Page 265 - Girona, de Carlemany al feudalisme (785-1057). El trànsit de la ciutat antiga a l’època medieval (II)

All this leads us to offer this second volume to a general readership –and those from
Girona in particular–, through which they will be able to go into more depth on these
more specific questions that clarify somewhat the dynamics of a society in late antiquity,
heir to Roman traditions, in its passage towards the Medieval era.
Below is a summary of what the reader will find in the book:
Girona from Islam to Charlemagne. The geopolitical changes of a frontier city (759-
801). Those years we understand as being between the arrival of the Franks at the
Pyrenees and the seizure of Girona by Louis I, King of Aquitaine, during which the city
was a key place on the border between the Frankish Christian and the Arab-Andalusian
world. A strategic position that modified prominent aspects of town planning in Girona,
such as its Cathedral or its city walls.
Conflicts between counts and bishops in Girona during the second quarter of the
ninth century. The dispute over the proceeds of taxation as an indication of the disorder
of the Carolingian state in the territory of Girona. Counts such as Bernardo of Septimania
or Berenguer of Tolosa owned many of the counties in the Iberian peninsula, and their
conflicts with Bishop Guimer or Gotmar of Girona involved a crisis in the Carolingian
system of government, as shown in the disputes for fiscal control of the towns and their
public rights, which were used for buying loyalty in the struggle for power.
The patronage of the bishop.Adroer, Bonadona and Ponç, a family from the Girona
nobility between the tenth and eleventh centuries. Under the patronage of the bishops,
a lineage of loyal followers benefited from the donation of episcopal control in the outs-
kirts of Girona from the beginning of the tenth century. They survived and adapted to
the feudal crisis, and by means of skilful marital politics and the maintenance of mem-
bers of the family in the episcopal community, they became lords of their own castles
in the eleventh century.
The boundaries of the municipal area of Girona in the Early Middle Ages (ninth to
eleventh centuries). An administrative and topographical description of the urban area.
Since late antiquity the city was surrounded by a belt of towns that reached almost to
the foot of the walls. The urban area outside the walls was confined mainly to small spa-
ces to the north and south, its boundaries being the Aguilar and Miralles hills to the Bast
and the rivers Ter and Onyar to the west. Some boundaries did not last for very long,
but others were conserved up to the twentieth century.
Economic activity and the tax system in Early Medieval Girona. Continuity and
changes in the economic structures of late antiquity. Economic activity was centred on
services related to the fields of taxation, the market and consumption, characteristics of
a city run by bishops and counts. But the agricultural activities of many citizens were
also important in a suburban environment dominated by hydraulic activities, such as dit
mills. -ches, gardens and
The Cathedral and Girona. The entry of the episcopal complex into the city between
the tenth and eleventh centuries. Since the second half of the tenth century, the epis-
copal authorities took the decision to transfer the whole episcopal complex inside the
city walls and to build a new cathedral on the Bite of Saint Mary's. The process was a
long one; while the building of the xenodochium and the episcopal palace seemed to
go quickly, the construction of the new cathedral did not advance until it received the
decisive support of Countess Ermessenda at the beginning of the eleventh century. The
new episcopal canonry advanced more slowly, and does not seem to have been com
-pleted before the twelfth century.
Power in Girona in the mid-eleventh century. The new structure of the political orga-
nization in a city in the process offeudalization. The mid-century political crisis acce-