[1]Vic is today a city of more than 30,000 inhabitants at the center of a plain, some sixty kilometers north of Barcelona. Despite its proximity to Barcelona, the town is somewhat isolated. The Plain of Vic is a narrow sedimentary basin hemmed in by substantial hills to the west and south (see map 1). The solitary but massive bulk of Montseny to the southeast cuts off the mild influence of the Mediterranean. East of the city begins the rugged and thinly populated terrain of the Guilleries, refuge of the notorious seventeenth-century outlaw Joan de Serrallonga. One hundred kilometers north of Vic are the high Pyrenees.

The Plain of Vic runs from La Vall de Congost at the southern extreme to Sant Quirze de Besora in the north, a distance of forty-five kilometers. The continental climate of the plain differs dramatically from the maritime condition of nearby Barcelona and Girona.⁽¹⁾ Because of its altitude and separation from the sea, Vic is more humid than the coast and colder, suffering through heavy, chilling fog on days that are warm and bright in Barcelona.

Despite the difficult climate and obstacles to communication, Vic and its plain were prosperous during the Middle Ages and have remained so. The soil is light and easily worked, and the [3] rainfall is adequate. Regional markets for agricultural products existed as early as the ninth century, became well established in the eleventh, and by the twelfth handled foreign goods, notably Flemish cloth.⁽²⁾

International trade expanded in the thirteenth century (merchants of Vic appear in Italy and Valencia at this time), and the same period marks the beginning of the leather industry.⁽³⁾ Tanning and sausage processing remain the best-known enterprises of this quietly wealthy part of modern Catalonia.

During Roman and Visigothic times, the town was called Ausona. In the eighth and ninth centuries Islamic incursions and local rebellions against the Franks largely, although not entirely, depopulated the plain. For over 50 years the town remained apparently deserted until, in 880, it was re-established by Count Guifré "the Hairy" of Barcelona. Joining the count in resettling the town and its surroundings was the newly appointed bishop of Ausona (from 886), the first since the initial Muslim sweep 150 years previously.⁽⁴⁾ The partnership established between the count and the bishop in the ninth century resulted in the bestowal of extensive secular powers on the church in addition to its normal spiritual functions. Like their colleagues in other Catalan dioceses, such as Urgell and Elne, and like bishops in Rhineland Germany, the bishops of Ausona possessed the right to judge crimes (keeping the fines and other profits of judgment), collect taxes on such things as markets and tolls, create new settlements, and defend the land. Although clearly subordinate to the count and chosen by him, the bishops were important representatives of public authority. The alliance and common purpose between the count of Barcelona and the bishop of Ausona-Vic would remain strong until 1100.

At the time the city was rebuilt, the count had a castle constructed on the ruins of a Roman temple situated on a hill near the Mèder river. Early in the tenth century it was given to a viscount for the newly formed county of Ausona. The church established its own center south of the castle on the outskirts (vicus) of the Roman city. Thus a double town was created. As the jurisdiction of the bishop became more effective than that of the [4] viscount, the name Ausona was supplanted by Vic. Beginning in the tenth century, the designation vicus came to be applied to the entire town, a process completed in the thirteenth century, while the county continued to be known as Ausona or, as it has been called in recent times, Osona.⁽⁵⁾

The county of Ausona formed part of the core of medieval Catalonia. This older, northeastern part of Catalonia, comprising the present provinces of Girona, Lleida (the eastern part), and Barcelona, is commonly known as Catalunya Vella (Old CataIonia), to distinguish it from the territories conquered after 1100. Old Catalonia included the eastern Pyrenees as well as the more easily cultivated land in the foothills first resettled in the ninth century by migrants from the cramped, densely populated mountain valleys.⁽⁶⁾ The Plain of Vic was a frontier territory during the ninth and tenth centuries. To the west and south, in regions forming part of the diocese, but not the county, of Ausona, frontier conditions lasted well into the eleventh century (see map 2).

In the twelfth century the count of Barcelona extended his hegemony beyond the borders of Old Catalonia. After a century of profitable dealings with Islamic client states, the House of Barcelona finally marshaled its superior force in a concerted effort at reconquest. Tarragona fell in 1118 (and was fully occupied by 1130), Tortosa in 1148, and Lleida in 1149. The marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV to the heiress of Aragon in 1150 made the future counts of Barcelona the kings of Aragon and sealed the success of southward and westward expansion. In the succeeding century the ambitions of the count-kings would be checked in Languedoc, but their southern conquests would extend beyond Valencia, and a network of commercial and political power would radiate from Barcelona throughout the Mediterranean.

