[42] The material condition of the Montcada family during the eleventh century was profoundly affected by social and political changes in Catalonia. Before 1000 the wealth of the aristocracy derived from war waged in Muslim Spain under the count's direction or from largesse freely dispensed at his palace. But the flow of gold to Barcelona diminished suddenly when a weak count succeeded Ramon Borrell in 1017, and the ruling elite became restive. Magnates looking for profits found them closer to home, in the holdings of peasants whose prosperity had increased through technological improvements and much hard work. In the tumultuous years 1020 to 1050, magnates established themselves as masters of the land where they once -- as viscounts and vicars -- had been agents of a public authority. Ramon Berenguer I only restored comital leadership in Catalonia during the 1050s and 1060s by acknowledging the gains these magnates had made.

To a Catalonia which until the early eleventh century had respected traditional sources of order and law, magnates brought arbitrary territorial lordship. Castles were its symbol. From them families took their names and derived their power. Families became lineages, strengthened through agnate transmission of social status and primogeniture. Assisted by a new class of knights subordinated to them, noble castle lords completed this transformation of the social order by imposing servitude upon the peasantry. Peasants who had been free under the law now fell under the yoke of their lord.

The Montcadas were beneficiaries of these eleventh-century developments, though they were not leaders in producing them. As allies of the counts of Barcelona in the first half of the century, they were perhaps slow to emulate the actions of others that were [43] perceived as a threat to comital order and authority. But when the count proved unable to prevent the creation of territorial lordships, Guillem de Montcada was not left behind. He increased the number of castle districts under his control, married the heiress to others, and established the castle of Montcada as the seat of his authority. The castle gave the family its name for centuries to come. It became the centerpiece of a territorial lordship that was refounded in the early twelfth century through the marriage of its heiress, Beatriu, to her father's protégé, Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal.

The most important element of Guillem de Montcada's heritage was his descent from a family whose members had served Catalonia's ninth- and tenth-century counts as viscounts and vicars. His public career as vicar at Muntanyola and Vacarisses suggests continuity in this tradition. The career of Ramon as archdeacon of Barcelona, and the prominence of Bernat in the count's entourage corroborate the judgment that the ancestors of the first Montcada were securely rooted in Barcelona's court aristocracy. This impression may never be confirmed, because the lack of patronymic and toponymic names before the eleventh century allows clues to the career and family origins of Seniofred -- father of Guillem de Montcada and his brothers Ramon Archdeacon and Bernat -- to disappear without a trace in the documents of the tenth century. Only a handful of eleventh century records permit some supposition. They reveal that Guillem, Ramon, and Bernat inherited property in the castle district of Súria (Manresa). That legacy may link the ancestors of the first Montcada to officials who oversaw, for successive counts of Barcelona, the progressive resettlement of the lower slopes and valleys of Old Catalonia.⁽¹⁾

The castle district of Súria, situated between protective mountain ridges that branch from the pre-Pyrenean chain, had been resettled during the late ninth and tenth centuries because of the encouragement of Guifred "the Hairy," count of Barcelona. Despite [44] its sheltered setting, this alluvial basin and its adjacent vales, like many others accessible from the south, had been abandoned by Christians for a surer refuge in higher Pyrenean valleys. Peasants who were anxious to escape overcrowded conditions in the upper regions became the new settlers. They were directed by agents of the counts, appointed as vicars in districts of restored or newly founded agricultural communities. The vicar selected a site for the construction of a castle, supervised its erection, and designated empty lands as comital lands -- called terra de feo, fisc or fiefs -- to assure his material support.⁽²⁾ In addition, as the count's delegate, he exacted tribute and service from the community.⁽³⁾ The lands bequeathed by Seniofred to his sons in Súria may have originated as fiefs of the vicar. Their possession could link Seniofred or his ancestors to a role in the tenth-century southward expansion. If so, this career was continued at least by his eldest son, Guillem, who became vicar of Vacarisses and Muntanyola.

The castle districts of Vacarisses and Muntanyola lie nestled on opposite flanks of mountains separating the valleys of the Llobregat and Congost in Manresa and Osona counties. Had they come to Guillem from the count by grant or sale, or from ancestors as part of his inheritance?⁽⁴⁾ The evidence is mute on this point. But it does identify him as a vicar, and in that office and as holder of the fisc or terra de feo, Guillem derived incomes there. These were payments of tribute and taxes paid to the representative of public authority by community members and rents paid by tenants of the fiscal land set aside for the vicar during resettlement.⁽⁵⁾ Grants from this [45] land -- which clearly would have been in greater demand as re-population of the districts progressed -- undoubtedly subjected an increasing number of peasants to fixed or proportional rents for the land they worked.⁽⁶⁾ These levies, though modest, were sufficient to maintain Guillem and other knights associated with him and perhaps to provide a surplus.

The extent of the lands assigned to Guillem as vicar of Vacarisses and Muntanyola is not known, though perhaps it was similar to the property that he and his brothers inherited at Súria. There the domain's holdings, augmented by purchases, included by 1033 a tower with houses located on the hill of Sant Pere, mills, mill sites, and appurtenances on the Cardona River, and the churches "named in the honor of Santa Maria and Sant Pere." Also included in this allod (property owned independently) were "many other houses, that is houses, outbuildings, gardens, vines in cultivation and uncultivated, fields, pastures, woods and wastelands with all kinds of trees there, viaducts and canals, all in all everything that we have there or ought to have."⁽⁷⁾

The size of a vicar's domain can be estimated from the case of Vacarisses. The vicar's lands in the Llobregat valley could not have ranged far from the village center in Vacarisses, since other neighboring vegueries were as close as Olesa (eight kilometers south) and Pierola (fourteen kilometers southwest). This suggests that his holdings might normally extend in a radius of four or five kilometers from the castle. The situation at Muntanyola, only a few kilometers from the castle districts of Tona and Malla, was similar. Within that area were interspersed the vicar's fiefs, his allods, and allods belonging to others, often the peasant cultivators themselves.

