Etiqueta: Ramón Berenguer III

  • Fallece Ramón Berenguer II, supuestamente asesinado por su gemelo

    Al siguiente año, y cuando no hacía un mes aún que la condesa Mahalta había dado á luz un hijo (el 11 de noviembre), que más adelante fué el célebre Ramon Berenguer III, el desgraciado padre fué víctima del encono de su hermano. ¡Oh! parecia que Dios castigaba en los hijos el ilícito matrimonio de que nacieron, y que se atrajo la excomunion del papa Víctor II.

    Hé aquí, en resúmen, el hecho tál como lo explica Pujades y lo trasmiten Marquilles, Tomich y Carbonell, formando una de las más poéticas tradiciones del país. El conde Ramon Berenguer, Cap de estopa, iba cazando en un bosque entre Hostalrich y San Celoni, y su hermano, adelantándose y desviándose de los demas de la partida, le encontró junto á la pértiga ó varal del Azor, la Perxa del Astor. Acometiéndole entónces, le mató alevosamente, haciéndole muchas heridas. Al caer del caballo el conde, el azor que llevaba en la mano echó a volar, yendo á posarse en una pértiga ó varal de aquellos árboles, como poniéndose en observacion de cuanto pasaba. El fratricida, ayudado de sus cómplices, trató de que desapareciese el cuerpo del delito, y atravesando por medio de las malezas y espesos matorrales de que estaba cubierto aquel lugar, fueron á arrojar el cadáver á un lago inmediato, que desde entónces se denominó Gorch del Compte.

    Los demas de la partida, al notar la tardanza de los dos hermanos, creyendo que les habria sucedido alguna desgracia, empezaron á correr en su busca hasta que viendo y reconociendo al azor, quisierno cojerlo por las pihuelas. No pudiendo conseguirlo, persiguiéronle obstinadamente hasta llegar á la orilla del lago, en el cual vierno sobrenadar el ensangrentado cuerpo del conde. Fué éste recogido y cuidadosamente puesto en un féretro, y le llevaron á la catedral de Gerona para darle sepultura eclesiástica. El azor se levantó del árbol en que se habia parado, junto á la orilla del lago, y fué siguiendo á la comitiva hasta llegar á la catedral, sobre cuya puerta fué a posarse. El cabildo y demas clerecía de aquella santa iglesia salió á recibir el féretro á las puertas del templo, ante una gran multitud de pueblo de la ciudad, que habia acudido á acompañar el cadáver de su señor. Sucedió entónces que habiendo el chantre ó capiscol de entonar y cantar el responso Subvenite Sancti Dei, ocurrite Angeli Domini, suscipientes animam ejus etc., nunca le fué posible cantar otras palabras que ¿Ubi est Abel frater tuus? ait Dominus ad Cainum, etc. Y por más que le fueran á la mano los señores del cabildo y demas clérigos, no dejó de repetirlo muchas veces con mayores y clamorosas voces.

    En cuanto al azor ó halcon, añade la crónica, murió de dolor, y en memoria de esto, se colocó allí una figura ó imágen de madera de aquella ave, en donde permaneció hasta 1604, en cuyo año, para dar fin al templo de la catedral, se derribó por órden del obispo Arévalo de Suazo el antiguo frontispicio. Pero el maestro que trazó y comenzó la nueva fábrica, para perpetuar la memoria de aquel hecho, puso en el suelo de la iglesia una piedra más grande que las otras del pavimento, y en ella esculpida y bien labrada la figura del azor; cuya piedra, -dice Pujades,- está á plomo y perpendicularmente puesta donde anteriormente estaba la de madera. [Autor Por más que hemos mirado, no hemos podido verla. Tal vez oculte la piedra la pared del coro.]

    Al cadáver del conde se le dió sepultura dentro de la misma iglesia, en una urna de piedra con estátua yacente. Más tarde fué trasladada al lugar en que actualmente se encuentra, que es sobre el dintel de la sacristía.

  • Masacre de Almorávides cerca de Castelldefels

    Whilst the Count of Barcelona was pursuing the Course of his memorable and glorious Victory [the taking of Mallorca], with the greatest Success; his Joy was allay’d by the News of the Hagarens [Almoravids] having invaded his Lands, and having wasted them with incredible Fury, and had even laid Siege to Barcelona. He resolv’d to return to his own Countrey, in order to suppress the Pride of these Barbarians, tho’ with Intention to put an end afterwards to the Conquest [of the rest of the Balearics]. Mean while he recommended the Island to the Genouese; and to make surer of their Friendship, he honour’d them with the Arms of Barcelona, being the Red Cross of St. George on a White Field, and the Name of that Saint in Battel.

