[382] By the middle of the eleventh century Southern France and Catalonia were on the threshold of a new and important era. Within some fifty years its nobles and milites were to be storming the walls of Antioch and Jerusalem and carrying their pennons deep into Moslem Spain. With political weakness a thing of the past they were creating powerful principalities in Aquitaine, in Languedoc, and in Catalonia, whose rulers were strong enough to deal with the kings of France and England, the monarchs of Aragón and Castile, or the emperors of Germany, on terms of equality. Their newly expanding cities of Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille, Narbonne, and Barcelona were becoming important centers in a world of revived commerce and industry. And in Aquitaine poets were busy creating a new and important literary form -- the troubadour lyric -- whose effect upon the entire western world was to be incalculable. By 1100 lands which lay south of Poitou and Burgundy were ready to play an important role in Western European civilization.

What was the nature of this protean society which evolved during the years 975 to 1050? How did it differ from that which preceded it, as it coped with its new militarism and saw most of its efforts to create strong principalities end in failure? Above all to what extent by 1050 was the society of Southern France and Catalonia feudal, and what was the exact nature of its feudalization?

Here it might be well to emphasize what an examination of the military system, the government, and the Church during this period has already made quite clear: which is that the feudalization of most of these aspects of life was by no means complete. There was a new military system, but this militarization did not always mean feudalization. It was quite compatible with allodial ownership in many cases. The Church too was threatened by militarization during this period and made a rather [383] successful attempt to curb its effects upon its land and its organization, but it did so without abandoning the older system of family control of its establishments which it had inherited from an earlier period. All efforts to form principalities failed except in parts of Aquitaine and Catalonia, but this did not mean that feudal government took its place. Rather we find the substitute for government in the Midi and Catalonia tended to be those informal periodic meetings of magnates in assemblies or courts which, if they did contain feudal elements, were still essentially nonfeudal in nature. Though there were elements which we might call feudalistic in the military system, the Church, and the organization of such government as is to be found, by 1050 it would be difficult to characterize the lands which lay south of Poitou as feudal in any classic sense of the word.

This leads us directly to still another aspect of the society of the Midi and Catalonia -- landholding, which, when examined in detail, should furnish us with another indication of the extent and nature of such feudalization as is to be found by the mid-eleventh century. Again in this period, as in earlier ones, our source of information regarding this are the numerous charters, dating from this period, which show us the kind of land people gave to Church establishments or to other individuals. Taking some 1,800 charters as the basis of our analysis we note the following: of these 1,783 charters, to be exact, some 120 deal with land that seems to be in some respect feudally held, while the rest concern allods. Based on these figures, then, feudally held land formed only 7 per cent of the total in the hands of private individuals in Southern France and Catalonia during the years 975 to 1050. While this is almost double the percentage of property held in this fashion in the preceding period, it is very little more when one considers the over-all picture. Judging from this pattern of landholding one must regard the feudalization of the Midi and Catalonja as still relatively limited in 1050.

A more detailed analysis of these figures, though, should prove revealing for various areas of the Midi and the Spanish March. For Western Aquitaine, that is to say Saintonge, Angoulême, Périgord, and the Limousin, we have some 184 charters which refer to gifts or transfers of property.⁽¹⁾ Only 11 of this total refer to land which seems to be feudally held. [384] Of the rest, which seem clearly to be allodial, some 50 are small holdings, 55 medium-sized holdings, and 68 large tracts or estates. For Eastern Aquitaine -- that is to say the Massif Central region of Auvergne, Rouergue, and the Albigeois -- some 395 charters show only 32 which deal with feudally held land.⁽²⁾ Here, among those which concern allods, we find 71 which deal with large estates, 79 medium-sized property, and 213 small holdings. The over-all percentage of feudally-held land runs about 6 per cent for Western Aquitaine and 8 per cent for the area of the Massif Central.

Turning east to the Middle Rhone region of Velay, the Lyonnais, Savoy, Dauphiny, Valence, and Vivarais, we find some 432 charters which date from this period.⁽³⁾ Down to 1050 only 19 of them, or approximately 5 per cent, represent land feudally held, and the rest is allodial property -- a little less than the percentage found in Aquitaine. In this region, judging from our charters, small holdings seem to be more numerous than property of large size, since 242 of these charters deal with small holdings, 85 with property of medium size, and 95 with large holdings or roughly the same proportion as in the Massif Central.

Turning to the south of these regions, let us shift our attention to Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony which form the rest of the Midi north of the Pyrenees. For Provence we possess much more abundant materials dating from these years than was true earlier. In examining some 202 charters we find that 20 of them, or 10 per cent, deal with land which is feudal in character, the rest concern allods.⁽⁴⁾ Here again the size of allodial holdings is of some interest to us, for 81 of these charters concern large estates, 61 of them medium-sized property, and 61 land which is small in size. This represents not only a slightly larger proportion of feudally held land than seems to be found in Aquitaine and the Middle Rhone region, but a larger proportion of large-size holdings too. When we consider Languedoc, which here is taken to mean Septimania and the [385] Toulousain, we have some 266 charters upon which we can draw for information.⁽⁵⁾ These reveal some 42, or 16 per cent, which are concerned with feudally held property, a higher proportion than we have found anywhere else in the Midi. As for size of holdings, 98 of our charters concern large-sized property, 65 medium sized, and 61 small-sized pieces of land, or somewhere between Provence and Western Aquitaine on the one hand and the Middle Rhone region and the Massif Central on the other, as far as the proportion of large to small holdings is concerned. For Gascony we have less information, but some 31 charters give us a scattering of property holdings which present us with a partial picture at least.⁽⁶⁾ Of these, 30 charters deal with allodial property and only 1 with feudally held land, with the size of holdings being 4 small in size, 7 medium sized, and 20 of a villa or more. Judging from this evidence then, Gascony seems to have the smallest percentage of feudally held land and the largest percentage of large estates of any region north of the Pyrenees.