Although rents were moderate in Catalonia at the time, Guillem and others found their accumulation worthwhile. The domain [46] at Súria had been partly acquired by purchase, and in 1019 Guillem added to his holdings in Muntanyola some houses, yards, lands, trellises (for vines?), and fruit-bearing and other trees. For one ounce of gold, Guillem received into his "power and dominion" all that was included within the property's boundaries except for a one-tenth interest that belonged to a woman named Ermeiardis.⁽⁸⁾ His object in the transaction was to acquire the rents paid to the landlord by established tenants. In this particular case, only nine-tenths of the rights could be sold, presumably because the former owner's wife (Ermeiardis) held rights to the other tenth.

Not all vicars were so scrupulous. At about the same time, the vicar of Olesa tried to pressure a landholder into recognizing that his "allods, houses, lands, and possessions" were fiefs of the vicar. The attempt failed when the landholder proved that he had held his allods freely for thirty years (the required term for acquiring title by aprisio), that he had bought them from Count Borrell, and that he had not been bothered in the past by vicars of Olesa.⁽⁹⁾ Other landholders, including those who could not prove thirty years' occupation of their lands, may not have been so fortunate.

It is possible that Guillem collected his rents directly at Súria, Vacarisses, and Muntanyola, though it is more likely that subordinates collected revenues in his name. They would have been other knights attached to the castles, locally recruited agents or clerics, or lesser comital officials.⁽¹⁰⁾ In any case, vicars did not act alone in local affairs, as is shown by the number of men who attended a judicial hearing held in 1014 in Vacarisses to settle the claim of the vicar of Olesa. Although some may have attended because the bishop of Vic was there to dedicate the church altar, it is likely that a number of them were Guillem's companions or agents. Six names following Guillem's subscription appear to form a subgroup: "Sig+num Guillelmus vicarius, sig+num Indalecius, sig+num Barone, sig+num Geriberto, sig+num Guillelmo Ató, [47] sig+num Arnaldo Sayoni, sig+num Marcucius nos et alii quam plurimi qui adpresens adfuimus." This group is distinct from a second group of subscriptions: "Sig+num Sanfredus levita qui et iudex, sig+num Bels, sig+num Borrellus gratia Dei episcopus ac si indignus, Salla sig+num, sig+num Raimundus archilevita, sig+num Roderandus sacerdos, sig+num Gaucerfredus presbiter, sig+num Oliva Sajo, Guislara presbiter epanavit die et anno quo supra."⁽¹¹⁾ Did the first group represent followers of the vicar, as opposed to those whose attendance was prompted by the presence of the bishop of Vic? In any event, Guillem probably held the most prestige within the first group, for his name headed the list.⁽¹²⁾ Of the six whose names followed, one was a saio (judicial bailiff) and five bore no titles. One of them, Guillem Ató, who appeared in later documents with Guillem de Montcada and who by 1049 was called a "knight," may by then have discharged some administrative functions.⁽¹³⁾ The other four were possibly vicarial agents from Vacarisses or from the neighboring castle districts of Olesa and Pierola.

In his early career, Guillem was a vicar of Vacarisses and Muntanyola who exercised comital authority in the localities under his charge. By the time of his death in 1040 he had assembled a patrimony that was becoming a territorial lordship. This was centered around the castle of Montcada -- the namesake of the lineage for centuries to come (see Map 1).

The castle of Montcada, perched on a mountain top, overlooked [49] looked settlements located near the confluence of the Beses and its tributaries as they funneled through a narrow pass from the Vallès into the territory of Barcelona. The castle's strategic location made it especially important to Countess Ermessenda of Barcelona who probably established her protégé -- Guillem "de Muntanyola" -- there in the mid 1020s. A document of 1032 attests his possession of the castle, the first recorded time that Guillem is called "de Montcada."⁽¹⁴⁾

Guillem's acquisition of Montcada followed his marriage to Adelaida, an heiress whose parents, Bonucio de Claramunt and Senegundis, had controlled important domains in the western Vallès. These included the castle district of Castellar, which Senegundis, a widow in fall 1017, sold to Count Ramon Borrell and Countess Ermessenda for 150 ounces of gold.⁽¹⁵⁾ But it did not remain in comital hands for long, for Adelaida soon brought the Castellar domain to Guillem de Montcada as a wedding gift. Another important property fell to the couple in 1035, when Guillem de Montcada brought suit against Senegundis before Judge Bonfill March. In this action Guillem accused his mother-in-law of mismanaging Adelaida's inheritance. The judge found for Guillem, and in July 1035 he awarded the castle of Ullastrell to Adelaida as compensation.⁽¹⁶⁾

Guillem's marriage to Adelaida in effect merged two vicarial lineages into one. His acquisition of Montcada strengthened his position in the Vallès and brought him closer to Barcelona and [50] its politics. He already had a connection to the church, of Barcelona through his brother Ramon Archdeacon, with whom he had bought land around Montcada in 1029.⁽¹⁷⁾ As the father of several sons, Guillem envisaged furnishing a successor to the archdeaconate, thereby maintaining the link between his new noble house at Montcada and the See of Barcelona. Further connections with the city and territory emerged after Guillem's death in 1040, through the relations maintained by his widow, Adelaida, with the counts and countesses of Barcelona.

The favor that Count Ramon Berenguer and Countess Elisabet showed to Adelaida de Montcada through gifts of land and gold was not new to the lineage in the 1040s.⁽¹⁸⁾ Ever since the countship of Ramon Borrell, Guillem and his brothers had benefitted from ties to Barcelona's ruling dynasty. Guillem in particular maintained close relations with Countess Ermessenda in the 1020s. This continued after Guillem's marriage to Adelaida and their installation at Montcada. For Ermessenda later bought back the domains of Castellar and Ullastrell, which she offered as a pious gift in 1039 to the monastery of Sant Llorenç del Munt.⁽¹⁹⁾ The counts probably also had a hand in the family's acquisition of mills at Montcada, the source of the Barcelona water supply, and at Clot, also a comital property.⁽²⁰⁾

