Barcelona. Reial Major Palace; Roman Wall, Concert

The Reial Major Palace by name only corresponds to the Reial Menor Palace, the reconstructed chapel whose history dates back to the Templars. The Reial Major site dates back to the Romans, and probably to peoples antecedent.  And after the Romans and the Visigothic Kings came the Moors.

It is, overall, a big old dark L of a place, with part of the Roman Wall incorporated and Moorish bits ill-disquised, and that is a good thing.  There is a handy stage area set up to draw you in by sound to a street otherwise not especially noticeable.

Counts of Barcelona!  Kings of Aragon!  The full panoply is here.

Reial Major Palace, Barcelona, Spain.

Moorish arch architecture is still visible where the later remodelers liked right angles rather than grace.

Barcelona, Reial Major Palau, Spain.  Moorish elements remain

The complex comprises several buildings, see http://www.spain.info/en/que-quieres/arte/monumentos/barcelona/palau_reial_major.html  The 4th Century Roman wall is impressive for its good condition.

Information soundbite, Roman Wall, Barcelona, Spain

Identifying photographs by select tourist posters helps keep places straight.  Here, in the evening, follow the sounds.

Concert, Stage area Reial Major Palace, Barcelona, Spain.  

Why Groucho?  There was a fine medley of older music, including ragtime. Is that is?

Heraldry, five verticals on a shield, crown on top, Royal Palace Major, Barcelona, Spain

Back to the music.  This was a fine accent to the evening.

Concert, courtyard area, Royal Palace Major, Barcelona, Spain

How to identify fine women on horseback with oriflamme?  This kind of medieval battle pennant was carried aloft and if it fell, the nearest warrior was to get it back up again -- the oriflamme, see http://sassafrastree.blogspot.com/2010/12/oriflamme-down-ciceros-up-lust-of-sway.html/ 

Is this Ramon Berengeur IV?  There is a large freestanding statue of him in similar flowing cape-garb.  Or is this a woman? Enlarged, it looks masculine, with a rounded beard there.

Oriflamme,  Ramon Berengeur IV perhaps, near Reial Major Palau, Barcelona, Spain

Arches that also look remodeled but here the little graceful ones look filed into a simpler frame.  Blind arches, or arches to nowhere, seem to be a common theme, with all the contrasting occupiers here, each using this and discarding that, see http://w1.bcn.cat/barcelonablog/unknown-city/history-of-a-building-the-palau-reial-major?lang=en

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Palatine Santa Agata Chapel, x

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Ripoll. St. Mary's. Burial, Ramon Berengeur IV and maybe Berengeur III III

Ripoll is a place of medieval history: monastery, cathedral, cloisters. It dates from early middle ages. Prominent among the burials is Ramon Berengeur, possibly III and certainly IV.

This noble name, Berengeur, is important to us, because the name Berengeur, Berenger, Beringer, other forms, extends from Catalonia and Aragon in Spain, across the Pyrenees into the old Languedoc in France, Carcassonne, the Pyrenees.

Berenger at Rennes le Chateau. In France, just over the Pyrnees, is fodder for mystery buffs: a priest of the same name centuries later, and with local connections to Berenger nobility dating 'way back (the local castle), who suddenly came across or into a fortune, perhaps of Templar or Cathar roots in times of stress and flight from France, Inquisitions, Cathar "heresy".  See Rennes le Chateau, http://franceroadways.blogspot.com/2012/10/carcassonne-and-rennes-le-chateau.html. 

The lords of that Castle were of Cathar stock, Cathar sympathies. 

Was this 19th Century Berenger the recipient of the knowledge of the treasure because he was Berenger, or happenstance, or is all this just fun for researchers.

Another Berenger was a bishop at Carcassonne at the time of the Pope's infamous Crusade against fellow Christians, who would not swallow the required papal dogma, and so, were killed.

Burial: Count Ramon Berengeur IV, Count of Barcelona., and remaiins here also perhaps Ramon Berengeur III. Ripoll, Spain, St,Mary's

Most plaques at St. Mary's are in Catalan.  The plaque here, the Berenger memorial, is to be translated.  Looks like sepulchre of Ramon Berenguer IV, is he Sainted?  El Sant?  Count of Barcelona, marquis of Provence, prince of Aragon?  What is the reference to Ramon Berenguer III?

