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Guitard the Black, a Catalan Slave Raider around the Year 1000

Thomas Freudenhammer, Independent Scholar (Berlin)

Abstract: This study examines the life and activities of Guitard the Black, a Catalan knight and slave trader active during the late 10th and early 11th centuries. Through the analysis of charters and wills, it reconstructs Guitard’s role in cross-border raids against Al-Andalus, his participation in the slave trade, and his economic actitivities. Guitard’s acquisition of a Saracen slave in exchange for land in 997 and his later will reveal the integration of slavery into the Catalan economy and society. His legacy illustrates the interconnectedness of warfare, trade, and social structures along the medieval Christian-Muslim frontier.

On 28th October 997, Count Ramon Borrell and Countess Ermessinda of Barcelona sold a large estate to a certain Guitard. This estate, a fiscal property of the counts (feum), was located in the county of Ausona, in Villardepol, a small town south of the episcopal city of Vic. The price was to be paid in kind, which in this case meant one horse, one Saracen (Sarrazino I) and some other unnamed goods. In addition, each of these items was assigned a monetary value: the horse was valued at ten pesas, the Saracen at three pesas and the unnamed goods at two silver pesas.1

With the word ‘Saracen’ (Sarrazino, or Sarraceno) charters in 10th and 11th-century Catalonia referred to the inhabitants of neighbouring Al-Andalus. In 985, members of the ‘Saracen people’ under their leader Almanzor had conquered and plundered the city of Barcelona, as recalled in some later documents.2 However, other documents of the time show the members of this ethnic group in a completely different situation. As we learn from several wills, Saracens could be bequeathed, sold or exchanged by their owners as any movable property. We can therefore regard these people as slaves, although they were never labelled servus or ancilla. These ‘classical’ Latin terms were only used for the ‘autochthonous’ Christian slaves which still existed at the time in Catalonia but who were gradually replaced by the ‘foreign’ Saracen slaves.3

Let’s return to the starting point. What do the prices mentioned in the deed of sale from 997 mean? At the turn of the 11th century, Catalonia had practically become part of the currency area of Al-Andalus. Andalusi gold dinars and silver dirhams circulated all over the country and were widely accepted as a means of payment. At the same time, a bimetallic unit of account, the pesa, was used for many transactions. Under this system, one pesa could be paid out in 14 dinars or in 100 dirhams or in a combination of both.4

In the present case, Guitard handed over a Saracen slave in payment for an estate instead of money. However, he appears to have been well aware of how much he would have earned by selling the Saracen on the slave market, namely three pesas or 42 dinars. As we can see from this, Guitard was obviously an experienced slave trader. But how did he come into the possession of the Saracens in the first place?

In our search for further documents about the slave trader Guitard, we must bear in mind that people in Catalonia at that time generally only had one name and that the name Guitard was very common.5 In our case, we are helped by the name of the estate that Guitard acquired from Count Ramon in 997: Villardepol. As this estate reappears under the name Vilar de Paulo in the will of a certain Guitard from 1013, we can clearly identify this testator with the slave raider of the same name.6

What do we learn from Guitard’s will? In 1013, Count Ramon Borrell and Countess Ermessinda prepared for a campaign against Al-Andalus, mobilizing all the forces of their country.7 Guitard also followed the call of his lords and went into battle, where he met his fate: he was pierced by a lance and killed.8 In his will, made shortly before the campaign, he mentioned horses and weapons that he was about to take with him into the counts’ army.9 However, the horses were hardly able to go into battle alone, somebody had to ride them. We can therefore conclude that Guitard had previously entrusted these horses, as well as the weapons, to a number of horsemen, who then formed a small troop of knights under his command. 

At the head of this force, Guitard was certainly in a position to carry out raids and kidnap people in the border region with Al-Andalus long before the campaign of 1013. It can therefore be assumed that the Saracen, whom Guitard handed over to Count Ramon in 997, had been captured by his own troop. We can therefore identify Guitard as a slave raider who, at the head of his own unit of knights, engaged in cross-border raids in the border region of Al-Andalus. Guitard will have sold most of the Saracens he captured, but he seems to have kept some of them for himself, as we will soon see. At the same time, he appears to have been involved in horse breeding, as he could supply his own troop with mounts and give Count Ramon a valuable warhorse worth ten pesas. We do not know where Guitard’s knights were stationed. In his will, he mentions some ‘towers’ (turres), small fortresses, which could have served as strongholds for his troop.

Guitard will not have been the only person to carry out attacks in the border region of Al-Andalus and these raids were certainly not without risks for the Catalan knights. The will of another knight named Guadamir, who died in 964, tells us that he wanted to ransom a ‘captured knight’ in exchange for a Saracen in his power.10 This knight had probably been kidnapped during one of the raids Guadamir had undertaken. We can conclude that the Saracens defended their country and also carried out cross-border raids during which they captured people. A particularly large number of people lost their freedom when Barcelona fell into the hands of the Andalusi ruler Almanzor in 985. As a general rule, Andalusi and Catalan captives could be exchanged on equal terms or released for ransom (redempcio). On both sides of the border, people endeavoured to secure the redemption of their loved ones. In Catalonia many wills of the time contain special legacies intended for the ransom of those captives.11

In one case, we learn something about the ransom process. At the end of his will, Guitard left the ‘ransom for my female Saracen captive’ as a legacy for St Peter’s in Rome.12 It can be surmised that the raider had kept this Saracen captive as a concubine for himself and wanted to sell her back to Al-Andalus before the war campaign.13 At any rate, we can assume that at the time of his will, Guitard had already released the Saracen woman and was now waiting for the ransom to be paid. The whole process was probably handled by special agents who travelled back and forth between Catalonia and Al-Andalus.14 Unfortunately, Guitard’s will does not tell us how much the ransom was.

Incidentally, we find a comparable scenario in the will of a certain knight Borrell from Vic from the year 970. Borrell bequeathed the priests of the church of Vic the sum of three pesas ‘that they owe me from Al-Andalus’, as he put it.15 Here, we learn the amount of money expected from Al-Andalus, but not the reason for the payment. As in Guitard’s case, it could have been the ransom for a Saracen slave, especially since three pesas seem to have made up the market value of a Saracen, as the deed of 997 shows. On the other hand, Borrell could simply have sold some of his stocks of grain, wine, wool or linen, that he mentioned in his will.16

Guitard’s will and its sacramental publication have only survived in a copy from the year 1034. In the preamble to this copy, the document is referred to as the will of Guitardo Nigro.17 Whether the byname ‘the Black’ referred to Guitard’s physical appearance or to his activities as slave raider, considered brutal and ruthless by his fellow countrymen, must remain open to speculation. Perhaps Guitard the Black could be compared with Count Fulk III of Anjou (972–1040), who was nicknamed Fulco Nerra a few decades after his death. Fulk Nerra was notorious for his brutality, even by the standards of the time. To make amends for his misdeeds, he undertook at least three pilgrimages to Jerusalem.18

Guitard the Black came from the county of Cerdanya, where he had inherited an estate from his parents, as he explains in his will. He was married to a woman called Trudelendis and had two sons, Guifred and Eribau. In addition to the estate of Vilar de Paulo, acquired from Count Ramon in 997,Guitard owned several others in the area of Manresa, which he may also have purchased with the proceeds of the slave trade. Some of these estates he bequeathed to his wife and the two sons. His armour (alsebergum) went to his son Guifred, while a valuable red brocade fabric (tirezo vermilio), which probably came from the spoils of a raid in Al-Andalus, went to the church of St Mary of Manresa. Guitard’s elder son Guifred appears to have continued his father’s military career. Around 1060, he swore allegiance to Count Ramon Berenguer I and Countess Almodis as commander of the castle of Manresa.19


Photo: A small troop of knights, in: Bible of Roda (BNF Manuscrits LAT 6 (3)), fol. 145r, URL: [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b85388130/f294.item] (02.02.2025).