[51] The transition from veguerie to banal lordship -- that is to the rule of local landlords whose authority for imposing arbitrary exactions upon peasants derived solely from their power to command⁽²¹⁾ -- cannot be charted with precision. It occurred throughout Catalonia during the eleventh century, though perhaps at different times in different areas, for some viscounts and vicars were leaders in these developments; the others simply followed. The Montcadas were probably among the followers, as they were close supporters of a count who saw his authority endangered by competition from magnates. Guillem was a peaceful neighbor of the monastery of Sant Cugat del Vallès, which as early as the 1020s had to resist encroachments upon its rights by the vice-comital family of Barcelona.⁽²²⁾ Moreover, he showed a certain respect for private allodial property in the district of Montcada when in 1029 he did not object to the terms by which a mill site was developed -- the act specifically barred the lessee from alienating the mill works to a "greater person than" himself.⁽²³⁾ But Guillem did move cautiously with the times, as is evidenced by his participation in 1040 in a judgment upholding the claims of a noblewoman who based her right to collect church tithes primarily on the reasoning that the church lay within her castle district. The decision, which was rendered by Guerau, viscount of Girona, Guillem de Montcada, and eight other nobles and clerics, reflected the aggressive tactics employed by the castellan class.⁽²⁴⁾

Following Guillem's death in 1040, however, the pace toward the seigneurialization of the Montcada domains undoubtedly quickened. This was precisely the period -- that of Ramon Guillem de Montcada (circa 1024-circa 1080) -- in which documents illuminate least well the management of the Montcada patrimony. It was during Ramon Guillem's lifetime, as a few indirect references from his son's lifespan attest, that feudal relations and banal lordship began to reach Montcada lands. [52]

One of the first indications of the emergence of banal lordship was the introduction into castle districts of castlans. These men, who were probably originally armed followers of viscounts and vicars, in effect acted as agents for the greater men who controlled the castle districts.⁽²⁵⁾ At each castle a castlà headed the lord's contingent of knights and ensured the collection of domain revenues and exactions. The first castlà in a Montcada holding may have been Mir Guillem de Muntanyola, who appeared as a judicial assessor (presumably on the Montcada side) in 1049 at Vic.⁽²⁶⁾ The first certain reference dates from 1085, when Berenguer Ramon de Montcada commended (committed in vassalic dependency) to his uncles Bernat Archdeacon and Renard Guillem de La Roca his castlà at Vacarisses, "who holds the aforesaid castle."⁽²⁷⁾ The institution was certainly well established by that date, and it even extended to the castle of Montcada, which in 1103 received a second-generation castlà.⁽²⁸⁾

Castlans in Montcada jurisdictions, as elsewhere, were supported by grants of fiefs. The term fief, adapted from its former meaning of fiscal land held by a public official, came to designate lands or rights in a lordship conferred upon a person who derived income from them and who in return owed service and fidelity to the lord of the castle.⁽²⁹⁾ The first known Montcada fief was the grant by Ramon Guillem and his brother Berenguer Archdeacon, sometime between 1044 and 1063, of half of the church of Sant Pere de Reixac to Bernat Adalbert de Reixac.⁽³⁰⁾ Ramon Guillem [53] subsequently ceded a church at Valldoreix to the castlà of Banyeres,⁽³¹⁾ and fiefs to Mir Amairic, the castlà of Montcada.⁽³²⁾ In 1117 Berenguer Ramon de Montcada enfeoffed another knight, Bernat Guillem de Santa Coloma, with a horse and a caballaria of land at Vacarisses.⁽³³⁾ A caballaria designated a fief with adequate income to support a single knight.⁽³⁴⁾

The fiefs required to support a castlà were much more extensive, because as garrison chief the castlà was expected to increase the number of knights ready for service whenever the castle lord required it.⁽³⁵⁾ Moreover, his social status was higher than that of a simple knight attached to the castle. Thus, when Berenguer Ramon de Montcada confided the castle of Vacarisses to Carbonell de Castellet, he gave him extensive fiefs in the castle district. These were the fiefs that Arbert Mir had held before his death, including the church of Rellinars and one-fourth of the church of Sant Feliu de Vacarisses, the fief of Bonastre and the church of Santa Engràcia, the tenths of Munts and the tasca (a one-eleventh share of crops) that Arbert Mir had in all these places, and one-third of the revenues from local justice and levies on hams, mutton, lamb, hens, and capons. Furthermore, he gave him three fifth-shares of feed grains produced by ox-drovers and one and one-half fifth-shares from those who worked with a hoe. From those who worked in Vacarisses but had no land of their own,⁽³⁶⁾ the castlà could exact feed grain "as it is fit" and proper labor services (estatge),⁽³⁷⁾ just as Arbert Mir had.⁽³⁸⁾

The services required of castlans and knights soon became standardized in Catalonia, and documents from the Montcada family domain show little deviation from the norm. The first obligation in the act designating Ramon Mir as castlà of Montcada in 1103 was fidelity; this was followed by a promise to help Berenguer Ramon defend his honor, to follow him in military campaigns and displays of force (hostes et cavalcatas), to be present with him at receptions [54] for barons (corts), and to escort him in his movements(seguiments).⁽³⁹⁾ Further, the castlà promised to deliver fiefs of the castellania -- that is, the lands and rights of a castle district destined for knights' support -- to knights approved by Berenguer Ramon.⁽⁴⁰⁾ These knights lodged with the castlà and were required to perform the same service as he. Finally, the document prescribed the same requirements of fidelity and service for knights who did not yet hold a fief, but who were eligible for vacancies.⁽⁴¹⁾ In the convention, or agreement, of Berenguer Ramon and Carbonell de Castellet, the castlà promised to be Berenguer Ramon's "'solid' [man], just as a man should be for his best lord." He promised to perform the services of "court, cavalcades, placitos,⁽⁴²⁾ suite, and others" within the patria (Catalonia?). Further, he promised to help his lord defend his present honor and any future acquisitions made with Carbonell's counsel.⁽⁴³⁾