Finally we have the Spanish March. Here some 535 charters give us some interesting information.⁽⁷⁾ Only 37, or 6 per cent, of these charters seem to be concerned with land which is feudally held. The other 498 concern allods. Of the charters which concern allods, 198 seem to refer to small holdings, 183 to medium-sized property, and 117 to larger holdings, which seems about the median for the rest of our regions north of the Pyrenees.

From an analysis of these charters, then we can perhaps hazard a few observations on how individuals held their land in Southern France and Catalonia during this period. They seem to show that Gascony was the region which was the least feudalized, with the Spanish March, the Middle Rhone region, and Western Aquitaine following in that order. [386] They also indicate that Languedoc was the most feudalized, with Provence and the Massif Central close behind in the percentage of land feudally held. Except for Gascony and Languedoc, however, each of which represents an extreme case, judging from our evidence, none of these regions differed very much one from the other in the degree of their feudalization, and in only one area, Languedoc, did the amount of land feudally held exceed 10 per cent of the total.

We should not leave this question of the amount of land which was feudally held, however, without approaching it in still another way, through an examination of the amount of Church land which charters show us was given out to members of the laity as commandes, guardas, precaria, or fiefs. This too is an indication of the degree of feudalization of the land of various parts of Southern France and Catalonia. Judging from our documents certain areas were more feudalized than others in this respect. Those that seem to have the highest percentage of feudalized Church lands during this period are Languedoc,⁽⁸⁾ as a whole, probably first, then the Limousin,⁽⁹⁾ then Rouergue,⁽¹⁰⁾ and then the Middle Rhone Valley.⁽¹¹⁾ Then finally we have Catalonia, Gascony, Provence, the rest of Western Aquitaine and Auvergne⁽¹²⁾ following in that order. Adding together evidence of the feudalization of Church land and the amount of feudally held property belonging to private individuals, which is revealed to us in our charters, we find that Gascony is still the region which is the least affected by feudalism, Languedoc the area most affected by it. The other regions lie somewhere in between without too much differentiation among them being possible in this respect.

One final point also needs to be made concerning our evidence of the feudalization of land. That is that our charters showing transfers of such property during this period reveal that most of those which concern feudal land, perhaps 75 per cent of them, date from the years 1025 to [387] 1050. Thus we seem to find the tendency or pressures toward feudalization were stronger toward the end of this period than they were earlier. This, as a matter of fact, is what we would expect to be the case, since we know that it was during this same period, starting about the 1020's and 1030's that the Church began to react most strongly to militarization, and that the better organized feudalism of the dukes of Aquitaine and the counts of Barcelona became a factor of some importance in Aquitaine and the Spanish March. By 1050, then, it seems probable that the movement toward a more feudal society in Southern France and Catalonia was still growing in importance and in scope, and was to continue to do so throughout the remainder of the eleventh century.

This examination of feudalization, as seen in the landholding system used by the society of Southern France and Catalonia, then, seems to emphasize the following -- down to 1050 feudalism, while still growing, remained a factor of little importance in the way land was owned or held. The allod still reigned supreme. Despite this fact, however, in certain parts of the Midi we find evidence that feudalism had some importance, and was to become even more important in the years ahead. Like other aspects of the society of the Midi and the Spanish March, upon which we have commented during this period, the system of landholding shows us a society which contained feudalistic elements but which, in essence, was not feudal at all.

Nevertheless, we have evidence that even this degree of feudalization, such as it was, met considerable resistance. This was true not only of the Church, which organized opposition to certain manifestations of it in a military sense, but also of allodial landowners. In whatever region feudalism began to gain strength, such landowners opposed its manifestations as they had done in earlier periods. In Eastern Languedoc, which was becoming one of the most feudalized regions of the Midi, they did so, in part, by adding to charters referring to property which they were giving to the Church a phrase forbidding that this land be given out as a fief or benefice. More common, however, was their continued citing of the authority of Roman and Visigothic law as giving a man the right to do as he wished with his own property. We find statements to this effect in charters from the Limousin dating from 988 and 1050,⁽¹³⁾ from Rouergue and the Albigeois in 984 and 1037,⁽¹⁴⁾ from Velay about 1030,⁽¹⁵⁾ from [388] Provence in 1018 and 1028,⁽¹⁶⁾ from the Narbonnaise in 989, 1027, and 1030⁽¹⁷⁾ and from the Toulousain in 1000 and 1015.⁽¹⁸⁾ All evidence seems to point to the fact that the actual provisions of Roman and Visigothic law as they affected private property were hazy indeed for the society of the Midi north of Roussillon during this period,⁽¹⁹⁾ but the remembrance of these legal systems as the protectors of allodial right still remained a reality, which society in Southern France could invoke in opposing the feudalization of its land and in protecting the right of a landowner to dispose of his property as he wished.

The charters of this period, however, do more than help illuminate and clarify the degree of feudalization of private property in Southern France and Catalonia. They help explain still other aspects of the social system. By comparing information found in these documents with that which can be found in those of the period from 900 to 975, we are able to say with some degree of confidence that by 1050 the villa system was tending to disappear in many areas. This does not mean that we do not still find a mention of such estates in our charters, for we do, particularly in Gascony⁽²⁰⁾ and in the Limousin⁽²¹⁾ where they still seem not uncommon. They are also found, according to our documents in the Upper Rhone Valley⁽²²⁾ and in that part of Provence near the older settled regions of Arles, Avignon, and Marseille.⁽²³⁾ But they seem rare elsewhere south of [389] Poitou and Burgundy, especially in Languedoc, Catalonia, Rouergue, Auvergne, and most of Western Aquitaine.

