Montcada (Guillem Ramon, exile)

Who he is

Name

Guillem Ramon de Montcada

Title

Lord of Montcada and co-lord of Vic, heir of the great seneschal (out of favour)

Since

1173, when he succeeded his grandfather, the great seneschal Guillem Ramon (his father Guillem had died in 1172)

Born

not pinned; a child in 1173

Family

Son of Guillem de Montcada and Maria, heiress of Béarn; brother of Gaston VI, viscount of Béarn. Married Guillema de Castellvell, the murdered archbishop's niece, who divorced him after the killing. Their son Guillem is his heir in Catalonia.

Confidence

medium

Catalunya Romànica (castles of Vic and Montcada); Wikipedia (Berenguer de Vilademuls).

Overlord

Peter II

What it holds

• Castle of Montcada over the Besòs road into Barcelona (the family's name-seat)
• Half of Vic: the castle (the old comital palace), the upper town and its market toll, full justice over his men there
• Castles of the plain of Vic, among them Tona and Torelló (granted to the great seneschal in 1135)
• A hereditary claim to the seneschal's office

How it was acquired

Inheritance from the great seneschal (died 1173), who had acquired the Montcada lands by marrying the heiress Beatriu de Montcada in 1117.

Allies and rivals

Enemies: the archbishop's kin and party; the bishop of Vic, Guillem de Tavertet, who disputes the Montcada rights in Vic. Kin: his brother Gaston VI of Béarn; his cousins of the Tortosa line.

How things stand that morning

In exile and under the Church's sentence; who runs his castles on 1 January 1200 (royal keepers, his son's guardians or his kin) is not pinned.

Wealth

Tolls and rents of Vic's upper town and market, the Montcada castles' dues.

Military

Montcada and the Vic castle; a large vassal network, now leaderless.

Threats

• Confiscation
• Excommunication
• The bishop of Vic

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. 1202Peter II entrusts the son, Guillem de Montcada, with the castles his father held of the king.Depends on: The king choosing to restore the family through the son Stopped by: The king keeping the castles or granting them away
2. 1205Peter II sells the royal rights in Vic to the bishop and citizens; the Montcada half is untouched.Depends on: The king's need of money Stopped by: Another source of cash
3. 1214-1215On Gaston VI's death he inherits Béarn, returns, and goes to Rome for absolution; Innocent III sets three cardinals to impose penance.Depends on: Gaston dying sonless Stopped by: An heir to Gaston

Places of note

• Montcada castle: Name-seat of the house
• Vic, Montcada castle: Half of the city

Where the sources disagree

• The Catalunya Romànica article on Montcada castle makes him the son of Ramon de Montcada; the article on Vic and the Béarn succession make him the grandson through Guillem and Maria of Béarn. Followed the second.
• The campaign notes call him 'a great Catalan lord'; on 1 January 1200 he is an exile, not an active lord.

Evidence: The murder and exile are well attested; his whereabouts and the custody of his castles in 1200 are not.

On the map: Castle districts only; the great seneschal's other castles are not listed here.

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.