Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona

Ramón Berenguer IV the Saint (Barcelona? 1113/1114-Borgo San Dalmazzo, August 6, 1162) was count from Barcelona, Gerona, Osona and Cerdanya, and princeps from Aragon (or sometimes also from Sobrarbe and Ribagorza), which at the time meant primus inter pares.

Life

Family origins

Signum of Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona

Son of Ramón Berenguer III and Dulce I of Provenza. He was a grandson on the paternal line of Ramón Berenguer II and Mafalda from Apulia-Calabria, and on the maternal line from Gilberto de Gévaudan and Gerberga from Provence.

On the death of his father in 1131 he received the County of Barcelona, while his twin brother Berenguer Ramón succeeded him in Provence. He was a Knight Templar, as his father had been, albeit temporarily ( miles ad terminum ).

On May 26, 1135, he went to León for the coronation of his brother-in-law Alfonso VII as Imperator totius Hispaniae (Emperor of all Spain) before the pontifical legate and the main nobles of the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, including Muslims.

Marriage to Petronila of Aragon

Portraits of the queen Petronila de Aragón and Count Ramón Berenguer IV of Barcelona, oil of 1634 (Museo del Prado), copy of an original by Filippo Ariosto of 1586.

Thanks to the support shown to Ramiro II of Aragon against Alfonso VII of León, he offered his one-year-old daughter Petronila in marriage.

The wedding (despite the huge difference in age) took place in Lleida, much later, in the month of August 1150. On November 13, 1137, Ramiro deposited the kingdom in his son-in-law but not the dignity royal, signing him from now on as Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon (the queen was his wife Petronila). He then resigned from the government (although not from his title of & # 39; Senior Lord of the House of Aragon & # 39;), while his grandson Alfonso did not reach the age of majority and returned to the convent. In this way, Ramiro fulfilled the mission of saving the monarchy and thus the Kingdom of Aragon would also be united dynastically with the County of Barcelona.

The marriage agreements governing the marriage were established according to Aragonese law and, according to some historians, they were established in the form of Matrimonio en Casa. Through this betrothal contract, and its reflection in Petronila's subsequent documentation, the husband is attached to the wife's family, and it is she who transmits belonging to the family group, together with the patrimony that she inherits from her; the husband formally submits to his father-in-law or to the "senior elder" of the house, and the latter, in exchange, grants him authority over the family plot, but reserving his lordship both over the assets of the patrimonial plot and over those contributed by the husband. From this contract, the one who has the final power is not the husband, but the Señor Mayor de la Casa de Aragón, until the legitimate heir acquires the power (and in the case of the kingdom of Aragon, the kingdom, title of king and head of the House of Aragon) and, therefore, he and his heirs assumed the lineage of the House of Aragon in saecula saeculorum, therefore, from that same moment the lineage of the House of Barcelona is extinguished, after the Marriage in House in which it is subsumed in the House of Aragon in 1137, or it is considered that it lasts until the death without male descendants of Martín the Human in the year 1410, according to other historians.

Professor J. Serrano Daura has questioned the theory of casamiento en casa applied to the betrothal of Ramón Berenguer IV and Petronila de Aragón, based on the absence of references to this customary institution of Aragonese law before the fifteenth century, and that the clauses that were established by Ramiro II on the succession to the crown of Aragon do not conform to the peculiarities of this institution, so it would not be transferable to the pacts of 1137.

Historian Percy E. Schramm considers that the relationship established between Ramiro II and Ramón Berenguer IV after the betrothal document of August 1137 "was subject to the customary conditions of the oath of allegiance" and that the document of November of the same year reveals the definitive desire of King Ramiro to return to the monastery, for which reason he declares "by free will" that his vassals come to depend on Ramón Berenguer and that they will have to obey him from then on as their king ( tanquam regi), although Ramón Berenguer did not want to offend the sensitivity of his new subjects, so he preferred to maintain the fiction that the royal dignity would not pass to the new dynasty until the next generation.

For his part, José Luis Villacañas defines the agreement as "a filiation with entrustment of principality, that is, of political rights over the men of the land". Although Ramiro II retained a dominium nominal, he entrusted all his men to the one who will be the husband of his daughter, also including his affiliation. Thus he transferred the power but not the property, which he kept as long as he or his daughter lived.

The role of Ramón Berenguer IV from the betrothal of 1137 was that of administrator of the House of Aragon as regent of the Kingdom of Aragon, and in the documentation he called himself princeps and dominator, but never king. It was Ramiro II who continued to be "lord, father and king" as stated in the documentation cited ("And I predict Ramiro to be king, lord and father in the aforementioned kingdom and in all your counties as long as I please"32 and "in tota vita mea teneas me sicut patrem et dominum» 'in all my life you have me as father and lord'), and holding the title of King of Aragon until his death in 1157, with which Ramón Berenguer IV was integrated into the House of Aragon when their marriage capitulations were agreed upon in accordance with the legal institutions of Aragonese law, and giving rise, after the reign of Ramiro II, to the queen being his daughter Petronila, until June 18, 1164 when she abdicated in favor of Alfonso II, two years after the death of her husband.

