'Wilfred I', called 'the Hairy' ('Guifré el Pilós' in
Catalan; 'Vifredo el Velloso', also Wilfredo, Wifredo, Guifredo, or Guilfredo in
Spanish), was ''
de facto'' count of
Urgell (
870-
897),
Cerdanya (
870-
897),
Barcelona (
878-
897),
Girona (
878-
897),
Besalú (
878-
897), and
Ausona (
886-
897); he was not, however, count ''
de jure'' until 878.
He was responsible for the repopulation of the long depopulated no-man's land around
Vic (the county of
Ausona, a frontier between
Christian and
Muslim), the re-establishment of the bishopric of Vic, and the foundation of the monastery of
Santa Maria de Ripoll, where he is buried.
Historical significance
Wilfred the Hairy was the
Count of Barcelona (
873–
898) and created the tradition of titles to be passed hereditarily rather than granted by the monarch. His son,
Wifred Borell, inherited the county without any interruption and held it between
898–
914.
A number of primitive
feudal entities developed in the ''
Marca Hispanica'', during the 9th century. They were generally self-sufficient and agrarian, but ruled by a small military elite. The pattern seen in Catalonia is similar to that found in similar border lands or marches elsewhere in Europe.
Traditionally the count of Barcelona was appointed directly by the Carolingian king such as
Berà (in
801). The appointment of heirs could not be taken for granted. However the rise of strong Counts such as
Sunifred, (fl.
844-
848) and Wilfred combined with the weakening of Carolingian, then French royal power made the appointment of heirs to eventually become a formality. This trend eventually resulted in the County declaring himself
De facto independent of the Carolingian Crown under
Borrell II ruling in
985).
Wilfred remained obscure until drawn into the historians' net by
Sir Richard Southern, in ''The Making of the Middle Ages'',
1953.
Origins
Wilfred was of
Gothic lineage of the region of
Carcassonne. Tradition claims he was born near
Prades in the County of
Conflent, now
Rià, in
Roussillon,
France.
According to legend, he was the son of Wilfred of Arriaount (or Wilfred of Arri), a county near Prades. His father was murdered by Salomón and Wilfred became his avenger, killing the assassin. However
Ramón de Abadal's study claimed him to be the son of
Sunifred I of Barcelona, count of many counties under
Louis the Pious and
Charles the Bald. Sunifred was the son of
Belló, count of
Carcassonne during the reign of
Charlemagne. Thus, as a descendant of Sunifred and his brother,
Sunyer I,
count of Empúries and
Roussillon (
834-
848), he was a member of the
Bellonid dynasty.
In the dynastic struggles that accompanied the three years between
Louis the Pious' death (
840) and the
Treaty of Verdun (
843), the count of Barcelona (and many other margravates and counties:
Septimania,
Girona,
Narbonne,
Béziers,
Agde,
Melgueil,
Nîmes, and
Toulouse)
Bernard of Septimania, aligned with
Pepin II of Aquitaine, while the Bellonids maintained their allegiance to Charles the Bald. In
844, after taking
Toulouse and capturing Bernard, Charles had him executed. In exchange for his fealty, Charles gave the dead count's honours of Barcelona, Girona, Narbonne, Nîmes, Agde, Béziers, and Melgueil to Sunifred.
In
848,
William, son of Bernard, was named count of Toulouse and
Empúries by Pepin II. He quickly moved to eliminate Sunifred and Sunyer.
Investiture
The Bellonid dynasty was revived slightly by the appointment of
Dela and
Sunyer II, sons of Sunyer I, to the countship of Ampurias in
862. Next, Charles the Bald made their cousins, Wilfred the Hairy and his brother
Miró (known as ''the Old''), counts respectively of Urgell and Cerdanya, and Conflent in June, 870 at an assembly at
Attigny. For in that year, the mysteriously ill-chronicled
Salomón, count of Urgell, Cerdanya, and Conflent, had died.
