Raymond VII (Toulouse)

Raimund VII of Toulouse ( French: Raymond de Toulouse ; Occitan: Ramon de Tolosa ; * July 1197 in Beaucaire ; † September 27, 1249 in Millau ) was from 1222 until his death the last count of Toulouse of the Raimundiner family ( House Toulouse) . Often called “the younger” during his father's lifetime, he continued his resistance against the Albigensian Crusade and the French royal power of the Capetians, ultimately unsuccessfully.

Early years

Crusade against the Albigensians

→ Main article : Albigensian Crusade

Raimund VII. Was the only legitimately born son of his father Raimund VI. from his fourth marriage to Johanna Plantagenet , who died in 1199. He was born right into the time in which the persecution of the Cathar faith movement, which was widespread in the domain of the Tolosan Counts, corresponding to the present-day Midi-Pyrénées region , was militarized by the Roman Catholic Church . In 1208 Pope Innocent III. The Albigensian Crusade had caused serious social and political upheavals in the country south of the Loire, which in the high Middle Ages was called Occitania , or by the northern French simply Languedoc , due to the language of its inhabitants . After a humiliating penitential ceremony in Saint-Gilles in 1209, Raimund's father initially submitted to this crusade , but from 1211 opposed him and the secular power politics of his leader Simon de Montfort , for which he was banned from church by the Pope and threatened with expropriation . The House of Toulouse had taken the lead in the resistance to the Crusade, the effects of which determined the entire life of Raymond VII.

At the age of twelve, Raymond VII appeared at his father's side for the first time in the summer of 1209 in Carcassonne in the army of the crusaders who had just elected Simon de Montfort as their leader. The father was banned again that year and after the crusaders attacked a count's domain for the first time in 1211 with the city of Lavaur , the count's house took the lead in the resistance against them. In order to be able to survive against the mostly northern French knights, Raimund VI. sought a political rapprochement with King Peter II of Aragon , which was to be dynastically sealed. In March 1211, the old count married his son to Infanta Sancha, who was not only a sister of the Aragonese king, but also that of his sixth wife, making Raimund VII the brother-in-law of his stepmother and father. This family constellation was used by the spiritual leaders of the crusade as further evidence of the moral depravity of the Toscana count's house, which would be based on its proximity to Cathar heresy . King Peter II and Raimund VI. The peace plan drawn up in the fall of 1212 included, among other things, the old count's abdication in favor of his son, for whom the king was to lead the guardianship government in Toulouse until he came of age. This proposed solution was ultimately rejected by the Pope, but Raimund VI. and also Raimund VII. on January 27, 1213 the feudal oath to King Peter II, to whom they submitted as their patron. The Occitan princes then suffered a crushing defeat against the Crusaders in the decisive battle of Muret on September 12 , in which King Peter II was killed. In the summer of 1215, the city superiors of Toulouse had to allow Simon de Montfort to move in, while the count's family had to leave the city. Raymond VII had traveled to Rome for the fourth Lateran Council , which should decide on the political order after the apparently decided crusade. It ended on November 30, 1215 with the formal dismissal of Raimund VI. and Raimund VII disinherited in favor of Simon de Montfort. The young Raimund VII should only be allowed to keep the agenais that had been an inheritance from his mother. From the Pope he also received a restitution of the Margraviate Provence in prospect, if he should prove to be obedient to the Holy See in the future.

Recapture

In breach of an exile imposed at the council, the two Raimunde traveled by sea from Genoa to Marseille in the winter of 1215 , where they re-entered their country with the sympathy of the population. With this they signaled the beginning of the reconquest of their hereditary lands, in which Raimund VII now actively participated by taking over the leadership of the military actions. After the Provencal nobility and their communities, especially Avignon , had joined him, he was able to move into his native Beaucaire in the spring of 1216 and lock the Crusaders there in the castle, to which Simon de Montfort responded with a siege of the city. Due to a lack of supplies and personnel, Montfort had to break off the siege in August 1216 and abandon the castle, which meant that the first major defeat could be inflicted. In the following year, Raymond VII was able to free the rest of the margraviate Provence and re-establish the rule of the count's house. The documents and privileges that he issued during this time, he had already sealed as a “young count” and “son of the landlord Raimund, by the grace of God Duke of Narbonne, Count of Toulouse and Margrave of Provence”, thereby denying the House of Toulouse could not express more clearly to accept the judgment of the Fourth Lateran Council. On September 13, 1217, after two years of absence, the old count was able to move into Toulouse, which was immediately besieged by Montfort. Raimund VII joined the defenders on June 7, 1218 with a contingent of Provencal knights and on June 25, Simon de Montfort was killed by a catapult , whereupon the crusaders broke off the siege.

