Wilfred The Hairy - Wilfred and Catalonia

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 re-creation of the County of Ausona and the restoration of the Bishopric of Vic — laid out the territorial and patrimonial base for the House of Barcelona. As such, Wilfred has retrospectively been identified with the creation of Catalonia, even though a written reference to such a territorial entity would not appear 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 Mallorca.