until the majority of his age. No known offspring.
      • Ramon Berenguer III the Great. In the first nupcias he espoused Mary, daughter of the Cid Champion. He fell in second nuptists with Dulce de Provence or Rouergue, with whom he had in 1108 Berenguela de Barcelona, wife of King Alfonso VII of Castile and the twins Ramón Berenguer IV and Berenguer Ramón I de Provenza, in 1114.

12th century: Ramón Berenguer IV “Princeps d’Aragón”

Union in the Crown of Aragon

After the death without sons of King Ramiro II of Aragon called the Monk, his daughter, Queen Petronila of Aragon, whose marriage had been arranged with Ramón Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona and Provence. Previously, the religious orders and the nobility of Aragon had reached an agreement for the annulment of the first testament, in which the Kingdom of Aragon would become the property of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, that of the Temple and that of the Hospital, a pact in which that new and important cessions of fortresses were established.

After this agreed consensus, Ramón Berenguer IV obtained the title of Princeps Aragonesus from the king but not that of king, which his son Alfonso would obtain by inheritance from his mother Petronila, at which time which formally begins the period of the dynasty of the House of Barcelona in the Crown of Aragon until its extinction with the death without issue of King Martin I of Aragon.

Marriages and offspring

Petronila de Aragón and Ramón Berenguer IV Conde de Barcelona according to the interpretation of Filippo Ariosto of 1586.

The pact of Ramiro the Monk

The pact established with Ramón Berenguer IV excluded him from the title of king and only granted him the authority to exercise government, unless Ramiro and Petronila died. In the donation it is mentioned:

Hec autem omnia superius scripta ego prephatus rex Rammirus taliter facio tibi, Raimunde, barchinonensium comes et marchio, ut, si filia mea mortua fuerit prehata, te superstite, donationem prephati regni libere et immutabiliter habeas absque alicuius impedimento post mortem meam. Interim vero, si quid augmentationis vel traditionis de honoribus vel municionibus prephati regni, me vivete, facere tibi voluero, sub prephata hominum fidelitate firmum et immobile permaneat; et ego prephatus rex Rammirus sim rex, dominus et pater in prephato regno et in totis comitatibus

Original latin translation:

I, the one named King Ramiro, do it to you, Ramon, Count and Marquis of the Barcelons, so that if my daughter dies before and you survive, you will have the donation of this kingdom freely and immutable, without any impediment, after my death. But as long as I want to make you as long as I live any increase or surrender of honors or castles in this kingdom, remain under the above-mentioned fidelity of the firm and immutable homage, and I this King Ramiro will be King, Lord and Father in this kingdom and in all counties until I please.

Consequently, according to the documents preserved in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon, the functions exercised by Ramón Berenguer were those of the king, like any regent, in the exercise of the imperium or potestas, forbidden to the queen because of her feminine condition. Thus, he exercised the government leading the army, ordering transfers of castles, issuing town charters, etc. Therefore, Petronila was left with the royal dignity —which became effective in her wills and in the donation of the joint patrimony in inheritance to her son—, while the count exercised power as princeps of Aragon until his death in 1162, when he was replaced by a commission of Aragonese and Barcelona magnates, among whom were the high prelates (bishops of the main sees) and rich men of both origins, gathered for that purpose in the first documented courts of the Kingdom of Aragon on November 11, 1164, a few months after the transmission of the joint inheritance by Petronila. The regency of this council of notables in government decisions extended from the death of Ramón Berenguer in 1162 to 1173, the year in which Alfonso II, at the age of sixteen, was finally able to lead the government and his followers.