From then on, the Crusaders were on the defensive, led by the young and militarily incapable Amaury de Montfort . Raymond VII took charge of the military liberation of the rest of Toulousaine and the restoration of the count's authority for his old father. At Meilhan he defeated an army of crusaders who were all slain. On January 6, 1219 he accepted the return of Najac and several landlords under the Count's Highness. In the spring of 1219 he was finally involved in the bloody and victorious battle of Baziège as leader of the Occitan reserve, at the side of Count Raimund Roger von Foix , an old comrade of his father. In the spring of 1220 he retook Lavaur , Puylaurens and then Castelnaudary . In the latter city he was immediately enclosed by Amaury de Montfort for over six months, until he was forced to break off the siege and retreat to Carcassonne in February 1221 . Raimund pursued him and conquered Montréal , where the old crusader Alain de Roucy was killed. By the end of 1221 he freed Agen and the rest of the Aganais, which Montfort had never given him despite the judgment of the fourth Lateran. On March 27, 1222 he accepted the submission of Moissac in the Quercy .

After Amaury de Montfort of the hopelessness of his situation had become conscious, he had in May 1222 to a transfer had taken over from his father inheritance rights that had been granted to the Montfort from the fourth Lateran, to the French king August Felipe II. Determined and for the Support Pope Honorius III. receive. Raymond VII had found out about it and in turn offered himself to the king as a vassal in a letter dated June 16, 1222. Recognition on the part of the king would not only have negated the rights of the Montforts, but also averted the danger of the king's military intervention in Languedoc. But the king had temporarily refused both offers and postponed his decision on the Albigensian question to a parliament that had yet to be convened. Before this could be held, the king had died and he was succeeded by Louis VIII , who had previously distinguished himself as a crusader.

Count of Toulouse

Victory over the papal crusade

On August 2, 1222, Raimund VI. died and on September 21, Raymond VII was solemnly enthroned in the church of Saint-Pierre-des-Cuisines. The following year had passed while waiting for King Philip II's decision on the Albigensian question, which had ultimately not materialized due to the king's death in 1223. Because Amaury de Montfort only received a small amount of financial support from the new King Louis VIII, he had signaled his readiness for peace to Raymond VII in the summer of 1223. Both met in July / August of that year in Carcassonne, where they even shared a room and discussed a marriage project between the two families. The talks ultimately failed, whereupon Raimund allied himself in the autumn of 1223 with Raimund II Trencavel , who was returning from Catalonia , and took up the siege of Carcassonne, which was the legacy of Trencavel . Destitute and with only twenty crusaders in his entourage, Amaury de Montfort had to sign his surrender on January 14, 1224 on the banks of the Aude , which was brokered by the Archbishop of Narbonne , Arnaud Amaury , who had once been one of the most ardent crusade leaders. After nearly fifteen years of war, Pope Innocent III. In 1208 the crusade was proclaimed with its military defeat and ended with the victory of the Occitan princes.

In the period that followed, the old Occitan landlords were able to return to their lands, from which they had been driven out in previous years by the Crusaders, who in turn were forced to retreat to their home in northern France. By the end of 1224, Raimund was also able to largely liberate the territory of his ancestors from the occupiers. So he again subjugated the city of Albi and the Bishop of Agde, who had once been one of the papal crusade legates, he wrested control of the city ​​of the same name . Only under pressure from Archbishop Arnaud Amaury did he give the bishop back the rule of the city in the form of a vice-county, now admittedly as his feudal lord.

