Urgell (Catalan pronunciation: [urˈ(d)ʒeʎ]), also known as Baix Urgell (baix meaning "lower", by contrast with Alt Urgell "Upper Urgell"), is a comarca (county) in Ponent, Catalonia (Spain), forming only a borderland portion of the region historically known as Urgell, one of the Catalan counties.
The capital is the city of Tàrrega.
Borrell I was the first count of Cerdanya, Urgell, and Osona from between 797 and 799 to his death in 820. He was a Visigoth nobleman, probably from Cerretana (Cerdanya).
In the final years of the eighth century, the Franks under Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious, king of Aquitaine, were subduing the Marca Hispanica and expanding southwards into Moorish territory. When Urgell and Cerdanya were subdued around 798, Borrel was appointed count. He took a very active part in the subsequent conquest of Osona in 799 and the successful siege of Barcelona in 801. He may have been named count in Osona as a reward for his services.
A sarcophagus (pl.: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek σάρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγεῖν phagein meaning "to eat"; hence sarcophagus means "flesh-eating", from the phrase lithos sarkophagos (λίθος σαρκοφάγος), "flesh-eating stone". The word also came to refer to a particular kind of limestone that was thought to rapidly facilitate the decomposition of the flesh of corpses contained within it due to the chemical properties of the limestone itself.
Ponent, also known as the Lleida region following the vegueries law, is the westernmost of the eight regions (vegueries) defined by the Regional Plan of Catalonia. It has an area of 5,586 km, and 365,289 inhabitants as of 2022.
The region includes the comarques of Segrià, Garrigues, Noguera, Pla d'Urgell, Segarra and Urgell. Within Catalonia, it borders to the north with Alt Pirineu, to the east with Central Catalonia, Penedès and Camp de Tarragona, and to the south with Terres de l'Ebre. Outside of administrative terms, the name is sometimes used including the Aragonese comarques of Baix Cinca and La Llitera, which are part of the Catalan-speaking territory in Aragon known as Franja de Ponent.
The Bellonids (Catalan: Bel·lònides, Spanish: Bellónidas, French: Bellonides), sometimes called the Bellonid Dynasty, were the counts descended from the Goth Belló who ruled in Carcassonne, Urgell, Cerdanya, County of Conflent, Barcelona, and numerous other Hispanic and Gothic march counties in the 9th and 10th centuries. His most famous grandson was Wilfred the Hairy, who founded the House of Barcelona, rulers of the County of Barcelona from 878, and since 1164 the Crown of Aragon, until the end of the reign of Martin the Humane in 1410.
Since the early years of the 10th century all of the eastern counties of the Hispanic March and the counties of Conflent, Carcassonne, Foix, and Razès of the Gothic March were ruled by Belló's descendants. This would have favored the co-ruling of some territories, and a clan-like network of mutual support, although they would have also been exposed to the risk of endogamy.