    Having landed betwixt Llobregat and Castle de Fels, (in Catalonia) he fell upon the Moors, who had now rais’d the Siege of Barcelona, and made such a Slaughter of them that the River Llobregat run with Blood as far as the Sea. Whilft the Count was overjoy’d with this good Success, there arrives a Saetia from Majorca, with Advice that the Genouese had sold and deliver’d up the City to the Moors. This oblig’d him to return to the Island; and once more he reduc’d them; so being loaded with Spoils, and particularly carrying along with him a Multitude of Christian Captives, he enter’d Barcelona victorious and triumphant.

  • Muere Ramón Berenguer III

    Muere D. Ramon Berenguer III, gran protector de las letras, y en cuya corte se reformó la lengua provenzal.

  • San Olegario y la entrada de los Templarios en la Corona de Aragón

    El orígen y establecimiento que tuviéron á principios del siglo XII en la Palestina las órdenes militares y hospitalarias de San Juan de Jerusalen y del temple, para defender de facinerosos en los caminos á los cristianos que iban en peregrinación, para asistirlos en los hospitales y curarlos de sus enfermedades y dolencias, y para guerrear de continuo contra los enemigos de la fe, dieron causa é impulso á los españoles, ya para incorporarse en unos institutos tan análogos á su espíritu militar y á su devocion, ya para procurar su engrandecimiento y propagacion por todos los estados cristianos de Europa. Los reyes y especialmente la nobleza, que tanta consistencia adquirió con las nuevas religiones, se apresuráron sin término ni límite á dar exemplo de su piadosa generosidad. Por contemplacion á San Bernardo, de quien era muy devoto, determinó el emperador Don Alonso de Aragón dexar grandes heredamientos y posesiones á los caballeros del temple: y en efecto cumplió este propósito quando muriendo á vista de Fraga en una batalla con los moros el año de 1131, despues de hacer otras mandas piadosas y notables á varias iglesias y monasterios, declaró por herederos y sucesores de todos sus reynos y señoríos, en toda propiedad y absoluto dominio, á aquellos religiosos y á los del santo Sepulcro de Jerusalen: donación que no pudo tener efecto por circunstancias que obligaron á las mismas órdenes á renunciar sus derechos, con algunas reservas y condiciones. Don Ramon Berenguer, conde de Barcelona, tomó el hábito de San Juan, y su hijo el príncipe Don Ramon, que fue muy apasionado de los templarios, los hizo traer á Cataluña desde la Palestina, á persuasión de San Olegario, quien como metropolitano celebró un concilio en Barcelona á 15 de Abril de 1134, en el qual se determinó la inmunidad que debian gozar estos caballeros, se les ofreció la proteccion de la Iglesia, y se promulgaron penas y censuras contra quien los injuriase. Dióles entonces aquel príncipe la villa de Monzón y muchos castillos, y otras rentas.

  • Barcelona en 1847: la Rambla, comparación con Marsella, edificios públicos, la catedral, Colón

    The Rambla and the People on Promenade—Theophile Gautier—Marseilles and Barcelona contrasted—Public Buildings—The Cathedral—Christopher Columbus

    The Rambla, a wide and pleasant promenade, runs from the outer edge of the city, to the water. The trees along its sides had not taken the coloring of spring, and the weather was raw and gusty, but it was a half-holiday, and gentle and simple were taking their noon-day walk. The wealthier classes wore plain colors universally: the men enveloped in their cloaks, the women in rich, black mantillas, the lace of which just flung a shadow on their faces. The poorer people, as in all countries, furnished the picturesque. Full of leisure and independence, for the moment, they went sauntering up and down; the women with gay shawls drawn high around their heads, and their long silver or gold ear-rings, with huge pendants of topaz glancing in the sun; the men in long caps of red or purple, and striped and tasseled mantles, making lively contrast with the rich and various uniforms of the soldiers who were on the stroll. Now and then among the crowd you might discover the peaked hat so general in the south, bedecked with velvet trimmings, and tufts of black wool upon the brim and crown. Accompanying it, there would be a short fantastic jacket, with large bell buttons dangling, while the nether man was gorgeous in breeches of bright blue, with black leggings, and the everlasting alpargata, or hempen sandal. «Who are those troops?» I inquired of an old man, as a squad passed us, half-peasant, half-soldier in costume, their long, blue coats with red facings fluttering loose behind them. » They are the mozos de la escuadra,» he replied. «What is their branch of service?» «To keep the province clear of thieves.» «Are there, then, thieves in Catalonia?» «O! si senor! los hay, creo, en todas partes, como vmd. sabra» («Oh yes, sir, there are some every where, I think, as your worship may know,») said the old rascal, with a knowing leer.