Berenguer Ramon de Montcada described the principal elements of his patrimony in 1117 when he handed over allods, fiefs, and wardships to his daughter, Beatriu, and her husband, Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal.⁽⁴⁴⁾ The administration of wardships could temporarily swell a lord's revenues and manpower, but they were the least significant element of the Montcada patrimony. There were none, in any case, as important as that held by Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal, who in 1123 received in baiulia the viscounty of Bas from the will of the late Viscount Udalard;⁽⁴⁵⁾ or as that held by Guillem Ramon [I] Seneschal, with whom Bernat de Rocafort left the defense of his inheritance when he departed in 1112 on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.⁽⁴⁶⁾

Berenguer Ramon's patrimony included some allodial property. It consisted of lands that he inherited or purchased. Though allods were probably acquired as investments, they seem to have been used most frequently as pious donations.⁽⁴⁷⁾ Allods mentioned during his lifetime included two manses (peasant agricultural holdings) [55] in the district of Muntanyola; the allod of Casanova, which was "held with the allod of Sant Pere de les Puelles"; the allod of Roturensis, acquired by Ramon Guillem de Montcada; a manse in Cerdanyola;⁽⁴⁸⁾ the mills and their appurtenances at the foot of Montcada;⁽⁴⁹⁾ and an allod in Berga.⁽⁵⁰⁾ Included in this list may have been some "feudal allods" such as the mills at Montcada, if they were comital installations, and the honor in the county of Berga, if this indeed referred to former fiscal lands acquired near Súria.⁽⁵¹⁾

The most important component of the Montcada patrimony by the end of the eleventh century were castle districts held in fief from the count of Barcelona. This was Berenguer Ramon's honor fevalis -- his castles of Montcada and Vacarisses plus one-third of Muntanyola, with their banal rights -- a testament to the passage from veguerie to territorial lordship. The power of Berenguer Ramon within his castle districts was great; his castlans and knights, who bolstered his prestige through force of arms and numerical strength, served at his pleasure.⁽⁵²⁾ His lordships, though nominally fiefs of the count, in practice could be divided, bequeathed or alienated. They were, moreover a source of income.

Within his lands Berenguer Ramon collected tithes from churches, revenues from the exercise of local justice, land rents, and payments of the mals usos or "evil customs" -- all of which were common institutions in Catalonia by the end of the eleventh century.⁽⁵³⁾ (Mals usos were arbitrary exactions suffered by peasants at the hand of territorial lords and their agents.) There is no reason to believe that the lordships of Berenguer Ramon were exceptional. Not only was the institutionalized hierarchy of repression (castlans and knights) firmly in place in the domain of the lord of Montcada, [56] but he personally defended the exaction of unjust dues on some of his land: in 1114 he was forced at a judicial hearing to stop taxing an allod belonging to the monastery of Sant Cugat.⁽⁵⁴⁾ In spite of frequent discreet silences in the documentation, it is apparent that between the lifetimes of Guillem de Montcada and his grandson (fl. 1085-1134), banal lordship had come to Montcada lands.

The development of territorial lordships in Catalonia during the eleventh century was matched by changes in family structure that can be attributed to the pursuit of a dynastic strategy. Marriage practices were shaped to provide heirs at opportune moments, and inheritance patterns were modified to favor eldest sons. Primogeniture helped ensure that the family would maintain its stature and influence in succeeding generations. Guillem de Montcada's choice of primogeniture represented an apparent departure from the practice followed by his father, Seniofred, who had left patrimony in Súria jointly to his three sons. In turning away from equal division, Guillem set a precedent for primogeniture that influenced the shape of the Montcada family patrimony for more than a century.⁽⁵⁵⁾

The emphasis on male succession in the Montcada family from the time of Guillem de Montcada has obscured the destiny of daughters born to the lineage. Only one daughter besides Beatriu de Montcada can be attested before the second half of the twelfth century. Though it is possible that out of fourteen children born to four Montcada couples before 1150 only two were daughters, this seems highly improbable. The meagerness of citations implies at the least that Montcada daughters made few if any claims on the [57] family's assets, or that they received only movable goods.⁽⁵⁶⁾ The role of daughters in succession practices becomes clearer after 1150, when daughters were mentioned by name in wills and when instances multiply in which fathers provided endowments for their marriages.⁽⁵⁷⁾

One of the first consequences of the practice of primogeniture was that the primary heir became head of the family. This role fell in 1040 to Ramon Guillem de Montcada, whose name preceded that of his brother Renard Guillem when they appeared before the bishop of Vic in 1049 to protest a donation of property by their uncle Bernat.⁽⁵⁸⁾ Ramon Guillem maintained during his lifetime an unchallenged leadership of all the Montcada patrimony -- except Muntanyola, which he may have shared with his brothers Bernat Archdeacon and Renard Guillem. His immediate successor was not so fortunate.

The early death of Ramon Guillem's eldest son prompted discord between the younger son, Berenguer Ramon de Montcada, and his uncles Bernat Archdeacon and Renard Guillem de La Roca concerning succession to the patrimony. The quarrels terminated in accords that seem more typical of settlements reached between lineages than of those between close relatives. On 2 February 1085 Bernat Archdeacon and Renard Guillem returned to Berenguer Ramon one-third of the castle and district of Muntanyola, proposing a division of the territory and equal time shares of one-third year's residence in the castle. The next day Berenguer Ramon pledged to his uncles the castle of Vacarisses and its castlà, one-third of Muntanyola, and an allod in Berga as a guarantee that he would be their faithful friend and help them defend their honors.⁽⁵⁹⁾ These two conventions attest to a feudalization of family relations during the eleventh century. Instead of sharing the castle district jointly (as Guillem, Bernat, and Ramon had done at Súria until 1033), a division was arranged and vassalic ties were established -- just as they would have been for persons outside the family.

