The Bellonids sometimes called the Bellonid Dynasty, were the counts descendant of the Goth

Visigoth

The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germans who spread through the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period...

 Belló

Bello

Bello is an Italian and Spanish surname from bello ‘handsome’ , hence a nickname for a handsome man or perhaps in some instances ironically for an ugly one...

 who ruled in Carcassonne

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...

, Urgel, Cerdanya

Cerdanya

Cerdanya is a natural comarca and historical region of the eastern Pyrenees divided between France and Spain. Historically it has been one of the counties of Catalonia....

, Conflent

Conflent

Conflent is a historical Catalan comarca of Northern Catalonia, now part of the French Département of Pyrénées-Orientales. In the Middle Ages it comprised the County of Conflent....

, Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, and numerous other Catalan and Septimanian counties and marches

Catalan counties

The Catalan counties were the administrative divisions of the eastern Carolingian Marca Hispanica created after its Frankish conquest. The various counties roughly defined what came to be known as the Principality of Catalonia....

 in the 9th century and whose most famous grandson was Wilfred the Hairy

Wilfred the Hairy

Wilfred or Wifred, called the Hairy, was Count of Urgell , Cerdanya , Barcelona , Girona , Besalú , and Ausona ....

, who founded the dynasty of Barcelona, rulers of the County of Barcelona since 897 and, since 1164, also the Crown of Aragon

Crown of Aragon

The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...

 until Martin the Humane, in 1410.

One of the peculiarities of the family is that, in the early years of the 10th century, all the Eastern counties of the Spanish March, and the Occitan counties of Carcassone and Razès

Razès

Razès is a historical area in southwestern France, in today's Aude département.Several communes of the département include Razès in their name:* Bellegarde-du-Razès* Belvèze-du-Razès* Fenouillet-du-Razès* Fonters-du-Razès...

 were ruled by Belló's descendants. This would have favored the co-ruling of some territories, and a clan

Clan

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...

-like network of mutual support, although they would have also been exposed to the risk of endogamy

Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...

.

The term "Bellonids" has been used by Catalan historians, English historians (in 1871) and French historians.