Why is this so? Why did villas, which had been the more normal method of exploiting the soil in the Midi and Catalonia, tend to disappear by the middle of the eleventh century? No final answer can be given to this question until a great deal more research has been done upon certain aspects of the landholding system of these regions. But at least there are some possibilities which might be advanced. The first possible cause of their disappearance lies in the way in which the inheritance system of the period functioned. The division of property among all the heirs of an individual worked to destroy the unity of the villa. We can see that dearly in the type of estates left by some landowners during this period. These estates tend to consist of scattered mansi located in a number of villas instead of a compact villa with all its contiguous and pertaining mansi.⁽²⁴⁾ Fragmentation was inevitable under such rules of inheritance.

In the second place in a number of regions, particularly in Catalonia and parts of Provence, the castle began to replace the villa as the unit of rural exploitation. Where this happened the basis of older agricultural life changed inevitably. The castellan and his milites had a different point of view toward the area which they dominated than did the old allodial villa owner. They tended to dominate a larger region, or a mandamenta, which might consist of a number of villas or villages.⁽²⁵⁾ Their purpose was, in most cases, military rather than economic. Hence, where castles were most numerous, we naturally find the older villa system disappearing too. And interestingly enough the castle itself, like the villa, by 1050 had begun to be subject to the fragmentation process inevitable under the Midi's rules for inheritance. As we find a villa divided into a number of mansi owned by various different proprietors, so we find castles divided and subdivided in the same way, especially in Provence, where our records are particularly complete for this period.⁽²⁶⁾

[390] As the villa began to disappear, or better perhaps began to be absorbed into the mandamenta system of the Midi and Catalonia, we also find something else happening. We find the old traditional system of serfdom disappearing with it. It is interesting to note that, in contrast to earlier periods, charters from these years seldom mention serfs. One charter from Navarre speaks of them,⁽²⁷⁾ as does a document from Gascony dating from the year 1000.⁽²⁸⁾ Still others from Western Aquitaine contain references to this class: one from Saintonge dating from 989,⁽²⁹⁾ one from Angoulême dating from 1040,⁽³⁰⁾ and four from the Limousin in 1000, 1020, 1035, and 1040.⁽³¹⁾ In addition, we do have a mention of serfs in an Auvergnat charter of 1040,⁽³²⁾ and in two from Dauphiny which date from 1009 and 1011.⁽³³⁾ This is all. What we seem to be seeing is a gradual disappearance of this class everywhere in the Midi except the Limousin, that old center of the Roman villa system, where some still remained, though, judging from our documents, even here they were much less numerous than earlier.

It is tempting, of course, to relate the disappearance of the older serfdom to that of the villa, and it is true that where villas disappeared serfs tended to do so also. But we should also, in this period, as in earlier ones, mention the fact that this disappearance as a class was probably also the result of free land; the clearing of new soil which gave them a chance to improve their lot by cultivating such land on an aprisio or medium plantum basis and so rise to at least tenant status. Even more important, however, in explaining the end of the older servile class was the growth of mandamenta. Such castle jurisdiction over nearby areas forced all cultivators, serf and censive alike, to accept burdens of an onerous nature which made the older distinction between mancipius or colonus and free tenant paying a cens meaningless.⁽³⁴⁾ Where castles were numerous, then, [391] a new serfdom arose and the old serfdom simply tended to be forgotten. This, in many parts of the Midi and Catalonia, is what appears to have happened, until the new movement which helped the peasants achieve greater freedom in the bastides of the twelfth and thirteenth century became a reality in the Midi and the Spanish March.

Last of all, before we leave the question of landholding, we should add a word concerning the role of women in the society of the Midi during this period, a role which remained an extremely important one. One might expect that the growth of a more militarized society during these years would tend to make them less important than had been the case earlier. Such, however, was not the case. Our charters make it abundantly clear that they could still freely inherit and dispose of property and act as free agents controlling their own estates. Their position in the governing system of the period continued to be an important one. A Queen Irmengaude of Burgundy could control a number of castles and even whole counties in her own right.⁽³⁵⁾ So could a Countess Emma of Toulouse, as heiress to a portion of Provence.⁽³⁶⁾ Our documents seem to show, for instance, that Countess Garsinde of Anduze was a more important personage than her husband, Marquis Bernard,⁽³⁷⁾ while Viscountess Adelaise of Narbonne could act as if in no small measure Eastern Languedoc was in her control.⁽³⁸⁾ Similar ladies of great authority existed in the Limousin and Auvergne during these years,⁽³⁹⁾ while Count Pons of Toulouse as a bridal gift to his wife Majore felt it fitting to bestow upon her a number of important fortresses in Languedoc and Provence.⁽⁴⁰⁾ No wonder Raoul Glaber regarded Queen Constance -- the new wife of King Robert of France -- who was a product of a region where women were so powerful, with suspicion and hostility.⁽⁴¹⁾

Catalonia, however, is where we see women of particular power during this period. Countess Ermissende of Barcelona seems to be the equal [392] of her husband, Count Raymond Borell, and after his death seems to have owned castles in her own right and to have received the homage of their castellans.⁽⁴²⁾ So did Viscountess Jerosolima⁽⁴³⁾ and Countess Almodis,⁽⁴⁴⁾ who after two earlier marriages, one of them to Count Pons of Toulouse, finally wound up as the consort of Count Raymond Berengar I of Barcelona and shared power with him. Wherever one turns, one finds a series of remarkable and powerful ladies who, acting on their own, could control the destinies of whole regions in the Midi and Catalonia and set the stage for their successors whom the troubadours were to praise with such fervency later. By 1050 women in these regions had developed such authority and influence that their later prestige had become all but inevitable.