  1. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Catalunya Carolíngia, Volum IV, Els comtats d’Osona i Manresa, Barcelona 1999, No. 1780bis: in propter precium kavallo I per pesses Xcem et Sarrazino I per pesses III et pessades II de argento. []
  2. Cf. a charter from 1000 as one example of many: quando Barchinona fuit capta a gente Sarracena (Baiges i Jardí, Ignasi J. / Puig i Ustrell, Pere (eds.), Catalunya Carolíngia, Volum VII, El comtat de Barcelona, Barcelona 2019, No. 1520). []
  3. For more details, see Freudenhammer, Thomas, Saracen Slaves in Tenth and Early Eleventh-Century Catalonia, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 110/3 (2023), pp. 370–382. []
  4. Freudenhammer, Thomas (2023): The Pesa, a Bimetallic Unit of Account in Tenth and Eleventh-Century Catalonia, Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 110/1 (2023), pp. 74–89. []
  5. Some prominent examples: Viscount Guitard of Barcelona (died before 985), Abbot Guitard of Sant Cugat del Vallès (1010–1053), Guitardo piperario (a spice merchant in Barcelona, mentioned in 1025) and another wealthy citizen of Barcelona called Guitard ‘the Greek’ (Guitardo Greco, died around 1019). []
  6. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Diplomatari de la Catedral de Vic, Segle XI, Vic 2000, No. 741: Precipio vobis in primis donare faciatis ipsum meum alaudem de Vilar de Paulo, donare faciatis ad domum Sancti Petri sedis Vico propter Deum et remedium anime mee. []
  7. Ibid.: In nomine Domini. Ego Guitardus. Manifestum est quia domnus Reimundus comite et domna Ermessinda comitissa volunt pergere contra Spania cum comitis, episcopis, vicecomitis, cum omnium exercitum illorum, maximis vel minimis. []
  8. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Diplomatari de la Catedral de Vic, Segle XI, Vic 2000, No. 747 (the opening of the will after his death): sic fuit lanceatus sive perforatus III Kalendas Marci in mense preterito. []
  9. Ibid.: Et ipsos meos cavallos que ego abeo ad ipsa oste in Ispania, si mors mihi advenerit, si Deus a vobis reddiderit, aut de armas, vindere faciatis et ipsum precium donare faciatis urbis Rome Sancti Petri. []
  10. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Catalunya Carolíngia, Volum IV, Els comtats d’Osona i Manresa, Barcelona 1999, No. 951: et ipso Mecelemo iussit dare pro anima sua ad ipso cavallero captivo. []
  11. Rovira i Solà, Manuel, Notes documentals sobre alguns efectes de la presa de Barcelona per Al-Mansur (985), in: Acta historica et archaelogica mediaevalia 1 (1980), pp. 31–54. []
  12. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Diplomatari de la Catedral de Vic, Segle XI, Vic 2000, No. 747: Et ipsa redempcione de mea captiva Sarracena donare faciatis ad Sancti Petri Roma. []
  13. A similar case is reported in the will of Adalbert, son of Viscount Guitard, made before setting off to war in Al-Andalus in 1010: Rius i Serra, José (ed.), Cartulario de Sant Cugat del Vallés, Barcelona 1945–47, No. 441: et vindere faciatis ipsa mea Sarrazina et trimittere ipso precio ad domum Sancti Petri Roma. []
  14. We know of only one document from the end of the 10th century that points to such an agent: Baiges i Jardí, Ignasi J. / Puig i Ustrell, Pere (eds.), Catalunya Carolíngia, Volum VII, El comtat de Barcelona, Barcelona 2019, No. 1544. Here, a female captive named Dadil complains that she has no one to buy her freedom (Dadil femina […] misera captiva […] et quando fui in captivitate non fuit umquam homo neque femina qui me redemiserit). However, she managed to make a will, which Vito, a friend of hers brought from Huesca to Barcelona: Sciatis omnes Christiani qui ista carta ego mandavi per Vito, amico meo, et ego mandavi scribere in civitate Uosca. []
  15. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Catalunya Carolíngia, Volum IV, Els comtats d’Osona i Manresa, Barcelona 1999, No. 1078: ipsas tres pesas quod mihi debent de Spania donare faciatis in sacerdotibus; see also Zimmermann, Michel, Testament de Borrell. Le pèlerinage romain d’un catalan, in: Olivier Guyotjeannin / Emmanuel Poulle (eds.), Autour de Gerbert d’Aurillac, le pape de l’an mil, Album de documents commentés, Paris 1996, pp. 20–25, with a commentary and photograph of the document. []
  16. Ibid.: Et de omne rerum facultatum mearum quicquic mobilis est: pane, vino, lana, lino, bestias maiores vel minores […] ipsa tercia parte propter remedium anime mee sive supra sacrosancto altario, sive in sacerdotibus sive in debitis cuius ego debeo sive in pauperibus erogandis. []
  17. Ordeig i Mata, Ramon (ed.), Diplomatari de la Catedral de Vic, Segle XI, Vic 2000, No. 925: the copy from 25th May 1034. The epithet Nigro appears in the preamble to the copy: Hec est scriptura ab autentica fideliter translata […] id est testamento vel condicione condam Guitardo Nigro ex sue ultime voluntatis. []
  18. Kohl, Thomas, Sozialer Wandel und die Zweinamigkeit im 11. Jahrhundert – eine französische Perspektive. Namenkundliche Informationen 103/104 (2014), pp. 244–266, here pp. 255f. []
  19. Benet i Clarà, Albert, Història de Manresa. Dels orígens al segle XI, Manresa 1985, pp. 109–111. []

Uncovering the Legal Consciousness of Medieval Catalan Scholars through the ‘Usatges of Barcelona’

Anna Korneeva, independent scholar (Moscow)

Abstract: This study analyzes the ‘Usatges of Barcelona’, focusing on the translation techniques and linguistic adaptations in its Latin and Old Catalan versions. It reveals how medieval translators navigated multilingualism to enhance accessibility, emphasizing local customs while adapting legal frameworks to meet Catalan medieval societal needs.

The collection of customary laws named the ‘Usatges of Barcelona’, first compiled in the 12th century, exists in both Latin and Old Catalan versions, offering scholars an opportunity to explore the nuances of legal translation and the evolving legal consciousness of medieval Catalan intellectuals and jurists.

