Family History 2.10

Bigelow History: Pre-1630

Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona

 

 

Ramon Berenguer III is known as "the Great", because it was his reign that created the broadest reach of the Catalan Empire, to Nice in the east, and Valencia in the south.

 

When his father, Ramon Berenguer II, was killed in 1082, he became co-ruler with his uncle, Berenguer Ramon II, until the latter was forced into exile in 1097.

 

He was also Count of Provence, because he married Douce of Provence in 1112. Douce was his third wife.

 

By inheritance, conquest, and marriage, he extended the domain of the Barcelona regime on both sides of the Pyrenees.

 

Ramon Berenguer III established good relations with the Italian republics of Pisa and Genoa, both of which had powerful navies, and with Pisa attacked the Muslim islands of Majorca and Ibiza.

 

As a result of the domination of these islands, many Christian slaves were released from Muslim ownership. Also with Pisan help, he attacked Muslim districts to the south, like Valencia, and made them into his dependencies.

 

In 1116, with these victories behind him, he travelled to Rome to ask the Pope for a crusade to liberate the old Catalan capital of Tarragona. So by 1118 Tarragona was also taken, and rebuilt, and so the ancient bishopric of Tarragona was re-established as the centre for Christianity for Catalonia, instead of the French see of Narbonne over the mountains.

 

Late in his life, Ramon Berenguer III decided to become a Templar, and divided his lands between his two sons: one became count of Provence and the other of Catalonia.

 

He died in 1131.