After becoming Count of Urgell and Cerdanya in 870, he received the counties of
Barcelona, Girona, and Besalú in 878 from the
Carolingian king of France,
Louis the Stammerer. His reign coincided with the crumbling of Carolingian authority and unity. He was thus the last count of the
Hispanic March appointed by the French king and the first to pass his vast holdings as an inheritance to his sons (albeit sanctioned by the monarch).
Wilfred came into possession of Barcelona through his service to
Charles the Bald against the rebel
Bernard of Gothia, Count of Barcelona, Rousillon, and numerous other Septimanian counties. Wilfred, Miró, their brother Sunifred (who became the Abbot of
Arles), and the Viscount of Narbonne,
Lindoí, marched against Bernard on behalf of the King and his son, Louis the Stammerer. In March and April of 878, they defeated the nobles loyal to Bernard, including
Sigebuto,
Bishop of Narbonne, and expelled all partisan priests from the church.
At the
Council of Troyes in August 878, presided over by
Pope John VIII and King Louis II the Stammerer, Wilfred was formally invested as Count of Urgell and Cerdanya, Miró as Count of Conflent, Sunyer as Count of Empurias, and
Oliba II as Count of Carcassonne. On
September 11, Bernard was dispossessed of all his titles. The Bishops of
Elna, Urgell, Girona, and Barcelona were confirmed in their sees. Bernard's former possessions were given to Wilfred (Barcelona, Ausona, Besalú, and Girona) and Miró (Roussillon). The counties of Narbonne, Béziers, and Agde were separated from that of Barcelona. Sunifred was made Abbot of Arles and Riculf Bishop of Elna. Wilfred immediately ceded Besalú to his brother
Radulph (878-
920).
Intervention in Ausona
After the investiture of 878, Wilfred's lands stretched from the
Pyrenees to the coast, from Urgell and Cerdanya to Barcelona and Girona. This was the first time since the reign of his father (which ended in 848) that these different areas had been united politically and the only other time within that century. The land between these regions—
Ripollés,
Vall de Lord,
Bergueda,
Lluçanès, the
Plana de Vic,
Moianès,
Guilleries, and
Bagés—had long been depopulated; since the rebellion of
Aissó.
Wilfred embarked on the process of repopulating these territories with immigrants from the heavily populated mountain regions—
Pallars, Urgell, and Cerdanya—to which people had fled in the two centuries between the collapses of Visigothic and Carolingian authority. Wilfred's plan involved repopulating and subsequently annexing the Counties to those he already controlled. Thus, Vall de Lord became part of Urgell and Berga into Cerdanya. Wilfred created the County of
Ausona from the remaining Counties made up of Ripollés, Lluçanès, the Plana de Vic, and Guilleries—centred aroung Ausona (the city), had a unique ethnic and cultural history whose population descended from an ancient historic Hispanic tribe. He also added Moianés and Bagés and the lands around
Manresa, which were distinct in their history themselves. In
885, Wilfred designated a Viscount to control the County of Ausona in his absence as it formed the frontier with the Moslem Kingdoms to the south.
Ecclesiastical reform
The ecclesiastic state of the region was no less isolated than its political state, the parishes largely remaining outside of the universal hierarchy. Wilfred brought the parishes of Bergueda and Vall de Lord within the control of the nearby
diocese of Urgell. However, he had to re-establish the lapsed bishopric in Ausona. After consulting the
Archbishop of Narbonne in
886, he was given permission to install
Gotmar, a priest, as
bishop of Ausona. The new bishop immediately set about restoring the repopulated city and its
cathedral which had beem devastated and in ruins since the last Muslim conquest and the rebellion of
Aissó.
The churches in the region during this period flourished gaining much power and privilege. This included the right to elect their own Abbots as espoused by
Saint Benedict. Wilfred founded two new
monasteries: Santa María de Ripoll (
880) and
Sant Joan de les Abadesses (
885). The Abbey of S. Joan de les Abadesses in the diocese of
Vich (
Catalunya) was founded by Count Wifred and his wife Guinedilda, to provide for their daughter
Emma, who became the community's first abbess in
899 and received immunity from ley jurisdiction by King Charles the Simple.
