254 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINBarcelona. He was defeated by royal forces the following year and
after being captured in Barcelona was executed. William's younger
brother Bernard 'Plantevelue', despite the fate of his relatives, subse-
quently rose to favour in the West Frankish court late in the reign of
Charles 'the Bald', and was entrusted with the counties of Toulouse
in 872 and Narbonne in 874. He took a leading part in the aristo-
cratic revolt against the king in 877, and subsequently continued to
conspire against the latter's heirs in the interest of the East Frankish
ruler Charles 'the Fat' until killed in battle in 886.
Three generations of this family were thus associated with the
Pyrenean marches and, with the exception of the first William, all of
them proved disloyal to their royal overlords. In this they were not
unusual. Other great Frankish office-holders whose power had been
deliberately built up by the Carolingian rulers proved equally untrust-
worthy. Thus the marchio Humfrid had to be expelled for rebellion in
864 or 865, as was Bernard 'of Gothia' in 878. In remarkable contrast
to this was the career of an indigenous family which, like that of
William of Toulouse, held office on the march during successive
generations but proved consistently loyal to the Carolingian dynasty.
The precise origins and ancestry of this family are disputed, but it is
accepted that it was of local extraction from either Gothia or Hispania.
Its probable first major representative was Sunifred, Count of Urgell
and Cerdanya in the Pyrenees, who was appointed Count of Barce-
lona and Marchio on the execution of Bernard 'of Septimania'. On
his death in 848, his offices were redistributed, but in 870 his son
Wifred was given the county of Urgell. In 878 Wifred and and his
brother Miro, Count of Conflent, attacked the supporters of the rebel
Bernard 'of Gothia' and were rewarded by the grant of his counties:
Wifred acquiring Barcelona, Gerona and Ausona, together with the
title of Marchio, while Miro and another brother called Radulf were
entrusted with Rossello and Besalu under his authority. 54
From 878 onwards, until the merging of this family with the royal
dynasty of Aragon in 1137,.Wifred's heirs continued to rule all of the
Frankish counties south of the Pyrenees, with the exception of the
two central Pyrenean ones of Pallars and Ribagor~a, without interrup-
tion. This has led to the rise of Wifred 'the Hairy' in the 870s being
regarded as marking the birth of an independent Catalonia. However,
it is important to note that Wifred and his heirs were content to re-
tain their comital title, which was of Frankish creation, and contin-
ued, as did the other landowners in the march, to date their documents