Assignment of the rights over Aragon of the military orders

As indicated by the historian Joseph O'Callaghan, after the election of Ramiro el Monje as king of Aragon, which went against both the will of Alfonso I el Batallador and the will of the Papacy, of which the kings of Aragon were vassals, Ramón Berenguer had to start negotiations with the heirs of Aragon according to the royal will, namely the military orders of the Templars, Hospitallers and of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. In 1140 he reached an agreement with representatives of the Hospitallers, by in which the Order ceded to Ramón Berenguer, Count of Barcelona, the part of the Kingdom of Aragon that corresponded to him according to the will of King Alfonso, in exchange for various concessions and perks. Similar cession agreements were made later with the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher (1141) and with the Templars (1143). This cession of the three orders was confirmed by a bull from Pope Adrian IV in 1158.

However, it is a fact that the barons of the Kingdom of Aragon and the Kingdom of Pamplona (since the two kingdoms were included in the will of Alfonso I the Battler) swore allegiance respectively to Ramiro II the Monk and García the Restorer. It was not disputed that the Military Orders had to negotiate with the King of Navarre for the inheritance of Alfonso I the Battler. It is also a fact that Ramón Berenguer IV had agreed in the betrothal documents of 1137 with Ramiro II of Aragon his status as princeps in Aragon, and had been exercising royal authority in the Aragonese kingdom as dominator, before negotiations with the military Orders from 1140 onwards. Current historiography mostly agrees that, simply, the testament of Alfonso I the Battler was not respected and, thus, Ramiro II of Aragón not only exercised royal power between 1134 and 1137, but also reserved the dignity of king until his death in 1157, a circumstance that does not appear to have been questioned during the government of Ramón Berenguer IV. A different interpretation of the pacts with the military Orders is given by Antonio Ubieto Arteta, who considers that, in a period in which they had economic problems, and urged by the Papacy six years after the will had been promulgated, they saw the opportunity to obtain certain privileges and establishments in the territories of Aragon and Catalonia in exchange for settling the testamentary question of Alfonso I.

Alfonso II, King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona

Alfonso II was the first king to inherit the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona as a heritage territory.

The son of Ramón Berenguer IV, called Ramón y Alfonso interchangeably from birth, inherited in 1164 at the age of seven (legal age to assume the kingdom) from the incumbent queen Petronila jointly the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona —and the corresponding titles— as firstborn. According to Antonio Ubieto Arteta, Guillermo Fatás, Alberto Montaner Frutos or Faustino Menéndez Pidal de Navascués, this transmission was carried out by means of a contract established under Aragonese law known as "marriage at home", although this theory has been recently questioned in an article by Josep Serrano Daura. The new monarch's sphere of sovereignty included the kingdom of Aragon and the counties of Barcelona, Gerona, Osona and Ribagorza, as well as the marquisates of Lérida and Tortosa constituted after the conquests of his father. He did not initially inherit the county of Cerdanya, which Ramón Berenguer IV had testified together with the Lordship of Carcassonne in favor of his second son Pedro, also known as Ramón Berenguer IV of Provenza. He subsequently incorporated other territories, such as Cerdanya (1162), Provence (1167) and Roussillon (1172).

This alternation in the names indicates the willingness, on the part of the members of this dynasty, to adapt to those domains that have been attributed to them by inheritance. Thus, the eldest son received the name of his father, Ramón Berenguer, in baptism, but used the name of Alfonso to reign in order to ingratiate himself with his Aragonese subjects and, at the same time, connect with the memory and legitimacy of King Alfonso the Battler. For his part, the second son of Ramón Berenguer IV and Petronila was baptized as Pedro, the traditional name of the House of Aragon, but around 1170 he assumed the Barcelona name of Ramón Berenguer, which his brother had left available, to facilitate his installation to the Provence front.

However, the interpretation that Alfonso II adopted the name of Alfonso to reign is rejected by Antonio Ubieto Arteta, providing medieval documentation of the time, who points out:

from the very moment of birth he was appointed indistinctly by both denominations: Alfonso and Ramón.

Furthermore, in the abdication of Queen Petronila on July 18, 1164, she names her heir Alfonso and notes that in her will (as late as August 1162) her husband called him Ramón.