The research is based on a comparative analysis of the Latin and Old Catalan versions of the ‘Usatges’, focusing on the terminology, linguistic tools, and translation techniques employed by the medieval Catalan translators. By examining the foreign language elements, grammatical structures, and instances of inaccurate or intentional translation, researchers could gain valuable insights into the legal mindset of the period.

The essential aspect of this study is the analysis of multilingualism within the ‘Usatges’. The Latin version, likely the original, features a diverse array of terms, some with foreign etymologies, transcriptions, and grammatical adaptations. The Catalan translation often simplifies these linguistic complexities, favouring more familiar legal terminology and local customary references. The Catalan translators employed various techniques in rendering the ‘Usatges’ into the vernacular. These include generalization, particularization, and modulation of meaning.

The translators’ techniques also reveal several thoughts. While they generally respected the authority of the original Latin text, the Catalan translators employed various strategies, such as generalization, particularization, and modulation, to adapt the legal norms to the local context. This process of translation not only reflects the multilingual environment but also sheds light on the Pyrenean traditions of legal scholarship in the 13th century.

Additionally, the Catalan translators tended to actualize the legal norms, reducing descriptions and replacing Latinisms with local terms. For example, UB 64 (67) simplifies the verbal form from Latin “iurauerit” to Catalan “jurarà”, and UB 92(115) replaces the Latin “pupilli” with the more familiar Catalan “pobils”. The translation also exhibits grammatical and syntactical simplification. UB 10 (12) in Latin uses a more complex sentence structure, which is rendered in Catalan as the more concise. Similarly, UB 5 (6) in Latin has a longer sentence structure that is simplified in the Catalan version.

Perhaps most intriguing are the instances where the Catalan translation deviates from the Latin original, either through grammatical simplification, explanatory additions, or the replacement of Latinisms with more economically or customarily relevant terms. These “inaccuracies” can be seen as indicators of the translators’ legal consciousness, as they sought to make the text more accessible and relevant to the Catalan audience.

By delving into the linguistic and textual nuances of the ‘Usatges of Barcelona’, scholars can uncover the evolving legal mindset of medieval Catalan intellectuals. This comparative study not only sheds light on the complexities of legal translation but also provides a fascinating glimpse into the legal culture and traditions that shaped the legal landscape of medieval Catalonia.

Multilingualism is evident in the Latin version of the ‘Usatges’, where we see the different etymological origins of the terms used, transcription of words, and grammatical adaptation. The Latin version of UB 69 (74) uses the Catalan economic term with the Arabic origins “CECHIAM” which is Latinized and grammatically adapted, while the Catalan version simply says “La ciquia de l’ayga”.

These linguistic and translation features suggest that the Catalan translators were focused on making the legal text more accessible and understandable to the local audience, rather than strictly adhering to the original Latin forms. This reflects a particular legal consciousness that prioritized practical application and customary legal traditions over the authority of the original Latin text.

Selected Bibliography

Bastardas i Parera, Joan. Usatges De Barcelona. 1984. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/usatges-de-barcelona.

Martí i Castell, Joan. Estudi lingüístic dels „Usatges de Barcelona“: el codi a mitjan segle XII. Abadia de Montserrat, 2002. dialnet.unirioja.es, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=183571.

Martínez Gázquez, José. „El latín en los Usatges de Barcelona“. Glossae: European Journal of Legal History, Nr. 7, 1995, S. 101–12.

Meyer-Hermann, Reinhard. „Auxiliar-Konstruktionen im llatí medieval katalanischer Urkunden (10.–13. Jh.) und in den Usatici Barchinonae / Usatges de Barcelona (12.–15. Jh.)“. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (ZrP), Bd. 135, Nr. 2, Juni 2019, ss. 507–34, https://doi.org/10.1515/zrp-2019-0028.

Meyer-Hermann, Reinhard. „Zur Emergenz katalanischer Syntax in den Usatici Barchinonae: Usatges de Barcelona (12.–15. Jhdt.)“. Zeitschrift für Katalanistik: Revista d’Estudis Catalans, Nr. 33, 2020, S. 155–99, https://doi.org/10.46586/ZfK.2020.155-199.

“Usatici Barchinone. Constituciones pacium et treugarum. Constituciones Cathalonie inter dominos et vassallos tenentes pro dominis castra” [= Tractatus de consuetudinibus Cathalonie inter dominos et vasallos]. [Et alias constitutiones regum Aragonum] // Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, ACA,COLECCIONES,Manuscritos,Ripoll,38. Fol. 1r. http://pares.mcu.es/ParesBusquedas20/catalogo/show/2345593.

Courts and Craftspeople in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragón

Eva-Maria Cersovsky, Universität zu Köln

Abstract: The research project outlined in this contribution aims at offering new insights into an important but underexplored group of actors at late medieval royal courts by putting craftspeople at the centre of analysis. It takes the courts of the kings and queens of the Crown of Aragón as its focus to investigate the multifaceted relationships they formed with artisans from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fifteenth century. The project pursues three main objectives: First, it explores and compares the forms of affiliation, the status, tasks, functions, material resources, and working conditions of the many different artisans serving the royal households. Second, it examines the role of courts as spaces of artisanal training, production and knowledge, cooperation and competition. Third, it illuminates the activities of craftspeople in-between courtly and civic environments. The project’s findings thus promise to foster a better understanding of artisans’ economic and social interactions with royal households, while also offering new perspectives for studying court economy and court culture.

Late medieval courts attracted a wide variety of different craftspeople.1 Numerous experts specialising in the food, wood, metal, or textile crafts were commissioned by princely and royal households to create products of various kinds. It is well known that medieval rulers both acquired large quantities of artisanal luxury objects and needed countless craft products for everyday use. Noble patrons, courtly material culture, and patterns of consumption have been at the focus of historical scholarship for quite some time. However, to date, only a few historians have attempted to put artisans, the makers of courtly objects, at the centre of monographic studies in order to systematically determine the multifaceted work-related and social relationships they formed with late medieval courts.

My book project (Habilitation), still in its early stages and tentatively outlined in the following, aims at filling this gap by taking the late medieval courts of the kings and queens of the Crown of Aragón as its focus. The Aragonese courts hold particular potential for the study of craftspeople since they did not only constitute important political and social centres formed around a ruler but were also dynamic economic and cultural hubs within the Mediterranean, attracting various people from different social and religious groups, regions, and cultures. They employed, to just name a few examples, Catalan bakers, French tailors, or German goldsmiths, Jewish candle makers, Muslim construction workers, or Christian carpenters in a variety of different institutional affiliations and socio-economic interdependencies. Some artisans also performed services for queens and kings that went beyond their specific craft, such as buying goods for the royal household, joining diplomatic missions, or functioning as administrators involved in the foundation of monasteries or the overseeing of royal mills. These ways in which different craftspeople were connected to the kings’ and queens’ courts economically and socially have yet to be studied in a comprehensive and comparative approach, as has the question of how royal courts functioned as sites of artisanal production, collaboration, and knowledge – with both patrons and craftspeople as active participants.

