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).
- 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. [↩]
- 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). [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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). [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- 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. [↩]
- Kohl, Thomas, Sozialer Wandel und die Zweinamigkeit im 11. Jahrhundert – eine französische Perspektive. Namenkundliche Informationen 103/104 (2014), pp. 244–266, here pp. 255f. [↩]
- Benet i Clarà, Albert, Història de Manresa. Dels orígens al segle XI, Manresa 1985, pp. 109–111. [↩]