    Theophile Gautier, in his pleasant «Voyage en Espagne,» has sufficient gravity to say that Barcelona has nothing of the Spanish type about it, but the Catalonian caps and pantaloons, barring which, he thinks it might readily be taken for a French city, nay, even for Marseilles, which, to his notion, it strikingly resembles. Now it may be true, as Dumas says, that Theophile professes to know Spain better than the Spaniards themselves; a peculiarity, by-the-by, among travelers, which the Spaniards seem to have had the luck of; but I must be pardoned upon this point, for knowing Marseilles better than he, having been there twice, for my sins, and too recently to be under any illusions on the subject. Dust from my feet I had not shaken off against that dirty city, because dust there was none, when I was there, and the mud, which was its substitute, was too tenacious to be easily disposed of. Yet I had sickening recollections of its dark and inconceivably filthy port, through all of whose multiplied and complicated abominations—solid, liquid, and gaseous—it was necessary to pass, before obtaining the limited relief which its principal but shabby street, «la Cannebière afforded. In the whole city, I saw scarce a public building which it was not more agreeable to walk away from than to visit. What was worth seeing had a new look, and with the exception of a sarcophagus or two, and the title of «Phocéens,» assumed by the Merchant’s Club, in right of their supposed ancestors from Asia Minor, there was really nothing which pretended to connect itself, substantially, with the past. Every thing seemed under the influence of trade—prosperous and ample, it is true, but too engrossing to liberalize or adorn.

    In Barcelona, on the contrary, you look from your vessel’s deck upon the Muralla del Mar, or sea-wall, a superb rampart, facing the whole harbor, and lined with elegant and lofty buildings. Of the churches, I shall speak presently. Upon the Rambla are two theaters : one opened during my visit, and decidedly among the most spacious and elegant in Europe; the other of more moderate pretensions, but tasteful and commodious, with an imposing facade of marble. In the Palace Square, the famous Casa Lonja, or Merchants’ Hall, stands opposite a stately pile of buildings, erected by private enterprise, and rivaling the beauty of the Rue Rivoli of Paris, or its models, the streets of Bologna, where all the side-walks are under arcades. On the other side of the same Plaza, the palace, a painted Gothic, fronts the Custom-house, which, overladen as it is with ornament, has yet no rival in Marseilles. Toward the center of the city, in the Square of the Constitution, you have on one side the ancient Audiencia, or Hall of Justice, whose architectural relics bring back remembrances of Rouen, while on the other side is the Casa Consistorial, or House of the Consistory, associated in its fine architecture and name, if not its present uses, with the days when the troubadour and the gaye science were at home in Barcelona, under the polished rule of the Arragonian kings. Every where throughout the city, you see traces of the past, and of a great and enterprising people who lived in it. Instead of the prostration and poverty which books of travel might prepare you to expect as necessary to a Spanish city, you find new buildings going up, in the place of old ones demolished to make room for them; streets widened; domestic architecture cultivated tastefully (as, indeed, from the ancient dwellings, it would seem to have always been in Barcelona), together with all the evidences of capital and enterprise, made visible to a degree, which Marseilles, with its vastly superior commerce and larger population, does not surpass.

    Nor, even as to the people, are the caps and trowsers the only un-French features. The Catalan, of either sex, is not graceful, it is true, or very comely. The women want the beauty, the walk, the style of the Andalusians. The men are more reserved in manner, less elegant and striking in form, more sober in costume and character than their gay southern brethren. But they are not French men or women, notwithstanding. Imagine a Marseillaise in a mantilla! «Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown»—even if it be but the crown of a bonnet; and it is impossible for one who has been bred to the use of those great equalizers of female head-carriage, to realize, much less to attain, the ease of motion, the fine free bearing of the head, neck, and shoulders, which the simple costume of the Spanish women teaches, and requires to make it graceful. Where, in the mincing gait on the trottoirs, will you find the proud, elastic step which the Spanish maiden is born to, even if it be her only inheritance? And where (to speak generally) among the loungers of cafes, and readers of feuilletons, or the proverbially brutal populace about them, do you see the parallel of that all-respecting self-respect, which it is a miracle not to find in the bearing of a Spaniard, be he high or low? It is an easy thing, M. Gautier, to condense a city into a paragraph!