Since the courts of the Crown of Aragón are documented exceptionally well, especially from the thirteenth century onwards, it is possible to trace such questions in a wide variety of sources, mainly housed in the Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó in Barcelona. The project will, for example, draw on court ceremonials characterising court personnel and their duties as well as on various household accounts that document payments to artisans holding court offices and to many other craftspeople for commissions of differing nature, often including detailed descriptions of the final products and their materials. It will also utilize a small number of account books written by the artisans themselves which have survived in the royal archives, and make use of the numerous royal chancellery registers documenting contracts, letters, privileges granted to artisans, or recommendations of specific craftspeople to other institutions. Additionally, I will employ inventories which list objects in varying detail and frequently mention who created them, where they were made, and/or – in the case of objects in relation to specific court offices – who used and took care of them.

Seeing the quantity and variety of available sources, the project’s main focus is on a ‘long fourteenth century’, from the reign of James II (1291–1327) to the reign of Martin I (1396–1410). This period also holds an important place within scholarly discussions on how artisans’ relationships to courts developed over time, both in the Crown of Aragón and other regions. These debates concern, for instance, the perception and status of craftspeople as ‘artisans’ or ‘artists’, the inclusion of artisans into the circle of royal familiares, or the emergence of new legal and institutional forms of ‘court craft’ (‘Hofhandwerk’) or ‘court art (‘Hofkunst’) and their position between court and city.

Contributing to these discussions and expanding the state of research, the project adopts a multifaceted, comparative approach. It employs the terms ‘craftspeople’ and ‘artisans’ in a broad sense to grasp and include not only renowned individuals but all people who used their hands and tools to produce, repair, or redesign products, including food as well as objects made from different materials. It also starts from the written documentation and not from objects or architecture still present today. This way, the project seeks to make a systematic effort at both establishing and comparing the variety of craftspeople connected to Aragonese courts, thereby bridging the common division between groups of different objects, materials, and/or artisans. Furthermore, it focuses on both the kings’ and the queens’ households over a longer period of time to delineate similarities and differences in the artisanal personnel serving them. As first case studies suggest, this approach promises to yield fruitful results regarding the activities, status, and career options of craftspeople working across different courts. Following this general methodological framework, the project has three main objectives that build on one another:

First, it seeks to investigate which artisans were integrated into the courts’ economic and social networks and in what ways, including how these connections were formed in the first place. Answering these questions involves inquiries into the social backgrounds, status, tasks, functions, working conditions, material resources, and careers of different craftspeople serving royal courts. Without pursuing the goal of a detailed prosopography or comprehensive network analysis, the available, relevant personal data concerning the artisans will be collected in a database, which will then form the basis for more detailed case studies on a selected number of individual craftspeople and groups of artisans. Moreover, approaching the different types of connections between craftspeople and courts necessitates semantic analyses, for example, regarding the (variable and shifting) meanings connected to titles of court offices, such as panicer, or denominations like de la casa de la senyora reyna/ del senyor rey.

Second, the project aims at analysing how royal courts functioned as spaces of artisanal production and knowledge, cooperation and competition. This includes questions on forms of training and the transmission of knowledge, on artisanal migration and interreligious collaborations and/or conflicts. Understanding artisans working for the Aragonese courts as experts possessing specialized knowledge and skills to understand, (re-)design, and invent things, I will build on the insights of both art historical research and studies on material culture to examine repositories of knowledge connected to objects, practices, and their textual representations, such as descriptions in account books and inventories. By examining experts from different regions and religious groups gathered at Aragonese courts, the project will also draw on concepts of ‘cultural brokerage’ and discuss whether artisans can be conceived as ‘brokers’ even if their primary aim might not have been cultural mediation as such.

Third, the research project seeks to illuminate the interplay between courtly and urban craft production and the positions of artisans in-between courts and cities – spaces with permeable boundaries. Exploring these aspects brings into focus, for example, the use of urban infrastructure, the role of artisanal court personnel as intermediaries hiring additional workers, or the existence of royal privileges obtained by individuals or craft groups regulating their status in relation to civic norms and institutions. Choosing one or two cities with royal residences as case studies, such as Barcelona, València, or Zaragoza, this part of the project also tentatively aims at including civic sources. Municipal ordinances, the documentation of confraternities and guilds, inventories, and other notarial documents help trace the activities of artisans in urban contexts and may also be used to conduct further prosopographical research on the identities of selected craftspeople. These sources, however, will mostly be consulted after the examination of the royal documentation.

Based on rich source material and building on insights as well as approaches of interdisciplinary scholarship, the project thus seeks to foster a better understanding of craftspeople as an important but underexplored group of actors connected to late medieval courts within the Crown of Aragón. Its findings promise to shed new light on artisans’ economic and social agency in the context of royal households and to offer new perspectives on both court economy and court culture.

Selected Bibliography

Antenhofer, Christina: Inventories as Texts and Artefacts. Methodological Approaches and Challenges. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 32,3 (2021), pp. 7–46.

Aymerich Bassols, Montserrat: Jaume Copí, un brodador flamenc al servei de la familia reial: de Pere el Cerimoniós a Violant de Bar i Maria de Luna. In: Terés Tomàs, Maria Rosa (ed.): Catalunya i l’Europa septentrional a l’entorn de 1400. Circulació de mestres, obres i models artístics. Rome 2016 (IRCVM Medieval Cultures 5), pp. 15–52.

Beauchamp, Alexandra (ed.): Les entourages princiers à la fin du Moyen âge: une approche quantitative. Textes issus de la journée d’études organisée à l’Université de Limoges avec la Casa de Velázquez, 6 novembre 2009. Madrid 2013 (Collection de la Casa de Velázquez 134).

Campbell, Stephen John (ed.): Artists at Court: Image-Making and Identity 1300–1550. Chicago 2004.

Córdoba de la Llave, Ricardo: Los oficios medievales. Tecnología, producción, trabajo. Madrid 2017 (Temas de historia medieval 7).

Cosmen Alonso, María Concepción/ Herráez Ortega, María Victoria/ Pellón Gómez de Rueda, Adela María (eds.): El intercambio artístico entre los reinos hispanos y las cortes europeas en la baja Edad Media. León 2009.

Domenge Mesquida, Joan: Argenters i marxants de “coses de grans preus” a la cort d’Aragô (ca. 1380–1420). In: Brouquet, Sophie/ García Marsilla, Juan Vicente (ed.): Mercados del lujo, mercados del arte. El gusto de las elites mediterráneas en los siglos XIV y XV. València 2015, pp. 349–356.

Eichberger, Dagmar/ Lorentz, Philippe/ Tacke, Andreas (eds.): The Artist between Court and City (1300–1600) / L’artiste entre la Cour et la Ville / Der Künstler zwischen Hof und Stadt. Petersberg 2017.

Español Bertran, Francesca:   L’art dels reis catalans: esplendor i riquesa de la Corona d’Aragó. Barcelona 2010 (Arts 2).

Füssel, Marian/ Rexroth, Frank/ Schürmann, Inga (eds.): Praktiken und Räume des Wissens: Expertenkulturen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Göttingen 2019.

García Marsilla, Juan Vicente: Maestros de ultramar: artistas italianos y franceses al servicio de la monarquía aragonesa (siglos XIV–XV). In: Narbona Vizcaíno, Rafael (ed.): La Mediterrània de la Corona d’Aragó, segles XIII–XVI & VII Centenari de la Sentència Arbitral de Torrellas, 1304–2004. XVIII Congrés d’Història de la Corona d’Aragó, València 2004, 9–14 setembre. Vol. 2. València 2005, pp. 1907–1922.

