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From: Nat Taylor < >
Subject: Sancha: viscounts of Narbonne
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 05:23:03 GMT


This line is a provisional addition to Sancha de Ayala's ancestry, but one
based on a tenuous link whose evidentiary base I have not investigated in
detail.

A little while ago Todd asked after sources for the genealogy of the
viscounts of Narbonne, possibly ancestral (through the Manrique de
Lara/Manzanedo families) to Sancha de Ayala.

There is no good recent scholarly study of the viscounts of Narbonne, but
there are a couple of basic starting places. Europaische Stammtafeln
doesn't have them.

A graphic pedigree can be found in the _Gran enciclopedia catalana_ (17
vols. Barcelona: Fundacio Enciclopedia Catalana, 1970-1986), s.v.
"Narbona". This is one of several tabular pedigrees compiled for this
encyclopedia by Armand de Fluvia, a prominent Barcelona genealogist and
herald.

The previous best discussion of the family is in Claude Devic & Jean
Vaissete's _Histoire generale de Languedoc_ (3d, revised ed.; ed. Molinier
et al., 16 vols., Toulouse: Privat, 1872-1904), in vols. 2 and 4.

More recent discussions of the interrelated comital and vicecomital
families in this area treat the viscounts of Narbonne as they are
intermarried with the comital families of Toulouse, Barcelona and others:

Szabolcs de Vajay, "Comtesses d'origine occitane dans la Marche d'Espagne
aux 10e et 11e siecles: essai sur le rattachement de Richilde, de Garsende
et de Letgardis, comtesses de Barcelone, et de Thietberge, comtesse
d'Urgel, au contexte genealogique occitan," _Hidalguia_ 28 (1980),
585-616, 755-788.

Marti Aurell i Cardona (in French form, Martin Aurell) "Jalons pour une
enquete sur les strategies matrimoniales des comtes catalans (IXe - XIe
s.)," in _Symposium internacional sobre els origens de Catalunya (segles
VIII-XI)_ (2 vols., Barcelona: Commissio del Mil.lenari de Catalunya:
Generalitat de Catalunya, 1991). Vol. i, pp. 281-364. His recent book,
_Les noces du comte: mariage et pouvoir en Catalogne, 785-1213_ (Paris:
Sorbonne, 1995) expands on his historical interpretations but the
biographical register of noble women in his article is not published in
the book.

Note that these two articles by Marti Aurell and Szabolcs de Vajay often
disagree. Other works with varying interpretations of links between
Narbonne, Toulouse and Barcelona are:

Maria-Merce Costa, "Les genealogies comtals catalanes," also in _Symposium
internacional sobre els origens de Catalunya (segles VIII-XI)_, i:447-462,
and

Helene Debax, "Strategies matrimoniales des comtesses de Toulouse
(850-1270); Notices biographiques," _Annales du Midi_ 100 (1988), 131-152,
215-234.

Aurell's work (and Debax's) is very rigorously based on citations to
original documentary evidence; often Vajay reflects a consensus which is
generally held but is without evidentiary foundation. Costa and Vajay
offer conflicting onomastic hypotheses for identities in a couple of
cases. Fluvia usually follows Vajay, and has also sometimes turned
conjectural identifications into facts in his charts.

The most comprehensive historical treatment focusing on Narbonne is
Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier's _La Societe laique et l'Eglise dans la province
ecclesiastique de Narbonne (zone cispyreneenne) de la fin du VIIIe a la
fin du XIe siecle_ (Toulouse: Pubs. Toulouse-le Mirail, 1974). She
discusses the earlier generations well.

Here is the lineage of the viscounts, from the first known member of the
dynasty down to the Mayor Manrique de Lara, wife of Comez Gonzales de
Manzanedo. Mayor Manrique is shown with a question mark in the Fluvia
pedigree of the viscounts of Narbonne. I do not know of the sources for
this identity, which is given in Garcia Carraffa. Of course, if her
identity is incorrect (and if the Manzanedo-Guzman marriage is incorrect)
then these birds fly chirping away.

Sancha has another shot at part of this ancestry (including most of the
Catalan counts, but not the Carolingian Italian ancestry behind Maud of
Apulia-Calabria) if a descent from count Armengol V of Urgell can be
squeezed in somewhere.

Franco I, + bef. 852, vc Narbonne.

Maieul, + 878/911, vc Narbonne; m. Raimonda.

Franco II, + 924, vc Narbonne; m. Arsenda (identified as dau. Sunyer II,
count of Ampurias/Roussillon by Fluvia (also appears in (excuse me for
mentioning him) Stuart, line 218, ref'ing Moriarty), but not supported by
Aurell or even ES)).

Odo, + 933, vc Narbonne; m. Riquilda, daughter of Guifred Borrell, count
of Barcelona (see ES II:68. The identity of Guifred Borrell's wife,
Garsenda, is an open question with at least 3 suggestions in print).

Matfred I, + 966/969, vc Narbonne; m. Adalais, + 990 (I'm not convinced
that Matfred is the son of the above. It is possible that instead Adalais
was their daughter. She acted as viscountess after Matfred's death and
willed the viscounty outright to their son in a written testament. This
suggests to me that it was hers by right, not his).

Raimond I, + 1018/1023, vc Narbonne; m. Ricarda of Rodez (as given by
Fluvia--I'll have to dig further for her identity).

Berenguer I, + 1067, vc Narbonne; m. Garsenda, daughter of Bernat
Taliafero, count of Besalu (ES III:137; note that the identity of Bernat's
wife Tota, Garsenda's mother, is questioned by Marti Aurell).

Bernard I, + 1077/1080, vc Narbonne; m. Fides, dau. Hugh count of Rouergue
by Fides, dau. Guifred of Cerdanya, brother of Bernat Taliafero above (ES
III:763; III:137). Note that the earlier genealogy of the counts of
Rouergue, and their relation to the counts of Toulouse, is felt to be very
unclear by Debax and others. These counts of Besalu and Cerdanya are
clearly known, but their wives are mostly unidentified.

Amalric I, + c. 1106, vc Narbonne; m. Maud of Apulia-Calabria (dau. of
Robert Guiscard and Sikelgaita of Salerno and widow of Ramon Berenguer II
of Barcelona, see ES II:205 and Charles Evans in TAG 52 (1976).

Amalric II, + 1134, vc Narbonne, lord of Peyrepertuse and Fenouillet; m.
Ermessend (2d wife, unidentified).

Amalric's surviving children were Ermengard (child of his first wife,
Ermengard of Carcassonne), who was viscountess until her death in 1194,
and Ermessend (child of second wife, Ermessend), who married the Castilian
Manrique de Lara, lord of Molina y Mesa. In her will, viscountess
Ermengard left Narbonne to her nephew Pedro Manrique, who became the first
of this Castilian family to have the title viscount of Narbonne.
Putatively Mayor Manrique, wife of Gomez Gonzales de Manzanedo, was his
sister.

Nat Taylor

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