The ordering of family relations by feudal alliance continued [58] after Berenguer Ramon's uncles died in 1088 and 1095. In 1101, Berenguer Ramon, still childless, reached an accord with his first cousins, Ramon Renard and Guillem Renard de La Roca, that designated them as possible heirs and bound them in fidelity to the lord of Montcada. The pact was duly sealed by an exchange of rights in their respective lordships and by the commending to one another of designated castlans. The arrangement, which balanced concessions and promises, established the Montcada lord as the feudal superior of Ramon Renard and Guillem Renard de La Roca and also provided for a succession to the patrimony in the absence of direct heirs.⁽⁶⁰⁾

The Montcada patrimony remained cohesive in the eleventh century largely because the chiefs of the lineage administered their lordships directly or with the carefully circumscribed participation of collateral members of the family. For nearly a hundred years after Guillem's acquisition of Montcada, the patrimony remained safe from internal or external encroachments. This apparent tranquillity may have resulted from the sparsity of other major landlords near Montcada. The Montcadas appear to have had the territory to themselves, apart from the holdings in the Vallès of the monasteries of Sant Cugat and Sant Llorenç del Munt and the cathedral chapter of Barcelona.⁽⁶¹⁾ But there was one exception, and it was full of portent for the future of the lineage.

The first mention of dealings by the lord of Montcada with another important castellan family came in 1117, when Berenguer Ramon married his daughter Beatriu to Guillem Ramon [II] Seneschal and gave the couple his Montcada inheritance. The document reveals that Guillem Ramon, who as heir to the lordship of Sentmenat had interests close to those of the Montcadas in the Vallès, would retain the inheritance after Beatriu's death even if they had no heirs, "because of the missions which he has done there [in the Montcada lordships] and because of the service which he has done for us so far and ought to do in the future."⁽⁶²⁾ This implies [59] that Guillem Ramon [II] had earlier assisted Berenguer Ramon de Montcada as a friend and ally. His marriage to Beatriu grew out of this relationship, providing Berenguer Ramon with an heir whose patrimony and political importance nearly matched his own.

With the marriage of Beatriu de Montcada to Guillem Ramon [II] came a break in the Montcada pattern of direct male descent. Until this time the patrimony had passed only to mature sons. Previous Montcada lords seem to have consciously chosen to marry late in life, generally between the age of thirty and forty. This practice, linked to life expectancies of sixty years or more, caused a spacing of generations that helped forestall competition between fathers and sons for dominance in administering the family lands.⁽⁶³⁾ Guillem, for example, was probably born in the 980s, judging from the earliest ages at which he could have appeared as an official of the count and given testimony before tribunals.⁽⁶⁴⁾ Thus he was probably between thirty and forty years old during the years 1017-1025, when he took Adelaida as his bride, and between fifty and sixty at his death in 1040. In that year his eldest son, Ramon Guillem, was probably about fifteen. Ramon Guillem in turn seems to have been about forty when his son Berenguer Ramon was born (circa 1065). The custom of late marriage was continued by Berenguer Ramon, who was childless in 1101 when he destined his patrimony [60] for his cousins. His marriage to Ermessenda must have occurred soon after, because by 1117 his daughter Beatriu was of marriageable age. Berenguer Ramon died in his sixties, in 1134.

It is more difficult to chart the ages of Montcada women, who, with the exception of Adelaida, are virtually unknown historical personalities. Adelaida had come of age by 1017, when she agreed to the sale of her family's patrimony. She died sometime after 1063, the last known year in which she made a donation to an ecclesiastical establishment.⁽⁶⁵⁾ If she was near twenty in 1017, she would have been in her sixties in 1063. Ramon Guillem's wife is completely unknown; even her name is a mystery. But she bore Ramon Guillem at least two children. Ermessenda, the wife of Berenguer Ramon, is known only obliquely through two appearances with her husband, whom she apparently did not survive. Though the three eleventh-century Montcada wives offer little information upon which to base firm conclusions, it can be inferred from the date of Adelaida's death, fifteen years after her husband, and from Beatriu's youth at the time of her marriage to Guillem Ramon [II] that noblewomen married at prime child-bearing ages. This practice offered a good chance of producing heirs, and the male custom of marrying late added stability to a patriarchal family.

Another way of limiting competition among heirs for a share in the patrimony was to restrict the number of sons allowed to marry. This was done as early as the beginning of the eleventh century, when Guillem de Montcada [I] was the only one of three brothers to marry; one other entered the church and the last remained single until his death in 1040. In the next generation, only two of six sons married -- the eldest, Ramon Guillem, and the third son, Renard Guillem (whose marriage did not occur until he had received the castle of La Roca and perhaps that of Castellolí). These developments had the effect of establishing a collateral line rather than dividing the Montcada patrimony. This new house was then transmitted undivided to Renard Guillem's sons Ramon and Guillem; but only Ramon married. Two other brothers of Ramon Guillem de Montcada were archdeacons of Barcelona, and [61] another two almost certainly did not marry. One of Ramon Guillem's sons died young, enabling the second to take a wife. Two children were born to Berenguer Ramon, the daughter and heiress, Beatriu, and a son, Guillem, perhaps illegitimate or handicapped, who was entrusted as a child in Berenguer Ramon's will to the care of the monastery of Santa Maria de l'Estany.⁽⁶⁶⁾

Through the heritage of Guillem Ramon [I] Seneschal, the ascendance of a new lineage of magnates can be traced.⁽⁶⁷⁾ The Seneschal achieved prominence in the late eleventh century by accumulating fiefs and influence with counts of Barcelona and bishops of Vic rather than by exploiting an inherited aristocratic patrimony. But by the year 1100, the result was much the same: lordship exercised in castle districts held as fiefs was hardly distinguishable from that practiced by a territorial lord like Berenguer Ramon de Montcada. When Guillem Ramon [I] died in 1120, he left to his sons a patrimony acquired during his lifetime in the counties of Barcelona, Girona, and Osona.⁽⁶⁸⁾

The chief possessions of Guillem Ramon [I] in the county of Barcelona was the castle district of Sentmenat and the seneschalcy of Barcelona. His connection to Sentmenat is attested as early as 1083, when he and a brother, Arbert Ramon, lent 1,000 mancusos from their property to Mahalta, widow of the assassinated Cap d'Estopes. In return, the countess pledged to them the "tenths, usages and services" in the franchedas (lands in theory exempt from banal dues) that fell within Guillem Ramon's and Arbert Ramon's [62] parts of the castle district.⁽⁶⁹⁾ This alienation suggests that the counts of Barcelona still had some control over Sentmenat; it is possible that Guillem Ramon's and Arbert Ramon's rights there were of recent origin and came from the count. By 1120 Guillem Ramon also held in the western Vallès rights to the lord's tenth from vines and other revenues in the "castle and monastery" of Sant Cugat, rights probably granted him by the count of Barcelona. Less tangible was the office of seneschal. The title first appeared in apposition to Guillem Ramon's name in 1068. As far as can be determined by charter evidence, the title conferred only prestige, and there is no reason to believe that Guillem Ramon's role as a vassal of the count differed significantly from that of others who belonged to Ramon Berenguer's inner circle. Within the space of a lifetime, however, this title, like the fiefs granted by counts and bishops, was assimilated into the patrimony of Guillem Ramon [I].