Jaspert, Nikolas: Mendicants, Jews and Muslims at Court in the Crown of Aragon: Social Practice and Inter-Religious Communication. In: von der Höh, Marc/ Jaspert, Nikolas/ Oesterle, Jenny Rahel (eds.): Cultural Brokers at Mediterranean Courts in the Middle Ages. Paderborn 2013 (Mittelmeerstudien 1), pp. 107–148.

Molina Castellà, Anna: L’argenter de la Casa del Senyor Rei: una distinció laboral de prestigi. In: Yarza Luaces, José Joaquín (ed.): L’Artista-artesà medieval a la Corona d’Aragó. Lleida 1999, pp. 365–383.

Molina Figueras, Joan: Gli artisti del re nel Trecento aragonese. In: Donato, Maria Monica (ed.): L’artista medievale. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Modena, 17–19 Novembre 1999. Pisa 2008 (Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia. Quaderni 4, 16.2003), pp. 193–213.

Mutgé i Vives, Josefina: Artesanos barceloneses al servicio de Alfonso el Benigno (1327–1336). In: Aragón en la edad media 19 (2006), pp. 407–416.

Povill Salas, Marina: El arte como herramienta de poder durante el reinado de Jaime II el justo (1291–1327). Las cuatro etapas de su política artística. In: Bargalló Escrivà, Maria (ed.): Recerca en humanitas 2021. Tarragona 2022, pp. 153–170.

Schadek, Hans: Die Familiaren der aragonesischen Könige des 14. und beginnenden 15. Jahrhunderts. In: Spanische Forschungen der Goerresgesellschaft – Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens 32 (1988), pp. 1–148.

Smith, Pamela H.: From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World. Chicago 2022.

Schulz, Knut: Fremde (Kunst-)Handwerker, Gewerbegruppen und Bedienstete an der päpstlichen Kurie (ca. 1400–1527). In: Jamme, Armand/ Poncet, Olivier (eds.): Offices et papauté (XIVe–XVIIe siècle): Charges, hommes, destins. Rome 2005 (Collection de l’École Française de Rome 334), pp. 197-213.

Terés Tomàs, Maria Rosa/ Vicens, Teresa: Violant de Bar i Maria de Castella: promoció espiritual i mecenatge/ Violant de Bar and Maria of Castile: Spiritual Promotion and Artistic Patronage. Barcelona 2015 (Lliçons 6).

Warnke, Martin: The Court Artist: On the Ancestry of the Modern Artist. New York et al. 1993 (Ideas in Context 28).

Photo: December Calendar Page, Baking Bread, in: Psalter by an unknown artist/ maker, mid-1200s, Bruges (possibly), Belgium, in: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 14 (85.MK.239), fol. 8v (Detail). Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program, URL: [https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/105TRQ] (03.07.2024).

  1. References to some publications relevant to the project can be found in a selected bibliography at the end of the contribution. []

The beginning of the fight against the plague in the 15th-century Crown of Aragon

Dr. Albert Reixach Sala, University of Lleida

Resumen: Esta entrada presenta una investigación en curso sobre los inicios de la lucha contra la peste en la Corona de Aragón tardomedieval. En concreto, se fija en la introducción de nuevas medidas pragmáticas para hacer frente a la pestilencia y otras enfermedades contagiosas impulsadas desde los gobiernos urbanos de Cataluña, Valencia, Mallorca y Aragón desde mediados del siglo XV. Estos mecanismos suponían un avance importante con respecto a las respuestas tradicionales ligadas a la interpretación en clave religiosa de una catástrofe como un estallido epidémico. Además de reconstruir la secuencia de la aparición y la evolución inicial de este despliegue de acciones, entre las que destacan las ligadas al control de la movilidad en tiempos de contagio, se avanza hacia varias explicaciones para entender la geografía, cronología y razones principales de este desarrollo. Un desarrollo que anticipa la narrativa predominante centrada en las ciudades italianas durante los siglos XVI y XVII.

Resumen: Aquesta entrada presenta una recerca en curs sobre els inicis de la lluita contra la pesta a la Corona d’Aragó tardomedieval. En concret, se centra en la introducció de noves mesures pragmàtiques per fer front a la pestilència i d’altres malalties contagioses impulsades des dels governs urbans de Catalunya, València, Mallorca i Aragó des de mitjan segle XV. Aquests mecanismes suposaven un avanç important respecte a les respostes tradicionals lligades a la interpretació en clau religiosa d’una catàstrofe com un esclat epidèmic. A més de reconstruir la seqüència de l’aparició i l’evolució inicial d’aquest desplegament d’accions, entre les quals destaquen les lligades al control de la mobilitat en temps de contagi, s’avança cap a diverses explicacions per entendre la geografia, cronologia i raons principals d’aquest desenvolupament. Un desenvolupament que anticipa la narrativa dominant centrada en les ciutats italianes dels segles XVI i XVII.

Abstract: This blogpost presents ongoing research on the early efforts to combat the plague in the late medieval Crown of Aragon. Specifically, it focuses on the introduction of new pragmatic measures to address pestilence and other contagious diseases, driven by the urban governments of Catalonia, Valencia, Mallorca, and Aragon from the mid-15th century. These mechanisms represented a significant advance over traditional responses tied to religious interpretations of catastrophes such as epidemic outbreaks. In addition to reconstructing the sequence of the emergence and initial evolution of these actions —particularly those related to controlling mobility during times of contagion— the research explores various explanations to understand the geography, chronology, and main reasons for this development. This development anticipates the predominant narrative centred on Italian cities during the 16th and 17th centuries.

In 1348 the municipal authorities of Tortosa bought an orchard close to a parish church of the city to bury part of the extraordinary number of dead who had fallen victim to the plague during that summer. In order to mitigate divine wrath and prevent pestilence, in 1384 the city council of Manresa issued an ordinance prohibiting blasphemy, gambling and other moral sins. With the same purpose, in many years, such as 1362, 1371 or later until the Early Modern period, the rulers of Barcelona, like the ones in other Catalan and Aragonese towns, organised processions to seek the intercession of the Virgin and other saints. For instance, in Girona, prior to finally entrusting themselves to Saint Sebastian, they could not resist the attraction to the local patron saint, Saint Narcis, while in Majorca, until the end of the 15th century, saint Praxedis was the figure of reference when the situation was becoming more complicated. If all this was not enough, more resources could be mobilised. That is why in many places in Catalonia, at the end of the 15th century, pilgrims were sent to Saint James of Compostela with a first stop at the quintessential Catalan sanctuary, Montserrat. At times when the extraordinary increase in the daily death toll was beginning to frighten the population of several communities throughout the Crown of Aragon, bells were prevented from tolling and  to wear mourning garments was limited (as in Lleida in 1384).

Like in other years during that period, two pilgrims were sent by the city of Girona to Santiago de Compostela to request divine intervention to stop the plague, in: Municipal Archive of Girona, Municipality, City council acts, year 1488, f. 50r: [https://pandora.girona.cat/viewer.vm?id=2832557&lang=en&page=119] (10.06.2024).