12th and 13th centuries: from Alfonso II to Pedro II

The union of the royal sovereignty of various territories under the same person, but with independent uses, customs and currency, would give rise, already in the 13th century, to the formation of a union of states under the same monarch to which Today we know it as the Crown of Aragon. In the medieval documentation of this period, the king is always referred to as "king of Aragon". However, the terminological distinction of the geographical origin of the natives of the territories that made up the dynastic union was always maintained: Aragonese and Catalan. Rubio García documents that this difference is manifested in Castilian authors. The Chronicle of Alfonso XI, from the 14th century, reads "many Rich-omes et Caballeros del Rey de Aragón et de Catalueña".

The most identifying characteristic that would define the first kings of the Crown was their priority intervention in Occitania and the Mediterranean. As Pierre Bonnassie points out, despite the acquired titles of prince (Ramón Berenguer IV) or king of Aragon (Alfonso II and his successors), «these sovereigns continue to behave, above all, like counts of Barcelona. In other words, they pursue a policy essentially oriented towards the Mediterranean and southern France." The intervention in Occitania lasted until the defeat of Muret, in which all the historical interests of the House of Aragon-Barcelona were suddenly settled. In the south of france.

Phase of economic weakening of the Crown

The continuous wars carried out by these monarchs in Occitania were financed by the advance income that Pedro II had requested from Jews and Saracens, according to what James I himself stated in the Llibre dels fets when he talks about his arrival at the castle of Monzón:

And tota la renda que nostre pare hauia en Catalunya e en Aragó era empenyorada tro als jueus e als serrains... And don't do a day when we got into Montsó to lie. That's how the terra was imbued and destroyed.

Jaime I, The Llibre des FeitsFol.

Las Navas de Tolosa

Pedro II de Aragón, called “the Catholic” and killed in the Albigense war.

Among the most notable battles of these kings we must point out the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, led by King Alfonso VIII of Castile and in which they participated together with Pedro II of Aragon, King Sancho VII of Navarre and the Archbishop of Narbonne. With this great triumph, Christian supremacy was demonstrated against the Almohad empire, which would still remain in power for a few years, until its final dissolution/conversion into the Taifa kingdoms.

The Battle of Muret

For the House of Aragon-Barcelona, the battle of Muret meant the loss of the Occitan domains that, from their conquest at the beginning of the 9th century onwards, had belonged to dynasties of the House of Barcelona. Historical possessions such as Carcassonne and Rasez passed to Simon IV de Montfort, after the massacres that followed the bull of Innocent III granted against Catharism.

After a first initial pact in which the marriage of the young Jaime with the daughter of Simón de Montfort is proposed, Pedro II hands over his son Jaime as a hostage of the pact and trying to prevent the final battle from taking place. In view of Rome, this marriage would not solve the Cathar problem, so Montfort proceeded to conquer each of the squares. The King of Aragon stands in Muret with an army made up mainly of Aragonese, Catalans and Toulouse, which vanishes after hearing the news of the king's assassination.

And here mori nostre pare car axi ho ha fat me linatge totstemps que en les batalles que ells han fetes, he nos farem, deuem vencre o muerte.

Jaime I, The Llibre des Feits

Marriages and offspring

• Alfonso II El Casto. Peter, King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona (1196-1213) and Alfonso II of Provence, Count of Provence, Milhau (1196-1209).
  • Peter II The Catholic. He fell with Maria de Montpellier and had a single son: Jaime I de Aragón.

13th century: James I the Conqueror

Portrait of the centuryXVI of Jaime I.

• Jaime I de Aragón (1208-1276)

Jaime I, due to his policy of expansion and territorial planning, is considered the most representative figure of the lineage of the House of Aragon-Barcelona. His thoughts and the account of his war events and confrontations are compiled in the Llibre dels fets .

