Reig Fundació collaborated in financing the publication of Roland Viader’s doctoral thesis, L’Andorre du IXe au XIVe siècle. Montagne, féodalité et communautés (2003), which was published in the Tempus de les Presses Universitaires de l’Université de Toulouse Le Mirail collection.

Roland Viader is a doctor in mediaeval history. He currently works at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and is a professor at the University of Toulouse.

In his doctoral thesis L’Andorre du IXe au XIVe siècle, Viader upset the classical representations of the Andorran Middle Age, the traditional history of the origins of the co-principality. He explained how the cohesion of the Andorran population was structured and the weight of this cohesion on the configuration of the institutions. In short, he spoke about the first demonstrations of an Andorran way of doing things, of an identity that has lasted over time.

The most significant thing about this study are the strategies of the populations and of the Andorran elite, who were better able than we hitherto thought of deciding on the institutional future of Andorra. There are a good number of chapters dedicated to revitalising the importance of the pariatges (a feudal treaty recognising joint sovereignty over a territory by two rulers) and shows how situations and events that still persist came into being. The creation of the Consell de la Terra shows a great deal about the nature of the internal social conflicts rather than the conflicts between the rulers.

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