The Gesta comitum Barcinonensium is a Latin chronicle composed in three stages by some monks of Santa Maria de Ripoll and recounting the reigns of the Counts of Barcelona from Wifred I (878–97) to James II (1291–1327), as late as 1299. It is an adulatory history of the dynasty known as the House of Barcelona. In presenting the rulers of the county of Barcelona as the descendants of Charlemagne, the monks sought to justify their independent policy with respect to the King of France, their nominal sovereign. The Gesta is the chronological backbone.