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Gaucelm (died 834) was a Frankish count and leading magnate in Gothia during the reign of Louis the Pious. He was initially the Count of Roussillon from about 800, but he received Empúries in 817 and was thenceforward the chief representative of imperial authority in that region.
He was the son of William of Gellone and his first wife, Gunegunde (Cunegonde), a Frankish lady. It was from his father, sometime after 790, that he received the county of Roussillon to govern within his father's vast holdings in Septimania, centered on Toulouse. At that time, Roussillon included Vallespir. Gaucelm, thoroughly Frankish, supported ongoing war with the Moors and was supported by his brother, Bernard of Septimania. Bera, the Visigothic Count of Razès and Conflent since 790, and Count of Barcelona since 801, supported the local Goth population who desired peace with the Moors to their south.
In January 820, at an assembly in Aachen, Sanila, Gaucelm's Gothic lieutenant, probably on orders from Gaucelm, accused Bera of infidelity and perfidy. Bera was deposed, but Gaucelm did not receive his honores as he had wanted. However, he did later obtain two of them (Barcelona and Besalú) for his brother Bernard (February 826). The third, Girona, went either to Bernard or Gaucelm himself, but which is unclear. After taking part in the defeat of the son of Bera, Guillemundus, and his lieutenant, Aisso, in Barcelona and Girona (to 827), he received the counties of Razès and Conflent (both previously ruled by Guillemundus). While Bernard was absent from Septimania (April to April, 829 – 830), Gaucelm also ruled his honores: Uzès, Nîmes, Melguelh, Agde, Béziers, Narbonne, Besalú, and Barcelona.
In Autumn 831, Pepin I of Aquitaine revolted against his father, Emperor Louis the Pious. Bernard and Gaucelm supported Pepin. Subsequently invading royal forces quickly occupied Bernard's lands. In another assembly at Aachen in February 832, the whole region was assigned to Charles the Bald, while Gaucelm and Bernard were deposed later that same year. Gaucelm tried to resist and held out in Ampurias. Finally, in 833, after mediation with Ansegisus, Abbot of Fontanelle, he resigned and retired with Sanila to some familial properties in Burgundy.
Gaucelm and Sanila were killed in the battle of Chalon-sur-Saône the next year, while fighting for Louis the Pious against his son Lothair.
Louis the Pious, also called the Fair and the Debonaire, was King of the Franks and co-emperor with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. He was also King of Aquitaine from 781. As the only surviving son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position that he held until his death except from 833 to 834, when he was deposed.
Roussillon is a historical province of France that largely corresponded to the County of Roussillon and part of the County of Cerdagne of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is part of the region of Northern Catalonia or French Catalonia, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales in the former region of Languedoc-Roussillon.
Septimania is a historical region in modern-day Southern France. It referred to the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed to the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. During the Early Middle Ages, the region was variously known as Gallia Narbonensis, Gallia, or Narbonensis. The territory of Septimania roughly corresponds with the modern French former administrative region of Languedoc-Roussillon that merged into the new administrative region of Occitanie. In the Visigothic Kingdom, which became centred on Toledo by the end of the reign of Leovigild, Septimania was both an administrative province of the central royal government and an ecclesiastical province whose metropolitan was the Archbishop of Narbonne. Originally, the Goths may have maintained their hold on the Albigeois, but if so it was conquered by the time of Chilperic I. There is archaeological evidence that some enclaves of Visigothic population remained in Frankish Gaul, near the Septimanian border, after 507.
The Spanish March or Hispanic March, was a military buffer zone beyond the former province of Septimania, established by Charlemagne in 795 as a defensive barrier between the Umayyad Moors of Al-Andalus and the Frankish Carolingian Empire.
Bera was the first count of Barcelona from 801 until his deposition in 820. He was also the count of Razès and Conflent from 790, and the count of Girona and Besalú from 812 until his deposition. In 811, he was witness to the last will and testament of Charlemagne.
Rampon (Rampó) was the second count of the Catalan counties of Barcelona and Osona from 820 until his death in 825.
Bernardof Septimania (795–844), son of William of Gellone, who was the cousin of Charlemagne and was the Frankish Duke of Septimania and Count of Barcelona from 826 to 832 and again from 835 to his execution. He was also count of Carcassonne from 837. He was appointed to succeed his fellow Frank Rampon. During his career, he was one of the closest counsellors of the Emperor Louis the Pious, a leading proponent of the war against the Moors, and opponent of the interests of the local Visigothic nobility.
Berengar, called the Wise, was the duke or count of Toulouse (814–835) and duke of Septimania (832–835). He held the County of Barcelona concomitantly with Septimania.
Ayxun or Aissó was a nobleman who led a revolt in Barcelona, Ausona, and Girona in 826 to 827. His identity is uncertain.
Sunifred was the Count of Barcelona as well as many other Catalan and Septimanian counties, including Ausona, Besalú, Girona, Narbonne, Agde, Béziers, Lodève, Melgueil, Cerdanya, Urgell, Conflent and Nîmes, from 834 to 848 and from 844 to 848 (others).
The County of Roussillon was one of the Catalan counties in the Marca Hispanica during the Middle Ages. The rulers of the county were the counts of Roussillon, whose interests lay both north and south of the Pyrenees. Roussillon, historical and cultural region encompassing the southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales and coextensive with the former province of Roussillon. Its chief city has always been Perpignan.
The County of Barcelona was a polity in northeastern Iberian Peninsula, originally located in the southern frontier region of the Carolingian Empire. In the 10th century, the Counts of Barcelona progressively achieved independence from Frankish rule, becoming hereditary rulers in constant warfare with the Islamic Caliphate of Córdoba and its successor states. The counts, through marriage, alliances and treaties, acquired or vassalized the other Catalan counties and extended their influence over Occitania. In 1164, the County of Barcelona entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Aragon. Thenceforward, the history of the county is subsumed within that of the Crown of Aragon, but the city of Barcelona remained preeminent within it.
Bernard II was the count of Barcelona, Girona and margrave of Gothia and Septimania from 865 to 878.
The County of Besalú was one of the landlocked medieval Catalan counties near the Mediterranean coastline. It was roughly coterminous with the modern comarca of Garrotxa and at various times extended as far north as Corbières, Aude, now in France. Its capital was the village of Besalú. Throughout most of its history it was attached to one of the other more powerful counties, but it experienced a century of independence before it was finally and irrevocably annexed to the County of Barcelona.
The Catalan counties were the administrative Christian divisions of the eastern Carolingian Hispanic Marches and the southernmost part of the March of Gothia in the Pyrenees created after their rapid conquest by the Franks.
The County of Cerdanya was one of the Catalan counties formed in the last decades of the 8th century by the Franks in the Marca Hispanica. The original Cerdanya consisted of the valley of the upper Segre. Today Cerdanya is a Catalan comarca.
William of Septimania was the son of Bernard and Dhuoda. He was the count of Toulouse from 844 and count of Barcelona from 848.
The County of Razès was a feudal jurisdiction in Occitania, south of the County of Carcassonne, in what is now Southern France. It was founded in 781, after the creation of the Kingdom of Aquitania, when Septimania was separated from that state.
Wilfred or Wifred, called the Hairy, was Count of Urgell, Cerdanya, Barcelona, Girona, Besalú and Ausona. On his death in 897, his son, Wilfred Borrell, inherited these Catalan counties.
The siege of Barcelona was a military operation by a Carolingian army with the aim of conquering the city of Barcelona, which had been under Muslim control for 80 years. The siege and conquest were part of the expansion of the Marca Hispanica and the constitution of the County of Barcelona by the Carolingians.