Yet, not everything was limited to ritual actions in dealing with epidemic outbreaks. Progressively more practical measures were attempted. In this sense, from the late 1420s onwards the municipal government of Barcelona appointed a clergyman (and later a surgeon) to keep an exhaustive count of the daily deaths registered in the different parishes of the city at times when there were signs of an outbreak of epidemics. Apart from monitoring mortality, the second quarter of the 15th century saw a further step forward in a number of settlements. In July 1420 the authorities of the small town of Terrassa, and in November 1429 those of Cervera, prohibited the entry of people coming from infected places, with an emphasis on avoiding the reception of sick people by innkeepers. Indeed, in many urban centres in Catalonia, Valencia and Aragon, from the mid-15th century onwards, the closure of the town walls was promoted for this purpose; a closure that ended up affecting local people who saw their mobility limited during epidemic outbreaks. In this sense, in the city of Valencia, it was the same Queen Maria (wife of Alfonso the Magnanimous who was on the verge of fulfilling his Neapolitan dream) who issued the first travel ban in times of pestilence.

Nonetheless, in several places contagion could come not only by land, but also by sea. This is clearly seen in the exceptional case of Mallorca. There, already in 1414, the government had mechanisms to expel people from the island, who werebelieved to come from contagion hot spots. The strategy later seems to have been replicated in Barcelona. In 1458 the rulers of the Catalan capital prevented the arrival of vessels from Majorca and even ordered the expulsion of Majorcans: they justified the decision partly as retaliation for the treatment received by Barcelonian citizens on the island in the previous year. Controlling ships on arrival at ports or setting up checkpoints at the gates of city walls seems more affordable than the first attempts at real cordons sanitaires in the open. One of the first cases can again be found on  Majorca. In 1467, the representatives of Sóller, on the northern coast, tried to avoid the arrival of infected people from the city by placing guards at the crossings of the paths that gave access to the valley of this small town.

Between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, some progress was made in other measures that have become a benchmark in the fight against pestilence. For example, in 1501 the authorities of Cervera built provisional barracks in which people returning to the town had to spend periods of preventive confinement (or quarantines which, indeed, in most places in that period did not yet really consist of 40 days). In 1509 the jurors of València, for the same purpose, rented a farmhouse on the way to the seaport of the city. Around the year 1476, in Majorca, what historians would call a ‘health board’ was set up with a doctor at the healm and by-laws containing many revealing details. For instance, they refer to the interest of lighting bonfires in front of the houses of plague sufferers, or they allude to the prohibition that no one should act as a physician without a license by the members of the board, also responsible for controlling the action of the gravediggers  or notaries who drew up wills for the dying. In October 1482, the notary Jaume Safont from Barcelona noted an  an unprecedented episode in his diary. In the Catalan capital the royal lieutenant had ordered the expulsion of the remaining inhabitants of a house, in which some people had died in strange circumstances. In general, there was an increased rigour in the institutional response against epidemic outbursts.

Certainly, all of the above-mentioned actions, although perhaps lacking an obvious connection, are part of the heterogeneous range of strategies implemented by municipal authorities in the Western dominions of the Crown of Aragon to cope with epidemic diseases during the first phase of the so called second plague pandemic, which began with the catastrophic outbreak between the years 1347 and 1351. Broadly speaking, while all the ritual actions arising from the interpretation of epidemic outbursts as “acts of God” can be traced back to the Black Death (or even before), in the area under investigation more pragmatic mechanisms did not emerge until the first half of the 15th century.

Faced with this great diversity of documented episodes, the historian’s task is twofold: to reconstruct the sequence of measures throughout the territories of Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca and Aragon and to explain the who, when, why and where of some reactions and, especially, of new mechanisms.1 In this regard, the relatively wide range of sources preserved in northeastern Iberia prove the agency of municipal governments in the whole process. However, it remains to be determined what role medical experts may have had and to find reasons for the apparent dissociation between university medical knowledge and urban governance. This should be connected with other fundamental issues such as possible changes in the way diseases and their diffusion patterns were perceived by  authorities or policymakers in general. After all, it is possible that the war against the plague in the Crown of Aragon was initiated in a certain way and at a certain time due to a whole set of conditioning elements that were not only ‘scientific’ but also linked to the institutional landscape and the political and social context of its urban centres.

In short, to study the long list of actions mentioned above, scholars must combine several perspectives and try to be as pervasive as the invisible enemy itself (again borrowing a fortunate expression from Carlo Cipolla in his description of the challenge of epidemics in military terms) that terrorised pre-modern societies. And this without forgetting that, as we experienced very recently, global diseases can also threaten our world.

Selected bibliography:

Agresta, Abigail. “From Purification to Protection: Plague response in Late Medieval Valencia.” Speculum 95 no. 2 (2020): 371-395.

Carmichael, Ann G. “Contagion Theory and Contagion Practice in Fifteenth-Century Milan.” Renaissance Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1991): 213-256.

Cipolla, Carlo M. Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth-Century Italy. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1981.

Cohn, Samuel K. The Black Death Transformed. Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe. London: Arnold, 2003.

Nicoud, Marilyn. “À l’épreuve de la peste. Médecins et savoirs médicaux face à la pandémie (XIVe-XVe siècles)”, Annales HSS 78 no. 3 (2023) : 505-541.

Reixach Sala, Albert, “Frenar el contagio por tierra y por mar en Cataluña y Mallorca en el siglo XV: en los albores de los cordones sanitarios.” Reti Medievali Rivista, 24 no. 2 (2023): 51-87.

Roca Cabau, Guillem. “Medidas municipales contra la peste en la Lleida del siglo XIV e inicios del XV.” Dynamis 38 no. 1 (2018): 15-39.

Photo: Fragment of frescoes from the chapel of Saint Sebastian in Lanslevillard (Savoy, France), from the end of the 15th century, URL: [https://paulsmit.smugmug.com/Features/Europe/France/Chapels-of-Southern-Alps/Saint-Sebastien-Lanslevillard/i-nLxb8Db] (10.06.2024).

  1. Based on the existing scholarly literature on the phenomenon, they are two main aims of the research projects “Beyond the Black Death. Epidemics and mortality crises in northeastern Iberia, 11th-16th centuries: reconstructing cycles, measuring effects, analysing responses (EPIDEMED) (PID2020-117839GB-I00) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and also the research project The social dimension of health crises in Lleida and its region in the European context: from the Black Death to COVID-19 (IlerCriSan) funded by Indest – University of Lleida. []

A “Pestilential Disease” – Piracy in Times of War in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon 

Dr. Victòria Burguera i Puigserver, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

Resumen: La violencia marítima en el Mediterráneo bajomedieval podía adoptar variadas formas en diferentes contextos. Así, la concepción de los piratas y la percepción de la piratería eran igualmente diversas dependiendo de los actores en cuestión. Detrás de la amenaza percibida por las ciudades de la Corona de Aragón en la primera mitad del siglo XV, se esconden intereses cambiantes y competencias a nivel interno y externo ¿Y si el rey y los piratas estuvieran en el mismo equipo?