In the heady climate of conquest and consolidation, the count-kings neglected older parts of Catalonia such as Vic, an attitude paralleled by modern historical study, which has tended to prefer the obvious dynamism of the new frontier over what is dismissed as a backward part of the lands of the Crown of Aragon, archaic in social organization and economic development and [6] lacking in creativity. It is often thought that in Old Catalonia the relationships between landlords and tenants remained seigneurial, in contrast to the freedom of the frontier peasantry, that towns were unable to achieve autonomy, whereas even villages on the frontier governed themselves, and that old cathedral chapters remained supreme, in contrast to the power of the king, the new military orders, aristocrats, and royal monasteries further south. Historians become intensely interested in Old Catalonia only at the point at which the fifteenth-century uprisings and the civil war of the Remença begin. Between the era of the first Catalan counts and that of the Remença, attention has been concentrated on Catalonia's periphery, not (except for the city of Barcelona itself) on its center.⁽⁷⁾

Catalunya Vella was indeed more traditional than the frontier, but it is not at all clear that the region was less free or progressive. The existence of peasant revolts in the fifteenth century does not prove a rigid and unenlightened social structure with roots in the twelfth century.⁽⁸⁾ Was the post-frontier era in regions such as Vic a time of decadence? One historian's "decadence" may be another's "consolidation," and such words mask a complex and interesting reality. It is worth examining the condition of the diocese of Vic at this time in comparison with twelfth-century Europe generally and with all times of rapid expansion that appear to leave becalmed earlier regions of development. I propose to look at the cathedral of Vic from three perspectives: as a force in society before and during the twelfth century, as part of the political structure of Catalan government, and as an institution in decline faced with the necessity of painful adaptation.

It is true, as Robert Brentano remarked for the Italian diocese of Rieti, that a single cathedral chapter can speak to us through its records only about itself.⁽⁹⁾ One tries, nevertheless, to draw lessons of wide application that can be compared with conditions for other churches. This effort must be made in order to arrive at an understanding of the medieval church as it really was, behind the drama of papal-imperial conflicts, crusades, and heretical movements. Comparison must be undertaken while respecting the individuality of the specific church and its region. There should be reflection and leisured consideration of local peculiarities and intricacies. From the seventeenth century, when Juan Luis Moncada wrote his Episcopologio de la Iglesia de Vich, this church has received sympathetic and informed treatment.⁽¹⁰⁾ Its immense archival holdings, largely intact except for damage from the Spanish Civil War, have been sporatically exploited. The records, both exceptional and routine, provide an unusual opportunity for understanding a bishop and chapter of canons at work. Beyond its local importance, the history ofVic illustrates the social role of the church and its responses to the power of secular authorities and to a climate of diminished opportunities.

One of the major tasks of medieval historians has been to chart the expansion and rebirth of European power and culture in the twelfth century. However, attention to growth should not eclipse entirely the record of older centers of power and culture. Vic was one of the political centers of a precociously well-organized part of Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The cathedral of Vic and the monastery of Ripoll had schools that were renowned centers of liturgical and mathematical learning. Vic was one of a number of islands of intellectual endeavor, spiritual force, and political vitality (Liège, Laon, and Auxerre are other examples) whose greatest years were during the tenth and eleventh centuries.⁽¹¹⁾ What would be their fate in the exuberant twelfth century? What takes place in cities and regions no longer on the geographic or intellectual frontier?

Some parts of this older Europe simply gave up their earlier pre-eminence and became somnolent. Other places managed to be decadent without ever having been focuses of civilization. Although the church of Vic was not as prosperous as it had been, and although the displacement of the Islamic frontier made the county of Ausona more isolated, the region remained wealthy. Its economy expanded, and its church was, paradoxically (or, by reason of neglect, logically), more independent than ever before -- more independent not only of the count-kings but of the increasingly powerful papal government as well. The twelfth century was a time of creativity, to be sure, creativity made [8] necessary by change. It was a period of tension between the desire to hold to a heroic past and the need to adapt to the absence of secular protection.
 

