Pallars Sobirà

Who he is

Name

Guillema (the daughter), a minor; her mother Guillema, widow of Count Artau (Arnau) IV, governs as regent

Title

Countess of Pallars Sobirà

Since

about 1199, on the death of her brother Count Bernat

Born

not pinned; a minor in 1199

Family

Daughter of Count Artau (Arnau) IV (died about 1182) and Guillema, a lady of Languedocian origin. Her brother Bernat (counted II or III) died young without children, about 1199.

Confidence

medium

GEC (comtat de Pallars Sobirà) gives Bernat about 1182-1199; Catalunya Romànica gives his death as 1197 in one article and his rule as 1180-1200 in another.

Overlord

Peter II in a loose sense; the county is not royal demesne

What it holds

• The valleys of the Noguera Pallaresa above the Collegats gorge
• The salt works of Gerri (with the abbey of Gerri)
• Comital castles at Sort, València d'Àneu and in the side valleys

How it was acquired

Hereditary county.

Allies and rivals

Neighbours: royal Pallars Jussà to the south, the Castellbò and Andorra to the east, the Val d'Aran and Couserans to the north. Suitors for the heiress's hand will be the political prize: Guillem d'Erill marries her in 1205, then Roger of Comminges, viscount of Couserans.

How things stand that morning

A regency over a minor heiress; the regent's hold over her vassals is weak.

Wealth

Salt of Gerri, summer pastures and transhumance, timber.

Military

Mountain castles; no great host.

Threats

• Rebellious vassals
• Fortune hunters seeking the heiress
• Raids spilling over from the Castellbò-Foix war

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. 1205Guillema marries Guillem d'Erill.Depends on: The regent's choice and Erill's standing Stopped by: Another match
2. about 1210 (other accounts 1217)As a widow she marries Roger of Comminges, viscount of Couserans; childless, she sells him the county in 1229-1231.Depends on: Her widowhood Stopped by: A child of her first marriage

Places of note

• Gerri: Salt springs and abbey
• Sort: Comital centre

Where the sources disagree

• Numbering and dates differ between the GEC (Guillema I, countess about 1199-1229) and Catalunya Romànica (Guillema II, from 1204, with Bernat dying in 1197).

Evidence: The regency and the heiress are agreed; the exact year of Bernat's death is not pinned (1197-1200).

On the map: Traced on the watersheds of the Noguera Pallaresa; the edge with the Castellbò lands is approximate.

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.