Lleida

Who holds it

Name

Peter II (two thirds) and Ermengol VIII of Urgell (one third), each through a castellan

Title

Lord

Since

1149

Confidence

high

L'Art Gòtic a Catalunya: La ciutat de Lleida

Lord in 1200

A condominium since the conquest of 1149: the king holds two thirds and the count of Urgell one third, each through a castellan (castlà) drawn from the Montcada or the Cervera family. It lasts until 1228. The Templars hold the castle and commandery of Gardeny on the hill outside the city (Church map).

How things stand that morning

Shared lordship; the consuls are three years old.

Wealth

The irrigated huerta of the Segre, river trade, crafts, tolls on the Barcelona-Zaragoza road.

Military

The Suda castle; the Templar castle of Gardeny; the city walls.

Threats

• Friction between the two lords' castellans and the new consuls
• The Urgell succession

Fuero

Settlement charter (carta de poblament) of 1150, granted by both counts.

Council

Consuls since 1197: Peter II granted a consulate drawn from both the greater and the lesser citizens (mà major and mà menor), 'without prejudice' to the king, the count of Urgell and the two castellans. They are later called paers.

Communities

Jews in the old Muslim citadel quarter (Sant Andreu parish); Muslims in the 'Vila dels Sarraïns' (Sant Llorenç parish), outside the walls at first; the bishop's see, moved from Roda after 1149, sits in the Suda on the site of the old great mosque.

Fairs and markets

A market square (mercadal) was set up soon after the conquest but did not last; no fair is pinned for 1200.

Militia

The citizens serve under their consuls and the castellans; no figure.

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. 1203 (as usually dated, 22 July)Foundation of the new cathedral (the Seu Vella) on the Suda hill.Depends on: The bishop and chapter going ahead Stopped by: War or lack of money

Places of note

• Gardeny: Templar castle and commandery (Church map)

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Lordship, charter and consulate from L'Art Gòtic a Catalunya; the cathedral date is general knowledge.

On the map: The city's wide municipal territory (terme) on both banks of the Segre, roughly.

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.