Guillem Ramon II. De Montcada

Guillem Ramon II. De Montcada ( German: Wilhelm Raimund von Montcada ; * around 1090; † 1173 ), known as “el Gran Senecal” (“the great Seneschal”), was an important feudal lord of medieval Catalonia in the 12th century and the progenitor of the house of Montcada . He was a close confidante of Count Raimund Berengar IV of Barcelona and a guardian of King Alfonso II of Aragon . In addition to these two people, through his relationship with them, he has become a decisive guarantee for the permanent union of Catalonia with Aragon .

Life

The coat of arms of the Montcada family is now that of the municipality of Montcada i Reixac .

He was the eldest son of Guillem Ramon I († 1120) and his wife Inés. The father had already served the Count of Barcelona as Seneschal (Latin: Dapifer ), an office that at that time was more like an award and marked the personal proximity of its owner to the Count. From his father, Guillem Ramon II had inherited several lords of the castle, which were distributed in the various Catalan counties, such as Sentmenat , Vic , Cartellà , Bescanó and Hostoles . At a young age, Guillem Ramon II was in the service of the lord of the castle Berenguer Ramon von Montcada . He was married by him in 1117 to his heir Beatriu. After the death of his father-in-law in 1134, he was able to take control of Montcada Castle. From then on, he named himself and his descendants after her and thus became the progenitor of all subsequent Montcadas, thus initiating their rise to the first families of Catalonia. 1126 was Guillem Ramon II of Count Raimund Berengar III. appointed administrator of the vice-county of Bas, as guardian of his minor nephew. On this occasion he is first mentioned with the title of Seneschal, which became his nickname and from then on remained hereditary in his family. In 1131 he was appointed by the count to be his executor.

With the new Count Raimund Berengar IV of Barcelona , Guillem Ramon initially got into a conflict when the Count ordered the separation from his wife in order to marry her off to another vassal. The conflict was settled by treaty in 1136, when Guillem Ramon willingly swore the Ligic feudal oath to the count for all of his castle lords. According to a legend that has existed in this context since the Middle Ages, this dispute led Guillem Ramon to exile in Aragón , where he fought alongside King Alfonso I in the Battle of Fraga , after which the king died. And when the new King Ramiro II was looking for a husband for his young heir, Petronella , Guillem Ramon suggested the Count of Barcelona to him and thus initiated not only his reconciliation with him, but also the historical union of Aragon with Catalonia.

In the fight against the Moors , Guillem Ramon had already been involved in the conquest of Granyena on the side of the Knights Templar in 1134 . After the strategically important Tortosa had been conquered in December 1148 , Count Raimund Berengar IV gave him the right to rule over this city and its surrounding area, including a third of its annual tax revenue. The other two thirds were made up of the Genoese and Templars. Shortly afterwards he was also given the power in Lleida under similar conditions. In the following years Guillem Ramon was a constant companion of Count Raimund Berengars IV on his travels to the courts of Castile and Provence . In the count's documents he usually appeared as the first witness, which documents his extraordinary position at court. For his service, he was rewarded, among other things, by the marriage of his eldest son to the heiress of the vice-county of Béarn . In August 1162, Guillem Ramon accompanied the Count to Turin and took part in the meeting with Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa . When the count died here just a few weeks later, Guillem Ramon was appointed one of his three executors. The count had also designated him as the protector of the underage Alfonso II, alongside the Bishop of Barcelona and the English king , and thus one of the regents of Catalonia. In this capacity he was one of the witnesses to the transfer of the Kingdom of Aragon from Petronella to her son in 1164, completing the Aragon-Catalan unification. In July 1170, Guillem Ramon in Saragossa was instrumental in the creation of the alliance between Aragón and Castile, which became a decisive factor in the Reconquista for the rest of Spanish history in the Middle Ages . On April 20, 1173 he had written his will and died shortly afterwards at the age of more than eighty. His death marked the personal takeover of Alfonso II in his kingdom.

As a stone monument of his work, Guillem Ramon de Montcada left the Cistercian Abbey of Santa María of Santes Creus , which was largely founded on his initiative. Together with his three sons, he donated the land of Cerdanyola del Vallès to the order of Grandselve on December 4, 1150 with the stipulation that a monastery branch of the Cistercian Brotherhood would be founded there. Two years later he had ceded all income to be generated from the country in taxes, grain and wine to the young monastery community, which thus became economically self-sufficient and was thus able to establish its future importance. With his support, the Cistercian brothers had moved the location of their monastery cell twice until they finally moved into their final seat in 1158 in the valley of the Gaià river, near the holy crosses of the Virgin Mary, which gave the monastery its name. Throughout its history, the House of Montcada has remained closely linked to the Abbey of Santes Creus. Some family members were buried there.

His children from his marriage to Beatriu de Montcada were:

• Guillem de Montcada († 1172), iure uxoris Vice Count of Béarn.
• Ramon I de Montcada († around 1190), Seneschal of Catalonia, Lord of Tortosa and Lleida.
• Berenguer de Montcada

literature

• Joaquim Miret y Sans: La casa de Montcada en el vizcondado de Béarn , In: Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 1, 1901, pp. 49–55, 130–142, 186–199, 230– 245, 280-303.
• John C. Shideler: A Medieval Catalan Family: The Montcadas, 1000-1230. 1983.

Remarks

1. ↑ The legends of Guillem Ramon de Montcada were written down in the late 13th century by the Catalan chronicler Bernat Desclot ( Crònica o Llibre del rei en Pere ). See Miguel Coll i Alentorn, La Llegenda de Guillem Ramon de Montcada (Barcelona, ​​1957).
2. ↑ Miret y Sans, pp. 137-139.
3. ^ Xavier Sanahuja: La formació del patrimoni del monestir de Santes Creus, 1150-1195. Universitat de Tolosa-Le Mirail, 1993.
4. ↑ Diplomatari del monestir de Santa Maria de Santes Creus (975-1225) , ed. by Joan Papell i Tardieu (Barcelona, ​​2005), Vol. 1, No. 47, pp. 122-123.