Pétronille (Bigorre)

Pétronille (* around 1184; † 1251 ), was Countess of Bigorre and Vice Countess of Marsan and Nébouzan since 1194 . She was the only child of Count Bernard IV of Comminges from his first marriage to Countess Beatrix III. (Stephanie) from Bigorre.

biography

As the only child of her mother, Pétronille was considered her heir in Bigorre and Marsan and was therefore already at the center of the interests of several parties as a child. First, her father, after his separation from her mother, led the reign in Bigorre for her . King Alfonso II of Aragon forced him to give up the guardianship of his daughter. The king took over this himself and betrothed Pétronille in 1192 to the vice count Gaston VI. von Béarn who was a close follower of the Aragonese king, the wedding followed in 1196 at the earliest.

Gaston von Béarn was a staunch opponent of the Albigensian Crusade , which broke out in 1209, in whose military combat he actively participated. After he died in 1214, Pétronille was immediately married to his cousin Nuno Sanchez at the instigation of King Jacob I of Aragon . But the leader of the crusade, Simon IV. De Montfort , who was at the height of his power at the time, achieved in return the annulment of this marriage and married Pétronille in 1216 to his own son Guido . The power politics of the Montforts should fail because of the resistance of the local nobility, in 1218 Simon de Montfort fell outside Toulouse and Gui was killed in 1220 when taking Castelnaudary .

Nevertheless, Pétronille and her property remained in the camp of the northern French crusaders after her brother-in-law Amaury de Montfort married her in 1221 to the crusader Aimery de Rançon from Poitou . After the failure of the papal crusade in 1224, he joined the subsequent royal crusade, which King Louis VIII of France successfully led to Languedoc . However, Aimery fell in 1226 during the siege of the city of Avignon , which was revolting against the king .

In 1228 Pétronille married the Lord of Cognac , Boso de Matha , who came from the Angoumois . Pétronille spent the next few years on her husband's estates in Aquitaine, as she had made herself unpopular with her own people through her marriages with crusaders. Around 1230, Pétronille returned with her husband to Bigorre, where they restored the public order that had fallen apart due to their years of absence. In 1232 they even attacked their half-brother Bernard V to assert inheritance rights to Comminges . Even if these claims were not enforced, Pétronille was able to acquire larger parts of the Nébouzan that she had once inherited from her father. In 1242, Pétronille reconciled with the nobility of Languedoc, who were hostile to her because of her northern French husband, after she and her husband joined the rebellion of Count Raymond VII of Toulouse against the French crown. However, the uprising failed after a few months and Boso lost cognac to the king.

After the death of her husband in 1247, Pétronille transferred the reign in Bigorre to her brother-in-law Simon de Montfort and retired to the Abbey of Escaladieu where she died in 1271.

progeny

Countess Pétronille von Bigorre left two daughters from her second marriage to Gui de Montfort:

• Alix de Montfort (* between 1217 and 1220; † 1255), successor as Countess of Bigorre, ∞ I Jourdain Eschivat III. de Chabanais, ∞ II 1247 Raoul de Courtenay († 1271 in Naples ), Count of Chieti
• Perenelle de Montfort, ∞ Raoul de la Roche-Tesson

She had a daughter with her fifth husband, Boso de Matha:

• Mathe de Matha (* after 1228; † 1273), Vice Countess of Marsan, married to Vice Count Gaston VII of Béarn

Succession struggle for Bigorre

After Pétronille's death, the county of Bigorre first went to her daughter Alix and after her death to her grandchildren Eschivat († 1283) and Laura († 1316), but their inheritance was contested by Pétronille's brother-in-law Simon de Montfort , who was also the guardian of her grandchildren who himself made a claim to the Bigorre. Allegedly, Pétronille himself sold the county to him to prevent it from falling into the hands of her son-in-law Gaston VII of Béarn. Since Montfort was bound by his politics in England, he had no time to enforce his rights. After Montfort fell near Evesham in 1265 , his son of the same name sold his father's claims to Bigorre to King Theobald II of Navarre .

Gaston von Béarn and his nephew Count Eschivat, who was able to assert himself in Bigorre, now allied themselves against the King of Navarre. After Eschivat's death, however, Gaston von Béarn challenged the successor to his sister Laura and in turn raised claims to Bigorre on behalf of his daughter Konstanze. After years of fighting, Laura moved to Parliament in Paris to have her rights confirmed. But the parliament decided against them and instead declared the crown to be the legal heir, the reason being an old division of power between Count Bernard II and the Bishop of Puy-en-Velay, which the crown had once taken over from the diocese. King Philip IV therefore moved in Bigorre and gave it to his wife Johanna , who was a granddaughter of Theobald of Navarre , in 1302 . Their son, King Charles IV , linked the county with the crown domain .

Yet the Bigorre remained a contested country. The houses of the Counts of Foix and Armagnac , both descendants of Pétronille through their youngest daughter Mathe, fought for their part for the county without being able to take possession of it, as it remained under royal administration. It was not until 1425 that King Charles VII of France entrusted Count John I of Foix with the Bigorre after the House of Armagnac had waived its claims.

literature

• André Delpech: Pétronille de Bigorre. 1996
• JR Maddicott: Simon de Montfort. 1996