ABSTRACT
Many things about Ermengol de Aspa, including his origins and the nature of his brief rule over the Hospital, remain uncertain and hypothetical,1 but some new information is provided by the documentation from the Hospitallers' female monastery at Sigena, founded by Sancha of Castile, queen of Aragon, in 1187.2 Ermengol seems likely to have been a Catalan from Aspa some 13 kilometres south of Lleida; a Saint Ermengol had been Bishop of Lleida and at least ten counts of Urgel bore the same name. The form Armengaud was, however, common in Southern France and there was a Valley of the Aspe in the Basses-Pyrénées south of Pau.3 If he did come from Western Catalunya, that might have led to Ermengol's close association with Queen Sancha in the establishment of the house at nearby Sigena in which both the crown and the Order had deep interests.
