William IX ( or , ; 22 October 1071 – 10 February 1126), called the Troubadour, was the

Duke of Aquitaine The duke of Aquitaine (, , ) was the ruler of the medieval region of Aquitaine (not to be confused with modern-day Aquitaine) under the supremacy of Frankish, English, and later French kings. As successor states of the Visigothic Kingdom ( ...

and

Gascony Gascony (; ) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part of the combined Province of Guyenne and Gascon ...

and

Count of Poitou Among the people who have borne the title of Count of Poitiers (, ; or ''Poitou'', in what is now France but in the Middle Ages became part of Aquitaine) are: *Bodilon * Warinus (638–677), son of Bodilon *Hatton (735-778) Carolingian Count ...

(as William VII) between 1086 and his death. He was also one of the leaders of the

Crusade of 1101 The Crusade of 1101, also known as the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted, was launched in the aftermath of the First Crusade with calls for reinforcements from the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem and to rescue the famous Bohemond of Taranto fr ...

. Though his political and military achievements have a certain historical importance, he is best known as the earliest

troubadour A troubadour (, ; ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female equivalent is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The tr ...

—a

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

lyric poet in the

Occitan language Occitan (; ), also known by its native speakers as (; ), sometimes also referred to as Provençal, is a Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys, as well as Spain's Val d'Aran in Catalonia; collectively, ...

—by whom some work survives.

Ducal career

William was the son of

William VIII of Aquitaine William VIII ( – 25 September 1086), born Guy-Geoffrey (''Gui-Geoffroi''), was duke of Gascony (1052–1086), and then duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitiers (as William VI) between 1058 and 1086, succeeding his brother William VII (Pierre ...

by his third wife, Hildegarde of Burgundy. His birth was a cause of great celebration at the Aquitanian court, but the Church at first considered him illegitimate because of his father's earlier divorces and his parents'

consanguinity Consanguinity (from Latin '':wikt: consanguinitas, consanguinitas'' 'blood relationship') is the characteristic of having a kinship with a relative who is descended from a common ancestor. Many jurisdictions have laws prohibiting people who are ...

. This obliged his father to make a pilgrimage to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

soon after his birth to seek

Papal The pope is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the pope was the sovereign or head of sta ...

approval of his third marriage and the young William's legitimacy.

Early career, 1088–1102

William inherited the duchy at the age of fifteen upon the death of his father. It has been generally believed that he was first married in 1088, at age sixteen, to Ermengarde, daughter of

Fulk IV of Anjou Fulk IV (; 1043 – 14 April 1109), better known as Fulk le Réchin (), was the count of Anjou from around 1068 until his death. He was noted to be "a man with many reprehensible, even scandalous, habits" by Orderic Vitalis, who particularly obje ...

. Biographers have described Ermengarde as beautiful and well educated, though suffering from severe mood swings. However, Ruth Harvey's 1993 critical investigation shows the assumption of William's marriage to Ermengarde to be based largely on an error in a nineteenth-century secondary source and it is highly likely that Philippa of Toulouse was William's only wife. William married Philippa in 1094. William invited

Pope Urban II Pope Urban II (; – 29 July 1099), otherwise known as Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 March 1088 to his death. He is best known for convening the Council of Clermon ...

to spend the

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...

of 1095 at his court. The pope urged him to "take the cross" (i.e. the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest ...

) and leave for the Holy Land, but William was perhaps more interested in exploiting the absence on Crusade of

Raymond IV of Toulouse Raymond of Saint-Gilles ( 1041 – 28 February 1105), also called Raymond IV of Toulouse or Raymond I of Tripoli, was the count of Toulouse, duke of Narbonne, and margrave of Provence from 1094, and one of the leaders of the First Crusade from ...

, his wife's uncle, to press her claim to Toulouse; on a more practical level, he also had no heir at that time. He and Philippa did capture Toulouse in 1098, an act for which they were threatened with

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in Koinonia, communion with other members o ...

. The Duchess was an admirer of Robert of Arbrissel, and persuaded William to grant him land in northern Poitou to establish a religious community dedicated to the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. This became

Fontevraud Abbey The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault (in French: ''abbaye de Fontevraud'') was a monastery in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in the former French Duchy of Anjou. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preach ...