Confrontation with Louis VIII.

During all this time, the threatening prospect of a crusade by Louis VIII had determined the political situation in Languedoc. Already in December 1223 Pope Honorius III. encouraged the king to do so, who had also signaled his readiness to do so. However, in January 1224, in an attributed memorandum to the Pope, he set his conditions for being taken from the cross, which should differ significantly from the campaign that began in 1208. In the end, the king demanded sole authority over the crusade, and all conquered land should become property of him and his heirs without restriction and for all time. In addition, the king had received the transfer of the inheritance rights of Amaurys de Montfort, which his father had rejected. In this way, the king intended to establish his rule over the Languedoc not only as its overlord, but also as its immediate owner, by adding the land to the royal domain , including the lands of the House of Toulouse. However, the king had linked the validity of the Montfort donation to a confirmation from the Holy See, which had only granted Montfort these rights of ownership in 1215.

To prevent the looming invasion of the king, Raimund had launched a diplomatic offensive to win the pope as an ally. Because even Honorius III. was not particularly interested in a crusade by the king under his conditions, which would have severely limited papal influence in Languedoc. In January 1224, Raimund had addressed four embassies to the Pope, which promised his readiness for complete submission to the orders of the Church. The Pope gratefully accepted this offer and immediately used it for a game of power politics with King Louis VIII, to whom he informed on April 4, 1224 that another crusade was unnecessary, but that the king should not stop threatening submission Raimunds to speed up. The king, however, did not show himself ready to be used as a Schrenk ghost for Raimund and rejected the Pope's plans on May 5, 1224, especially since the donation from Montfort would lapse if Raimund were to be recognized as a Catholic and a legitimate heir. As long as the Pope does not interfere with the sovereign rights of the French crown over Languedoc, the king replied that he could negotiate submission with Raimund alone.

Raimund apparently had no knowledge of these upsets between Paris and Rome when he met Count Roger Bernard II of Foix and Vice-Count Raimund II Trencavel in Montpellier on June 3, 1224 . All three agreed on their submission to the church on the basis of the oaths that his father once had to take in Saint-Gilles in 1209. As the only condition, Raimund demanded the revocation of the enfeoffment of Simons de Montfort from the year 1216 by King Philip II August, which would also have negated the rights of Amaurys de Montfort and ultimately King Louis VIII. The Pope actually agreed to this condition on August 22, 1224, so that Raimund and his colleagues could officially swear their oaths agreed in Montpellier to Archbishop Arnaud Amaury on August 25, in which they were to dismiss all mercenaries from their service Fight against heresy and committed to restitution of expropriated Church property. Nothing stood in the way of papal absolution. However, this was a long time coming, instead on February 13, 1225, the Pope appointed the Cardinal of Sant'Angelo, Romano Bonaventura , as General Legate for France and gave him all the powers to regulate the Albigensian question. The Legate wasted no thought on Raimund's willingness to submit and instead invited him together with Amaury de Montfort to the council convened on November 29, 1225 in Bourges . Before that, however, on July 11th, the Pope had revoked the Montfortian fief and thus strengthened Raimund's position.

Before the council, Raimund reaffirmed his readiness to submit by renewing his Montpellier commitments. Demanding absolution, he asked for any penance that the council was ready to impose on him for previous wrongdoing. The council had shown itself open to his request, but also demanded a declaration of renunciation of all his domains in his and his descendants' name, which amounted to a de facto deposition. Appealing to the revocation of the Pope on July 11th, Raimund immediately rejected this condition, whereupon the council refused him a reconciliation and exposed his lands for booty, paving the way for a new crusade. The Council of Bourges had turned out in the end as a staged event of Legate Romano Bonaventura and King Louis VIII., That by a conscious violation of official duties Raimund victim of a denial of justice made that helped the king to a handle against him. On January 26, 1226, the king and with him several barons from northern France announced his crucifixion at a parliament in Paris. The Legate pronounced the excommunication about Raimund, which was to be made known throughout the kingdom in the following February. On this occasion, French civil law was also adapted to canonical law, in which the principle of property confiscation was adopted by supporters of heresy.

