Guerau (Urgell)

Guerau de Cabrera († 1228 ) was the de facto Count of Urgell from 1213 to 1228 . He was a son of the Vice Count Ponç III. of Cabrera and the Marquesa of Urgell.

Life

The coat of arms of the House of Cabrera.

From his father Guerau de Cabrera inherited as Guerau IV towards the end of the 1190s the vice-counties of Cabrera and Àger, the ancestral estates of the Cabrera family , who held them as fiefs of the Counts of Urgell . He was related to the Count's family through his mother and therefore made an inheritance claim to this large county, especially since his uncle, Count Ermengol VIII , only had one underage daughter. The Count's death in 1209 thus triggered the beginning of a hundred-year dispute over the ownership rights to Urgell. To defend himself against his claims, the widow of the late Earl confided her heiress Aurembiaix immediately to protect King Peter II. Of Aragon to which the child immediately with his own son Jacob became engaged, which Urgell ultimately in the conglomerate of the Crown Aragon would have come up . Guerau was ready to fight against the king for Urgell, but was defeated by him in the autumn of 1211 at Llorenç and imprisoned in Jaca . This seemed to settle the dispute over the succession in favor of the Aurembiaix.

The situation changed, however, with the unexpected death of King Peter II in the battle of Muret in September 1213. Not only was Guerau able to escape from his prison in the anarchy that was now beginning during the immaturity of the new King James I , but also with support substantial parts of the local nobility take over actual power in Urgell. In the following years Guerau was involved in battles against various aristocratic factions and especially had to deal with the House of Montcada , which represented the interests of the Aurembiaix. He was tolerated as Count von Urgell by the rulers of the Crown of Aragón and King James I also readily recognized him as Count after taking over personal government in three documents (1217, 1222, 1223). However, always only with reservation of the Aurembiaix's inheritance rights, which are to be renegotiated as soon as the latter intends to claim them. Probably in 1228 or shortly before that, the now grown-up Aurembiaix joined the king's court, became his mistress and renewed her inheritance rights to Urgell. In order to clarify the facts between Guerau and his cousin, King Jakob I. invited Guerau to an arbitration tribunal, which Guerau rejected and informed the king that he would not be ordered to such a court again. The county of Urgell and the Cabrera family were not direct vassals of the Kingdom of Aragón (now the region of Aragon ), but rather members of the feudal order of Catalonia (see Catalan counties ). King James I, as Count of Barcelona , was also a Catalan feudal lord, but his position vis-à-vis his Catalan counterparts only corresponded to the character of a primus inter pares , who had no ruling or judicial authority over the other counts.

On August 1, 1228, King James I and Aurembiaix entered into a political alliance with the aim of retaking Urgell; Aurembiaix was then to receive Urgell as a fief from Jacob. As against Peter II, Guerau, together with his son Ponç, was now ready to fight against Jacob I, but in the end also defeated him after the king had taken several of his castles such as Agramunt , Linyola and Balaguer . He died before the end of 1228; shortly before his death he had joined the Knights Templar . Urgell was temporarily lost to the Cabrera, but as early as 1236, Guerau's son from Jakob I was able to restore the county.

family

Guerau was married to the Castilian noblewoman Eilo Pérez de Castro, their children included:

• Ponç († 1243), Vice Count of Àger and Count of Urgell.
• Guerau V. († around 1242), Vice Count of Cabrera.

swell

• Ex Gestis comitum barcinonensium et aragoniæ regum , ed. in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 19 (1880), p. 233.
• The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon. A Translation of the medieval catalan Llibre dels Fets , ed. by Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery (2010), §35-44, pp. 56-64.
• Jéronimo Zurita , Anales de la corona de Aragón , ed. by Ángel Canellas López (1967), Vol. 1, Lib. 2, §86.

Remarks

1. ↑ The Aurembiaix's stepfather, Guillem de Cervera, was a close follower of the Montcada.
2. ↑ Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón , Vol. 1, ed. by Ambrosio Huici Miranda and Maria Descamparados Cabanes Pecourt (1976), No. 2, 39, 43.
3. ↑ The nominal liege lord of the Catalan counts was the Franconian-French king until the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258.
4. ↑ Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón , Vol. 1, ed. by Ambrosio Huici Miranda and Maria Descamparados Cabanes Pecourt (1976), No. 102.

predecessor	Office	successor
Ponç III.	Vice Count of Cabrera around 1199–1228	Guerau V.
Aurembiaix	Count of Urgell (in competition with Aurembiaix) 1213–1228	Aurembiaix