Such seems to be the information concerning the society of these regions which an examination of the landholding system provides for us. We see a society in which feudalism was a growing force, but a force not powerful enough, as yet, to triumph over allodial ownership. We see an older villa system with its attendant serfdom tending to disappear, due to the system of inheritance which was used, or to be absorbed into the new military system of castles and mandamenta. We find ladies of great importance and power occupying positions of prestige and authority. But what of the economic factors at work in these regions? How did they change and affect the life and society of the period?

Let us first examine evidence of continuing agrarian progress in clearing the soil and putting new land into cultivation. In the period before 975, as has been pointed out, a good deal was accomplished in this respect. Such progress in many regions of the Midi continued also after 975. Some five charters from Auvergne mention medium plantum. Two of them date from 985 and 1030 and the remainder from the general period 994-1050.⁽⁴⁵⁾ Our information is somewhat less specific for nearby Rouergue, but we do have some general references to the clearing of new land for cultivation in 976, between 996 and 1004, about 1000, and in 1012,⁽⁴⁶⁾ as well as a specific mention of a medium plantum in a charter which dates from about 1030.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Three references to such clearings come [393] from documents which concern Velay -- one, which probably was a medium plantum, is mentioned in a charter of 1030,⁽⁴⁸⁾ and two others in charters of a later date refer to assarts in wooded mountainous regions.⁽⁴⁹⁾

We do not, however, find as much evidence of progress in dearing the land in the Massif Central region of the Midi as we do in the Lyonnais, Dauphiny, and Savoy to the east. Here such activity seems to have been particularly important, judging from our documents. Charters from the Lyonnais refer to cultivation of new land in 1007, 1010, and between 1022 and 1032,⁽⁵⁰⁾ while some eighteen of them, dating from the period 976 to 1050, mention such activities in Dauphiny and Savoy.⁽⁵¹⁾ Some of the charters which mention new land being brought into cultivation seem particularly interesting because they mention the use of a medium plantum system in which seven instead of five years are allowed to elapse, once the land is alloted to a cultivator, before it is divided between the original proprietor and those who were putting it into cultivation.⁽⁵²⁾

Nor was such activity confined to the Middle Rhone region. In Provence charters which date from 977, 984, 993, 1001, and 1010⁽⁵³⁾ seem to refer to a similar system of putting unused land into cultivation, sometimes land which was granted out in very large tracts by its proprietors. Nearby, in Eastern Languedoc, we find the same kind of system in use too -- witness charters from Nîmes dating from 978 and 994⁽⁵⁴⁾ and two from the Maguelonne region, which date from 1010 and from between 996 and 1031.⁽⁵⁵⁾ In one of the grants of such land from the Nîmes area the land, once put into cultivation, seems to have been divided between allodial owner and cultivator on a 25-75 basis instead of on a 50-50 basis as was more normal elsewhere with a medium plantum.⁽⁵⁶⁾ Even in the Narbonnaise, in addition to one reference to an aprisio in 979,⁽⁵⁷⁾ we [394] find medium plantum referred to in documents dating from 990 and 1031.⁽⁵⁸⁾

Curiously enough, however, when we examine charters originating in Gascony and Western Aquitaine we find little evidence of such activity in contrast to the situation in the areas of the Massif Central, Languedoc, Provence, and the Valley of the Rhone, and even in contrast to the previous period in the Limousin itself. We find only two references to such land being cleared, one dating from 980 which mentions a gift of coastal marsh land to Saint-Jean d'Angély by the duke of Aquitaine,⁽⁵⁹⁾ and one in a charter of 1035 from Foix which tells us of an aprisio.⁽⁶⁰⁾ Why this part of the Midi should have lagged behind the rest of Southern France in this respect it is difficult to imagine. Perhaps one answer lies in the continuing pattern of villa proprietorship in Gascony and this part of Aquitaine, for such a system of landownership may well have been opposed to the use of aprisiones and medium plantum. Whatever the cause of this, it was to remain true of this part of the Midi for several centuries, until here, too, at last in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century new bastides began to increase the amount of land in cultivation and fill up waste places with a new peasant population.

It is when we turn to the Spanish March, however, that we find the most evidence of a continuing movement in the countryside devoted to clearing the soil and putting into cultivation vacant land. Some of this seems to date from the last years of the tenth century -- either land near the Moslem frontiers which was taken over by cultivators on an aprisio basis, as revealed in charters dating from 976, 977, and 982,⁽⁶¹⁾ or that further in the interior which charters dating from 981, 984, 986, 991, 994, 998, and 999 show us was put into cultivation under what seems to be a medium plantum system.⁽⁶²⁾ Soon after the year 1000 both systems seem to have been in common use, but here, as in Provence, the tracts of land were often large ones, organized around castles which were being built along the frontiers, Perhaps it all began with the great expedition against Cordova in 1009. But, whatever the cause, after this date we can find [395] ample evidence of an advance south at the expense of the Moslems, of the building of new castles on land wrested from the Moors, and of the colonization of such land by peasant cultivators. By 1050 in Catalonia, as elsewhere in Spain, the Reconquista had begun, and with it the settlement of frontier areas on a vast scale. What had begun slowly in Carolingian times in Southern France and Catalonia, had now become an agrarian movement of great importance, using aprisio and medium plantum to bring new land into cultivation and to provide more foodstuffs and a better status for the peasant population and for society in general.

