County of Roussillon

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County of Roussillon
Comtat de Rosselló (Catalan)
759–1172
The County of Roussillon and other Catalan counties
The County of Roussillon and other Catalan counties
CapitalPerpignan
Religion
Roman Catholic
GovernmentCounty
Historical eraMiddle Ages
• Establishment
759
• Annexed into the Principality of Catalonia
1172
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Emirate of Córdoba
Principality of Catalonia
Today part ofFrance

The County of Roussillon (

Marca Hispanica during the Middle Ages. The rulers of the county were the counts of Roussillon, whose interests lay both north and south of the Pyrenees
.

The historic county's lands today lie within the borders of France.

Visigothic county

There was a

Visigothic law was applied exclusively as late as the 11th century.[1]

Roussillon was occupied by the

Frankish Empire by Pepin the Short and his Visigothic allies in 760, immediately following his conquest of Narbonne, though all that is certain is that it was in Frankish hands during the reign of Charlemagne.[2] By that point, Roussillon had been nearly completely depopulated, was not widely cultivated, and land use was very inefficient, which has often been explained by Moorish razzias and Frankish reprisals over a span of forty years.[3]

Pepin reestablished the old Gothic county with its seat at Ruscino. The new count—a Goth—built a castle at their capital: the castrum or castellum Rossilio, by which Ruscino came to be known as

Tarraconensian littoral which formed the new Marca Hispanica.[5]

Union with Empúries

The history of the Frankish county in the 8th and 9th centuries is not well known. In the

Basque settlement in the Pyrenees.[6] It was affected by the second wave of monasticism which swept Catalonia in the first half of the 9th century and saw the foundation and imperial recognition of new monasteries, as at Saint-Genesius des Fonts, Saint-Clement de Regulla, and Saint-André de Sureda in 819 and 823 respectively.[7] In 859–860, a fleet of Vikings under Hasting and Bjorn plundered the abbeys of Roussillon before wintering in the Camargue.[8]

The first count known by name,

Bellonid family; Gausfred I even took the title dux (duke) in 975.[11]

Late in the 10th century,

Viking and Moorish pirates forced him to move from the coast to the more easily defensible inland that Gausfred I made his capital at Castelló d'Empúries. After his death, the counties were separated, with Roussillon going to his younger son, Giselbert I
.

The division, however, was made under certain stipulations of the deceased count. First, both counts had a right to attend the synods and tribunals held in either county. Second, rights of justice were shared between the two counts. Third, the count of Roussillon had the right to make his residence in Empúries, the ancient capital. And finally, that either count could possess lands in either county. In 1014,

Hugh I of Empúries
invaded Roussillon, but in 1019 a pact was signed making the two counties permanently separate entities.

Treuga Dei

Roussillon was the site of the first promulgation of the

Peace of God (pax Dei) movement inaugurated at Charroux Abbey in 989 and which had spread across Aquitaine, Gascony, the Languedoc, and Catalonia like wildfire. The Elna council, however, went a step further than previous local councils. It also declared a truce effective from Saturday evening until Monday morning each week: "No one dwelling in the aforesaid county and diocese [of Roussillon] should assail any enemy of his from the ninth hour on Saturday to the first hour on Monday, so that everyone may render the honour owed to the Lord's day."[12]
The truce spread rapidly through Languedoc and was soon extended so that it was generally understood that fighting was prohibited between Wednesday evening and dawn Monday.

Independent Roussillon

Giselbert moved the capital of Roussillon from Castellrosellón to a village named

Denia.[13]

In the mid-12th century, under Gausfred III, Roussillon experienced an epoch of turbulence with increased attacks from both Empúries and Moorish pirates. Gausfred's eldest son also rebelled. In order to quell his son's revolt, he made him Lord of Perpignan and heir apparent.

On the death of

Gerard II without heirs in 1172, Roussillon passed, as per prior agreement of the nobles with the count, to Alfonso II of Aragon. It was thought that the Crown of Aragon
could protect Roussillon from the pretensions of Empúries, which still possessed certain communal rights in Roussillon. In 1173, Alfonso called an assembly at Perpignan, where he declared a peace for all Roussillon and the diocese of Elna.

Roussillon in the Crown of Aragon

Roussillon was, along with Cerdanya and Conflent, the subject of a major cartulary under Alfonso II or perhaps Peter II: the Liber feudorum Ceritaniae. It is a record of charters, usually related to castle- and land-holding in the three counties, from the archive of the counts of Barcelona.

List of counts

Main article: Counts of Roussillon

Notes

  1. ^ Lewis, 124–126.
  2. ^ Lewis, 25.
  3. ^ Lewis, 18.
  4. ^ Lewis, 39–40.
  5. ^ Lewis, 39–40.
  6. ^ Lewis, 5.
  7. ^ Lewis, 48, 82.
  8. ^ Lewis, 102.
  9. ^ Lewis, 115.
  10. ^ Lewis, 118.
  11. ^ Lewis, 198, 208.
  12. ^ Jordan, 26.
  13. ^ Lewis, 288.

Sources

  • Bisson, Thomas N. "Une paix peu connue pour le Roussillon (A.D. 1173)." Droit Privé et Institutions Régionales. Études Historiques Offertes à Jean Yver (Paris, 1976), pp. 69–76. Reprinted in Medieval France and her Pyrenean Neighbours: Studies in Early Institutional History (London: Hambledon, 1989), pp. 179–86.
  • Lewis, Archibald Ross. The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718–1050. University of Texas Press: Austin, 1965.
  • Jordan, William Chester. Europe in the High Middle Ages. London: Viking, 2003.
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