Montcada (Tortosa)

Who he is

Name

Ramon (II) de Montcada, with his brother Guillem Ramon

Title

Co-lord of Tortosa (the Montcada third)

Since

1190 or 1191, on the death of their father Ramon (I) de Montcada, 'el Vell'

Born

not pinned

Family

Sons of Ramon (I) de Montcada (died 1190/91), lord of Tortosa and seneschal, and Ramona of the Tornamira lineage. Their sister Philippa is the wife of Raymond-Roger, count of Foix. Guillem Ramon founds the Aitona line.

Confidence

low

GEC (Montcada; Ramon de Montcada); Wikipedia (Ramon I de Montcada). Which brother held the Tortosa third, alone or jointly, is not pinned.

Overlord

Peter II

What it holds

• One third of the lordship of Tortosa (courts, tolls, rents)
• Reserved rights at Ulldecona
• A claim to the hereditary seneschal's office

How it was acquired

The Tortosa share from the great seneschal's part in the 1148 conquest.

Allies and rivals

Co-lords at Tortosa: the Templars (who hold the king's two thirds by the 1182 grant) and Queen Sancha (who keeps her dower rights there for life). Brother-in-law: the count of Foix, enemy of Urgell.

How things stand that morning

Holds the third; the rest of the lordship is in dispute between the Templars and the queen mother.

Wealth

Tortosa's river and sea trade, the Ebro fisheries and the city's tolls (their third).

Military

Their tower and men in Tortosa; frontier service against Peñíscola and Morella.

Threats

• Muslim raids from the south
• The Templars' growing grip on Tortosa

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. 1222-1223A Ramon de Montcada gives Ulldecona its settlement charter (1222) and a Guillem de Montcada renounces the family's rights there to the Hospitallers (1223).Depends on: The frontier being safe enough to settle Stopped by: Raids
2. 1229Ramon de Montcada is killed at Portopí in the conquest of Majorca.Depends on: The Majorca expedition Stopped by: Not in play in 1200

Places of note

• Tortosa: Montcada third of the city
• Ulldecona: Frontier castle, Hospitaller with Montcada rights reserved

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The Tortosa third and the Ulldecona rights are attested; the names of the holders in 1200 are inferred from the genealogy.

On the map: Shares of lordship drawn as discs.

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.