According to legend, Andorra was founded in 805 by Emperor Charlemagne (748-814), who is said to have given its inhabitants their own legal status. In fact, however, the country belonged to the Spanish Marches founded by Charlemagne, a territory he had taken from the Moors. In a letter from his grandson, Charles the Bald, to the Count of Barcelona, the Andorran territory is defined as belonging to the Count of Urgell in 843. In 1133, Count Ermengol VI of Urgell sold his lordship rights in the valleys of Andorra to the Bishop of Urgell. The bishops of Urgell entrusted the defence and jurisdiction of Andorra to the noble family of Caboet, who received their own fiefs in the valleys of Andorra and Sant Joan as vassals. The last Caboet heiress married Arnau, the vice-count of Castelbon, in 1185. The latter was an ardent Cathar and, in alliance with the Count Raimund Roger of Foix, who lived on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, tried to rid himself of his vassalage to the Bishop of Urgell. To this end, he married his heiress daughter to the future Count of Foix in 1202, transferring the Caboet estate in Andorra to this influential family. The Counts of Foix refused to enter into a vassalage relationship with the Bishops of Urgell. The conflict was settled in 1278 when Bishop Pere d'Urtx and Count Roger Bernard III agreed in the 'Treaty of Pareatges' to divide the rule over the disputed territory. The two parties recognised each other as equal lords over Andorra. This treaty marked the de facto foundation of the Co-principality of Andorra. While the Bishop of Urgell remained in his treaty rights, those of the Counts of Foix passed to the French Crown in 1594 with the appointment of the last Count of Foix, Henry of Bourbon, as King of France, in whose legal succession the Presidents of France still stand today. The coin shows Charlemagne after a painting by Albrecht Dürer created in 1511/13 (today in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg), with the imperial sword and the imperial crown, the crown of the kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (today in the Imperial Treasury of the Vienna Hofburg). |
