Wifred II, Count of Cerdanya

Who was Wifred II, Count of Cerdanya?

Wifred was the Count of Cerdanya and Count of Berga. He was the eldest son of Oliba Cabreta and Ermengard of Ampurias.

When his father abdicated in 988 to become a monk in Monte Cassino, Wifred's brother Bernard received Besalú while Oliba received Berga. Their mother acted as regent until 994. When Oliba followed his father into the church in 1003, his county passed to Wifred. In that year Wifred and Bernard joined an alliance of Christian princes to fend off a Muslim invasion at the Battle of Torà.

Like his father and brother before him, he had a great affection for the church. He participated actively in the consecration of many churches and monasteries, such as San Martín del Canigó, founded in 1007 and consecrated in 1009. Despite this, he did fight to free his county from the jurisdiction of the diocese of Urgell and thus entered into conflict with Saint Ermengol.

In 1023, Wifred entered into a peace concord with Berengar Raymond I of Barcelona and William I of Besalú. In the early thirteenth-century Liber feudorum Ceritaniae the first folio is illuminated with a scene of Wifred receiving the homage of sarn and Dalmau, lords of Castellfollit. The picture, painted by a different artist from the rest of book, is of a higher calibre than the otherss and is in the Byzantinist style that was becoming dominant in Catalonia around 1200.