The royal crusade

Although Raimund announced in December 1225 the injustice committed on him in his lands, a general mobilization of his military forces had failed. After over a decade of war against the papal crusade, the country was economically bled, disintegrated by gang mischief, and its population tired of fighting from battles, sieges, massacres, and pyres. By March 1226 the royal chancellery had received letters of submission from several cities and barons, including the communes such as Avignon, which were once so loyal to the count's house, and notorious faydits such as Raymond de Roquefeuil or Bernard-Othon de Niort . Even Roger Bernard II of Foix and Raymond II Trencavel sealed their willingness to submit, with which two of the most powerful men in Occitania lay down their arms. But Raimund was determined to confront the king because he had not expected more than an expropriation from him. The communes of Toulouse and Agen stood loyal to him and finally, through pressure and favor, he managed to win Avignon on his side, which, to their surprise, refused to pass the crusaders who came up on June 7, 1226 and forced them to siege. However, this could not change the general situation; The coming weeks delegations from Albi , Narbonne , Limoux and Castres , as well as several landlords to swear their submission, including the avowed Cathar Sicard de Puylaurens , appeared in the king’s camp . On June 17, Beaucaire, Raimund's native town, which had opened its gates so joyfully ten years earlier, finally submitted.

On September 12, 1226, the thirteenth anniversary of Muret, the forces of Avignon were exhausted and the city had to surrender under harsh conditions. The royal crusade was then able to move into Béziers and Carcassonne without a fight ; the submission of young Trencavel had not paid off for him; he had to go back into exile in Catalonia. After that, the crusade was able to move into Pamiers, to the detriment of the Count of Foix. For Raimund, the three-month delay in the crusade in front of Avignon had paid off in so far as King Louis VIII refrained from a siege of Toulouse at the beginning of autumn and postponed it to spring 1227. In addition, the king had contracted a dysentery before Avignon, from which some of his knights had already died. Marching a wide arc around Toulouse to the north, the king had taken Castelnaudary , Puylaurens , Lavaur and Albi before he died of his illness on November 8th in Montpensier . The death of the king and the succession of the still underage Louis IX. had only brought a brief improvement in the situation for Raimund. Because in Languedoc a royal army under Humbert de Beaujeau remained behind with the task of carrying out the last necessary actions to destroy Raimund.

In autumn 1226 Raimund drove the French out of Auterive and in winter he fortified Labécède . On the other hand, the Archbishop of Narbonne, Pierre Amiel , renewed his excommunication and expropriation as well as that of his allies, whom Foix had still joined. For the first time, the Archbishop ordered the persecution of the Cathars by “synodal witnesses”, that is, by document commissions that were to be set up in all parishes. An anticipation of the inquisition jurisdiction established only a few years later . In order to strengthen his position, Raimund had also sought allies and found him in the English Prince Richard of Cornwall , who supported the uprising of the French barons against the regent Blanka of Castile . However, the prince had withdrawn to England in the spring of 1227 after the failure of the uprising. In the summer of the same year, the French launched an offensive under Beaujeu and captured Labécède, the inhabitants of which were massacred and a Cathar Perfecti with his filius major burned at a stake. In the winter of the year the Cathar Sicard returned with his villages Puylaurens and Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux to the side of Raimunds and the towns of Rabastens and Gaillac showed their loyalty to him. Over the year 1227, Occitans and French fought mutual skirmishes, in which Raimund first liberated Castelsarrasin and then Beaujeau was able to inflict a defeat with high losses on May 18 in an unspecified battle in a forest. It is said that over 500 captured French were massacred by the Occitans.