Abstract: Maritime violence in the late medieval Mediterranean could take various forms in different contexts. Thus, the conception of pirates and the perception of piracy were equally diverse depending on the actors involved. Behind the threat perceived by the cities of the Crown of Aragon in the first half of the 15th century, there were shifting interests and competitions both internally and externally.What if the king and the pirates were on the same team?

2nd April 1440. The galleys of the Majorcan Ponç Descatllar, the Valencian Jaume de Vilaragut and the Catalans Bernat and Galceran de Requesens lay an ambush in the mouth of the Ebro River from which the ships passing through the area cannot escape.1 They are engaged in rounding up and looting ships carrying wheat and other supplies to various coastal cities, including the capital of the principality of Catalonia: Barcelona.

The Barcelona authorities, along with those of the city of Tortosa, the closest city to the conflict zone, are the first to take notice of the events. The skippers, who are subjects of the king and members of his fleet, used force and their rank to capture people, plunder ships and even threaten, torture and mutilate those who resisted them. The rulers of the city will devote all their efforts to have them declared public enemies, so that they can be prosecuted, imprisoned and judged for their actions.2 Through about twenty letters exchanged by the Barcelona authorities and their representatives in the courts with Queen consort Mary of Aragon, King Alfonso the Magnanimous and other authorities, it is possible to reconstruct the discourse developed by the municipal leaders to criminalise the acts of the skippers, who were close to the monarch and members of his fleet.3

It had been a long time since the Catalan-Aragonese monarchy had had sufficient means to undertake military campaigns on its own. Thus, for the conquest of Naples, apart from counting on the economic support of the cities under his dominion and drawing on old personal ties, the king appealed to his subjects to join his war of conquest.4 The king would gain a private force at his disposal to help him pursue his own objectives, while the participants (only those with the economic strength to arm large warships, i.e. mostly nobles and members of the urban oligarchy) would find a path to political, economic and social advancement.5 Their position in the monarch’s inner circle, along with the latter’s need and dependence on their ships for his war, turned many members of the royal navy into veritable time bombs, in a position to potentially act with impunity.

Powerful cities affected by their excesses, such as Barcelona, were forced to organize flotillas on several occasions to pursue them,6 in what was conceived at the time as a “pestilential disease”.7 Thus, despite the king’s numerous foreign enemies, maritime violence was sometimes more an expression of domestic unrest than the result of external competition.

Yet, in addition to the harm these patrons may have caused the monarch’s own subjects, there was another underlying issue. Behind the expressions referring to their “insatiable appetite” and “lack of shame”, together with accusations of being “a pirate, murderer, limb mutilator of great inhumanity and viciousness”,8 there was the latent conflict between the urban elites of the city of Barcelona and the monarchy, resulting in an armed conflict years later: the well-known Catalan Civil War.

The dialectic and rhetoric used by the municipal leaders to criminalise said patrons is fully embedded in the process of the criminalisation of piracy as a whole. And, curiously, in this case the process was not the result of an attempt at state reaffirmation by the monarchy, as historiography has pointed out in other contexts.9 On the contrary, it was the expression of a force contesting the king’s interests, in accordance with the plurality of powers typical of medieval times and so characteristic of the territories that made up the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon.


Photo: Niçard, Pere, Sant Jordi, in: Wikimedia Commons, URL: [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sant_Jordi_Pere_Niçard.jpg] (05.04.2023)

  1. The development of this episode, together with a study of the subterfuges used by one of the skippers, Ponç Descatllar, to escape the judicial process to which he was subjected for having practiced piracy, has recently been published in: Burguera i Puigserver, Victòria A. “Jutjar els actes de pirateria a la Corona d’Aragó baixmedieval. El cas de Ponç Descatllar (1440)”, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia medieval, 24 (2023), pp. 67-90. https://doi.org/10.14198/medieval.24205. []
  2. The first three were declared public enemies and persecuted as such, but only Ponç Descatllar was imprisoned and prosecuted, albeit temporarily. In fact, the legal proceedings against him, compiled by the Barcelona bailiff after he was captured by a fleet armed by the leaders of that city, is one of the few examples of cases of illegitimate attacks on the seas belonging to the Crown of Aragon that have been preserved until today. []
  3. The letters are kept in the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona (AHCB), specifically in the registers of Lletres closes (sent) and Lletres comunes (received). []
  4. Sáiz Serrano, Jorge (2008). Caballeros del rey. Nobleza y guerra en el reinado de Alfonso el Magnánimo (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València), pp. 22, 65. []
  5. Burguera i Puigserver, Victòria A. (2020). Els perills de la mar. Pirateria, captiveri i gestió del conflicte marítim a la Corona d’Aragó (1410-1458), (Unpublished PhD dissertation), Universitat de Barcelona, pp. 177-185. []
  6. Ibidem, pp. 301-307. []
  7. AHCB, 1B. VI-7, ff. 37r-v. 4 abril 1440. []
  8. The latter were mentioned by the Barcelona councilors against Ponç Descatllar. AHCB, 1B. VI-7, f. 51v. Barcelona, 26 April 1440; ff. 56r-57v. Barcelona, 7 May 1440. []
  9. For instance, in medieval England (Heebøll-Holm, T. K. (2020). “Towards a Criminalisation of Piracy in Late Medieval England”. In L. Sicking; A. Wijffels (eds.), Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000-1800 (pp. 165-186). Leiden/Boston: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004407992_010) or France (Prétou, Pierre. (2021). L’invention de la piraterie en France au Moyen Âge. Paris: PUF). []

Zwischen Pyrenäen und Mittelmeer: Die Krone Aragon im Mittelalter

Bericht zur Exkursion von Prof. Dr. Nikolas Jaspert (23.09.2021 – 02.10.2021) von Jule Meyer und Silvia Girona

Abstract: In this report Silvia Girona and Jule Meyer present the field trip to the lands of the former Crown of Aragón. Following the traces of this “lost kingdom” through southern France and Spain they pick the most impressive, discuss their particular context and place them in the wider history of the Crown. By providing insight into the area’s rich archives as well, they not only paint a fuller picture of a “not so lost kingdom”, but also encourage further research.

Zusammenfassung: In diesem Beitrag präsentieren Silvia Girona und Jule Meyer die Exkursion in die Gebiete der ehemaligen Krone Aragón. Während sie den Spuren dieses “verlorenen Königreichs” durch Südfrankreich und Spanien folgen, wählen sie die eindrücklichsten aus, diskutieren ihren jeweiligen Kontext und verorten sie in der Geschichte der Krone. Darüber hinaus geben sie Einblick in die reichen Archive der Region und zeichnen so nicht nur ein volleres Bild eines “not so lost kingdom”, sondern regen auch zu weiterer Forschung an.

Die Krone Aragón gehört zu den Königreichen, die Norman Davies zu den „vanished kingdoms“1 zählt. Um sich seine Geschichte dennoch vor Augen zu führen, folgten 19 Studierende und Mitarbeitende des Historischen Seminars der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg unter Leitung von Prof. Dr. Nikolas Jaspert und Yannika Kuhlmann, im Rahmen einer zehntägigen Exkursion seinen Spuren. Im Folgenden wollen wir einige besondere Eindrücke dieser Reise vorstellen.