While we should not minimize the importance of agrarian progress in most of Southern France and the Spanish March during this period, which resulted in the production of an agricultural abundance unknown earlier, it is important to note that this agrarian progress, vital as it was, was probably less important, economically speaking, than another development of the period. I refer to the renewal of trade and commerce which also took place during these years. This revival reversed the tendency toward economic localism, which for more than a century had characterized the life of the Midi and Catalonia. It seems to have begun in the last years of the tenth century, when a revived commerce in Northern France and along the Atlantic coasts of Aquitaine and Gascony met a similar revived trade coming from Italy and the Mediterranean. These two streams of commerce met in the Midi and began to end this region's isolation, economically speaking, from the main currents of commerce of the Mediterranean and the Northern Seas of Europe.⁽⁶³⁾

We find many indications of this revival. A Maguelonne, on the Mediterranean shores near Melgueil, which had long been abandoned by its canons, was refortified and reoccupied.⁽⁶⁴⁾ A merchant class in the town of Montpellier, which had newly appeared in response to revived commerce, by 985 had become important enough to concern itself with dues which were being levied upon its goods going to Narbonne.⁽⁶⁵⁾ By 1040 there was sufficient traffic reaching the interior of this part of Languedoc so that a bridge across the Hérault had become a necessity, and the monks of the abbeys of Aniane and Gellone agreed to build it, incidentally, with the proviso that no tolls be levied on those who used it.⁽⁶⁶⁾ At Toulouse, starting about the year 1000 we find a charter which shows a concern regarding [396] the market of the town and exactions levied on merchants coming there to trade.⁽⁶⁷⁾ This concern is reflected in two later charters of 1010 and 1050 dealing with the market and exactions which affected its prosperity.⁽⁶⁸⁾ One of these charters shows churchmen from all over Languedoc cooperating by reducing abuses which hindered trade. Another mentions Goti coming there to trade, which probably refers to Spanish merchants from Catalonia.⁽⁶⁹⁾ In Angoulême the bishop of the region found water mills located on the river Boehme important enough to merit his protection,⁽⁷⁰⁾ and in the Albigeois a whole group of churchmen and principes of the region agreed to build a new bridge across the river Tarn at Albi.⁽⁷¹⁾

As trade became more important we find it resulting in the growth and expansion of a number of the old civitates, who began to outgrow their older fortifications. In 1019 we hear of new walls and fortifications at Vienne,⁽⁷²⁾ which probably explains why a charter mentions a stone mason or murator who is living in the city.⁽⁷³⁾ At about this same period in 1015 we hear of similar fortifications being built at Nîmes.⁽⁷⁴⁾ A little later about 1050 the suburbs of the town of Béziers had become important enough to be sold as a fief to an important nobleman by its bishop,⁽⁷⁵⁾ while even earlier, about 990, a suburb of Narbonne, called Villanova is mentioned in the will of its Viscountess Adelaise.⁽⁷⁶⁾ By 1033 Barcelona had outgrown its older fortifications and had to build new walls,⁽⁷⁷⁾ and Limoges at the same period had to be refortified also.⁽⁷⁸⁾

One of the results of this economic growth in Southern France and Catalonia was a certain revival of moribund mints and the opening of new ones, for the first time in more than a century. A charter of 988 which mentions the money of Melgueil now indicates a new mint in operation near Montpellier.⁽⁷⁹⁾ A decade or so later our documents reveal that [397] similar mints had reopened at Albi⁽⁸⁰⁾ and Rodez⁽⁸¹⁾ too. During this period Count Gausfred II began to coin money too,⁽⁸²⁾ and the solidi of Vich began to circulate in parts of Catalonia.⁽⁸³⁾ We find the money of Arles, called ottochini, known by name as far west as Rouergue⁽⁸⁴⁾ and as far to the east as Fréjus, where a charter of 1032 mentions it as being in use.⁽⁸⁵⁾

In the western portion of Southern France we find the same thing happening. About 1040 Agen again began to mint coins,⁽⁸⁶⁾ thereby joining Angoulême and Bordeaux, both of which had started to do so a little earlier in the century,⁽⁸⁷⁾ while in 1047 Count Geoffrey of Anjou reopened the mint of Saintes by importing moneyers from nearby Angoulême.⁽⁸⁸⁾ At about the same period coins, for the first time in centuries, began to be minted at Béarn in Western Gascony.⁽⁸⁹⁾ In every region of the Midi and Catalonia we find ourselves in the presence of economic forces which make the opening of new mints advisable to meet the needs of a revived commerce,

As this happened coins began to circulate more widely too. An early eleventh century coin hoard recently discovered at Corrèze in the southern part of the Limousin illustrates this fact. This hoard contains over 2,500 coins in all: of these 1,960 are barbarins of Saint-Martial of Limoges, 483 are from LePuy, 44 from Limoges, 14 from Angoulême, 4 from Turenne, and 1 from Clermont. Though the majority of these coins show a strong local basis for their circulation, as a whole the coins in this hoard reveal an area of some size in which they tended to circulate from Angoulême to LePuy, and from Clermont to Turenne.⁽⁹⁰⁾ This kind of circulation of money explains why we find in charters from Provence a mention of the money of both LePuy and Vienne,⁽⁹¹⁾ and why in Rouergue there [398] are constant references to the solidi of Limoges and LePuy also.⁽⁹²⁾ Like commerce itself money had, by 1050, ceased to be merely a local affair.

As such mints opened and the money they coined began to circulate more widely, we begin to find evidence that it was used in larger quantities too by the society of the period. In 1027 the bishop of Limoges could sell some property to the abbey of Saint-Martial and receive 2,500 solidi for it,⁽⁹³⁾ just as a certain landowner, Tesalage, could do the same with some land for which he got 3,000 solidi from the canons of Saint-Etienne of Limoges.⁽⁹⁴⁾ In 1047 Count Geoffrey had 1,000 solidi at his disposal to buy out the miles who had a monopoly of the right to coin money at Saintes,⁽⁹⁵⁾ and at Albi there was sufficient cash available so that Bishop Frotaire and his brother could sell its bishopric for some 5,000 solidi.⁽⁹⁶⁾ At about the same period in 1035 Count Hugh of Rouergue could get 1,000 solidi by selling an allod to Viscount Berengar.⁽⁹⁷⁾

