Chapter Lugares de poder en Auvernia de los Guillèmides. La construcción de un principado y funcionamiento cognático de las estrategias de poder en los siglos IX y X

Overview & Synopsis

Traditional historiography tends to underestimate the role of women in the local settlement of the power of elite networks during the 9th and 10th centuries. The process of transmission of public offices and inheritance, and the building of dynasties of counts, is well known. However, recent work has highlighted the important role of women in the assertion of local spaces of domination by the great families of the imperial aristocracy, especially when these women were descendants of the Carolingian dynasty. The establishment of the principality of the Guilhemid in Aquitaine, around the county of Auvergne until the early 870s, is a paradigmatic example for understanding the central position of women in the control of places of power. However, it was on the basis of the county of Auvergne, handed down by his wife Ermengarda, that Bernard Plantapilosa and his successors built a dominion extending over the centre and south of the kingdom of Western France, until the demise of this group in the late 920’s.