THE CHURCH IN SOCIETY

Two topics and their interrelation underlie most modern considerations of the European church in the twelfth century: reform and bureaucracy. Spirituality was renewed by the crusades, by new and more rigorous monastic orders, such as the Carthusians and Cistercians, and by consolidation of the Gregorian reform effort to release the church from lay domination. Innovation and freedom were accompanied by an increasing centralization in Rome. The pope led the crusades and reform; he was the arbiter of church government and discipline. The pope increased his power at the expense of the bishops, whose power had always been not merely close to but actually part of that of the local aristocracy. Centralization in Rome moved the bishops away from the regional nobility and toward the rationalized papacy and the bureaucratic state.

The church of Vic stood apart from both the bureaucratic and the reformist side of these developments. It remained an intensely local church, participating only minimally in the thoughts and decisions of the two powers to which it was subject: the universal church and the Catalan secular government. Novelties such as Cistercian piety, appeals to papal judgment, and the military orders spawned by the crusades were of marginal significance to the diocese. A center for neither mystical nor militant spirituality, Vic adhered to an older outlook and custom, that of an aristocratic, liturgical church, organized around a local elite, protective of its secular jurisdiction, traditional in its organization and habits of mind.

The twelfth-century church and its components are often portrayed in terms of a tension between reformist and bureaucratic impulses, what one observer calls its "spirituality" as opposed to its "administration."⁽¹²⁾ Prominent figures of the time are chosen to represent either its emotional, personal piety or its administrative [9] and legal activity. Some were pulled in both directions.⁽¹³⁾ But there is little record of either of these leadership styles in Vic.⁽¹⁴⁾ What is worth observing at Vic are less the proclivities of individual bishops than the means by which the cathedral community fit into lay society -- how powerful it was, what rights it held, what groups challenged it. How strong was this church during the twelfth century, and did its power shift once its bishops were no longer the intimates of the counts? The archives offer detailed (although scattered) evidence regarding preservation of ecclesiastical rights over such things as taxes, judgments, castles, and land. The disputes arising from attempts to protect such rights demonstrate more than mere litigiousness and illuminate the effectiveness and attitudes of the cathedral. To consider the social position of the church also means coming to some conclusions regarding the Gregorian reform and how its doctrine of separating the church from the corruption of lay society affected this region. Was an effective local system destroyed in the name of reform by an imported, virtually colonial movement?⁽¹⁵⁾ Or did the reform perhaps revitalize an absurdly decayed institution?⁽¹⁶⁾ Did the reforms have no real effect at all? In many respects, the Gregorian reform redefined what the church was in relation to lay society. To evaluate that change, one needs to understand how the church functioned within secular life.
 

THE CHURCH AND THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE

It is one of the commonplaces of medieval history that the state had to struggle simultaneously with two forces: the disintegrating influence of private loyalty (feudalism), and the claims of the universal church for immunity within kingdoms and for the right to arbitrate among them. By the fourteenth century the medieval kingdom was in many parts of Europe a well-developed enterprise headed by a strong monarch commanding a centralized bureaucracy, independent of nobility, church, and bourgeoisie. Such kingdoms were not only an anticipation of the so-called new monarchies of the Renaissance but also the direct ancestors of the modern state.⁽¹⁷⁾ Modern awareness of this [10] precocious development has led to emphasis on the process of state building -- how the pathetically weak kings of the post-Carolingian period assembled their power and why some areas became strong states while others did not.

Catalonia's situation is peculiar because its rulers were never eclipsed in their power to the degree that their northern colleagues were. Catalan government did not have to begin with a fragmented political structure; it did not have to be reconstructed from nothing after the Carolingian debacle. Its government during the ninth through eleventh century prolonged the polity of the Carolingians on a smaller scale, preserving the superiority of public to private authority, maintaining control of land, and, above all, ruling in a combined secular and ecclesiastical manner in which the church formed part of the central government.⁽¹⁸⁾

Another unusual feature of Catalonia -- one shared with the rest of Iberia -- was the presence of an unstable border with Islam. The frontier meant danger, but it also encouraged a sense of unity and a certain enterprising spirit of the sort that frontiers are often said to foster. The proximity of Islam touched the government in many ways, from the influx of Islamic tributary gold in the early eleventh century to the policies for settling Christian migrants. The frontier and the Reconquest have been assigned responsibility for the way in which Iberian states were formed, the nature of political theory in Spain, and, ultimately, the peculiar character and destiny of the Spanish people.⁽¹⁹⁾

