| This dissertation deals with the strategies of legitimization and representation employed by the counts of Barcelona during the period between 1000 and 1200, specifically how the comital dynasty and their allies addressed the problems presented by the succession of an underage heir to the rulership of a hereditary principality. Examining these strategies entailed the examination of official documents issued by the comital court, the law codes which the counts promulgated, contemporary narrative sources, the symbols associated with the counts, and political invectives leveled against the counts in contemporary poetry. This analysis revealed the counts' overriding preoccupation with the problem of underage successors, and the extent to which this preoccupation impacted the counts' strategies of legitimization and representation. Significant developments directly related thereto included the earliest representative assemblies in the Crown of Aragon, the office of procurator of Provence (a forerunner to the viceroys who governed the early modern Spanish empire), and a network of reciprocal alliances in which the counts of Barcelona worked with other lineages to mutually protect underage heirs. These findings suggest that the protection of underage heirs played a greater role in the expansion of territorial government and the origins of the modern state apparatus than previously thought. |
