Cabrera (Guerau IV)

Who he is

Name

Guerau IV de Cabrera (Guerau III as viscount of Àger)

Title

Viscount of Cabrera (viscount of Girona) and viscount of Àger

Since

shortly before 1199, on his father's death

Born

not pinned

Family

Son of Viscount Ponç III de Cabrera and Marquesa, daughter of Count Ermengol VII of Urgell; nephew of Ermengol VIII. Unmarried in 1200 (he marries Elo Pérez de Castro in 1205).

Confidence

medium

GEC (Guerau I d'Urgell).

Overlord

Peter II for Cabrera; the count of Urgell claims authority over Àger

What it holds

• Montsoriu castle (Arbúcies) and the Selva lands: Hostalric, Breda
• Blanes on the coast
• The viscounts' castle in Girona
• The castle of Cabrera in Osona
• The viscounty of Àger under the Montsec

How it was acquired

Hereditary viscounties; Àger came to the Cabrera by descent from the heirs of Arnau Mir de Tost (eleventh-twelfth century; not checked here).

Allies and rivals

Rival of Ermengol VIII over Àger and over Urgell; allied in the 1190s with the Castellbò; to marry into the Castilian Castro in 1205.

How things stand that morning

Holds both viscounties; in Àger he is under Urgell's thumb since 1195.

Wealth

Selva and Montseny forests, Blanes and its coast, Àger grain, the viscountal rights in Girona.

Military

Montsoriu, one of the largest castles in Catalonia; Àger castle.

Threats

• Ermengol VIII and the king, who promise to protect the rights of Ermengol's wife and daughter

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. before 1208, not pinnedGuerau seeks Peter II's support to be named Ermengol VIII's successor; Ermengol talks the king round to protect Elvira and Aurembiaix.Depends on: Ermengol having no son Stopped by: A son born to Ermengol
2. 1205Guerau marries Elo, daughter of Pedro Fernández de Castro.Depends on: Castilian alliance Stopped by: Another match
3. 1208 or 1209On Ermengol's death Guerau invades Urgell; beaten, he is taken in 1211 and held at Jaca; he retakes Urgell after Muret (1213).Depends on: Ermengol dying sonless Stopped by: A settlement or a son

Places of note

• Montsoriu: Main fortress
• Àger: Seat of the viscounty of Àger
• Cabrera castle: Ancestral castle
• Girona, viscounts' castle: Castle of the viscounts in the city

Where the sources disagree

• Some accounts name Ponç de Cabrera as the claimant through Marquesa; the GEC has Ponç III dead shortly before 1199 and his son Guerau IV, Marquesa's son, as viscount and claimant.
• Wikipedia (Guerau IV de Cabrera) makes Ponç III Guerau's uncle and dates his marriage to Marquesa to 1194; followed the GEC, which makes Guerau their son.

Evidence: Succession from the GEC; the Selva holdings are general knowledge of the family's lands, not checked for 1200.

On the map: The Selva lands are drawn from the main castles; the full extent of the Cabrera domain in 1200 is not pinned.

Primary sources for Aragon

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• Deeds of the Counts of Barcelona, Anonymous (monks of Santa Maria de Ripoll) (first version 1162 to 1184; continued in the later 13th century; final version 1303 to 1314). The house chronicle of the counts of Barcelona.
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• The Pleasant Book: a Summary of the History of the Maghreb, Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi (completed in 1224, in the East, after the author left the Maghreb in 1217). Abd al-Wahid was a boy of fifteen at Fez and Marrakesh in 1200 and later moved in Almohad court circles, so his account of Yaqub al-Mansur (died January 1199) and of the first years of Muhammad al-Nasir is partly from memory and from men he knew: the character of the new caliph, the weakness that let the Banu Ghaniya overrun Ifriqiya, the Majorca expedition of 1203 and the Ifriqiya campaign of 1205 to 1206. Read online
• Official Letters of the Almohad Chancery (1140s to 1260s; the letters nearest 1200 are of the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Nasir). Circular letters from the caliphs to governors, tribes and towns announcing victories, appointments and policy, preserved in later manuscript collections.

7 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.