, which would enjoy the patronage of their granddaughter

Eleanor Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It was the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages">Provençal dialect ...

and would remain important until its dissolution during the French Revolution. Likely motivated by many factors, religious as well as secular, William joined the Crusade of 1101, an expedition inspired by the success of the First Crusade in 1099. To finance it, he had to mortgage Toulouse back to Bertrand, the son of Raymond IV. William arrived in the Holy Land in 1101 and stayed there until the following year. His record as a military leader is not very impressive. He fought mostly skirmishes in

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and was frequently defeated. His recklessness led to his being ambushed on several occasions, with great losses to his own forces. In September 1101, his entire army was destroyed by the

Seljuk Turks The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; , ''Saljuqian'',) alternatively spelled as Saljuqids or Seljuk Turks, was an Oghuz Turks, Oghuz Turkic, Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate society, Persianate and contributed to Turco-Persi ...

led by Kilij Arslan I at Heraclea; William himself barely escaped, and, according to

Orderic Vitalis Orderic Vitalis (; 16 February 1075 – ) was an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th- and 12th-century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England.Hollister ''Henry I'' p. 6 Working out of ...

, he reached

Antioch Antioch on the Orontes (; , ) "Antioch on Daphne"; or "Antioch the Great"; ; ; ; ; ; ; . was a Hellenistic Greek city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. One of the most important Greek cities of the Hellenistic period, it served as ...

with only six surviving companions. (See Army of William IX on the Crusade of 1101.)

Conflict with Church and wife, 1102–1118

William, like his father and many magnates of the time, had a rocky relationship with the Church. He was excommunicated twice, the first time in 1114 for an alleged infringement of the Church's tax privileges. His response to this was to demand absolution from Peter, Bishop of Poitiers. As the bishop was at the point of pronouncing the

anathema The word anathema has two main meanings. One is to describe that something or someone is being hated or avoided. The other refers to a formal excommunication by a Christian denomination, church. These meanings come from the New Testament, where a ...

, the duke threatened him with a sword, swearing to kill him if he did not pronounce absolution. Bishop Peter, surprised, pretended to comply, but when the duke, satisfied, released him, the bishop completed reading the anathema, before calmly presenting his neck and inviting the duke to strike. According to contemporaries, William hesitated a moment before sheathing his sword and replying, "I don't love you enough to send you to paradise." William was excommunicated a second time for "abducting" the Viscountess Dangereuse (''Dangerosa''), the wife of his vassal Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault. The lady, however, appears to have been a willing party in the matter. He installed her in the Maubergeonne tower of his castle in Poitiers (leading to her nickname ''La Maubergeonne''), and, as related by

William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury (; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a gifted historical scholar and a ...

, even painted a picture of her on his shield. Upon returning to Poitiers from Toulouse, Philippa was enraged to discover a rival woman living in her palace. She appealed to her friends at court and to the Church; however, no noble could assist her since William was their feudal overlord, and whilst the

papal legate 300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the Pope's legate. A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title '' legatus'') is a personal representative of the Pope to foreign nations, to some other part of the Catho ...

Giraud (who was bald) complained to William and told him to return Dangerose to her husband, William's only response was, "Curls will grow on your pate before I part with the Viscountess." Humiliated, Philippa chose in 1114 to retire to the Abbey of Fontevrault. She did not survive there long, however; the abbey records state that she died on 28 November 1118.

Later career, 1118–1127

Relations between the Duke and his elder son William also became strained—although it is unlikely that he ever embarked upon a seven-year revolt in order to avenge his mother's mistreatment, as Ralph of Diceto claimed, only to be captured by his father. Other records flatly contradict such a thing. Ralph claimed that the revolt began in 1113; but at that time, the young William was only thirteen and his father's liaison with Dangereuse had not yet begun. Father and son improved their relationship after the marriage of the younger William to Aenor of Châtellerault, Dangereuse's daughter by her husband, Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault, in 1121. In October 1119,

reports that the Countess of Poitou, whom he refers to as "Hildegarde," suddenly appeared at the Council of Reims being held by Pope Calixtus II and demanded that the Pope excommunicate William (again), oust Dangereuse from the ducal palace, and restore herself to her rightful place. The Pope postponed the case as William was not present to answer the charges. William was readmitted to the Church around 1120, after making concessions to it that may have included participating in the

Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...

efforts underway in Spain. Between 1120 and 1123 William joined forces with the Kingdoms of Castile and León. Aquitanian troops fought side by side with Castilians in an effort to take Cordoba. During his sojourn in Spain, William was given a rock crystal vase by a Muslim ally that he later bequeathed to his granddaughter

. The vase probably originated in

Sassanid The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

in the seventh century. In 1122, William lost control of Toulouse, Philippa's dower land, to Alfonso Jordan, the son and heir of Raymond IV, who had taken Toulouse after the death of William IV. He did not trouble to reclaim it. He died on 10 February 1126, aged 54, after suffering a short illness. His nickname, "the Troubadour", was only applied in the nineteenth century. In contemporary documents, the only nickname he occasionally bears is "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father.

