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Valencia of Tost

Overview

Title social-status
Countess of Pallars
Date of Birth
mid 11th century
Date of Death
early 12th century

Biography

Valencia was the daughter of Arnau Mir of Tost in Urgell, and his wife Arsenda.  In 1055, Valencia married Raymond IV, count of lower Pallars, who had been at war with her father; Raymond died in 1098.  They had three sons, Pere Raymond, Arnau Raymond, and Bernat Raymond, all of whom ruled Pallars, the two eldest together for over a decade, the third succeeding them; they also had a daughter who is mentioned but not named in Valencia’s will. 

When they married, Raymond sold a number of properties to Valencia's parents  on the condition that if he should predecease his wife the properties would go to her as her allod and that she would hold all his other honors with a son or daughter from the marriage.  (See letter from Raymond to Arnau and Arsenda, September 2, 1055, LFM #125.)

Valencia is a party to many of the charters issued under Raymond, which appear here.  In another, #76, LFM 1.90-91, June 1081, an agreement between count Raymond and viscount Arnau Bernart over the castle of Talarn, although she is not named as an issuer, Arnau Bernart agrees to be the man of count Raymond and of countess Valencia and their son, and do fidelity according to their will, and give them power, etc., and Valencia is one of the signers.

For a detailed study of the agreements recorded in such charters in Catalonia during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, see Adam J. Kosto, Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia: Power, Order, and the Written Word, 1000–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).  I have drawn heavily on this work for the meanings of terms used in the charters.