All this evidence of wealth in the hands of the magnates and churchmen of the Midi, however, pales before the evidence of that available during this period to important nobles of the Spanish March. The 100,000 solidi which Count Guifred of Cerdanya found available to purchase the archbishopric of Narbonne for his son in 1016,⁽⁹⁸⁾ is almost matched by the huge money subsidies which Count Raymond Berengar I of Catalonia poured out to assure the loyalty and support of Count Ermengol of Urgell.⁽⁹⁹⁾ Nor do we find only silver here in such large quantities. After the year 1000 we find much gold too, which is mentioned over and over again in charters dating from this period.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ Perhaps some of this gold arrived in Catalonia as a result of trade with Moslem Spain. It seems more probable, however, that it was the result of booty won from the Moors or subsidies paid out by Moslem rulers to their Christian adversaries in a vain effort to secure their faltering fortunes and thrones as the Reconquista began. Whatever its origin, it not only gave Catalonia new [399] wealth, it also began to reach the Midi as well. It helps explain how in 1034 the abbot of Caunes had two ounces of gold which he could loan to Viscountess Ermissende⁽¹⁰¹⁾ and how that magnate of Béziers, Rainald, could afford twelve ounces of the same metal to buy feudal rights over part of the city from Bishop Berengar in 1050.⁽¹⁰²⁾ It may even help explain how sometime between 1018 and 1032 the viscontal family of Marseille had available the four ounces of gold which they used to purchase from King Rudolf of Burgundy the rights he still had over a villa which they wanted, which had once belonged to his royal fisc.⁽¹⁰³⁾

Revived trade and commerce and booty from Moslem Spain began to change the society of the Midi and Catalonia after 975. It helped to stimulate the growth of new towns, like Montpellier, and older civitates. In these new and older towns gradually there began to appear a new class of people in response to this economic revival, a class of merchants, traders, and artisans whom we can now call the bourgeois. Already as early as the year 1000 this new class was beginning to make their presence felt in protests over dues which were being levied upon their commerce.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ Soon they were to amass sufficient wealth and power so that, as a class, they could join the milites and allodial landowners as boni homines and begin to play a role in local and regional government and in the life of Southern France and Catalonia.

The new and more abundant supply of money which began to become available to the society of the period, however, did more than create a new class, the bourgeois. It began to make possible a more orderly government in many regions. Where the allodial tradition of landholding, the family system of inheritance and control, and the new castles had helped strengthen a resistance to centralized government by rulers who, thanks to them, had no effective means of enforcing their rights, money gave them a new chance to succeed in their endeavors. A count of Barcelona buying allegiance, or a count of Saintes buying out a feudal moneyer were a foretaste of the future. Soon counts of Barcelona were to expand their authority in the Midi and the Spanish March, and a Count Raymond of Saint-Gilles was to control the county of Toulouse, in no small measure [400] because they controlled abundant supplies of hard cash with which they could buy support which the society of the period was unwilling to give on any other basis. A new governmental system, based on the use of money by rulers, was already in the making which was to transform the political, as well as the economic, life of regions which lay south of Poitou and Burgundy.

Between 975 and 1050, then, the society of Southern France and Catalonia changed in a number of ways. With a few exceptions it tended to remain essentially one based on allodial ownership of land, with political institutions of a weak, voluntary sort. Despite its growing militarization, it did not become essentially feudal. At the same time its older serfdom and villa system tended to disappear, and in part to be replaced by a new bondage exercised from its many castles, with the mandamenta they controlled determining in part the nature of local government. This, however, did not unduly interfere with progress in clearing the soil and expanding in most regions the area which was under cultivation. The Church met the challenge of the new militarism successfully enough to preserve its independence and take steps which were to lead later on to a more spiritual Church life, free from secular control. Perhaps most important of all, the society of this period began to be affected vitally by the revival of trade and commerce and a golden flow of booty from Moslem Spain. As this happened a new element -- money -- entered the picture. This created a new class in Southern France and Catalonia -- the bourgeois, which soon took its place as equal in power to the milites, the churchmen, and the older allodial magnates who controlled landed wealth. Most important of all it gave to rulers who were wise enough to use it, a new weapon. With money at their disposal such rulers slowly but surely began to create at last a governmental system which worked for regions which had known little effective government since the time of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. The age of the principes was over. An era of true principalities was at hand.

1. These charters are from the Cart. de Vigeois, Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, Cart. d'Uzerche, Cart. de Tulle, Cart. de Beaulieu, Cart. de Dorat, Cart. de Paunat, Cart. de Conques, Cart. de l'aumônerie de Saint-Martial de Limoges, Chartes de Cluny, Cart. de Saint-Jean d'Angély, Cart. d'Angoulême, Cart. de Notre Dame de Saintes, Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Baigne, Chartes de Charroux, and Cart. de Savigny.

2. From the Cart. de Conques, Hist. Gén. de Lang., Cart. d'Aniane, Cart. de Vabres, Cart. de Saint-Flour, Cart. de Brioude, Grand Cart. de Brioude, Cart. de Sauxillanges, Cart. de Saint-Egidius, Chartes de Cluny, Chartes de Charroux, and Cart. de Lérins.

3. From the Cart. de Savigny, Cart. d'Ainay, Cart. Lyonnais, Chartes de Cluny, Cart. de Saint-Chaffre, Cart. de Saint-Egidius, Cart. de Saint-Barnard de Romans, Hist. Gén. de Lang., Cart. de Conques, Cart. de Grenoble, Chartes de Maurienne, Cart. de Saint-André-le-bas, Cart. de Vienne, and Cart. de Saint-Suplice.

4. From the Cart. de Saint-Victor, Hist. Gén. de Lang., Chartes de Cluny, Cart. de Lérins, Cart. de Saint-Pons de Nice, Cart. de Nice, Cart. de Saint-Chaffre, and Cart. de Conques.

