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The County of Urgell
The county
of Urgell was the most notable of the Catalan counties after Barcelona-Girona, with
foreign politics extended throughout Castile and Occitania.
Urgell is the name of a settlement of Roman origin (Urgellum?), converted into an
episcopal see as early as the first quarter of the 6th century, and which, from the
end of the 8th century, went on to form a part of the Carolingian orbit as county
capital.
What was initially a uniform geographic demarcation and strategic point of communication
and trade, became, in the mid 12th century, a group of non-amalgamated territories,
originating, on one hand, in the colonising action undertaken by important noble
lineages and by the ecclesiastic hierarchy, and on the other hand, the conquest of
Islamised areas organised around the large cities of the plain, Lleida and Balaguer.
The continuing struggle between the noble estate and the count, as well as the rebellions
of nobles against the royal power, at the head of which was the count of Urgell,
were to mark the political history of the county between the 13th and 14th centuries.
Balaguer was the residence of the counts, a fact which granted it a category comparable
with a county capital, despite the fact that the growing power of the barons had
implied the appearance of a series of regional capitals such as Agramunt, Castelló,
Ponts and Linyola.
The extinction process of the County of Urgell was tied to the entry of the Trastàmares
in Catalonia. The Treaty of Casp and the rebellion of Count Jaume II, known as the
Unlucky, against king Ferran I, called of Antequera, in the year 1413, finally resulted
in the siege by the count of the city of Balaguer and the destruction of its residence
as a symbol of its defeat.
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