Two forces thus shaped government in Catalonia: the strength of secular authority at a time (the ninth to eleventh century) when it was in decline elsewhere, and the frontier spirit of the Reconquista during the period of Catalan expansion (the twelfth through fourteenth century). Of the two forces, the first was intimately associated with the history of Vic; the second bypassed it. In the centuries in which Catalonia was formed, the bishops of Vic were not merely counselors to the rulers but partners in a shared secular and ecclesiastical form of government. In keeping with Carolingian tradition, the episcopal (and, for that matter, monastic) office was an aspect of secular lordship, while the count was at least partially a spiritual figure.⁽²⁰⁾ Such merging of [11] responsibilities encouraged abuses, for example, the buying and selling of clerical office (simony), but it also provided benefits, such as the active role the church assumed in protecting civilians (the Peace and Truce movements) and in settling new lands.

By the twelfth century the partnership between bishop and count had changed as the count's attentions and basis of power shifted. The bishops of Old Catalonia, and especially the bishop of Vic, were no longer of great importance for the count. His power rested on newer, stronger foundations than those of ecclesiastical sanction. Islamic tribute and aristocratic personal loyalty lay at his command, and the frontier offered greater opportunities than did the historic core territories such as Vic.⁽²¹⁾ The new frontier would be settled, in the twelfth century and beyond, by means quite different from those employed on the first frontier. Cathedral chapters would be irrelevant in comparison to the king himself, the military orders, notable magnates, and the Cistercian order of monks. What happened to the cathedral of Vic when the ideological and political basis for its lordship ended, when the count no longer protected it? It did not simply wither away -- its power was firmly rooted in the region -- but it had to compromise and arrive at an accommodation with its more precarious status.

The evolution of the bishopric of Vic in the eleventh and twelfth centuries cannot be separated from the history of Catalonia as a whole. The diocese was affected by events outside its borders, events that took place offstage, as it were, on the southern and western frontiers of Catalonia. Yet this movement of activity to the frontier does not mean that the core areas ceased to be important. It is true, for Catalonia as elsewhere, that the advance of a frontier influences which regions of a country are prosperous or creative.⁽²²⁾ But the lure of opportunity on the frontier does not mean that older places inevitably lapse into stagnation. When parts of the diocese of Vic lay on the frontier (the ninth through the eleventh century), the bishops played an integral part in the making of the Catalan nation. This "heroic" period will be one focus of attention here, but so will the persistent strength and creativity of the church in the twelfth century. [12] In many respects the ability of the church to adapt to a new, less heroic role demanded as much flexibility and innovation as did settling the frontier, and its survival as a powerful institution, as well as the overall prosperity of Vic in the twelfth century, should serve to demonstrate the vitality of Catalunya Vella, of the center of the country.
 

DECLINE AND ADAPTATION

The frontier problem shades into the question of decline and the nature of the church's adaptation to its more marginal status. There can be no doubt that the lordship and prestige of the cathedral of Vic declined after 1090 for reasons having to do with political shifts and changes in the attitude of the counts of Barcelona. Although the following pages will dwell on ecclesiastical retrenchment in the face of dangerous insecurity, the ability of the church to salvage anything at all, to defend its rights, is notable, even surprising. Its at least partial success was due to two methods of responding to the crisis: traditionalism (even archaism) and creative innovation. Both methods were employed in different situations to maintain earlier authority or, at least, to manage change, not always completely successfully, but in accordance with a consistent and discernible intention.

That the twelfth century was in some respects decadent is not to be denied, for the diocese was remote from the concern of the count-kings and increasingly removed from the frontier. Vic remained to some degree set in the old ways during an era of revolutionary political and spiritual growth. Its isolation and localism during the twelfth century amount to more than mere decadence, however. One observes an independence and willingness to experiment that allowed the church to reassert its traditional control over castles, the city of Vic, and the loose organization of its cathedral community of bishop and canons. This independence was a paradox, for during the twelfth century the papacy and the government of Catalonia were expanding their administrative competence. Yet the diocese of Vic, removed from center stage, was on its own more than at any previous or subsequent [13] time, free from the supervision or immiate attention of pope and monarch.