Retrau mon Senyor Sant Jaume, que fe sense obres morta es. Aquesta paraula volc Nostre Senyor complir en los nostres feyts.

Templar Instruction

The young king was soon orphaned by his father and, a few months later, by his mother. After the events in which the death of Pedro II the Catholic took place, the young Jaime was forced to spend several years in the Trencavel Palace, under the tutelage of the Crusader leader Simón IV de Montfort. After the protests of religious orders and Aragonese nobility, Pope Innocent III orders the Aragonese Temple (Guillem de Montredón) the guardianship of the young king (and that of his cousin-brother the Count of Provence).

Years later, he would leave Monzón and be officially proclaimed King of Aragon. In September 1218, a General Court of Aragonese and Catalans was held in Lérida, in which he was declared of legal age, at the age of nine, and proclaimed king.

The conquest of Majorca

On September 6, 1229, the Catalan squadron set out from Tarragona, Salou and Cambrils, and conquered Mallorca from Abú Yahya, the semi-independent Almohad governor of the island. This was the monarch's first great victory.

The conquest of Valencia

The conquest of the Muslim Balenciya, together with the other towns to the north of Júcar, will be decided at the Alcañiz meeting, as the Llibre dels fets tells us:

While we were there, chatting and having fun, he began to speak the Master of the Hospital and said, “Lord! As God has guided you so well in the events of Majorca and those islands, would you and we not begin there, in that Kingdom of Valencia, which has always been confronted with you and has made your lineage border, and of which you have always tried to seize and have never been able to get it?" And Don Blasco turned to Us and said, “And it is the best land and the most beautiful in the world! that I, Lord, have been in Valencia, and there is not today, below God, a place as delicious as the city of Valencia and all that kingdom!”

Jaime I, The Llibre of the Fets (translation from original)

• Prior to the conquest: Jaime I came from conquering Mallorca and the fact had caused a great social impact on both sides. The virrey almohade Zait al-Mutamid, who was unaware of the mistrust that the nobility had with Jaime I at the beginning of his reign, proposes him a covenant of non-aggression. This provokes an inner revolt in Valencia, led by Zayan, who will destroy the Almohades, passing Valencia to become a taifa kingdom.

Monument to Jaime I in Valencia, paradoxically located in the square of Alfonso el Magnánimo.

Why does Zayan rebel against Zait Almutamid? There is a very basic reason: Zait Almutamid passes to the other side, sells to Jaime I, and not only paying for a vassal pact but becoming Christianity and that, an authentic and radical Muslim as Zayan was could not admit it.

Jesus Noguet, historian.

After the revolt, Jaime I conquered all the castles surrounding Valencia, as a siege of the capital. He would later take the port (El Grau) and install the site in front of the walls of Valencia. The bull granted by Pope Gregory IX had gathered more than a thousand knights and sixty thousand pawns on the site.

On October 9 —Feast of the Valencian Community— the king's standard would wave permanently in the tower, at the same time that James I made his triumphal entry through the gates of Valencia.

And seeing our senyera At the top of the tower that is now of the Temple, tears of joy wept from our eyes. Let us go down, look to the East and kiss the earth, for the great mercy that God had granted us.

Jaime I de Aragón "El Libre dels Fets"

According to the professor of political philosophy José Luis Villacañas "this conquest, together with the Almohad defeat of Majorca, was an event that shocked Christianity at the time, comparable even to the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Kings or, in otherwise, the taking of Constantinople."

