Alix the Baux

Alix des Baux (* 1367 (rather 1365); † October 7, 1426 in Les Baux ), daughter of Raymond II. Des Baux , Count of Avellino ( 1351 - 1372 ), and Jeanne Roger de Beaufort, niece of Pope Gregory XI. , was the last ruling mistress of Les Baux from the noble family of the same name . She was under the tutelage of her grandfather Guillaume III for most of her life . Roger de Beaufort , Viscount de Turenne , her uncle Raimond de Turenne and her husband Odon de Villars .

Life

On January 28, 1374 Guillaume III. Roger de Beaufort in Avignon was appointed as Alix's guardian by Nicola Spinelli , Seneschal of Provence for Queen Joan I of Naples . On March 10, 1381 Guillaume handed over the guardianship to his son Raimond de Turenne. This did not prevent him from taking her to Avignon at the end of August 1388 (rather 1380) under the pretext of introducing his ward to the papal court and there directly to the Hôtel particulier of his cousin Marie des Baux , Princess of Orange . There she was married against her will and without the consent of her family to Odon de Villars, a relative of Pope Clement VII. She was 12 (rather 15) years old.

In May 1390 Odon de Villars was appointed rector of the Comtat Venaissin by the Pope . On the 20th of the same month, Odon and his wife made their ceremonial entry into Carpentras . On October 8, 1399, at the meeting of the États de Provence , Odon de Villars paid homage to Louis II. D'Anjou on behalf of his wife for their fiefs Les Baux , Mont Paon , Saint-Martin de Castillon , Mouriès , Éguilles and Séderon , which the Countess of Avellinon in Provence and the adjacent regions.

On April 4, 1402, Odon de Villars in Brantes at the foot of Mont Ventoux, in the presence of his wife, gave his nephew Philippe de Lévis the fiefs of Brantes, Plaisians and their dependent estates, the lords of Saint-Marcel , Roquefort , Le Castellet , Cassis and Port- Miou , which belonged to the barony of Aubagne , as well as La Fare-les-Oliviers and Éguilles. His nephew was to serve as a backup for Raimond de Turenne in the implementation of an agreement between the Viscount, Odon and his wife Alix. Should Alix and Odon fail to comply, they would have to pay Raimond de Turenne 50,000 florins .

The marriage of Odon de Villars and Alix des Baux was founded around 1408 by Pope Benedict XIII. canceled. The mistress of Les Baux could now have a second marriage with Konrad III. of Freiburg , Count of Neuchâtel . Alix was then Countess of Avellino, Couza, mistress of Laura and baroness of Les Baux. In addition to these titles and fiefs that she had inherited from her father, there were those that she had received from her uncles and cousins. This did not prevent her in 1417 from also asserting the succession in the county of Beaufort and the vicestoy of Turenne.

She died on October 7, 1426 in Les Baux after making her will on her deathbed. To her usual titles she had added that of Countess of Neuchâtel and Beaufort and Vice Countess of Turenne. She instructed her captain Siffroy de Gigondas to hand over the fortress of les Baux and all parts of Avellinos belonging to Les Baux to her cousin François-Guillaume des Baux-Andria. As stated in the will, she was buried in the Minorite Church in Avignon in the autumn of 1426

The provisions of the will should be given to Queen Jolanthe of Aragon , mother of Louis III. d'Anjou , the new Count of Provence, did not please. In order to enforce the right of reversion, she commissioned her youngest son Charles du Maine with the title of Lieutenant General to give the Seneschal Tristan de la Jaille the order to take possession of the areas of Les Baux. The fortress was besieged for four months and surrendered on February 21, 1427. It was given to Jean d'Arlatan, Commissioner of Prince Charles, Les by Siffroy de Gigondas and Charles d'Urgell, Bishop of Tortosa and cousin of Alix Baux was incorporated into the county of Provence. Alix was thus the last mistress of the famous Provencal barony.

literature

• Louis Barthélemy, Inventaire du château des Baux , Revue des sociétés savantes, 8th series, volume 6, 1877
• Louis Barthélemy, Inventaire chronologique et analytique des chartes de la maison des Baux , Marseille, 1882
• Louis Paulet, Les Baux et Castillon: Histoire des communes des Baux, du Paradou, de Maussane et de Mouriès , Saint-Rémy de Provence, 1902
• Pasteur Destandau, Documents inédits sur la ville des Baux , Volume 3, Mémoires de l'Académie du Vaucluse, 1903
• Claude Faure, Études sur l'administration et l'histoire du Comtat Venaissin du XIIIe au XIVe siècle (1229 - 1417) , Paris-Avignon, 1909.
• Gustave Noblemaire, Histoire de la Maison des Baux , Paris, 1913
• Louis Thévenaz: Alix de Baux. Seconde femme de Conrad de Friborg, comte de Neuchâtel. In: Musée neuchâtelois , NF 10th year (1923), pp. 177–196, ISSN  0027-3805 French
• Fernand Benoit, Les Baux , Paris, 1928
• Odile Maufras, Le castrum des Baux de Provence: histoire d'un site fortifié médiéval , Provence Historique, 40, fasc. 159, 1990
• Régis Veydarier, Raymond de Turenne dans l'historiographie provençale: une mythe national? in: Évènement, identité et histoire (Cl. Dolan), Sillery, 1991.
• Régis Veydarier, Raymond de Turenne, la deuxième maison d'Anjou et de Provence: étude d'une rébellion nobiliaire à la fin du Moyen Âge , dissertation at the University of Montreal , 1994.

Remarks

1. ^ Robert Bailly, Dictionnaire des commuines de Vaucluse , (Ed. A. Barthélemy), Avignon, 1985, p. 101.
2. ↑ Louis Barthélemy, Inventaire chronologique et analytique , Charte 1692.