Poetic career

William's greatest legacy to history was not as a warrior but as a troubadour—a lyric poet employing the Romance vernacular language called

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...

, or formerly Provençal. He was the earliest troubadour whose work survives. Eleven of his songs survive (Merwin, 2002). The song traditionally numbered as the eighth (''Farai chansoneta nueva'') is of dubious attribution, since its style and language are significantly different (Pasero 1973, Bond 1982). Song 5 (''Farai un vers, pos mi sonelh'') has two significantly different versions in different manuscripts. The songs are attributed to him under his title as Count of Poitou (''lo coms de Peitieus''). The topics vary, treating sex, love, women, his own sexual and literary prowess, and feudal politics. An anonymous 13th-century '' vida'' of William remembers him thus: It is possible, however, that at least in part it is not based on facts, but on literal interpretation of his songs, written in first person; in Song 5, for example, he describes how he deceived two women. In a striking departure from the typical attitude toward women in the period, William seems to have held at least one woman in particularly high esteem, composing several poems in homage to this woman, who he refers to as ''midons'' (master): His frankness, wit, and vivacity caused scandal and won admiration at the same time. He is among the first Romance vernacular poets of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, one of the founders of a tradition that would culminate in

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

Petrarch Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists. Petrarch's redis ...

and

François Villon François Villon (; Modern French: ; ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these e ...

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

mentions him in ''Canto VIII'': In ''Spirit of Romance'' Pound also calls William IX "the most 'modern' of the troubadours": William was a man who loved scandal and no doubt enjoyed shocking his audiences. In fact, William granted large donations to the church, perhaps to regain the

pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

's favour. He also added to the palace of the counts of Poitou (which had stood since the

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...

era), later added to by his granddaughter

Eleanor of Aquitaine Eleanor of Aquitaine ( or ; ; , or ; – 1 April 1204) was Duchess of Aquitaine from 1137 to 1204, Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of King Louis VII, and Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of King Henry II. As ...

and surviving in Poitiers as the Palace of Justice to this day. One of William's poems, possibly written at the time of his first excommunication, since it implies his son was still a minor, is partly a musing on mortality: ''Pos de chantar m'es pres talenz'' (''Since I have the desire to sing,/I'll write a verse for which I'll grieve''). It concludes:

refers to William composing songs (c. 1102) upon his return from the

. These might be the first "Crusade songs":

Family

In 1094, William married

Philippa Philippa is a feminine given name meaning "lover of horses" or "horses' friend", from the Greek Philippos, which is derived from ''philein'', meaning to love and ''hippos'', meaning ''horse''. The English masculine form is Philip, which was form ...

, the daughter and heiress of William IV of Toulouse. According to the '' Chronicle of Saint-Maixent'', William and Philippa had two sons and five daughters, although it does not name them. His eldest son was his eventual successor, William X. His second son,

Raymond Raymond is a male given name of Germanic origin. It was borrowed into English from French (older French spellings were Reimund and Raimund, whereas the modern English and French spellings are identical). It originated as the Germanic ᚱᚨᚷ� ...

, eventually became the

Prince of Antioch Prince of Antioch was the title given during the Middle Ages to Normans, Norman rulers of the Principality of Antioch, a region surrounding the city of Antioch, now known as Antakya in Turkey. The Princes originally came from the County of Sicil ...

in the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

. A daughter, Agnes, married, firstly, Aimery V of Thouars, and then King Ramiro II of Aragon. Armenian sources, Basil the Doctor and Gregory the Priest, imply that Baldwin of Marash was a son of William and Philippa, born shortly before the latter's retirement to a convent in 1114. Alternatively, he may have been an illegitimate son.

Michael the Syrian Michael the Syrian (),(), died AD 1199, also known as Michael the Great () or Michael Syrus or Michael the Elder, to distinguish him from his nephew, was a patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church from 1166 to 1199. He is best known today as th ...

reports that Reynald, Baldwin's successor as lord of Marash, was his brother.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Complete works
*Smythe, Barbara

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040730210418/http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/french/about/staff/lp/lyrical.lus Lyric allusions to the crusades and the Holy Land {{DEFAULTSORT:William 09, Duke of Aquitaine 1071 births 1127 deaths House of Poitiers Dukes of Aquitaine Dukes of Gascony Counts of Poitiers Christians of the Crusade of 1101 French patrons of literature People excommunicated by the Catholic Church French troubadours 11th-century French poets Medieval writers about the Crusades 12th-century French troubadours