emergence of local noble dynasties. In the Midi, the most powerful came to be the house of Toulouse. During the course of the eleventh century, it came to control the land from the Rhône to Angoulême and from the Pyrenees northwards to the mountains of Auvergne. Its main rivals in the region were the counts of Barcelona. Under Count Raymond-Berengar I ( 1035-76), the lands of Barcelona were extended north of the Pyrenees to include the town of Carcassonne. A distinctively Catalan entity began to emerge. The power of the Catalans increased when Raymond-Berengar IV became heir to the king of Aragon by virtue of his marriage to the king's daughter. This new state clashed periodically with Toulouse in the course of the twelfth century and the expansion of Aragonese power in the Midi was only brought to a halt at the death of King Alfonso II in 1196, when the lands of the kingdom were divided between his two sons: Peter gained Aragon and Barcelona and Alfonso the lands north of the Pyrenees.
The methods used by the great houses of the south to extend both their territory and their influence were remarkably similar; not surprising in a region where Roman traditions both of public law and of landholding were still preserved. The allod, or freeholding, was prevalent in the south and this meant that a lord's power was not implicit in his followers' land tenure as it was in the feudal lands to the north of the Loire. Homage was rarely extracted as a prerequisite of landholding; and lands were often granted out in return for rents rather than services. Many were for a period measured in lifetimes rather than in hereditary tenure. Thus feudal relationships could not be used as a basis for the extension of seigneurial power. Instead, the great landowners of the region concentrated on extending their own demesnes (especially by judicious marriages) and by extracting oaths of loyalty (fidelitas) from their followers. Such men were often rewarded by appointment as castellans in charge of the proliferation of strongholds which had been constructed in the tenth century as defensive centres against Muslim attack. Whilst these castellanies themselves became the centres of power for new knightly houses, their ambitions were
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