Family History 2.08

Bigelow History: Pre-1630

Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona

 

In contrast to his father, Ramon Berenguer I was a strong leader. He extended the boundaries of the County of Barcelona, by asserting his authority over neighbouring territories, by leading war parties against the Moorish kingdoms to the south, and extracting tribute and plunder from those areas.

 

He was the first count to establish the dominance of the Catalan navy, and the first to establish authority north of the Pyrenees over Carcassonne, for instance.

 

 

All these activities, especially the tributes and plunder (being counted in the illustration on the left), developed the first wave of prosperity for the Catalan region.

 

Ramon Berenguer I was also a law-maker. He codified the Catalan law for the first time, and promulgated it as the Usages of Barcelona, which became the first codification of feudal law in Western Europe. The establishment of law and order was also helped by the Church, which set up "The Peace and Truce of God" whereby for a certain time and over a certain area there was to be no fighting. Catalonia was part of the first experiments in this way of reducing conflict.

 

With his third wife, he began the process of rebuilding the Barcelona Cathedral, to replace an earlier one destroyed by the Moors. Their coffins are still held in the Gothic Cathedral which replaced theirs some centuries later.

 

Ramon Berenguer I died in 1076.