Equipped with fresh reinforcement troops from Gascony , Humbert de Beaujeu then started the military operation in the summer of 1228 that led to the collapse of the Occitan resistance. He first conquered Lavaur but then apparently spontaneously swung his army in the direction of Toulouse . Raimund was not in town at the time, but was in Gaillac on the Tarn. Instead of wiping out his forces in a siege of the heavily fortified city, which had already repulsed various attackers, Beaujeu only had them cut off from the outside world by occupying its access routes. He then proceeded to devastate the outskirts of the city in a systematic application of the "scorched earth" tactic . He was particularly interested in destroying the vines, because winemaking was one of the foundations of the city's economic prosperity. In doing so, Beaujeu could rely on the energy of his Gascogner, for whom the Tolosan wine had represented a competitive product of their own products, which was sold to England . After the work of destruction had been done, the French broke off the blockade and began to retreat to Pamiers. Neither the Tolosans nor Raimund had undertaken a sortie or attack against this blockade, as was usual in the earlier sieges, which ultimately illustrated their military inferiority to the French.

Submission - Peace of Paris

→ Main article : Treaty of Paris (1229)

Around the same time that Beaujeu began his work of destruction, the Queen Regent Blanka of Castile and the cardinal legate Romano Bonaventura were already planning to end the war in Paris. In a letter of June 25, 1228 they were from the new Pope Gregory IX. was asked to do so, which also contained a dispensation from the Holy See for a possible marriage project between the heiress Raimunds and a brother of the king. This background was probably based on the supposedly spontaneous move by Beaujeus against Toulouse in order to break the last resistance of the Occitans and thus force Raimund to the negotiating table. In contrast to her late husband, however, Queen Blanka had no intention of removing Raimund and annexing his domains. Both had been related to each other through their mothers as first cousins ​​and Blanka is said to have shown her cousin a certain respect, even affection. In the winter of 1228 the Crown contacted Raimund through the abbot of Grandselve , who immediately declared the armistice in Baziège, whereupon Beaujeu had broken off his planned march to the upper Foix. On December 10, 1228, Raymond and the consuls of Toulouse agreed to the queen's conditions for submission, which almost corresponded to those that the count had already offered to Philip II in 1222 and to the Council of Bourges in 1225. That means, obeisance to the crown and the obligation to fight heretics. On the other hand, the regent did not abdicate as a condition for reconciliation, thus saving the count's crown for the House of Toulouse. Raimund had attached a declaration in advance to agree to everything the designated second mediator, Count Theobald IV of Champagne , with whom he met in January 1229 in Meaux to immediately approve the draft contract drawn up there, which served as the basis for the one in Paris The final document to be signed was to serve, which was finally sealed on April 12, 1229.

Raimund VII. (Right) submits in the presence of King Louis IX. (left) opposite Cardinal Romano Bonaventura (center) of the Roman Church. Representation from the second half of the 13th century.

Raimund signed the Treaty of Paris only with the simple title form "Count of Toulouse" omitting the "Duke of Narbonne and Margrave of Provence", which described what according to the treaty should remain with him from the once huge lands of his ancestors. This ultimately means the upper Languedoc around the dioceses of Toulouse (Toulousain), Agen (Agenais) and Cahors (Quercy), whereby the city of Cahors itself should be directly subordinate to the bishop, plus the Albigeois on the right bank of the Tarn, while the country on the left fell under the cover of the Crown Domain. The same was done with the entire lower Languedoc around the vice counties of Nîmes, Agde, Lodève and Beaucaire and the Seigneurien Sauve, Anduze and Alès and the Terre d'Argence around the Rhône delta. Raimund thus lost half of his territories and access to the Mediterranean, which the French crown now secured. The other side of the Rhône on German territory lying Markgrafschaft Provence fell entirely to the Holy See. The resurrection of his remaining territories was tied to strict succession clauses, according to which Raimund's only child Johanna was declared his sole heir, even in the event that a son was born to him. To this end, Johanna was to be educated at the French royal court and married to a prince, Alfonso von Poitiers . The result of the treaty revealed that Raimund VII will be the last count of his line and that his successor will come from the royal Capetian bloodline, who will rule over Toulouse in the future. But even in what was left to him, Raimund could no longer appear as master in his own house. In Toulouse he had to cede his Château Narbonnais to a French garrison to be stationed there for ten years, which he had to partially finance with 6,000 marks. The city walls also had to be razed and their trenches leveled. In addition, twenty-five permanent locations ( castra ) had to be handed over to the crown. These were Fanjeaux , Castelnaudary , Labécède , Avignonet , Puylaurens , Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux , Lavaur , Rabastens , Gaillac , Montégut , Puycelsi , Verdun , Castelsarrasin , Moissac , Montauban , Montcuq, Agen , Condom , Saverdun , Auterive , Casseneuil , Le Pujol , Auvillar , Peyrusse and Laurac . Furthermore, in Castelnaudary, Lavaur, Montcuq, Peyrusse, Verdun, Penne-d'Agenais , Cordes and Villemur should be occupied with a ten-year royal occupation, the financing of the first five years also had to take over the count.

