County of Pallars - Rejection of Frankish Suzerainty

Rejection of Frankish Suzerainty

The local population — Basque, Visigothic, and Hispano-Roman — rejected the rule of the house of Toulouse and, in 833, one Aznar Galíndez, already Count of Urgell and Cerdagne, usurped the pagi (countries) of Pallars and Ribagorza. He was immediately dispossessed of Urgell and Cerdagne by Louis the Pious (834), but he managed to hold out in mountainous Pallars and Ribagorza until 838, when Sunifred I, Count of Barcelona, and partisans of Bernard of Septimania expelled him. (On the other hand, he may have reigned until 844, when the Count of Toulouse, Fredelon, expelled him.)

Opposition to Toulousain suzerainty remained, however, while the Toulousain counts governed Pallars through viscounts. In Pallars, vicars were not employed, rather a minor official beneath the viscount called the centenarius was used. In 872, a crisis enveloped Toulouse when the incumbent count, Bernard II, was assassinated by the fideles (faithful men) of Bernard Plantapilosa, who was recognised as the late count's successor by the king, Charles the Bald. The men of Pallars and Ribagorza took the opportunity to regain their independence from Toulouse. One of them, a local cacique named Raymond, who had probably originally held them as a subject of Toulouse, found himself count of the territories formerly of Toulouse south of the Pyrenees: the first Count of Pallars and Ribagorza. The loss of Pallars and Ribagorza to Frankish suzerainty was the first step in the gradual weakening of the ties between Catalonia and the Francia.

The reign of Raymond I began with overtures of peace and alliance with the Mulsim governors of nearby Huesca and Zaragoza (then under the Banu Qasi), but to no avail; by the end, a policy of Reconquista had been adopted. The reign also saw a proliferation (encastellation) of turres (defensive towers) in Pallars and Ribagorza; castles such as Leovalles, Castellous, and Lemignano also multiplied. Raymond also consolidated his de facto independence from any superior authority by creating a new diocese of Pallars, enabling himself to control the local church. Raymond, a Basque himself, established an alliance with the Jiménez dynasty in Navarre, helping them to take the throne. He lost much of Ribagorza to Huesca in 907 and thereafter ruled mainly just Pallars, which had always been his political base. He died in 920. Pallars was inherited by his two youngest (of four) sons, Isarn and Lupo.