An account of Vic's church during the eleventh and twelfth centuries is more than a glance at a waning power.⁽²³⁾ The changes that took place in those years not only constituted a response to decline but also show a surprising degree of adaptability. Vic was early in developing an organized urban representation, in restructuring church administration, and in adopting Roman law. What was in general a conservative milieu did not preclude inventiveness. Can the often-noted distinction between an archaic, seigneurial Old Catalonia and the dynamic frontier be unreservedly upheld? There is an understandable inclination to see the social energies of the time in the obvious centers of change: in the comital court, in new towns, and on the frontier. Yet a more elusive, but equally significant, form of progress flourished within the neglected heart of the Catalan kingdom. An older region such as Vic experienced a form of innovation different from but no less valid than that exhibited by the territories dominated by the king and the new military and monastic orders.

For Vic, the twelfth century in particular was an interval between two periods of more obvious political activity: the eleventh-century Peace Movement and the thirteenth-century assertion of direct royal control. Within the busy localism of that interval, in a region divorced from the great events of the realm, vital changes were not only permitted but at times even invented. I hope to show more than a dissection of a Catalan diocese in a random pair of centuries. Rather, I intend to explore challenge and innovation in an environment of quiet continuity.

1. Temperature changes are very rapid as one moves inland from the Mediterranean coast. See the charts in Wilhelm Semmelhack, "Temperaturkarten der iberischen Halbinsel," Annalen der Hydro,graphie und maritimen Meteorologie 60 (1932), 327-333; also J. M. Houston, The Western Mediterranean World: An Introduction to Its Regional Landscapes (London, 1964), p. 199. For the geography of Vic and its plain, see Antoni Pladevall et al., Gran geografia comarcal de Catalunya (Barcelona, 1980), 1:10-78.

2. Arcadi Garcia, "Origens del mercat de Vich," Ausa 5 (1964-1967), 129-134, 161-166.

3. A. Garcia, "Contractecs comercials vigatans de principis del seglc XIII," Ausa 4 (1961-1963), 321-329; idem, "Els Espanyol, una familia burgesa vigatana del segle XIII," Ausa 6 (1968-1971), 164-185; idem, El comercio de la piel en Vich a medios del siglo XIII (Vic, 1967).

4. The early history of Vic is treated in Ramon d'Abadal i de Vinyals, La plana de Vic en els segles VIII i IX (717-886) (Vic, 1954), reprinted in Abadal's collection, Dels Visigots als Catalans, 2nd ed. (Barcelona, 1974), 1:309-321; Eduard Junyent, La ciutat de Vic i la seva història (Barcelona, 1976), pp. 15-43; Ramon Ordeig i Mata, Els orígens històrics de Vic (segles VIII-X) (Vic, 1981).

5. Junyent, La ciutat, pp. 40-43; R. d'Abadal, Els primers comtes catalans, 2nd ed. (Barcelona, 1965), pp. 90-92; Ordeig, Els orígen s històrics, pp. 32-34. Such double towns were common in Europe and have given rise to controversy over the origins and nature of medieval urban development; see David M. Nicholas, "Medieval Urban Origins in Northern Continental Europe: State of Research and Some Tentative Conclusions" Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 6 (1969), 94-110. Other dual foundations in Catalonia include Urgell, which housed both the castle and the cathedral until 839, when the new cathedral, Santa Maria in Vico, was consecrated. As happened in Ausona, the new neighborhood surpassed the old city, although in this case the expression "vicus" yielded to La Seu d'Urgell (civitas sedis Urgellensis); see Carme Batlle, "Els origens medievals i 1'evolucló urbana de la Seu d'Urgell," Urgellia 2 (1979), 147-167.

6. For the southward movement of population from the Pyrenean valleys, see Pierre Bonnassie, La Catalogne du milieu du X^e à la fin du XI^e siècle: croissance et mutations d'une société 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1975-1976), 1:73-130; Archibald R. Lewis, The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718-1050 (Austin, 1965), pp. 173-175, 281-284; Josep M. Salrach, El procés de formació nacional de Catalunya (segles VIII-IX) 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1978), 2:124-139.

7. Chief exceptions to this observation are works by José María Font Rius on Catalan law and municipalities, certain works by Abadal, especially on Oliba (see Chapter 1, note 23), and Junyet's books and articles on Vic. For Barcelona see Agustí Durán i Sanpere, Barcelona i la seva història, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Barcelona, 1972-1975), vol. 1.

8. For example, Jaime Vicens Vives, Historia de los remensas en el siglo XV (Barcelona, 1945), p. 30.

9. Robert Brentano, "Localism and Longevity: The Example of the Chapter of Rieti in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries," in Kenneth Pennington and Robert Somerville, eds., Law, Church, and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner (Philadelphia, 1977), p. 293.