Carolingian Crisis
When Louis the Stammerer died (
879), the kingdom was divided between his two young sons:
Louis III received the ancient northern partitions of the Merovingian kingdom,
Neustria and
Austrasia (including the
Lorraine). His other son
Carloman received the southern partitions,
Burgundy and
Aquitaine (including
Septimania). The problems plaguing the throne were exacerbated when both Louis (
882) and Carloman (
884) died soon after their succession. Not wanting to crown Louis the Stammerer's remaining son,
Charles the Simple, who was only five, the nobles of France looked about for a powerful man who could defend the land from the fearsome
Vikings and their vicious raids on the
Channel and
Atlantic coasts.
At the Assembly of
Ponthion (884), the
Franks chose the
Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fat, who was already king of
Germany and
Italy. Charles, son of
Louis the German, therefore became the first person since the death of Louis the Pious to reign over the entire realm of his
illustrious great-grandfather. He would also be the last.
Incapable of much, he was lethargic and probably suffered from
epilepsy. In November,
885 he raised a grand army to fight off the Norsemen besieging
Paris. Instead, however, he chose to buy the Vikings off, paying them to attack Burgundy (not a friend of his) instead. He left
Paris in December. He subsequently failed to deal with revolts in
Swabia,
Saxony,
Thuringia,
Franconia, and
Bavaria. The nobles of the Empire deposed him in
887. He died two months later (
888).
Charles' nephew
Arnulf of Carinthia, succeeded him in
Germany,
Berengar of Friuli succeeded him in
Italy, and
Odo succeeded him in
France. The breakdown in royal authority and the dynastic change which accompanied it in France broke the Empire in two. The Carolingian polity which empowered the counts at the beginning of the century was nonexistent by the end, the Counts were
De facto independent—especially in the outlying regions, like the
Marca Hispanica.
The Crisis and the Counts
In the great tradition of their family, Wilfred, Miró, Dela, and Sunyer II maintained their loyality to the Carolingian monarchs until the death of Charles the Fat (deposed 887, died 888). They visited the royal court in
886 to ask for privileges and precept to be granted to
Teotario, Bishop of Girona. Upon the death of Louis the Stammerer, however, this loyalty became largely nominal. When Louis's sons Louis and Carloman marched against
Boso, king of
Provence, the Catalan counts supported Carloman, but did not join the campaign. This was a far cry from the prompt action the family had taken against Bernard of Gothia. The Counts became more interested in issues that directly effected them and did not attend the
Assembly of Ponthion dealing with the
Viking problem which they regarded as meaningless to their domains.
The counts rejected Charles the Fat's successor, Odo, but they did not rise in favour of Louis the Stammerer's surviving son, Charles the Simple. Odo was too absorbed with the
Norsemen and those loyal to Charles the Simple to be bothered with the far south of the realm.
In 886, a
presbyter named
Esclua, taking advantage of the absence of
Teotardo, Archbishop of Narbonne, was consecrated Bishop of Urgell and expelled the titular Bishop
Ingoberto with the tacit permission of
Raymond I, Count of
Pallars-
Ribagorza, and Wilfred. He complicated the situation further by declaring himself
metropolitan of
Tarraconensis, separating his diocese from Narbonne. Now acting as metropolitan, Esclua promptly removed
Servus Dei from the Bishopric of Girona.
Servus who was rejected by Dela, Sunyer, and Wilfred but who had been consecrated by Teotardo; took refuge in the monastery of
Bañolas. Esclua, with the help of the Bishops of Barcelona and Vic, consecrated as the new
Eremir Bishop of Girona. In 888, he resurrected the sees of Pallars and Empurias to repay Raymond, Sunyer, and Dela for their support.
If at first Wilfred tolerated the dethronement of Ingoberto — there had been little love between them — however he could not allow the metropolitan pretensions of Esclua because of his friendship with Teotardo. The independent dioceses were a method of securing political independence and Wilfred opposed this. He could not allow the lands under his control to be effected by Nobles or Church.
However external pressures hampered him taking action.
