Counts · Crown of Aragon · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Roussillon

Roussillon came to the Crown in 1172 by the bequest of the last count, Girard II, and is governed directly by the king's vicar and bailiff at Perpignan; Peter's uncle Sancho receives it only in 1208.

Perpignan is booming, with a stone bridge over the Tet built by 1195 and consuls from 1197. The bishop of Elne, the Templars of the Mas Deu and the abbeys hold much land. The Vallespir to the south-west belongs to the royal county of Besalu. Salses on the Narbonne road is the northern gate; the Fenouilledes in the hills to the north-west is a separate viscounty under Aragonese overlordship.

Who he is

Name
Peter II of Aragon
Title
Count of Roussillon (as king of Aragon and count of Barcelona)
Since
25 April 1196
Born
1178 by most accounts
Family
House of Barcelona; unmarried.
Confidence
high

Follows the Iberia map record Roussillon (Gran Enciclopedia Catalana).

Overlord

None in temporal matters (the old claim of the French crown over the Catalan counties is not exercised).

What it holds

  • Perpignan with its bridge, market and consulate
  • The port of Collioure
  • The Salanque, the Aspres and the Alberes coast
  • Salses, the gate towards Narbonne
  • The Vallespir (Ceret, Arles-sur-Tech, Prats-de-Mollo), of the county of Besalu

How it was acquired

Bequest of Girard II, 1172; Besalu since 1111.

Allies and rivals

Neighbours: the viscount of Narbonne and the archbishop to the north; the count of Empuries to the south (Iberia map).

How things stand that morning

Royal, governed by the king's vicar and bailiff (names in 1200 not pinned). Sancho, the king's uncle, holds nothing here until 1208 (Iberia map).

Wealth

Perpignan's trade and cloth; the port of Collioure; salt; the Tet valley road to Cerdanya (as usually stated).

Military

Salses, Perpignan and Collioure; the Templars of the Mas Deu. No numbers.

Threats

  • Sea raids from the Banu Ghaniya of Majorca (Iberia map)

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. 1208Peter grants Roussillon to his uncle Sancho.Depends on: Family politics. Stopped by: Play.

Where the sources disagree

  • Duplicates the Iberia map's Roussillon on the France side; facts kept identical.

Evidence: As in the Iberia record.

On the map: Follows the Iberia map outline.

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.

Sources and studies

  1. Iberia map record cat-king-roussillon
  2. Gran Enciclopedia Catalana: comtat de Rossello

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.