County of Pallars

The County of Pallars or Pallás (Catalan: Comtat de Pallars, IPA: [kumˈtad də pəˈʎas]; Latin: Comitatus Pallariensis) was a de facto independent petty state, nominally within the Carolingian Empire and then West Francia during the ninth and tenth centuries, perhaps one of the Catalan counties, originally part of the Marca Hispanica in the ninth century. It was coterminous with the upper Noguera Pallaresa valley from the crest of the Pyrenees to the village of Tremp, comprising the Valle de Àneu, Valle de Cardós, Valle Ferrera, the right bank of the Noguera Ribagorzana, and the valley of the Flamicell. It roughly corresponded with the historic region of Catalonia called Pallars. Its chief city was Sort.

The early history of Pallars, which was the easternmost extent of Basque settlement, is linked to that of its western neighbour, Ribagorza. Both territories, nominally lands of the Moors, came under the sway of the count of Toulouse perhaps as early as 781, perhaps as late as the start of the 9th century. They formed in turn a new province attached to Toulouse and therefore became Carolingian vassals.

A widely circulated monkish account of 1078 from Alaó contains the earliest foundation myth of any of the counties of the Hispanic March. Written at a time when the independence of Pallars and Ribagorza was threatened by the hegemony recently created by the personal union of the Kingdom of Navarre and Kingdom of Aragon (1076). It records that Count Bernard and Bishop Ato, both of Ribagorza and descended by tradition from Charlemagne, spearheaded the conquest and repopulation of Sobrarbe and Pallars respectively and that the bishop held ecclesiastical rule over all three counties.

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