Extract

Jesús CORSÀ

Universitat de Lleida

1. Research objectives1

In this paper I wish to provide a number of outstanding and innovating news referring to the duality adopted for the earldom of Urgell politic nobility living in the Andalusian border settlements conquered at the beginning of the 12th century at those lands close to Montsec. This social statement clearly uses the special and temporal context, the unpredictable and unstable context in border lands, in a period full of changes and transformations as the 11th and 12th centuries were, to behave and defend a recent got heritage acquired by conquest. For that reason, let us look into this border transformation because in that historical period it is influenced by the religious reform and running feudal system.

All I pretend to extract as a referent to the transformation of this frontier and the new situation evolved from this process surrounds the following reference:

[…] Et, si d(e) illo uicecomite [Guerau Ponç II de Cabrera] mens uenia, si lo habeat ille sus filius cui ille lo iachiat; et, si sarrecenos guerriant Os, que ille comes [Ermengol VI d’Urgell] en uallat ad illu(m) vicecomite(m) p(er) fide(m) et sine engan, et n(on) faciat pace(m) de Vrgello d(e) mentre que Os e(st) in guerra, et q(uo)d donet cata annu(m) ille comes in Tartarenz XXV solidos et III capizes de blato et mediu(m) de tritico...