In addition to the territorial clauses, Raimund had to meet a whole series of religious conditions that concerned the strengthening of the Catholic Church and the persecution of the Cathars, i.e. the real reasons for which the crusade was started in 1208. By the way, Catharism had survived this largely unscathed, despite the pyre on which many of his followers and leaders were burned. But supported by a broad network of sympathizers, the movement survived underground and was able to renew its church organization after defeating the papal crusade in 1224. The clauses of the Paris Treaty were largely based on the oaths of Saint-Gilles from 1209. In support of the fight against heresy, Raimund had to pledge to remove heretics and Jews from all public office and to remove all goods and rights from the Catholic Church refund that had previously been taken from her. In addition, he had to pay 10,000 marks as compensation to the church and 4,000 more marks to certain religious institutions and to dismiss all mercenaries. The persecution of heresy was no longer to be tackled by force of arms, which had proven completely unsuitable in the past few years, but by police state means, the so-called "investigation" ( inquisitio ), for whose theological and canonical foundation the foundation of a University in Toulouse, whose funding the Count also had to ensure.

On the day it was signed, the contract had achieved full legal validity through Raimund's reconciliation. Like his father in 1209 in Saint-Gilles, he had to in a humiliating public ceremony in the hair shirt and with a rope around his neck in Notre Dame de Paris in front of the Cardinal Legate Romano Bonaventura come to get rid of him from the excommunication to let to be able to be accepted again as a Catholic in the Christian community. Until the razing work on the castra in question had been completed and the consuls of the Occitan communes were given their oaths on the treaty, Raimund had to remain held hostage in Paris. On June 3, he was released from it and paid to the young King Ludwig IX. (Saint Louis) the Ligic feudal oath, which bound him for immediate allegiance to the crown. This was reinforced by a solemn sword line by the king, through which Raimund became his knight. A few days later he received his daughter Johanna at the royal court in Moret-sur-Loing , who handed her over to the royal family and was immediately betrothed to Prince Alfons of Poitiers. Raimund was then able to return to Toulouse.

The Treaty of Paris had put an end to the treaty after twenty years of war and finally saved the count's crown for the House of Toulouse, the preservation of which had been under denial and serious threat for the entire time. Raimund VII had to pay dearly for their preservation not only by renouncing large territories, but also by losing the once sovereign position of his house as the "uncrowned kings" of Languedoc to become a better feudal lord of the French crown. It ultimately sealed the military and political defeat of the House of Toulouse. The financial clauses of the contract, which bound Raimund through horrific compensation payments and payment obligations to the crown and church, had made the continued maintenance of a mercenary army impossible and thus robbed them of the military potential that the counts possessed in earlier times and that had allowed them to pursue an expansive power policy . And because he had to make his bureaucratic apparatus available both for the enforcement of the treaty order and for the work of the Inquisition, his state was taken over by the centralized administration of the Crown, which put an end to the almost three hundred years of sovereignty of the County of Toulouse. Except for his role as financier, Raimund seemed to have become dispensable for this new order. Clause XIV of the treaty had obliged him to embark on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land between August 1229 and August 1230, from which he was not allowed to return before five years.