Assignment of the rights of military orders over Aragon

After the concession of King Ramiro to Ramón Berenguer, the question of the rights over the territory of Aragon stipulated in the will of King Alfonso the Battler, who had wanted to give the kingdom to the orders of the Holy Sepulchre, the knights Templars and the Hospitallers, although the feudal barons did not respect this testament in all its terms. One of Prince Ramón Berenguer's priorities was to resolve the question of possession of the rights to the kingdom. Thus, negotiations began between the prince and representatives of the Order of the Hospital, reaching an agreement in 1140 whereby the Order made a transfer to Ramón Berenguer, Count of Barcelona (venerande Barchinonensium comes), and his legitimate successors and descendants, of the part of the kingdom of Aragon that corresponded to him according to the will of King Alfonso, on the condition that he be granted rights to build churches and his own centers in various towns of the kingdom and that, if the prince died without offspring, said territory would be returned to the Hospitallers. Similar cession agreements were concluded later with the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher (1141) and with the Templars. This cession of the three orders was confirmed by a bull of 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. Most current historiography agrees in accepting that, simply, the testament of Alfonso I the Battler was not respected and, thus, Ramiro II of Aragon not only exercised the royal power between 1134 and 1137, but also reserved the dignity of king until his death. death in 1157, a circumstance that is not known 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.

According to Professor Villacañas, the problem was that Pope Innocent II was not willing to ignore the will of the Battler. Thus, he did not recognize Ramiro's marriage or Petronila's legitimacy. Instead, he was interested in a balance of power in Hispanic lands, so he was not going to promote the imperial efforts of Alfonso VII by endorsing his rights. For this reason, he favored that the resignation of the military orders to the inheritance be made directly in favor of the count of Barcelona. Thus, Ramón Berenguer found a way to unite the rights transferred by the Church with those transferred by the people of Aragon.

County Palace

Ramón Berenguer IV and his wife Petronila lived in the count's palace of San Pedro de Vilamajor (Vallés Oriental Region, Barcelona). It had been built by the counts of Barcelona, the twins Ramón Berenguer and Berenguer Ramón, in the Eleventh century. Of this, currently only the Red Tower remains, a 25 m high tower, located in front of the church, which is believed to have been the lower part of the keep of the old castle-condal palace. The future King Alfonso II grew up here and it was even believed that he was born in this place, although later investigations indicate that he was surely born in Huesca.

Agreements with Alfonso VII

Ramón Berenguer IV negotiates with Alfonso VII, the return of the lands occupied by the Castilian-Leonese troops on the death of Alfonso I of Aragon, the Battler, uncle of his wife. In addition, he wanted to receive help to reincorporate the kingdom of Navarra to the Crown of Aragon, a territory that had become independent under the same circumstances.

In 1140, he signed a mutual aid pact in Carrión and the withdrawal of Alfonso VII's troops from the Ebro, in exchange for the vassalage of the count-prince. A joint action is also carried out against Navarra that has no effect.

In 1151 Alfonso VII and Ramón Berenguer IV signed the Treaty of Tudilén which, apart from renewing the anti-Navarra alliance, sought to divide up Al-Andalus. Thus, the lands of Valencia, Denia and Murcia are reserved for the Crown of Aragon, for which Ramón Berenguer would pay homage to Alfonso VII.

Fight against Islam

The peninsular territories of the Kingdom of Aragon and County of Barcelona at the death of Ramón Berenguer IV. The son who had with Petronila, Alfonso, would be the first holder of the union of both territories, known as the Crown of Aragon.

On the Aragonese side, the nobility of this territory, the military orders and the popular cavalry fight to recover the possessions lost at the hands of the Almoravids in the battle of Fraga in 1134. They are recovered in this way: Alcolea de Cinca, Chalamera and Sariñena in 1141; Daroca in 1142; and Ontiñena in 1147.

On the Catalan side, with the help of Count Ermengol VI of Urgell, Ramón conquered the taifas of Tortosa (1148) and Lérida (1149) from al-Muzaffar. Ciurana, high in the Prades Mountains, was the last Muslim redoubt in Catalonia, since, ruled by the walí Almira Almemoniz, it resisted until 1153 when it was conquered by Beltrán de Castellet. These conquests formed the territory that would later be called Catalunya Nova (New Catalonia). Territorial expansion was not an obstacle to carrying out large expeditions through the lands of Murcia (1144) and Valencia (1146), and a brilliant participation in the conquest of Almería (1147).

Occitan politics

In 1143 he helped William VI to recover Montpellier from which he had been expelled by a noble revolt.