Before 1083, however, Guillem Ramon [I] also had links to the county of Girona, which may have been his birthplace. There he held rights to the castles of Cartellà, Bescanó, Hostoles, and possibly also to the castle of Estella in the valley of Amer.⁽⁷⁰⁾ His relation to the church is documented at an even earlier date. In a convention of 1077 the abbot of Sant Feliu de Guíxols recalled that Arnau Ramon de Girona's land had been given to Mir Foguet and to Guillem Ramon and his brother Bernat Ramon in exchange for their promise of military service.⁽⁷¹⁾ The three men had actually received this land prior to the agreement -- the principal objective of which was to ratify Guillem Ramon's donation of his portion to his brother Bernat Ramon.⁽⁷²⁾ Possession of the former lands of Arnau Ramon de Girona was still in dispute a decade later. In 1086 Guillem Ramon and his brother Arbert Ramon accepted the renunciation by a Bernat Guillem and his wife, Guisle, of that honor. [63] The document was witnessed by Viscount Ponç Guerau, an ally of Guillem Ramon Seneschal in the wake of the assassination of the Cap d'Estopes.⁽⁷³⁾

Guillem Ramon's will of 1120 reveals other ties to the county of Girona. He held allods at Ginestar and at Prat and the manse of Riu at Santa Maria de Fornells. His fiefs indicated several ties to the church: properties and wardships held from Sant Feliu de Guíxols and from the archdeacon of Roadons, and a manse at Palomer held from the sacristan of Girona.⁽⁷⁴⁾ Guillem Ramon had at an early date also held property in the city of Girona.⁽⁷⁵⁾ He may have had some rights, too, at the city fortifications of Sobreporta and Gerundella. These and the castle of Estella were included  among fiefs that Ramon Berenguer IV restored to Guillem Ramon [II] at the conclusion of their dispute in 1136.⁽⁷⁶⁾ Finally, Guillem Ramon [I] chose to be buried at the monastery of Santa Maria d'Amer. This indicates an attachment to the region -- quite possibly that of a native son.

In Osona, Guillem Ramon [I] had been invested with castles and fiefs. By 1120 he could leave to his heirs fiefs held from Gauceran de Pinós; castles, lords' reserves, and fiefs held from Berenguer de Queralt; a pledge made by Berenguer de Queralt worth 40 morabetins; and a fourth of the church of Sant Andreu de Gurb, held by Pere Ramon de Tarradel as a pledge for one caballaria of land.⁽⁷⁷⁾ More important were the castles that he obtained as fiefs, especially during the episcopate of Berenguer Seniofred de Lluçà (1078-1099). Early acquisitions were the castles of Voltrega, Orís, Solterra (from 1088), and Besora (before 1089). As intermediate lord in these properties, Guillem Ramon served the bishop of Vic directly when required but appointed a castlà to remain in each castle.⁽⁷⁸⁾ By 1120 he also commanded the castles of Malla, Tord, and Tornamira.⁽⁷⁹⁾ But the centerpiece of Guillem Ramon's lordship in [64] Osona was the "comital tower" or castle of Vic, at the summit of the city, which he had acquired by 1099. Through his possession of this citadel he could pressure the bishop for an increased share of the profits of the lordship in Vic.

Guillem Ramon's command of castles in Osona and Girona contributed to his importance during his fifty years as seneschal of the count of Barcelona. But, unlike some magnates, his rights to castles and lands came mostly through infeodations from lay or ecclesiastical lords. It is thus unlikely that Guillem Ramon [I] was the heir of a powerful territorial magnate. But he probably belonged to that level of the Catalan ruling class from which such lords claimed descent. He was, in the language of the late eleventh century, a comitor, though a modest one, perhaps a younger son or nephew of the head of a lineage.⁽⁸⁰⁾

Admitted to the innermost councils of the count, and astute in his relations with other magnates, Guillem Ramon converted the emoluments and even the title of his office into a personal patrimony that could be transmitted to his sons, Guillem Ramon [II] and Ot. The legacy was divided between them in his will, though the rights of Guillem Ramon [II] apparently had priority. He was the one who married; Ot received the right to succeed to his father's domains only if his brother died without legitimate heirs.⁽⁸¹⁾ But Guillem Ramon's marriage to the heiress of the Montcada lordship was fruitful and his life long, and Ot's chance to succeed never materialized. Though he sometimes appeared as "seneschal" or "dapifer" in twelfth-century documents, Ot's career was overshadowed by that of his brother, who became a leader among the magnates of Catalonia.

1. See Ramon d'Abadal i de Vinyals, Els primers comtes catalans, 2^nd ed. (Barcelona, 1965), pp. 73-114.

2. The agents of the count received rents for its use. For example, in 1003 a peasant's third of an orchard produced a revenue of three deniers (see Catalogne, p.210).

3. This may have been the meaning in 1022 of a donation of "servitia atque obsequia hominum" along with the "fiscos" in the castle district of Sallent (ACA BR I:40).

4. There is evidence to show that in this period some vicars were purchasing castles (Catalogne, p. 174). Bonnassie also cites evidence for the heritability of the vice-comital office in the late tenth century (ibid., pp. 170-71). The vicar's office might well have followed the same pattern.