    From the Rambla, we went down, along the sea-wall, to the Palace Square, where we found our way into the Lonja. The chambers of the commercial tribunals were in excellent taste. In each, there hung a portrait of the Queen, and, as all the likenesses were very much alike, I fear that they resembled her. We were shown through a gallery of bad pictures and statues—not very flattering testimonials of Catalonian art. During one of the recent revolutions, some indiscriminating cannon-balls had left these melancholy manifestations untouched, and had done a good deal of damage to the fine Gothic hall of the merchants. None but bullets fired in a bad cause could have conducted themselves so tastelessly. I would fain believe, however, that the more judicious Barcelonese have satisfied themselves, that the practical, not the ideal, is their forte, inasmuch as the extensive schools in the Lonja which are supported by the Board of Commerce, are all directed with a view to usefulness. Those of drawing and architecture are upon a scale to afford facilities, the tithe of which I should be happy to see gratuitously offered to the poor, in any city of our Union.

    An attractive writer (the author of the «Year in Spain») tells us that » the churches of Barcelona are not remarkable for beauty.» Externally, he must have meant, which, to a certain extent, perhaps, is true; but as to their interior, it is impossible to understand such a conclusion. The Cathedral and Santa Maria del Mar are remarkable, not only as graceful specimens, in themselves, of the most delicate Gothic art, but as resembling, particularly, in style, in the color of their dark-gray stone, and in their gorgeous windows, the very finest of the Norman models. Indeed, the great prevalence of this similarity in the churches of the province, has induced the belief, among approved writers, that the Normans themselves introduced the Gothic into Catalonia. Santa Maria del Mar reminds you, at a respectful distance, of St. Ouen, in the boldness and elevation of its columns and arches, and the splendor of its lights. It has an exquisite semi-circular apsis, corresponding to which is a colonnade of the same form surrounding the rear of the high altar; a feature peculiar to the Barcelonese churches, and giving to their interior a finish of great airiness and grace.

    From Santa Maria, we rambled up to the Cathedral, through many by-streets and cross-ways, passing through the oldest and quaintest portion of the city, and occasionally creeping under a queer, heavy archway, that seemed to date back almost to the days of Ramon Berenguer. Fortunately, we entered the church by one of the transept doors, and thus avoided seeing, until afterward, the unfinished, unmannerly facade. It would not be easy to describe the impression made on me by my first view of the interior of this grand temple, without the use of language more glowing, perhaps, than critical. When we entered, many of the windows were shaded; and it was some time before our eyes, fresh from the glare of outer day, became sufficiently accustomed to the gloom, to search out the fairy architecture in it. But, by degrees, the fine galleries, the gorgeous glass, the simple and lofty arches in concentering clusters, the light columns of the altar-screen, and the perfect fret-work of the choir, grew into distinctness, until they bewildered us with their beautiful detail. What treatises, what wood-cuts, what eulogies, should we not have, if the quaint carvings, of which the choir is a labyrinth, were transferred to Westminster, and the stalls and canopies of the Knights of the Golden Fleece were side by side with those of Henry the Seventh’s far-famed chapel! The same dark heads of Saracens which looked down on us from the «corbels grim,» had seen a fair gathering of chivalry, when Charles V., surrounded by many of the gallant knights whose blazons were still bright around us, held the last chapter of his favorite order there! Perhaps—and how much more elevating was the thought than all the dreams of knighthood !—perhaps, in the same solemn light which a chance ray of sunshine flung down the solitary nave, Columbus might have knelt before that very altar, when Barcelona hailed him as the discoverer of a world ! Let us tread reverently ! He may have pressed the very stones beneath our feet, when, in his gratitude, he vowed to Heaven, that with horse and foot he would redeem the Holy Sepulcher! «Satan disturbed all this,» he said, long after, in his melancholy way, when writing to the Holy Father; «but,» then he adds, «it were better I should say nothing of this, than speak of it lightly.» May it not have been, even in the moments of his first exultation, that here, in the shadow of these gray and awful aisles, he had forebodings of hopes that were to be blighted, and proud projects of ambitious life cast irretrievably away?