In 1153 he founded the monastery of Poblet, in celebration of his recent reconquest of Tortosa.

On the death of his brother Berenguer Ramón I of Provenza, he assumes the regency of his nephew, Ramón Berenguer III of Provenza. He continued the fights against the lineage of the Baus (1145 / 46-1150), allies of Toulouse. In 1156 he collaborated with Henry II, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine, in the contest against Toulouse.

In 1154 he received the regency of the vizcounty of Béarn.

After allying with England —according to some historians, the County of Barcelona and England were so allied that they came to act as a single political group—, he decides to direct his policy towards the Ghibelline side, planning the wedding of his nephew Ramón Berenguer III of Provence with a princess of said faction. He arranged a meeting with Federico Barbarossa, who had ceded —to his nephew— the rights to Provence, but he died on the way to Turin, on August 6, 1162, in the village of San Dalmacio in Genoa —and not in Dalmau in Gerona. as some sources claimed incorrectly.

Declaration of last wishes

He made a declaration of his last wishes on August 4, two days before he died, which were transmitted by those who assisted him in that period and finally published in the city of Huesca on October 11 of the same year, in the presence of Queen Petronila and several Aragonese and Catalan magnates, ecclesiastical and secular.

In said testament, he names his son Ramón or Alfonso (who was called by both names from his birth). Count, universal heir of all his States and honors of Aragon, Barcelona and others, except for the County of Cerdanya, which gives to his second son Pedro —name by which Ramón Berenguer IV of Provence was known—, together with the dominion of Carcassonne and other domains, on the condition that Pedro pay homage to his brother Ramón (Alfonso II of Aragon), and detailing in what order should the honors be inherited among the children in the event of the death of one of them or their failure to inherit. He established that, if Alfonso died without issue, the throne would pass to Pedro. If his life died without posterity, who would be the heir to the domains of Ramón Berenguer IV would be Sancho, his youngest son. Queen Petronila left his wife the villas and castles of Besalú and Ribas for maintenance. His chapel he leaves her to the church of San Rufo de Lérida. Finally, he leaves his children under the guardianship of God and Henry, King of England, a great friend of his.

In 1164 Queen Petronila donated the Kingdom of Aragon to Alfonso, completing the union of the two territories in the person of Berenguer's eldest son, the future King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona Alfonso II.

Burial in Ripoll

His body was transferred from Genoa to the Monastery of Santa María de Ripoll where he was buried, as Berenguer already ordered in 1141, in the donation he made to said monastery of the domain of Mojón or Mollou.

Cenotafio de Ramón Berenguer IV, placed in 1893.

The Gesta Comitum Barcinonensium and other ancient texts say that the sarcophagus was adorned and covered with many silver plates, which were looted by the French in the June 1749 invasion, in addition to removing the incorrupt body and a very long sword that they found inside. Only the complete skeleton of the count remained, inside a wooden box, and the original funeral epitaph, everything preserved until 1835, when the undisciplined Migueletes of Isabel II of Spain set fire to the monastery and removed the body mummified from his tomb to "call him to trial" and "sentence" him to the stake for having propagated Christianity and fought against Islam. what was called The Saint, as well as remembering the transfer made to him in 1140 by the military Orders of the Holy Sepulchre, the Hospital and the Temple in Jerusalem of the right that belonged to them to possess the kingdom of Aragon by virtue of the will of Alfonso I the Battler.

Several Counts of Barcelona since Wifredo the Hairy had been buried in Ripoll, being Berenguer the last buried there. His son Alfonso, having to choose to be buried in the paternal mausoleum in Ripoll, or to be buried in the mausoleum Conjugal of the Monastery of Sijena, he chose the Monastery of Poblet so as not to raise suspicions. His will specifies that, in case he had conquered Valencia in life, he should be buried in El Puig (Valencia), which he had already donated to the Monastery of Poblet in February 1176, a wish also expressed by his son Pedro II of Aragon and also died without fulfilling it.

Descendants

From his marriage to Petronila de Aragón he had:

• Infante Pedro de Aragón (1152-before 1158), referred to as nasciturus (son to be born) in a testament given by Petronila de Aragón on April 4, 1152, being in the labors of labor with Barcelona (in partu laborans, apud Barchinonam. He died before 1158, perhaps shortly after the birth.
• The Infante Alfonso II of Aragon (Huesca, 1157-1196), King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona.
• The infant Pedro de Aragón (1158-1181), who in 1173 will be appointed Count of Provence by his brother Alfonso II, as Ramón Berenguer IV of Provence.
• The Sweet Infant of Aragon (1160-1198), married in 1175 with King Sancho I of Portugal.
• The Infante Sancho de Aragón (1161-1223), count of Cerdaña since 1168, and tenant of Provence between 1181 and 1184.

He also had a natural son:

• Berenguer, dead in 1212 and unknown mother, was Abbot of Montearagón and Archbishop of Narbona.