Miró II Bonfill, comte de Besalú

Count of Besalú (965-984), under the higher authority of his brother, the Count of Cerdanya Oliba Cabreta and bishop of Girona (970/71-984). Son of Miró II of Cerdanya, he was successor to his brother, Sunifred. He was known as a kind- hearted and cultured man, who wrote prose and verse in elaborate Latin with interspersed with Greek. A dozen of his compositions remain, including the consecration ceremonials of Cuixà (974) and Ripoll (977). Already destined for the church at a young age, he became a Levite in 941. In 977, he founded a canoncy in the chapel of the Besalú county palace, followed by the monastery of Sant Pere de Besalú, which he both bestowed as a freehold to Saint Peter of Rome. In 979, he obtained a papal bull from Benet VII for the Sant Pere monastery. In 981, again in Rome, he was a council member in the presence of Emperor Otto II, and was appointed by the pope to circulate an encyclical against simony. It is possible that he returned to Rome again in 983, to visit the monastery at Bobbio. Previous to 979, he was under threat of aggression by Count Borrell of Barcelona, who organised an impressive army at Sant Patllari, on the border between the counties of Girona and Besalú, but the act was never realised. He was a loyal friend to Gerbert, future pope Silvester II, who held him in high esteem, and who undoubtedly contributed to the moral and intellectual development of Miró's nephew, who would later become the renowned abbot-bishop of Oliba.