5. According to Bonnassie (ibid., pp. 155-60), all residents of castle districts, whether they worked their own lands held in free allod (mostly acquired by aprisio, a medieval equivalent of homesteading) or land held from the fisc, were liable for the functio (military service, fortress construction, maintenance, and guard; and aid for certain public works), a census or tribute (rights of hospitality and levies in kind on produce, livestock, and cured meats), and usage taxes such as pasturage fees. Regarding the pasturage fees, a document of 957 showed them as a royal right (res regalis) shared between the church of Vic (one-third) and the count (and/or his vicars?).

6. Both existed in Catalonia. For a discussion of land rents, see Catalogne, pp. 248-54.

7. ACV Lib. dot. 138r-v. This domain probably became allodial through alienation by the count to one of his agents.

8. ACB Div. C/b/331² (formerly capsa 7). This document is classified according to the date of 331¹, which is 1085.

9. Pasqual, "Sacra," 3:15.

10. Documents of the tenth and early eleventh centuries attest to the existence of persons with titles such as centenarius, tribunus, and ministerialis, but their role in the comital administration is difficult to determine. Their place in the hierarchy of officials was clearly lower than that of vicars, however (examples for the centenarius are in Glossarium mediae latinitatis Cataloniae, col. 478).

11. Pasqual, "Sacra," 3:15.

12. The fact that the bishop's signature does not head the list in the second group does not weaken the argument that Guillem's name in the first was most prominent, because bishops often signed conspicuously in the middle of blank spaces, leaving space above and below for other signatures or subscriptions that in transcriptions would be placed ahead of theirs.

13. Though the designation of Guillem Ató as a knight and thus as a member of a "nouvelle couche nobiliaire" (Catalogne, p. 797) did not appear until 1049, Guillem Ató appears to have been in Guillem de Montcada's service from 1014 or earlier. The problem of his place in society remains unsolved, however. Was he primarily a cultivator of land -- a rich peasant (see ibid., pp. 800-01) -- or did service to the vicar or lord of a castle relieve him from manual labor?

14. ACA S. Llorenç: 105. This marks an important turning point in Guillem's family, which from this moment was endowed with a "noble house." "The house of a noble becomes a noble house when it becomes the center and the independent and durable point of crystallization of a lineage to which it confers power" (Karl Schmid, "Zur Problematik von Familie, Sippe und Geschlecht, Haus und Dynastie beim mittelalterhichen Adel," in Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins [1957], 105 : see also Georges Duby, "La noblesse dans la France médiévale: Une enquête à poursuivre," in Revue historique [1961], 226: 11.) Guillem's family was linked by name to this castle within a few years of its acquisition, and the identification was so strong that it survived the extinction of the line in direct male descent.

15. ACA S. Llorenç:74. See also Map 1.

16. Mondéjar, "Historia," fols. 72v-73r.

17. ACA BR I:68. Guillem's policy of investing in land in the region surrounding Montcada was continued by his widow Adelaida in the 1040s. She made a purchase and resale of land in Reixac in 1041 or 1042 (ACB Lib. ant. 2:209v:650 [Mas 9:247:528] and 2:183v:540 [Mas 9:251-52:538]); a purchase in Sant Andreu de Palomar in 1044 (ACB Lib. ant. 2:51v:137 [Mas 9:262:562]); a purchase in Sant Andreu de Palomar in 1048 (ACB Lib. ant. 2:51r:135 [Mas 9:280:605]); and a sale in Matabous before 1055 (ACB Lib. ant. 2:229r-v:729 [Mas 9:317:693]). In 1048 she was cited as holding mills at Clot (ACA RB I:99) and in 1049 on the Beses at Montcada (ACB Lib. ant. 3:85r:225 [not registered in Mas]).

18. In 1056 Adelaida donated to the church of Barcelona land at Sant Andreu de Palomar that she had acquired as a gift from "the prince of Barcelona, lord Ramon" (ACB Div. A:287). An accounting of the bequests of Countess Elisabet from the late 1040s (ACA s.f. RB I:44, published by José E. Ruiz Domenec in "El sentido de la riqueza en el condado de Barcelona en el siglo XI," in Miscellanea Barcinonensia [1975], 4:59-60) includes a donation to Adelaida of 50 mancusos.

19. ACAS. Llorenç:125.

20. In a convention of 1048 Ramon Berenguer envisaged "delivering [to Mir Suniello] the mill that Adelaida de Montcada holds at Clotum mellis or making for him [her?] another mill beyond the Fenestrelas pass" (ACA RB I:99). The language suggests that all the mills were held by comital concession.

21. See Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L.A. Manyon (Chicago and London, 1961), p. 251, and Catalogne, pp. 580-84.

22. See CSC 2:161-63:509 for the first of many records of litigation.

23. ACB Div. C/b/82 (formerly carpeta 1).

24. ACA RB I:43.

25. For Bonnassie, castlans were "adventurers, upon occasion bounty-hunters, warring from day to day in the service of one [lord] or another depending on the conflicts, [who] constituted the scum of a society that had started down a path of violence from which there was no return" (Catalogne, p. 573).

26. ACV Lib. dot. 142v-44r.

27. ACA BR II:19. On the practice of commending one's vassals to other lords, see Poly and Bournazel, Mutation féodale, pp. 142-43.

28. Berenguer Ramon entrusted the castle to Ramon Mir and gave him the fief held by his father, Mir Amalric, from Ramon Guillem de Montcada (ACA RB III:79). Ramon Mir's father was perhaps a brother of Ramon Amairic "de Montcada," who witnessed a donation of an allod in Mollet (near Montcada) in 1080 (ACB Lib. ant. 3:2r-3r:6 [Mas 10:141:989]).

29. Catalogne, pp. 209-11 and 746-48.

30. ACA RB III:143.

31. ADP-O Série B, liasse 93, n. 15.

32. ACA RB III:79.

33. ACA RB III:201.

34. Catalogne, pp. 749-51.

35. Ibid.

36. The text reads "qui non abent ibi mansum." Here the term mansum apparently refers to an agricultural exploitation, not just a house.

37. The peasant estatge, according to Bonnassie, evolved from the military service that was due from all free men into servile labor (Catalogne, p. 588).

38. ACA RB III:206.

39. See Catalogne, pp. 764-71.

40. See ibid., pp. 751-52.

41. ACA RB III:79.

42. "Profit from jurisdiction," according to J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus (Leiden, 1976), p. 804, citing a Catalonian source of 1067.