Revision policy

Establishment of the Inquisition

In the autumn of 1229 Cardinal Romano Bonaventura moved into Toulouse, who in November called the clergy and nobility of Languedoc to a council that would decide on the modalities for the establishment of episcopal investigative commissions ( inquisitio ) throughout the country, which from then on dealt with tracing , Interrogating and judging heretics should deal. The first suspects who had been arrested by Bishop Fulko were questioned at the council, but who, as a result of the investigation, could be issued with the penance letter. Resistance to the Inquisition had risen immediately across the country, the first examining magistrates and informers were murdered before the end of the year, for which Raimund's negligence was blamed. Although he had to make his bureaucratic apparatus available to the Inquisition, he himself had shown no will to combat the heresy, even though the Paris Treaty had obliged him to do so. Indeed, since his return to Toulouse, Raimund had embarked on a policy aimed at revising the Paris Treaty, particularly with regard to the clauses on land transfer and succession. This pursuit determined the last twenty years of his life and was ultimately to be unsuccessful.

At first, Raimund forgot to pay the university professors as well as the compensation to religious institutions, about which the Bishop of Carcassonne immediately complained to the Pope. Raimund sent him his own embassy, ​​about which he complained about the oppressive financial burdens he was obliged to bear, which would not allow him to begin the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On July 9, 1230, the Pope granted a postponement for both obligations. Raimund then gathered an army, in which there were Faydits and Cathars, in order to hurry to the city of Marseilles against Count Raimund Berengar V of Provence , who immediately withdrew when he approached. On November 7, 1230, the city leaders of Marseille swore the feudal oath to Raimund, with which he had set foot again in the country beyond the Rhône a year after the loss of the margraviate of Provence. To do this he had to receive an admonition in Castelnaudary from the Bishop of Tournai, Gauthier de Marnis , who had been appointed the new legate for the Languedoc. He had convened a council in Béziers in March 1232 , at which Raimund, among others, had to confirm the measures decided on at the Council of Tuscany in 1229. He then had to take part in a military expedition by the Legate to the Montagne Noire , where twenty Cathars were captured. After that, Raimund had fallen back into inactivity in the Cathar affair, for which he was told by King Ludwig IX in the spring of 1233. was summoned to Melun , who once again reminded him of his obligations. The king also determined that Raimund had to include the clauses of the Paris Treaty in the statutes of law of the county of Toulouse, which he should publicly proclaim in an edict to his subjects. This happened on April 20, 1233 in the Saint-Étienne cathedral in the presence of the legate and the royal seneschal of Carcassonne , with which Raimund now had to position himself against his subjects against heresy. On the same day the Pope had also entrusted the preachers of the Dominican Order , which had been founded in Toulouse in 1215, with the management of the Inquisition.

Friedrich II's deed of loan from 1234

The now improved relationship with the king had favored Raimund also in the question of the restitution of territory, in that in Louis IX. and Blanka of Castile had won powerful advocates for the return of the Provencal Mark, who stood up for his cause with the Pope. Already in March 1232 he had the matter examined by his legate Gauthier de Marnis, without a decision being made. However, the Mark Provence was a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire, whose Emperor Frederick II had not been asked whether the transfer of the mark to the Holy See in the Paris Treaty. Although the mark had been given to the Holy See in 1229, it was effectively administered by a French governor. At that time the emperor was in a conflict with the pope and carried out a crusade as a banned man and consequently had no influence on what happened. In 1234 Raimund personally traveled to Italy in arms to show his goodwill to the Pope by supporting his troops under Cardinal Raniero Capocci in the military conflict against the urban Roman population near Viterbo . On the way he had reached a contractual settlement with his rival Raimund Berengar V. in February / March. In September 1234, with the permission of the Pope, Raimund VII was able to receive the Mark Provence including the Venaissin in all form from the Emperor Frederick II, who had also been reunited , as vassal of the emperor.

