Urgell (Ermengol VIII)

Who he is

Name

Ermengol VIII (Armengol VIII)

Title

Count of Urgell

Since

1184, after his father Ermengol VII was killed fighting the Muslims of Valencia

Born

not pinned

Family

Son of Ermengol VII. Wife Elvira, of the Castilian Lara (also called Elvira de Subirats); their only child is a daughter, Aurembiaix, born about 1196. His sister Marquesa married Ponç III de Cabrera, so the young viscount Guerau IV de Cabrera is his nephew.

Confidence

high

GEC (Ermengol VIII; Guerau I d'Urgell); Wikipedia (Raymond-Roger of Foix) for the war with Foix and Castellbò.

Overlord

None for Urgell itself, a sovereign county; the count holds his third of Lleida as the vassal of the count of Barcelona

What it holds

• Balaguer, the comital seat, with the Castell Formós
• The Urgell plain: Agramunt, Linyola, Menàrguens, Castelló de Farfanya, Bellcaire
• The lower Noguera and the Segre: Camarasa, Cubells, Ponts, Oliana, up to Organyà
• A third of the lordship of Lleida (with its own castellan), the rest being the king's
• Comital rights in the Urgellet, shared with the bishop of Urgell and contested by the Castellbò
• Overlordship of the Cabrera viscounty of Àger
• The grant of Calassanç (Ribagorza) to Arnau d'Erill in 1186 shows him enfeoffing beyond the county

How it was acquired

Inherited 1184. The Lleida share dates from the conquest of 1149 by Ramon Berenguer IV and Ermengol VI.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Peter II, who backs him against the Foix-Castellbò coalition; the bishop of Urgell (Bernat de Vilamur by 1203); his wife's Lara kin in Castile. Rivals: Arnau de Castellbò; Raymond-Roger, count of Foix (whose wife is Philippa de Montcada); Guerau IV de Cabrera, the heir in waiting.

How things stand that morning

Holds his county and his third of Lleida. The war with Castellbò and Foix, begun in 1198, is live: the Urgellet and Cerdanya are raided ground.

Wealth

Grain of the Urgell plain, the Segre and Noguera irrigation, the market and Jewish and Muslim communities of Balaguer, his share of the tolls and rents of Lleida.

Military

A ring of comital castles across the plain; the knights of Urgell; his castellan in Lleida. Fought for himself and for the king on the Valencian frontier like his father.

Threats

• The Foix-Castellbò coalition
• No male heir: the succession of Aurembiaix against the Cabrera claim
• Pressure from the king to settle the succession in the crown's favour

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. February to September 1203The count of Foix and Arnau de Castellbò are captured and imprisoned; Peter II has them released.Depends on: The war going on and the Urgell side winning a fight Stopped by: A truce or a Foix victory
2. 1206The struggle with the Foix-Castellbò coalition ends in Ermengol's favour, with Peter's backing.Depends on: Royal support Stopped by: A change of side by the king
3. 1208 or 1209Ermengol VIII dies; his widow Elvira holds the county for Aurembiaix; Guerau IV de Cabrera invades Urgell.Depends on: His natural death on its date Stopped by: A son being born, or a settlement with the Cabrera

Places of note

• Balaguer: Comital seat
• Agramunt: Comital town
• Castelló de Farfanya: Comital castle
• Linyola: Comital castle
• Camarasa: Castle on the Segre
• Lleida: Third of the city's lordship

Where the sources disagree

• Death year: the GEC gives 1209, the Real Academia de la Historia's dictionary (via Wikipedia, Guerau IV de Cabrera) 1208.

Evidence: The war and the succession problem are well attested; the county's exact extent in the Urgellet and on the Noguera is drawn from general knowledge.

On the map: The county's northern edge in the Urgellet, where the bishop and the Castellbò hold most of the ground, is approximate; the southern line with the Anglesola and the royal Segarra is rough.

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.