5. From the Cart. de Nîmes; Cart. d'Aniane; Hist. Gén. de Lang.; "Cart. de Psalmodi" [unprinted]; "Cartulaire des Trencavels" [unprinted]; Cart. de Gellone; Cart. de Béziers; Cart. d'Agde; "Cart. de 1'Évêché d'Agde" [unprinted]; Liber Instrumentorum Memoralium [Montpellier]; Cart. de Maguelonne; Cart. de Conques; Cart. de Carcassonne; Cros-Meyrévielle, Documents; Cart. de Fontjoncouse; Cart de Saint-Sernin; "Cart. de Lézat" [unprinted]; and Chartes de Cluny.

6. From the Cart. de la Réolle, Cart. d'Auch, Hist. Gén. de Lang., "Cart de Lézat" [unprinted], Cart. de Lucq, Cart. de Saint-Jean de Sorde, Cart. de Sainte-Croix, and the Cart. de Sainte-Foi de Morlaas.

7. From the Cart. de San Cugat; Hist. Gén. de Lang.; El Archivo Condal de Barcelona; Catalunya Carolingia, II; Marca hispanica; Cart. roussillonnais; Cart. de Conques; El "Libre Blanche" de Santas Creus [Barcelona]; Archivo Catedral de Barcelona; Liber Feudorum; and Cart. de Saint-Victor.

8. Charters from Languedoc list some twenty-nine grants of precaria or commandes or guardas which date from this period. Seven are from the Nîmes area, thirteen from the rest of Eastern Languedoc, three from the Narbonne region, and six from near Toulouse.

9. Charters from the Limousin give us a record of some sixteen such grants. Most seem to refer to large tracts of land.

10. From Rouergue and the Albigeois, according to our sources, we have record of twenty such grants. Again many seem to represent large tracts of land.

11. Our sources show us some thirty such grants coming from this region.

12. Our Catalan documents list some twenty precaria of various sorts. The figure for Gascony is two and for Provence only three. Western Aquitanian charters of the period give us information on only two such precaria and for Auvergne the figure is only five.

13. Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, no. 114; and Cart. de Beaulieu, no. 104.

14. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. nos. 137, 206. See also a charter of 1003 from Auvergne (Cart. de Conques, no. 326).

15. Cart. de Saint-Chaffre, no. 433.

16. Cart. de Nice, no. 11; and Cart. de Saint-Pons de Nice, no. 4.

17. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. nos. 159, 189, and Cros-Meyrévielle, Documents, no. 36.

18. Cart. de Saint-Sernin, no. 47; and Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. no. 174.

19. On the lack of any real understanding of Roman law during this period see an excellent article by A. Gouron, "Les étapes de la pénétration du droit romain au XII^e siècle dans l'ancienne Septimanie," in Annales du Midi, LXIX (1957).

20. See references to villas in Gascony in Cart. de la Réolle, no. 152 (980); Cart. de Lucq, nos. 1 (985), 2 (1000), 3 (988), 4 (1040-1050); Cart. de Sorde, nos. 2 (1010-1032), 9 (1010-1032); Cart. de Sainte-Croix, no. 1 (1027).

21. For references to villas in the Limousin see Cart. d'Uzerche, nos. 31 (977), 47 (1025), 52 (1044), 174 (1001), 248 (1003-1040), 347 (998-1003); Cart. de Vigeois, no. 35 (996-1020); Cart. de Tulle, nos. 350 (1000), 469 (1050); Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, no. 12 (1017-1023); Cart. de l'aumônerie de Saint-Martial de Limoges, no. 32 (1029); Cart. de Conques, no. 27 (1031-1060).

22. For mention of villas see Cart. de Saint-Barnard de Romans, no. 52 (995); Cart. de Saint-Chaffre, nos. 375 (1000), 154 (1001), 56 (1034); Cart. de Vienne, nos. 38 (1009), 41 (1011), 44 (1016); Cart. de St. Egidius, no.98 (1022); Cart. de Saint-André-le-bas, nos. 32 (1023), 209 (1025), 206 (1040).

23. For references to villas see Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. no. 133 (979); Chartes de Cluny, III, nos. 1784 (988), 1837 (990); IV, nos. 2916, 2917 (1037); Cart. de Saint-Victor, nos. 1061 (1018-1032), 155 (1030).

24. See two excellent articles which describe this situation in Rouergue and Auvergne. C. Higounet, "Observations sur la seigneurie rurale et l'habitat en Rouergue du IX^e au XIV^e siècle," in Annales du Midi, LXII (1950); and G. Fournier, "La Seigneurie en Basse-Auvergne aux XI^e et XII^e siècles," in Mélanges Louis Halphen. An article on Provence of importance, though it underestimates the number of villas which survived, is R. Latouche, "Quelques aperçus sur le manse en Provence au X^e et XI^e siècles," in Recueil de Travaux Offerts à M. C. Brunel, II.

25. See, for instance, that charter of 1015 issued by King Rudolf, in which lands attached to a "Castellum Novum" are mentioned (Cart. de Vienne, no. 43).

26. For some examples of such divided castles and their territories in Provence see Cart. de Saint-Victor, nos. 58 (1040), 70 (984), 135 (1010), 255 (1034); Cart. de Lérins, nos. 3, 72 (990); Chartes de Cluny, IV, no. 2779 (1023).

27. Cart. de Conques, no. 73 (996-1031).

28. Cart. de Lucq, no. 2.

29. Cart. de Saint-Jean d'Angély, no. 5.

30. Cart. d'Angoulême, no. 31, mentions land owing services which seem to be of a servile nature.

31. Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, no. 161. This charter mentions the freeing of the serfs concerned. See also Cart. de l'aumônerie de Saint-Martial de Limoges, no. 14; Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, no. 147; and Cart. de Vigeois, no. 15.