43. ACA RB III:206.

44. ACA RB III: 199.

45. ACA RB III:256.

46. ACB Div. C/c/487 (formerly carpeta 2).

47. Bernat Ruvira donated allods from the domain at Súria to the See of Vic in 1040. Adelaida left her acquisitions in Sant Andreu de Palomar to the See of Barcelona in 1056, and Berenguer Ramon de Montcada left allods in Muntanyola and the allod of Casanova to a monastery and a church at his death in 1134.

48. ACA RB III:199.

49. ACA BR II:20.

50. ACA BR II:19.

51. Lands of the public domain treated as allods could be called "feudal allods"; see Catalogne, p. 214.

52. A castle lord's influence could extend to the city as well. In 1115 the wealthy Barcelona burgher Ricard Guillem bequeathed to his son Bernat Ricard a fief at Montcada, to his son Pere Ricard a fief held from Guillem Ramon Seneschal, and to his son Gauceran Ricard a fief he held at La Roca (ACA RB III:187).

53. See Catalogne, pp. 809-12.

54. CSC 3:25-26:822.

55. Bonnassie, examining the nature of the family in Catalonia around the year 1000 (Catalogne, pp. 258-82), found evidence of a society perhaps turning from a system of equal status in agnate and cognate filiation to a primarily patriarchal system that tended, at least in the aristocratic layers, to favor one male heir, though equal division among all heirs (male and female) remained frequent.

56. The only known eleventh-century will of a Montcada descendant is that of Renard Guillem de La Roca (ABC 8723 2-VIII-1). It mentions no daughters and leaves most movable goods to Renard Guillem's wife.

57. "Casa," pp. 137-38; AHN SS Creus, carpetas 2776:14 and 2785:5, 15.

58. ACV Lib. dot. 142v-44r.

59. ACA BR II: 18, 19.

60. ACA RB III:66.

61. Alienations to these ecclesiastical institutions were constant throughout the eleventh century. Donations ranging from small pieces of land to whole castle districts were made by all classes, especially as pious testamentary legacies. The castle district of Castellar, once sold by Guillem de Montcada and Adelaida to the counts of Barcelona, became a gift to Sant Llorenç del Munt in this way.

62. ACA RB III:199.

63. These findings, so far as they go, contradict Bonnassie's judgment that "la brièveté de la vie humaine provoque -- phénomène bien connu -- un écrasement des générations (bien qu'aucun indice ne permette de se prononcer sur ce point, on peut penser que les écarts d'âge entre parents et enfants sont très réduits)" (Catalogne, p. 271). Data from Montcada family show that three successive fathers were aged thirty or over at the births of their first sons. A late marriage (at thirty-five) was also made by Arnau Mir de Tost, an important castellan in the county of Urgell (Josep Lladonosa, Arnau Mir de Tost, Episodis de la historia, no. 183 [Barcelona, 1974], p. 7). It is therefore not surprising that grandparents were rarely mentioned in the charters, a finding that Bonnassie uses to strengthen his hypothesis of short life-spans and close generations.

64. The legal age in eleventh-century Catalonia is open to question. Bonnassie believes it was fourteen and, in exceptions, earlier (Catalogne, p. 271); there is some evidence for this, especially related to the succession of counts. But I believe that, more generally, noble families viewed twenty as the age of majority for their sons. This is suggested by probable ages of birth and transmission of patrimony in the Montcada family and confirmed by the fact that Pere Amat, son of Amat Eldric, became a ward of Ramon Mir d'Aguda "usque ad xx annos" (LFM 1:440-41:419).

65. CSC 2:294:630. This capped a series of donations of property in the territory of Barcelona to the See. Earlier donations date from 1062 (ACB Lib. ant. 2:51r-v:136 [Mas 10:46:783] and 1062 (ACB Div. A:287).

66. Joseph H. Lynch, Simoniacal Entry into Religious Life from 1000 to 1260 (Columbus, Ohio, 1976), pp. 41-45, has assembled evidence for the practice of placing physically or mentally handicapped children in monasteries.

67. There are few clues to Guillem Ramon [I]'s inheritance from his forebears. The absence of a patronymic may indicate modest social origins; in any case, it makes the quest for ancestors very difficult.

68. The badly damaged original of the testament is preserved as ACA Amer: 14. For a reconstituted version, see Antoni M. Aragó, "El monestir d'Amer i els seus promoters," in Annals, Patronat d'estudis histerics d'Olot i comarca (1978 [1979]), pp. 345-48.

69. ACA BR II:2. Compare comment by Bonnassie (Catalogne, p. 810).

70. He is attested as lord of Cartellà in 1085 (ACA BR II:21) and of Bescanó and Hostoles in 1120 (ACA Amer: 14); his son as lord of Estella in 1136 (LFM 1:480-81:457). On the location of Estella, see Jaime Marqués Casanovas, "Los castillos de Estela y Rocasalva, vigías del valle de Amer," in Revista de Gerona (1969), 48:24-27.

71. ACA RB II:21.

72. The land must originally have been commended sometime between 1067 or 1068 (when Pere Gauçfred was abbot) and 1077. See VL 15:8-9.

73. ACA BR II:26.

74. ACA Amer: 14.

75. A donation of 1082 revealed that a house near the church of Santa Maria de la Puella was held in fief from Guillem Ramon Seneschal and his brother Arbert (Ramon) (ACG Llibre gran de sacristia maior, f°54r-v).

76. LFM 1:480-81:457.

77. ACA Amer:14.

78. See ACA BR II:58, a convention that established Guadal Sanç and his nephew Bernat Gondebal as castlans of Besora.

79. Guillem Ramon's ties to Malla are documented in ACV Lib. dot. 123v-124r (1116) and to Tord in ACV Lib. Dot. 116r-v (1118). His rights to Tornamira are first attested in his will of 1120 (ACA Amer:14).

80. Like Renard Guillem de La Roca, younger brother of Ramon Guillem de Montcada. On comitors, see Catalogne, pp. 785-88.

81. ACA Amer:14.