William IX, Duke of Aquitaine

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William IX
Miniature of William from a 13th-century chansonnier now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Duke of Aquitaine
Reign1086–1127
PredecessorWilliam VIII, Duke of Aquitaine
SuccessorWilliam X, Duke of Aquitaine
Born22 October 1071
Died10 February 1126 (aged 54)
SpouseErmengarde of Anjou
Philippa, Countess of Toulouse
IssueWilliam X, Duke of Aquitaine
Raymond of Poitiers
Agnes of Aquitaine, Queen of Aragon
HouseRamnulfids
FatherWilliam VIII, Duke of Aquitaine
MotherHildegarde of Burgundy

William IX (

lyric poet in the Occitan language—whose work survives.[a]

Ducal career

William was the son of

Papal
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

Fulk IV of Anjou. 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.[4] William married Philippa in 1094.[5]

William invited

Virgin Mary. This became Fontevraud Abbey, which would enjoy the patronage of their granddaughter Eleanor 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

Seljuk Turks led by Kilij Arslan I at Heraclea; William himself barely escaped, and, according to Orderic Vitalis, he reached Antioch 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 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, 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 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,

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
efforts underway in Spain.

Between 1120 and 1123 William joined forces with the

Persia
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.[6] 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.[7]

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, 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.

William from a 13th-century chansonnier.

An anonymous 13th-century vida of William remembers him thus:

The Count of Poitiers was one of the most courtly men in the world and one of the greatest deceivers of women. He was a fine knight at arms, liberal in his womanizing, and a fine composer and singer of songs. He traveled much through the world, seducing women.

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):[8]

Every joy must abase itself,
and every might obey
in the presence of Midons, for the sweetness of her welcome,
for her beautiful and gentle look;
and a man who wins to the joy of her love
will live a hundred years.
The joy of her can make the sick man well again,
her wrath can make a well man die,

His frankness, wit, and vivacity caused scandal and won admiration at the same time. He is among the first Romance vernacular poets of the

Dante, Petrarch, and François Villon. Ezra Pound
mentions him in Canto VIII:

And Poictiers, you know, Guillaume Poictiers,
had brought the song up out of Spain
with the singers and viels ...

In Spirit of Romance Pound also calls William IX "the most 'modern' of the troubadours":

For any of the later Provençals, i.e., the high-brows, we have to ... 'put ourselves into the Twelfth Century' etc. Guillaume, writing a century earlier, is just as much of our age as of his own.

— Ezra Pound, cited in Bond 1982, p. lxxvi

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

Merovingian era), later added to by his granddaughter Eleanor of Aquitaine
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:

I have given up all I loved so much:
chivalry and pride;
and since it pleases God, I accept it all,
that He may keep me by Him.

I enjoin my friends, upon my death,
all to come and do me great honor,
since I have held joy and delight
far and near, and in my abode.

Thus I give up joy and delight,
and squirrel and grey and sable furs.

Orderic Vitalis refers to William composing songs (c. 1102) upon his return from the Crusade of 1101. These might be the first "Crusade songs":

Then the Poitevin duke many times related, with rhythmic verses and witty measures, the miseries of his captivity, before kings, magnates, and Christian assemblies.[9]

Family

In 1094, William married

William X.[11] His second son, Raymond,[12] eventually became the Prince of Antioch in the Holy Land. A daughter, Agnes, married firstly Aimery V of Thouars and then King Ramiro II of Aragon.[13]

Armenian sources,

lord of Marash, was his brother.[14]

See also
  • Dukes of Aquitaine family tree

Notes

  1. ^ ... les poésies du premier troubadour, Guilhem de Poitiers ... ("the poems of the first troubadour, Guilhem de Poitiers").[1]

References

  1. ^ Anglade 1921, p. 33.
  2. ^ Bouchard 2004, p. 140.
  3. ^ Bouchard 2002, p. 226.
  4. ^ Harvey 1993, p. 314-315.
  5. ^ a b Gillingham 1999, p. 29.
  6. ^ William of Malmesbury 1999, p. 392.
  7. ^ Morby 1978, p. 12.
  8. ^ Bogin 1980, p. 37-38.
  9. ^ Translation based on Marjorie Chibnall, in Bond, p. 240.
  10. ^ a b Beech 1996, pp. 45–46.
  11. ^ Graham-Leigh 2005, table 5.
  12. ^ Murray 2016, p. 86.
  13. ^ McDougall 2016, p. 199.
  14. ^ Beech 1996, p. 50.

Sources

Further reading

External links

William IX, Duke of Aquitaine
House of Poitiers
Born: 22 October 1071 Died: 10 February 1126
Preceded by
William VIII
 Duke of Aquitaine
Count of Poitiers
1086–1127 		Succeeded by
William X
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