Guifred le Velu
Wilfred the Hairy has become a figure of importance for contemporary Catalan nationalists. Nineteenth century European Romanticism looked to the medieval world for references and links to modern national and cultural identities, and in the context of Catalan nationalism and its search for its historical foundations in a distant and idealised past, Wilfred soon arose as a figure of independence, the "de facto" founder of the House of Barcelona, and, by purported extension, one of the forefathers of the latter Catalonia.