Gaston VI. (Bearn)

Gaston VI. ( Catalan: Gastó de Montcada , French: Gaston de Moncade ; † 1214 ) was a vice count of Béarn and iure uxoris a count of Bigorre and vice count of Marsan from the house of Montcada . He was a son of the Catalan nobleman Wilhelm von Montcada (Wilhelm I von Béarn; † 1172) and the Vice Countess Maria von Béarn .

In 1173 Gaston took over the rule of Béarn from his mother . According to an old legend, he is said to have been preferred by the people of Béarn to his brother Wilhelm Raimund as the new master when a delegation found the brothers sleeping. Because Gaston's hands were open in his sleep, they recognized a sign of a generous character trait and therefore made him the new sovereign. The administration of the Béarn was initially carried out by a procurator appointed by King Alfonso II of Aragón , until Gaston personally swore the feudal oath to the king in February 1186 in Huesca and took arms against every enemy with the exception of the Count of Poitou ( Richard the Lionheart ) could commit. In 1192, the king arranged the engagement of Gaston with Pétronille († 1251), daughter of Count Bernard IV of Comminges and heiress of the neighboring county of Bigorre and vice-county of Marsan. The marriage was consummated a few years later and it would have led to the union of a large principality on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees , which would have encompassed almost the entire south of Gascony if it had had children.

Since the year 1209 Gaston had been an ally of Count Raimund VI. engaged by Toulouse in the fight against the Albigensian Crusade , which earned him excommunication in November 1210 . Although neither the Béarn nor the Bigorre were affected by Catharism , these lands had become potential targets for the crusade leader Simon de Montfort . In 1211 Gaston fought in the battle for Castelnaudary . In January 1213 his request was defended by King Peter II of Aragón , who was his liege lord, against the church representatives at the council at Lavaur . Then he and the other princes of Occitania took the oath of fief to the king in Toulouse on January 27, but did not fight in the battle of Muret (September 12, 1213), in which the king was killed.

Apparently Gaston was dying at this point, since around that time he donated the village of Saint-Marie to the Church of Oloron in the hope of receiving absolution . He had written his will in mid-1214 and died shortly afterwards. Probably he had received the absolution after all, which the legate Peter von Benevent on behalf of Pope Innocent III. in April 1214 had pronounced against the Occitan princes.

According to Gaston's will, his brother Wilhelm Raimund succeeded him in Béarn. Bigorre and Marsan had taken his widow with them into their next marriages.

literature

• Joaquim Miret y Sans: La casa de Montcada en el vizcondado de Béarn , In: Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 1 (1901), pp. 49-55, 130-142, 186-199, 230 -245, 280-303.
• John C. Shideler: A Medieval Catalan Family: The Montcadas, 1000-1230 (1983), pp. 132-134.

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Miret y Sans, p. 196.
2. ↑ Pierre de Marca, Histoire de Béarn (1640), p. 485.
3. ↑ Jean de Jaurgain, La Vasconie, Étude historique et critique , Vol. 2 (1902), p. 389. Miret y Sans, pp. 197-198.
4. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 833-835.
5. ↑ Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay , Historia Albigensium , In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 19 (1880), p. 72.
6. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 845-849. Miret y Sans, p. 199.
7. ↑ Miret y Sans, p. 199.
8. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 958-959.

predecessor	Office	successor
Maria	Vice Count of Béarn 1173–1214	Wilhelm Raimund