32. Chartes de Cluny, III, no. 2100.

33. Cart. de Vienne, nos. 38, 93.

34. See Chapter I, Section V, on these dues. For an excellent example of this new serfdom see a charter of 1025 from Rouergue which mentions that the cens owed by two mansi includes the labor service of one man out of seven who must furnish his own bread (Cart. de Conques, no. 196).

35. Cart. de Vienne, no. 93.

36. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. nos. 172, 181.

37. See the vast inheritance she received in 990 from her father, Viscount William of Béziers (Cart. de Béziers, no. 49).

38. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, nos. 130, 152.

39. For instance see reference to land belonging to Beatrice, countess of Chamboulières in the mid-eleventh century (Cart. de Tulle, no. 340).

40. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, no. 206.

41. Raoul Glaber, Historianum libri V, III, 9, 40, p. 89.

42. See Liber Feudorum, no. 272; and Cart. de San Cugat, nos. 479, 545, 571.

43. Liber Feudorum, no. 202.

44. On Almodis' authority in Catalonia see F. Valls-Taberner, "La Cour Comtale Barcelonaise" in Revue historque de droit français et étranger, XIV (1935), 675-682.

45. Cart. de Sauxillanges, nos. 96, 509, 521, 596.

46. Cart. de Conques, nos. 274, 337, 397, 174, 298.

47. Ibid., no. 138.

48. Chartes de Cluny, III, no. 2330.

49. Cart. de Saint-Egiduus, nos. 107, 108.

50. Cart. d'Ainay, in Cart. de Savigny, nos. 25, 148; and Cart. de Savigny, no. 627.

51. Cart. de Grenoble, nos. 8, 9, 16, 18; Chantes de Maunienne, no. 3; Cart. de Saint-Barnard de Romans, nos. 73, 96; Cart. de Vienne, nos. 52, 119; Cart. de Saint-André-le-bas, nos. 26, 27, 62, 80, 158, 161, 169, 186, 188.

52. Ibid., nos. 62, 80.

53. Cart. de Saint-Victor, nos. 72 (977), 70 (984), 77 (993), 133 (1010), 174 (1001).

54. Cart. de Nîmes, nos. 73 (978), 90 (994); also in 1021, ibid., no. 121.

55. Cart. de Maguelonne, I, no. 4 (1010); Cart. d'Aniane, no. 180 (996-1031). See also a charter of about 1050 which mentions a basrida (ibid., no. 146).

56. Cart. de Nîmes, no. 90.

57. Cart. de Carcassonne, IV, 74.

58. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. nos. 151, 197.

59. Cart. de Saint-Jean d'Angély, no. 331.

60. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, no. 207. A charter dating from 983-1036 also mentions what it calls new land in this part of Gascony planted in vines (Cart. de la Réolle, no. 6).

61. Cart. de San Cugat, nos. 115, 144; and Liber Feudorum, no. 320.

62. Cart. de San Cugat, nos. 139, 160, 192, 266, 295, 302, 335, 344; and El Archivo Condal de Barcelona, no. 203.

63. See A. Lewis, The Northern Seas A.D. 300-1100, pp. 445-446.

64. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, nos. 55-56.

65. Liber Instrumentorum Memorialium [Montpellier], no. 149.

66. Cart. de Gellone, no. 20.

67. Cart. de Saint-Sernin, no. 135.

68. Ibid., nos. 137, 138.

69. Ibid., no. 136.

70. Cart. d'Angoulême, nos. 30, 36.

71. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, no. 205.

72. Cart. de Vienne, no. 46.

73. Cart. de Saint-André-le-bas, no. 79.

74. Cart. de Nîmes, no. 92.

75. Cart. de Béziers, no. 65.

76. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, no. 151.

77. El Archivo Condal de Barcelona, no. 40.

78. Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, nos. 175-177.

79. Cart. de Nîmes, no. 84.

80. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V. no. 206.

81. See reference to solidi of Rodez in Cart. de Conques, nos. 316, 333, 336, 339, among others.

82. See J. Botet y Siso, Les monedes catalanes, I, 17-70.

83. Ibid., pp. 167-185.

84. Cart. de Conques, no. 328.

85. Cart. de Lérins, no. 31.

86. A. Blanchet and A. Dieudonné, Manuel de Numismatique, IV, 220-221.

87. Ibid., pp. 215-216.

88. Cart. de Notre Dame de Saintes, no. 75.

89. Blanchet and Dieudonné, Manuel de Numismatique, IV, 87-92.

90. L. de Nussac, "Trouvaille de monnaies médiévales I Argentat," in Bulletin de la société historique et archéologique de la Corrèze, LXVI (1944).

91. Cart. de Nîmes, no. 92; Cart. de Lérins, no. 31; and Cart. de Saint-Victor, no. 172.

92. Cart. de Conques, nos. 95, 97-99, 104-108, 122, 125, 127.

93. Cart. de l'aumôneníe de Saint-Martial de Limoges, no. 36.

94. Cart. de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, no. 69.

95. Cart. de Notre Dame de Salutes, no. 75.

96. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, no. 214.

97. Ibid., no. 207.

98. Ibid., no. 251.

99. Liber Feudorum, nos, 46, 47.

100. See, among many other references to gold, Cart. de San Cugat, nos. 337 (998), 343 (999), 397 (1005); and Liber Feudorum, no. 212 (1049). Most Catalan charters mention gold by weight, but in some cases they speak of mancusi or coins.

101. Hist. Gén. de Lang., V, no. 200.

102. Cart. de Béziers, no. 65.

103. Cart. de Saint-Victor, no. 1061. See also references, in a charter of the Limousin from this period, to three ounces of gold (Cart. de Tulle, no. 654) and in an Auvergnat charter to two ounces of gold (Cart. de Sauxillanges, no. 406).

104. See Liber Instrumentorum Memorialium [Montpellier], no. 149; and Cart. de Saint-Sernin, nos. 135-138.