Schon zu Beginn wurden uns die Ausmaße des einstigen Königreichs bewusst: Nach unserem Aufbruch von der historischen Grenze der Krone Aragón in Montpellier folgten wir den Spuren nach Perpignan, wo wir den im 13. Jahrhundert errichteten Palais des Rois de Majorque besuchten. Im Jahr 1333 wurde der Palast an Peter IV. (1319–1387) übergeben und diente bis zur Herrschaftsübernahme der Trastámara (1412) als Residenz der mallorquinischen Könige.

Klöster und Kirchen sind von besonderer kunst- und kulturhistorischer Bedeutung für die Krone Aragón. Den chronologischen Anfang machten die Klöster San Joan de las Abadesses und Santa Maria de Ripoll, die beide von Wilfried dem Haarigen (†897) gegründet wurden. Beide bestechen durch ihre außergewöhnlich gute Überlieferung, an der sich sowohl das vielfältige Ordensleben als auch die politische Komponente der Herrschaftskonsolidierung nachzeichnen lassen. Im Rahmen der Eroberungen Raimund Berenguers IV. entstanden in der Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts fast zeitgleich drei Zisterzienserklöster. Das Kloster Santes Creus ist das älteste Kataloniens. Besonders eindrucksvoll ist sein detailliert gestalteter gotischer Kreuzgang. Sowohl Peter III. (1240–1285) als auch sein Sohn Jakob II. (1267–1327) ließen sich dort bestatten. Das Kloster Santa Maria de Poblet entstand 1151 nach einer Schenkung Raimund Berenguers IV. an die Zisterzienser von Fontfroide. Auch dort befinden sich die Grablegen einiger aragonesischer Könige, darunter Alfons II. (1157–1196), Jakob I. (1208–1276) und Peter IV. (1319–1387). Gemeinsam mit dem Nonnenkloster Santa Maria de Vallbona, das wir spontan besuchen durften, bilden diese drei heute die ruta del cister. In der Vall de Boí in den katalanischen Pyrenäen befinden sich neun sehr gut erhaltene romanische Kirchen des 12. Jahrhunderts, die beispielhaft für einen besonders hohen künstlerischen Standard auch in den abgeschiedenen Bereichen des Königreichs stehen. Wir besichtigten dort unter anderem die Kirchen Sant Climent und Santa Maria de Taüll, die in ihrem Inneren einst einzigartige Fresken trugen. Zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts erweckten diese jedoch das Interesse eines amerikanischen Geschäftsmanns, der sie kaufen und in die USA überführen wollte. Dies wurde jedoch verhindert und so gelangten sie in das Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona, wo sie bis heute mit weiteren romanischen Fresken der Region ausgestellt werden.

Eine weitere Spur der Krone Aragón im modernen Katalonien, welche beispielhaft für die stetige Neuverwendung von Palast- und Burganlagen steht, ist das Castell de Peñíscola auf der Halbinsel von Peñíscola in der Provinz von Castellón. Ab dem 8. Jahrhundert wurde es im Zuge der muslimischen Eroberung zu einer alcazaba (muslimische Festung) bis die Templer sie im 13. Jahrhundert abrissen und eine neue Burg bauten. Ab 1409 geriet sie unter päpstliche Jurisdiktion und wurde in den nachfolgenden Jahren zur Residenz der Gegenpäpste Benedikt XIII. (= papa luna) und Clemens VIII. Eindrückliche architektonische Spuren der Expansion der Krone Aragón stellen auch die im mudéjar-Stil erbauten Türme von Teruel dar. Denn die Eroberung des Al-Andalus war zwar von Feindseligkeiten geprägt, doch die Geschichte zeichnete sich ebenso durch Kulturaustausch und gegenseitige Beeinflussung in Sprache, Architektur und Kunst aus. Die mudéjares, also iberische Muslime unter christlicher Herrschaft, wirkten bei der Konstruktion der genannten spätmittelalterlichen Türme mit. Ihr Stil ist durch die Verschmelzung christlicher und islamischer Kunst charakterisiert. Neben diesen Phänomenen architektonischer Inkorporation, konnten wir auch solche architektonischer Exklusion beobachten. Zeugnisse davon sind nicht nur die großen Calls von Girona und Barcelona, der zweitgrößten und größten jüdischen Gemeinde der Krone, sondern auch die Mikwe von Besalú, die von nur 20 Familien genutzt wurde.

Im Rahmen der Exkursion war es uns möglich, einige Archive zu besuchen und die Geschichte der Krone Aragón auch anhand ihrer schriftlichen Überlieferungen nachzuvollziehen. Als erstes durften wir einige schriftliche Zeugnisse im Kapitel- und Diözesanarchiv von La Seu d’Urgell kennenlernen. Der Bestand des Kapitelarchivs reicht vom 9. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, das Diözesanarchiv umspannt die Zeit vom 14. bis 20. Jahrhundert.2 Dort führte uns Benigne Marquès, der Leiter der Archive, durch das Magazin und zeigte uns einige besondere Archivalien aus seinem Bestand, unter anderem den Beatus von Urgell mit seiner eindrucksvollen Darstellung der Apokalypse.

In Barcelona hatten wir die einzigartige Gelegenheit, drei Archive zu besuchen. Im Generalarchiv der Krone von Aragón konnten wir unter anderem einen autographischen Brief des Hofnarren Mossèn Borra (†1446) aus dem Reich begutachten. In der Biblioteca de Catalunya sahen wir ein Hilfsersuchen des Jerusalemer Patriarchen Eraclius aus der Zeit zwischen 1180 und 1187. In drei Urkunden Papst Gregors X. (1271–1276), die bei einem Brand stark beschädigt wurden, zeigte sich eindrucksvoll, wie sich die Spuren der Geschichte auch in der Materialität abzeichnen. Besonders überwältigend war das Kapitelarchiv der Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia. Über das Triforium der Kathedrale gelangten wir zu einem kleinen Archivraum, der noch mit dem Originalmobiliar des 16. Jahrhunderts ausgestattet ist. Das Archiv beheimatet eine Vielzahl von Dokumenten, von denen uns die Mitarbeiter des Archivs Codices, Urkunden und kurz zuvor entdeckte Zeichnungen zeigten.

So weit sich der Herrschaftsbereich der Krone im Mittelalter streckte, so vielschichtig waren auch die Themenbereiche der Exkursion. Dank der großartigen Organisation konnten wir den Einflussbereich der Krone Aragón geographisch wie auch architektonisch und sozialhistorisch nachvollziehen. Nach erkenntnisreichen zehn Tagen auf den Spuren der Krone Aragón trennten sich unsere Wege schließlich in Barcelona. Aber die umfangreichen Archive Kataloniens lassen uns hoffen, dass bald weitere Spuren des „vanished kingdom“ ans Licht gebracht werden.


Photo: © Jule Meyer. (Innenausstattung des Kapitelarchivs der Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia)

  1. Davies, Norman, Vanished Kingdoms. The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, London et al. 2011. []
  2. Arxiu Capitular i Diocesà d’Urgell, Fons Documental, in: URL: https://arxiubisbaturgell.wordpress.com/fons-documental/. []