Álvaro (1239 in
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of ...
– 1268 in
Foix
Foix (; oc, Fois ; ca, Foix ) is a commune, the former capital of the County of Foix. It is the capital of the department of Ariège as it is the seat of the Préfecture of that department. Foix is located in the Occitanie region of south ...
), called ''Àlvar el Castellà'' ("the Castilian") in
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
, was the
Count of Urgell
This is a list of the counts of Urgell, a county of the Principality of Catalonia in the 10th through 13th centuries.
c. 798–870 Counts appointed by the Carolingians
*798–820 Borrell, count of Urgell and Cerdanya
*820–824 Aznar Galínde ...
and
Viscount of Àger from 1243. He was the son of Ponç I and succeeded his brother
Ermengol IX within a year of their father's death.
Upon inheriting the county of Urgell, he exchanged his birth name, Rodrigo, for Álvaro and married Constance of Montcada, a relative of the ruling family of
Béarn, at the order of
James I of Aragon
James I the Conqueror ( es, Jaime el Conquistador, ca, Jaume el Conqueridor; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was King of Aragon and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and Valencia from 1238 to 12 ...
in 1253. However, he detested this marriage and had it annulled, marrying Cecilia of Foix, daughter of
Roger-Bernard II of Foix
Roger Bernard II (c. 1195 – 26 May 1241), called the Great, was the seventh count of Foix from 1223 until his death. He was the son and successor of the count Raymond-Roger and his wife Philippa of Montcada.
Albigensian crusade
He made his na ...
, in 1256. This was to be the source of great enmity and conflict between the houses of Béarn and Foix. The
House of Barcelona
The House of Barcelona was a medieval dynasty that ruled the County of Barcelona continuously from 878 and the Crown of Aragon from 1137 (as kings from 1162) until 1410. They descend from the Bellonids, the descendants of Wifred the Hairy. Th ...
supported the Bearnese.
In 1259, Álvaro breached his
feudal obligations
Feudal duties were the set of reciprocal financial, military and legal obligations among the warrior nobility in a feudal system. Translated into English by Philip Grierson as ''Feudalism'', 1st ed., London, 1952. These duties developed in both E ...
to the king of Aragon and brought down the royal wrath on his principality: the
seneschal Pere de Montcada invaded and occupied
Ponts. In 1267, the king of Aragon intervened again, this time in the legal dispute between Álvaro's two wives. Álvaro was forced to flee with his wife Cecilia of Foix, leaving Urgell in the hands of his son
Ermengol X.
References
External links
Double Tomb of Don Àlvar Rodrigo de Cabrera, Count of Urgell and His Wife Cecília of Foix - Metropolitan Museum of Art
See also
*
County of Urgell
The County of Urgell ( ca, Comtat d'Urgell, ; la, Comitatus Urgellensis) is one of the historical Catalan counties, bordering on the counties of Pallars and Cerdanya.
History
The county of Urgell was carved by the Franks out of a former sectio ...
External links
The Cloisters - Collection Database
1239 births
1268 deaths
Counts of Urgell
13th-century Catalan people
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