Ramon Berengeur IV, tomb, St. Mary's, Ripoll, Spain

Google Translate says, "tomb of the saint ramon berengeur IV, Count of Barcelona, ​​marks Provence, prince of Aragon and, supposedly contains the remains of the great Ramon Berengeur III."

• Ramon Berengeur III. Raymond the Great. He ruled variously from 1082 until his death in Barcelona in 1131, as Count of Barcelona, Girona, Besalu, Cerdanya (have to look all these up), and as Count of Provence (watch the territories shift over centuries:  Provence is southern France, across the Pyrenees) .  He enjoyed the Provence connections through right of his wife. Summary bio at  http://translation.babylon.com/english/Ramon%20berenguer%20iii/. Women in those days inherited, ruled. Husbands inherited lands through them, as Ramon here.  Ramon III died in 1131, and also ruled in early years in some areas with Ramon II, see site. A line of Ramon Berengeurs.

Berenger.  Berenguer.  Beringer.  An old name, nobility back to the middle ages in a time when boundaries were fluid, countries were unformed, dukedoms, counts, kings, empires jostled and warred and conspiracies danced through the years. Go to a place and then look up its history.

Ripoll:  Ripoll is a town in the foothills/midst of the Pyrenees.  Drive about an hour from Figueres, hairpin turns up the mountainsides. At Ripoll Place of the Santa Maria Monastery with its scriptorium where monks copied manuscripts, created books.  The earliest church on the site dates from 879. The monastery complex, begun in 977, is Romanesque, see http://kalmiya.hubpages.com/hub/Off-The-Beaten-Track-In-Ripoll-Spain.  Cloisters were begun in 1180, work continued for centuries.  There are fine and surprising Corinthian columns there.

Buried inside is Raymond Beregeur IV, name spelled variously as Raimond, Ramon, Berengeur.  Other counts of Catalonia are there as well.  Raymond was the "founder" of Catalonia, see http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Spain/Catalunya/Ripoll-256254/Things_To_Do-Ripoll-TG-C-1.html, that region including Barcelona and at one time extending across the Pyrenees to Carcassonne in the Languedoc, southwest France to us.

Berengeur, Beregeur.  Any nation has its treasured dynasties, some facts airbrushed out, some embroidery, but offering roots into a country's history. National family dynasties. We have our Kennedys -  the Bushes can never compare.  See the Kennedys at their compound, now in process of re-use, at Hyannis MA.

Family Dynasties. Example: Kennedy Compound, Hyannis MA. 1960's

Ripoll also memorializes the deaths of later "martyrs" from the Spanish Civil War 

Martyrs' Memorial, Ripoll, St. Mary's, Spanish Civil War

Berengeur:  also a martyr of the Spanish Civil War, Aragon's Jean Baixeras Berenguer, see footnote, Wikipedia. *  Those of this Diocese of Urqell include names on the plaque -- but where is the nun, the sister also beatified. Sister Maria de los Angeles Ginard Marti. Was she not of this Diocese?  See http://www.fsspx.org/en/a_actualites/from-rome/a_beatifications-of-eight-martyrs-from-the-spanish-civil-war/

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*There were some 20 martyrs from Aragon: Louis Vila Masferrer, priest, and nineteen companions, Joseph-Marie Blasco Juan Alfonso Sorribes Teixeido, Joseph-Marie Badia Mateu, Figuero Joseph Beltran, Edward Diego Ripoll, François-Marie Roura Farro, Jesus Augustin Viela Ezcurdia, Joseph-Marie Hernandez Amoros, Jean Baixeras Berenguer, Rafael Morales Briega Louis Escalé Binefa, Raymond Illa Salvia, Llado Teixido Louis Michel Gonzalez Masip, Faustin Perez Garcia, Sebastien Riera Coromina, Joseph-Marie Ros Florensa, François and Castan Messeguer Emmanuel Martinez Jarauta  Site:http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_ao%C3%BBt