Marriages and offspring

Legitimate

From his first wife, Leonor, he had Don Alfonso (1229-1260). He married Constanza de Montcada. Of the second, Violante de Hungría, he had:

• Don Pedro (future Pedro III el Grande), which happened to him in the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and in the Catalan counties.
• Don Jaime (future Jaime II of Mallorca), who inherited the kingdom of Majorca, which included the Balearic Islands —Mallorca, Menorca (still under the power of a Muslim sovereign although taxable since 1231), Ibiza and Formentera—, the counties of the Rosellion and the Sardinian and the territories that the Conqueror conserved in Occitania (the dominion of Montpellier, the Viiguan.
• Don Fernando (1245-1250), who died a child.
• Don Sancho de Aragón (1250-1275), Arcedian of Belchite, Abbot of Valladolid and Archbishop of Toledo, died prisoner of the Granada Moors.
• Rape of Aragon (1236-1301), wife of Alfonso X el Sabio.
• Doña Constanza (1239-1269), wife of the Spanish infant Don Manuel, brother of Alfonso X el Sabio.
• Doña Sancha, who became a nun and died in Jerusalem.
• Doña Maria (1248-1267), also religious.
• Doña Isabel (1247-1271), wife of Felipe III el Atrevido, son of Saint Louis of France.

Illegitimate

After the death of Violante (1253) the king launched into a career of love affairs, having multiple children. From Teresa Gil de Vidaure he had Jaime, Lord of Jérica, and Pedro, Lord of Ayerbe. Fernán Sánchez was born from his love affairs with Guillerma de Cabrera, to whom he gave the Barony of Castro; With Berenguela Fernández he had Pedro Fernández, lord of the Barony of Híjar, while with Berenguela Alfonso, daughter of the infante Alfonso de Molina, he had no descendants. These royal bastards were the origin of some of the most important noble houses of Aragon and Valencia.

13th and 14th centuries: from Pedro III to Jaime II

• Pedro III de Aragón (1239-1285)
• Alfonso III de Aragón (1265-1291)
• Jaime II de Aragón (1267-1327)

Pedro III de Aragón, son of Jaime I arrives in Sicily in the famous Sicilian Vespers.

Territorial policy

After inheriting the Kingdom of Sicily, Peter III of Aragon canceled the vassalage that had united him with the church and was excommunicated by the Pope. During his reign he devoted himself more to the policies of the new kingdom than to the peninsular ones ( see article & # 34; Sicilian Vespers & # 34; ). Alfonso III of Aragon, also had disputes with the European nobility, getting the Pope to lift the excommunication against the kings of Aragon. Jaime II of Aragon would stand out by annexing the provinces of Alicante and Murcia to Aragon.

Marriages and offspring

• Peter III The Great. From his marriage to Constance were born the sons Alfonso III of Aragón (1261-1291), king of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca and count of Barcelona; Jaime II of Aragon (1267-1327), king of Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca, count of Barcelona, king of Sardinia and Sicily; The Infanta Isabel of Aragón (1271-1336), Santa Isabel infant of Portugal, queen consorte of Portugal-1272
  • Alfonso III The Liberal. He had no offspring. The counties passed to his brother James II.
  • Jaime II El Justo. He was married to Jaime de Aragón (1296-1334), who renounced his real rights and married to Leonor de Castilla; Infante Alfonso IV de Aragón (1299-1336), Count of Barcelona and King of Aragon; Infanta María de Aragón and Anjou (1299-1311), married to Pedro de Castilla, son of Sancho IV de Castilla; Infanta Constanza de Aragón (1300-1327),

14th and 15th centuries: from Alfonso IV to Martín I

• Alfonso IV de Aragón (1299-1336)
• Pedro IV de Aragón (1319-1387)
• Juan I de Aragón (1350-1396)
• Martín I de Aragón (1356-1410)

Political delimitation of the territories of the Crown

In the XIV century, the Kings of Aragon and Counts of Barcelona continued the process of political delimitation of Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia, which, with regard to present-day Catalonia, took a decisive step in 1314 with King Alfonso the Benigno by marrying Teresa de Entenza, heiress to the county of Urgell, although it remained formally independent of the Crown of Aragon until 1412, when the first king of Trastámara put an end to the last dynasty of Counts of Urgell.

