Assassination, poisoning and the limits of feudal power
Medieval violence existed but was often checked by emerging legal institutions such as courts and the ‘Peace and Truce.’.
Key Points
- Emerging law, judicial systems and ‘Peace and Truce’ measures helped curb feudal abuses.
- Several bishops of Urgell met violent or traumatic ends (St Ermengol 1035; Guillem Guifré assassinated 1075).
- Nobles suffered suspicious deaths and poisonings: Bernat de Vilamur (assassinated 1203); Foix line incidents including Francis Phoebus (1483).
- Notable later political killings: King Henry IV stabbed in 1610; Louis XVI executed by guillotine in 1793.
People often imagine the distant past — especially the medieval period — as unusually violent, a time when human life was cheap and the whims of the powerful left peasants helpless before abuses. That image is not entirely accurate. There were tensions and episodes of violence, but communities also developed mechanisms to check and moderate abuses. Law, an emerging judicial system and institutions such as the “Peace and Truce” helped limit the repressive impulses of feudal power.
Before the establishment of co-lordship and before Bishop Pere Berenguer acquired comital rights in 1033, several bishops of Urgell met traumatic ends. Saint Ermengol died on 3 November 1035 in an accident during work on the Bar bridge. His immediate successor, Bishop Guillem Guifré, was assassinated in Pallars in 1075 by unidentified “prophani homines”; he had previously been accused of killing Viscount Folc of Cardona, so revenge cannot be ruled out.
Bernat de Vilamur, already lord of Andorra, appears to have been assassinated in 1203. The counts of Foix also suffered sudden and suspicious deaths. Roger III of Foix died under odd circumstances during a hunt; Anton Fiter recounts that after hunting with his wife Ximena he ate a small piece of wild boar pâté, then fell from his seat and died suddenly — the date of this account varies and the death may have occurred later, around 1148.
Poisoning was a recurring theme in the Foix line: Francis Phoebus died in 1483, allegedly by poisoning, and there had been an earlier attempt on Gaston Phoebus. Jeanne d’Albret, the Calvinist co-princess, is said to have died in 1572 after putting on poisoned gloves.
More broadly known political assassinations followed in later centuries. King Henry IV — the first French king to serve as co-prince of Andorra — was stabbed by François Ravaillac in 1610 while riding in a carriage on the rue de la Ferronnerie. Louis XVI met his end by guillotine in January 1793, executed by the public executioner Sanson at the Place de la Bastille.
Compared with those episodes, our times seem remarkably calm.
Original Sources
This article was aggregated from the following Catalan-language sources: