The Marca Hispanica (Spanish: Marca Hispánica, Catalan: Marca Hispànica, Aragonese and Occitan: Marca Hispanica, Basque: Hispaniako Marka, French: Marche Hispanique), also known as Spanish March or March of Barcelona was a buffer zone beyond the province of Septimania, created by Charlemagne in 795 as a defensive barrier between the Umayyad Moors of Al-Andalus and the Frankish Kingdom.
In its broader meaning, Marca Hispanica refers to a group of early Iberian lordships or counts created by the Franks, of which Andorra is the sole autonomous survivor. As time passed, these lordships merged or gained independence from Frankish imperial rule.
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The area broadly corresponds to the region between the Pyrenees and the Ebro River. The local population of the March was diverse, including Iberians, Basques, Jews and Goths who had been conquered or subjugated by the Muslim emirate to the south or the Frankish Empire to the north. The territory changed with the fortunes of the Empires and the feudal ambitions of those, whether the Counts or Walis, appointed to administer the counties. Eventually the rulers and people of the March became autonomous and claimed independence. Out of the welter of counties in the region emerged the principalities of Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia.
Counties that at various times formed part of the March included: Pamplona, Sangüesa, Jaca, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, Pallars, Urgell, Cerdanya, Conflent, Roussillon, Vallespir, Perelada, Empúries, Besalú, Ausona (Osona), Barcelona and Girona.
The Marca Hispanica developed as the result of three generations of fighting by the Franks and Muslims (Moors) in the Iberian Peninsula. The Muslim invasions reached the Pyrenees in the Iberian Peninsula. In 719 the forces of Al-Samh ibn Malik surged up the east coast, overwhelming the remaining Visigoth kingdom of Septimania and establishing a fortified base at Narbonne. Control was secured by offering the local population generous terms, inter-marriage between ruling families or treaties.
Further expansion was halted by defeat in the Battle of Toulouse. Wālis were installed in Girona and Barcelona. The Muslim forces however continued to raid their Frankish and Aquitanian neighbours to the north, reaching as far as Autun.
Peace was signed in 730 between the victor at Toulouse, the Duke of Aquitaine, and 'Uthman ibn Naissa (Munuza), the Berber deputy governor of Narbonne. A peace treaty was sealed with the marriage of the Duke’s daughter to Munuza. However, when Munuza rebelled against his Andalusian masters, he was defeated and another period of Muslim expansion commenced.
In 732, Muslim forces again attacked Gaul and Aquitaine and secured initial victories, including the sacking of Bordeaux. The Duke of Aquitaine failed to secure support from his Frankish overlord, Charles Martel, who wanted to re-impose control over the dukedom. At the Battle of Tours, Charles defeated the Muslim army and repelled the invasion. Seeking to secure the southern boundary of their kingdom from further Muslim attacks, the Carolingian monarchs established a firmer control over Aquitaine.
Further campaigns in 736–37 drove the Moors further south, although Charles failed to recapture Narbonne, which was defended by both its Muslim and Visigoth citizens; however, in 759 Narbonne fell to Pippin, Charles’s son.
Pippin's son, Charlemagne, fulfilled the Carolingian goal of extending the defensive boundaries of the empire beyond Septimania, creating a strong barrier state between the Umayyad Emirate/Caliphate of Iberia and the Frankish Kingdom, besides tightening control over the Duchy of Vasconia by establishing the Kingdom of Aquitaine ruled by son Louis the Pious in 781.
The Franks created the Marca Hispanica by conquering former Visigoth states which had been captured by the Muslims or had become allied with them.
The first county to be conquered was Roussillon (with Vallespir) in around 760. In 785 the county of Girona (with Besalú) to the south of the Pyrenees was taken. Ribagorza and Pallars were linked to Toulouse and were added to this county around 790. Urgell and Cerdanya were added in 798. The first records of the county of Empúries (with Perelada) are from 812 but the county was probably under Frankish control before 800.
After a series of struggles the County of Barcelona (with Ausona) was taken by Frankish forces in 801. A number of castles were established in Aragón between 798 and 802. Pamplona (and Sangüesa) were briefly controlled by the Franks until 817, when it was lost to Basque and Christian Iberian forces. The date Sobrarbe was incorporated into the March is unsure.
After the loss of Pamplona (817) and Aragón (820) the March was often called Gothia after the Visigoth population. In addition, as the Counts often held land in Septimania, the whole region was sometimes referred to as Septimania.
The local population of the Marches was diverse including Hispano-Romans, Iberians, Basques, Jews and Goths who had been conquered or subjugated by the Muslim or Frankish Empires to the north and south. The area changed with the fortunes of the Empires and the feudal ambitions of the Counts or Walis appointed to administrate the Counties. As Frankish imperial power waned, the rulers of the March became independent fiefs. The region would later become part of the principalities of Navarre, Aragon, and Catalonia.
Charlemagne's son Louis took Barcelona from its Moorish ruler in 801, thus securing Frankish power in the borderland between the Franks and the Moors. The Counts of Barcelona then became the principal representatives of Frankish authority in the Spanish March. The March included various outlying smaller territories, each ruled by a lesser Miles with his armed retainers and who theoretically owed allegiance through the Count to the Emperor. The rulers were called Counts, when they governed several Counties they often took the name Duke. When the County formed the border with the Muslim Kingdom the Frankish title, Marquis was chosen.
Counties formed in the 9th century at the eastern end of Pyrenees as an appanages of the Counts of Barcelona included Cerdanya, Girona and Urgell.
In the early 9th century, Charlemagne began issuing a new kind of land grant, the Aprisio, which reallocated land previously held by the imperial crown fisc in deserted or abandoned areas. This included special rights and immunities that allowed considerable independence from the imperial control. Historians have interpreted the aprisio both as an early form of feudalism and in economic and military terms as a mechanism to entice settlers to a depopulated border region. Such self-sufficient landholders would aid the Counts in providing armed men to defend the Frankish frontier. Aprisio grants (the first ones were in Septimania) were given personally by the Carolingian king, so that they reinforced loyalty to central power, to counterbalance the local power exercised by the Marcher Counts.
However poor communications and a distant central power allowed basic feudal entities to develop often self-sufficient and heavily agrarian. Each was ruled by a small hereditary military elite. These developments in Catalonia follow similar patterns in other borderlands and Marches. For example the first Count of Barcelona Bera was appointed by the King in 801), however subsequently strong heirs of Counts were able to inherit the title such as Sunifred, fl. 844–848. This gradually became custom until Countship became hereditary (for Wifred the Hairy in 897). The County became de facto independent under count Borrell II, when he ceased to request royal charters after the Frankish kings Lothair and Hugh Capet failed to assist him in the defense of the County against Muslim leader al-Mansur,[1] although the change of dynasty may have played a part in that decision.
Certain Counts aspired to the Frankish (Germanic) title "Prince of Gothia". A "Margrave" is a Graf ("Count") of the March. The early History of Andorra in the Pyrenees provides a fairly typical example of a lordship of the region, and is the only modern survivor of the Spanish March that has not been incorporated into either France or Spain.