The advance of trade by sea

The stage of these kings will be characterized by the emergence of large commercial metropolises, due to the expansion of maritime trade in the Mediterranean. The ports of Sicily, Naples, Barcelona and Valencia are going to be strong points for the economy of those kingdoms. Although, on the other hand, the arrival of diseases such as the plague, spread in all cities through these new sea routes, will profoundly undermine this society, which would go through one of its hardest moments.

End of the Casa de Barcelona

Pedro IV de Aragón, called “the Ceremonious”.

As the direct male line ends with the death of King Martín the Human without male children, the House of Aragón-Barcelona is extinguished. The closest representatives to the lineage, albeit indirectly, through the legitimate male line were Jaime el Desdichado, Count of Urgell, great-grandson of King Alfonso the Benigno, and Alfonso, Duke of Gandía, grandson of King Jaime el Justo. Through the female line, the closest descendant was Luis de Anjou, grandson of King Juan el Cazador and, even further away, King Enrique III of Castile and his brother Fernando de Trastámara, grandsons of King Pedro the Ceremonious, the latter being the one who was finally proclaimed heir to all his titles by the delegates of Caspe in the year 1412, the lineage of Aragon being used by the House of Trastámara.

However, after the work of Professor Antonio Ubieto, the continuity of the dynasty up to Martín el Humano has been questioned by Aragonese authors, and there are therefore defenders of its extinction after the Casamiento en Casa in 1137, and detractors of said early extinction.

Marriages and offspring

• Alfonso IV de Aragón He was married twice: in 1314, with Teresa de Entenza, with whom he had the Infante Alfonso (1315–1317); Pedro IV, the Ceremony (1319–1387); Jaime I de Urgel, Earl of Urgel, who also inherited Entenza and Antillón (1320–1347); Constanza, who married Jaime III of Mallorca (1322–1346); the Infantry Isabel. With Leonor de Castilla he had infant Fernando, Marquis de Tortosa and infant Juan.
  • Pedro IV The Ceremony Casó with Leonor de Portugal. By enviudar, he contracted a new marriage with Leonor of Sicily with whom he had three sons: Juan, Martín and Leonor, wife of Juan I of Castile.
    • Juan I El Cazador. He had no boys.
    • Martin I The Human. All his sons died before him, among them his heir Martin I of Sicily, king of Sicily.

15th century to the present: continuation of the title of Count

Although the male line blood dynasty died out, the title of Count of Barcelona was one of those held by the King of Aragon and continued to be inherited by successive kings of Aragon. When the Crowns of Aragon and Castile were united by the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon with Isabel I of Castile, the title of Count of Barcelona was inherited by his daughter Juana I of Castile, and later by Carlos I of Spain, who He held both crowns and was recognized as King of Spain. The title of Count has been successively inherited by all the Kings of Spain.

This tradition continued until 1977, when Juan de Borbón y Battenberg ceded the title of King of Spain to his son Juan Carlos I, but reserved for himself the title of Count of Barcelona. Upon his death, in 1993, the title was finally inherited by his son Juan Carlos I, who transmitted it to his son Felipe VI when he abdicated in June 2014.

Dynasties

• Casa de Trastámara, from Fernando I de Aragón (1406) to Juana I de Castilla (1555).
• Casa de Austria, from Carlos I of Spain (1516, sharing the title with his mother Juana) to Carlos II of Spain (1700).
• Casa de Borbón, from Felipe V de España (1700) to Felipe VI (rey today).

General political factors

The conquests

Wars and Marriages

The most outstanding factor of the members of the House of Barcelona is the facet of conquerors. Sometimes through battle and other times, through matrimonial links, they managed to achieve the hegemony of a great kingdom (which today we would call international) starting from a small county and for more than six centuries (following the direct paternal line).