10. Juan Luis de Moncada, Episcopologio de la Iglesia de Vich, vol. 1, written in the seventeenth century and printed in Vic in 1891. Other early treatments are ES, vol. 28; VL, vols. 6-8; Joaquim Salarich, Vich, su historia, sus monumentos, sus hijos y sus glorias (Vic, 1854).

11. J. Millàs Valicrosa, Assaig d'història de les idees físiques i matemàtiques a la Catalunya medieval (Barcelona, 1931), pp. 96-111; E. Junyent, "La biblioteca de la Canónica de Vich en los siglos X-XI," GAKS 21 (1963), 136-145; M. Mathias Delcor, "Le scriptorium de Ripoll et son rayonnement culturel: État de question," CSMC 5 (1974), 45-64; Uta Lindgren, "Die Spanische Mark zwischen Orient und Occident: Studien zur kulturellen Situation der Spanischen Mark im 10. Jahrhundert," GAKS 26 (1971), 189-200.

12. Constance Brittain Bouchard, Spirituality and Administration: The Role of the Bishop in Twelfth-Century Auxerre (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).

13. See, for example, the analysis of St. Anselm's caterer in R. W. Southern, St. Anselm and His Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought, 1050-c. 1130 (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 122-153, and the opposed interpretation of Sally M. Vaughan, "St. Anselm: Reluctant Archbishop?" Albion 6 (1974), 240-250. A tension between the contemplative and the political was not all that unusual; one thinks immediately of St. Augustine and St. Bernard.

14. In fact, the most purely "spiritual" bishop of Vic was the thirteenth-century saint Bernat Calvó (ruled 1233-1243), on whom see Eufemià Fort i Cogul, Sant Bernat Calvó, abat de Santes Creus i bisbe de Vic (Vila-seca-Salou, 1979); Diplomatari de Sant Bernat Calvó, abat de Santes Creus, bisbe de Vich, ed. E. Junyent (Reus, 1956).

15. The contention has been made for the archdiocese of Narbonne by Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, La société laïque et I'Église dans la province ecclésiastique de Narbonne (zone cispyrénéenne) de la fin du VIII^e a la fin du XI^e siècle (Toulouse, 1974), pp. 447-518. Somewhat less favorably inclined toward the prereform system, but critical of the reform's impact on León, is R. A. Fletcher, The Episcopate in the Kingdom of León in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1978), esp. pp. 1-26.

16. The chapter of Arezzo is a case in point; its stagnation and ludicrous corruption are memorably described in R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1953), pp. 128-131.

17. Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton, 1970).

18. Bonnassie, La Catalogne, 1:132-203.

19. The view appears notably in the works of Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz, especially España, un enigma histórico, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Buenos Aires, 1962), 1:615-622, 2:7-103, esp. pp. 7-33; idem, "The Frontier and Castilian Liberties , in Archibald R. Lewis and Thomas F. McGann, eds., The New World Looks at Its History: Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Historians of the United States and Mexico (Austin, 1963), pp. 27-46. For a suggestive account of the significance of the frontier in early Catalan history, see A. R. Lewis, "Cataluña como frontera militar (870-1050)," AEM 5 (1968), 15-29. The definitive work on the later Catalan frontier, with particular reference to the experience of the church, is Robert Ignatius Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Reconstruction on a Thirteenth-Century Frontier, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1967). On Catalan expansion, see J. Lee Shneidman, The Rise of the Aragonese-Catalan Empire, 1200-1350 (New York, 1970), vol. 2.

20. For this paradox see pp. 19-20, 28.

21. See Bonnassie, La Catalogne, 2:662-733, for the shift in the concept of rulership.

22. That is creative in inventing new social, political, and cultural expressions. See James F. Powers, "Frontier Competition and Legal Creativity: A Castilian-Aragonese Case Study Based on Twelfth-Century Municipal Military Law," Speculum 52 (1977), 465-487; Charles Julian Bishko , "Salvus of Albelda and Frontier Monasticism in Tenth-Century Navarre," Speculum 23 (1948), 559-590; idem, "The Castilian as Plainsman: The Medieval Ranching Frontier in La Mancha and Extremadura," in Lewis and McGann, eds., The New World Looks at Its History, pp. 47-69.

23. It was considerably more resilient than the dioceses of León that faced many of the same problems (Fletcher, The Episcopate, pp. 31-76, 221-228).