Sal·la

Sal·la (Latin: Sanla) was the Bishop of Urgell from 981 to 1010, and "one of the first Catalan figures whose own words" survive sufficiently "to give colour to his personality and actions", although all of the words attributed to him were written down by scribes. He receives mention in some sixty-three surviving contemporary documents. As bishop, Sal·la dated documents by the reign of Hugh the Great. Although his episcopate largely preceded the Peace of God movement in Catalonia, his excommunication of high-ranking public figures during a church–state dispute in 991 anticipated it. He also pioneered feudal practices such as the granting of fiefs and was frequently "ahead of the feudalising wave".

Sal·la was the son of Isarn, semi-independent viscount of Conflent. His brother Bernat and Bernat's son Arnau, both viscounts in succession after Isarn, make no appeal to comital authority in all their surviving documents. Sal·la was perhaps named after his uncle Sal·la, founder of Sant Benet de Bages and "perhaps the greatest frontier magnate in tenth-century Catalonia after the counts". Throughout their lives, Sal·la and his brother Bernat endeavoured by exchanges and divisions of their patrimony (inherited estates) to consolidate the former's lands in Urgell and the latter's in Conflent and Ausona, around their respective power bases.

Sal·la was also related, it is not known how, to the viscounts of Ausona. All the bishops of Urgell from 942 to 1040 were members of this same extended family. By 974 he was an archdeacon in the Cathedral of Urgell. At a date unknown, after Sal·la became bishop, the viscount of Urgell, Guillem, swore an oath of fealty to Sal·la personally rather than to the cathedral or its patron, the Virgin. This was commonplace at a later date, but such oaths to the bishop directly are unusual among the documents of tenth-century Catalonia, and Guillem's may be the earliest a record of which survives.

...
Wikipedia