Death
By
883 or
884, the Muslims became increasingly uneasy by the expansion of the Christian Counties to the north. Wilfred had established defensive positions or castles in Ausona at
Cardona,
Bergueda, and Vall de Lord; some were even in the
Valle de Cervelló south of the River
Llobregat. The frontier of the County of Barcelona passed north of
Solsona, past
Besora,
Tantallatge, and
Correà; that of Berga, past
Sorba,
Gargalla, and
Serrateix; and that of the County of Ausona past Cardona, Manresa, and
Montserrat.
The Muslim ruler
Banu Qasi fortified
Lérida in response. Provoked by this, Wilfred attacked Lérida and the governor of the city,
Ismail ibn Musa. The attack however was a disaster. The historian
Ibn al Athir describes the massacre of the attackers by the city's defenders. Bouyed by this success Ismail's successor,
Lobo ibn Mohammed attacked Barcelona in 897. Wilfred died in battle on
August 11,
897. He was buried in the monastery at
Ripoll.
Succession
The weakening of Frankish royal authority in the
Hispanic March is principally the result of the establishment of heredity in the succession of the counties rather than by choice of the monarch. In
895,
Miró the Old died and his county of Roussillon passed, without interference from King Odo, to Sunyer II of Ampurias. In the same way, Wilfred was never confirmed by the monarch as Count of Ausona. The kings had lost control of the Counts. The importance of this custom in the
Middle Ages cannot be overstated. As hereditary succession became the custom, it became accepted as law and there was nothing the kings could do. The Counts had become sovereigns in their own dominions.
The lack, however, of a legal basis for heredity caused the early experiments in hereditary succession to be problematic. When Wilfred died in 897, his sons
Wilfred Borrel,
Miró, and
Sunifred governed his realm jointly, recognising the eldest Wilfred Borrel, as ''
primus inter pares'', or "''first among equals''".
However, when the succession came to their sons, this ideal broke down and the counts promptly transmitted their regions of governance to their descendants. Wilfred Borrel and the youngest son jointly ruled over Barcelona, Girona, and Ausona; Sunifred over Urgell; and Miró, over Cerdanya, Conflent, and Berga.
Wilfred and Catalonia
Wilfred the Hairy has become a figure of importance for contemporary
Catalan nationalists.
Nineteenth century European Romanticism looked to the
medieval world for references and links to modern national and cultural identities, and in the context of
Catalan nationalism and its search for its historical foundations in a distant and idealised past, Wilfred soon arose as a figure of independence, the ''
de facto'' founder of the
House of Barcelona, and, by purported extension, one of the forefathers of the latter
Catalonia.
One of the legends that has arisen around his person is that of the creation of the
coat of arms from which the Catalan flag (the ''
Senyera'') derives today. After being wounded in battle (some versions say against the
Moors; others, the
Normans), the
Frankish king
Charles the Bald rewarded his bravery by giving him a coat of arms. The king slid Wilfred's blood-stained fingers over the Count's copper
shield, and thus was the Senyera first born, with its four pallets in
Gules on
Or. As much as this legend is popular and extended, there is no historical evidence to support it.
Wilfred's actions as a Frankish vassal towards carving out his own domain from several counties and moving out of the sphere of influence of the
Carolingian crown — coupled with his creation of the County of
Osona and the restoration of the
bishopric of
Vic — laid out the territorial and patrimonial base for the
House of Barcelona, and hence has been posteriorly identified with the creation of
Catalonia, even though a written reference to such a territorial entity would not appear historically until more than two centuries later in the ''Liber Maiolichinus de gestis Pisanorum Illustribus'', a
12th century Pisan
manuscript describing the raids of
1114 by Pisans and Catalans on the island of
Majorca.
References
★ ''La família catalana dels comtes de Carcassona. Genealogia de Guifré el Pilós dins d’Els primers comtes catalans''. Barcelona, Ediciones Vicens Vives,
1958. Pages 13-29.
★
William Palmer, "Sir Richard Southern looks back" in ''Virginia Quarterly Review'': based on an interview
★ Roger Collins, "Charles the Bald and Wifred the Hairy", in M. T. Gibson and J.Nelson (eds.) ''Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom'' (Oxford, 1981), pp. 169-189;
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