Arsenda

Overview

Title social-status

Viscountess of Àger

Date of Birth

early 11th century

Date of Death

1168?

Biography

Arsenda/Arsendis was the daughter of a minor nobleman, perhaps a Maurus, perhaps of the Fluvià family. She married the viscount of Àger, Arnau Mir de Tost, in the county of Urgell, between 1030 and 1033, and appears in various documents with him from 1033. [1] They had two or three sons, Arnau and perhaps two Williams, all of whom predeceased her, and three to five daughters Ledgard, who married Pons Guerau, viscount of Girona in 1067, Valencia, who married Ramon IV of Lower Pallars in 1055/56, Sancia, already dead by the time of her father's will, and perhaps two others who died young. Arnau was one of the enterprising castellans seizing territory and tributes (parias) during the Reconquista (1.358-59); he and Arsenda built and donated to churches and worked towards the colonization of their frontier land. Bonnassie lists thirty-six castles that Arnau controlled in the counties of Urgell, Pallars, and the kingdom of Aragon (2.791). [2]

Arsenda’s will names not only her daughters, but also two sisters, Ermessend and Chixol, and the soul of her son Arnau. The will also includes the first mention of chess sets, [3] which she leaves to her husband; they have been identified with the rock crystal pieces that eventually appear in Sant Pere d’Àger in an inventory of 1547, a church that she and her husband had built on a former mosque. A chess board appears in the shield of Àger.

Sanahuja records a document, dated sometime between 1033 and 1046, to Arnau from Oliba, bishop of Vich, saying that at the request of his “beloved wife” (Arsenda), he and the congregation of St. Mary of Ripoll, send them relics of the Cross and the Lord’s sepulchre, and the garment and shoe of the Virgin, which a friend had brought from Lodio (Podio, Puy de Francia), and a reliquary cross that the bishop had consecrated. [4]

Letters from Arsenda

Letters to Arsenda

A letter from Constance, countess of Urgell
A letter from Ermengol and Constance
A letter from Ermengol of Urgell
A letter from Ermengol, Count of Urgell
A letter from Eva
A letter from Ramon and Ermessend of Pallars
A letter from Raymond of Pallars
A letter from Raymond of Pallars
A letter from Raymond of Pallars and Valencia