ABSTRACT
Until the middle of the 12th century, Catalonia was not a centre but a periphery. Being outside the orbit of the major royal powers, and therefore without a courtly art, the former Marca Hispanica remained distant from the artistic foci of Carolingian and Post-Carolingian art. Besides, it was without a metropolitan see until the conquest of Tarragona. Hence, from the very outset the local Church, together with the lay magnates, exerted artistic agency in an attempt to shore up their ecclesiastical and political status, based on their alliance with the Papacy. In this regard, Oliba, abbot of Ripoll and Cuixà and bishop of Vic, along with his comital family, were leaders in what many authors have defined as the Catalan mini-renaissance of the 11th Century, while Saint Ot of La Seu d’Urgell and his relatives, the counts of Pallars, were one of the driving forces in the transformation of the monumental arts during the late-11th and early-12th centuries. The distinctive role of aristocratic women in the promotion of the minor arts (metalwork and embroidery) during the comital period is also a topic that deserves detailed analysis.
