In 711, the Muslim army began its conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom and a new country - al-Andalus - came into being. For four centuries, the lands of Balaguer, Lleida, Tarragona and Tortosa were part of the Islamic world, an economic and religious community that stretched all the way to India.

Al-Andalus bordered the Catalan counties, which were part of the Hispanic March, the frontier territory of the Carolingian Empire. At the end of the 10th century, the Catalan counts became independent from the Franks, with the House of Barcelona as the dominant family of counts. During the 11th century, the establishment of feudalism created new social bonds based on the social and political control of the nobility and the Church, and the exploitation of the peasantry. This rural, feudal world provided the setting for the spread of Romanesque art, which sought to explain the world, its origins and its order. In the 12th century, the conquest of New Catalonia, the growing ties with Occitania and the dynastic union with Aragon strengthened the new state. The word Catalunya (Catalonia) emerged at virtually the same time as Catalan was first used in writing.