The cessions of the Carolingians to Wifredo the Hairy and several of his relatives throughout the south of France, who were able to transmit these territories patrimonially to their descendants, as well as the subsequent marriages between the different count houses, allowed the Subsequent legacies fell on the main core, the County of Barcelona, thus maintaining a structure that would be significantly expanded with:

• The marriage of Ramón Berenguer III and Dulce de Provenza, in which they annexed the Provence
• The marriage of Ramón Berenguer IV and Petronila de Aragón. The Countys of Barcelona and Aragon are joined.
• The conquests of Jaime I. The new kingdoms of Valencia and Mallorca are created.
• The marriage of Peter III and Constance of Hohenstaufen. The Kingdom of Sicily is annexed.
• Jaime II conquers Murcia and the remaining Alicante cities.
• Martin I and Mary of Sicily. Duchy of Athens.

Lawmakers

From the “Usatges de Barcelona” to “Els Furs de Valencia”

From the first veguers installed by Ramón Borrell, to the later Generalitat of Catalonia, the ways of exercising authority varied over time, such as the Usatges de Barcelona, or the laws and regulations established by James I in Valencia: the Fueros de Valencia. The political vision of this last king also allowed the new conquered territories to become part of the crown and not be conquered in the “dels ricos homes aragonesos” style, a circumstance that prevented the dismemberment of independent feudal populations.

Jaime I applied the Fueros (Furs) of Valencia, a legislation based on Roman law that clashed in modernity with the traditional values of the old feudalism of the time.

Repopulators

From Ramón Borrell to Jaime II, the repopulation of towns and villages in the Mediterranean areas (including the main islands: Majorca, Sicily, etc.) was one of the tasks that most concerned these kings. Aided by the powers that be (church, military orders and feudal lords) they brought to the Mediterranean peoples modern legislation, a new faith (Christianity) and cultural customs (festivities and traditions) that completely changed Andalusian Spain.

Documents that are preserved today as the Llibre del Repartiment de Valencia, offer a detailed sample of how the Mediterranean shore was repopulated. In the local administration, the most used formula was the granting of the so-called “Puebla Letters”, royal documents that served as the legal deed of the donation.

Religious factors

Religious orders

The general discontent of the population of Medieval Europe due to the taxes that had to be paid (tithe) to cover the exorbitant expenses of ecclesiastical members (a sentiment that would later lead to Luther's Protestant Reformation) was appeased momentarily by the appearance on the scene of a character: Bernardo de Claraval and a movement: the Cistercian. The new congregation, with some harsh vows of poverty, soon gained the trust of the people of the towns, first, and of kings and clergy, later, establishing a new model of society based on the vows of poverty and chastity. The Cistercian would be the seed from which the new religious orders would be born, which would copy their "rule"

The appearance of religious and monastic orders played a transcendental role for the advancement of the Christian conquests of al-Andalus. The Orders of the Temple and the Hospital, which appeared at the beginning of the XII century in Jerusalem, and above all the autochthonous orders, such as those of Calatrava, Santiago or Montesa, were a constant military support for the royal houses of Castile and Aragon, a merit for which they would receive fiefs (fortresses, towns, land...) from all the monarchs of the Kingdom of Aragon and sovereigns of the County of Barcelona since Ramón Berenguer III onwards.

Religion as a “tool for conquest”

This factor (ecclesiastical aid in the form of a papal bull) was taken advantage of by the rest of the monarchs whose borders bordered on the Arabs. Thus, Ramón Berenguer III (for the conquest of Mallorca), Jaime I of Aragón (capture of Valencia) and other kings of the later lineage, would obtain successive bulls from Rome that granted prizes and pardons for those who decided to participate in the battles of conquest..

Advocation

Conquer for the Glory of God

The official saint of the Casa de Barcelona is San Jaime (Santiago). Devotions to the Virgin Mary, María Magdalena, San Juan and San Sebastián stand out, with the construction of churches and monasteries dedicated to these saints. It is obligatory to mention the special devotion to the Virgin of Montserrat, known in Catalonia as the "Moreneta”.