Resistance to the Dominican Inquisition

In Toulouse, in the spring of 1235, the general resentment of the citizens against the Inquisitor Guillaume Arnaud and the Dominican brothers' preachers had become dangerous. The reasons for this lay in the broad sympathy of the citizens for the persecuted Cathars, who were often related to them, the persecutions and denunciations associated with the Inquisition, as well as the confiscation of heretics convicted by the church, or those who were believed to be. When the inquisitor wanted to summon some consuls for questioning, he was literally chased out of the city. From Carcassonne, with the support of Bishop Raymond du Fauga, he pronounced the excommunication over the consuls, who in turn, in a kind of civil disobedience, called on their citizens to cease all cooperation with the Inquisition and the canons of the cathedral. The looting of his house had finally caused the bishop to flee the city. When the remaining preachers wanted to arrest a suspicious citizen despite a tumultuous crowd and riots had broken out, the city leadership ordered their expulsion on November 5, 1235, and the last representatives of the Inquisition with them. Raimund VII himself was not involved in these processes, but the Inquisitor assumed that he had secret support and sympathy for the Cathars, whereupon the excommunication was pronounced against him. On April 28, 1236, the Pope wrote that Raimund was partially responsible for these events and accused him of breach of contract. Once again he was admonished to keep his obligations, to follow the instructions of the legates and to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he now had to begin at Easter 1237. In the end, the expulsion of the Inquisition had only lasted six months. Due to papal pressure, Toulouse had to accept the return of the preachers and the inquisitors in the spring of 1236. Etienne de Saint-Thibery , who belonged to the Franciscans who were generally considered to be more moderate than the Dominicans, was appointed as the official colleague of the Dominican Guillaume Arnaud .

The Jacobin Church , which began shortly after the end of the Albigensian Crusade in Toulouse, was the main seat of the Dominicans in Languedoc.

Despite this, the resistance to the Inquisition persisted and Raimund also opposed it more energetically. Since the leadership of the Inquisition was incumbent on the preachers, who were only directly accountable to the Pope, it consequently evaded all local authorities, whether the bishops or the count. In the following years Raimund pursued the goal of removing the Inquisition from the control of the preaching brothers in order to place them under an episcopal leadership over which he could then exercise an influence. The international situation favored him in this project when it was between Emperor Friedrich II and Pope Gregory IX. had caused serious political upset. Raimund immediately used the situation in his favor to get the Pope to postpone his pilgrimage, which he was granted on February 9, 1237. At the same time, he was able to get the papal legate Jean de Bernin to check the work of the inquisitors, whom he accused of various misconduct and a dissolute lifestyle . Thereupon he undertook a campaign to come to Marseille one more time against Raimund Berengar V of Provence, for which his excommunication was promptly renewed, since the Provence was a supporter of the Pope. Unimpressed by this, Raimund sent the Pope in July 1237 a regular complaint in which he complained about the burdens that the Paris Treaty placed on him, which prevented him from fulfilling his Christian duty. He also called for the Inquisition to be withdrawn from the control of the preachers and transferred to the bishops. Since the Pope did not want to force the Count of Toulouse into the camp of the Emperor, who had just defeated the Milanese at Cortenuova , he was receptive to Raimund's demands. It freed him from the most oppressive financial burdens of the Paris Treaty and allowed him to choose the timing of his pilgrimage, which he will ultimately never undertake. The excommunication imposed on him in 1235 was also withdrawn. But with regard to the Inquisition, on the occasion of the appointment of a new legate on May 13, 1238, the Pope ordered its suspension for three months, which was extended a little later to six. The Pope had finally decided to postpone the decision to lead the Inquisition, which he resorted to to avoid disavowing the Dominican Order, which so far had proven to be the most effective weapon against heresy.

In the end, the Inquisition's suspension lasted three years due to political coincidences and the needs of the moment. The next judgment that was spoken of her on record dated May 22, 1241. Above all, Raimund VII had achieved an almost complete revision of those clauses of the Paris Treaty, which had put a stop to the sovereignty of his Count's authority. He only had to override the provisions on his succession in order to secure the autonomy of the County of Toulouse for the future.

Between emperor and pope

In 1239, Raimund had sided with the latter in the conflict between Pope and Emperor, when Raimund Berengar V, loyal to the Pope, sealed a document in November of that year as "Count and Margrave of Provence". Emperor Frederick II immediately accused him of breaching his loyalty to him and deprived him of the county of Forcalquier , which he in turn offered to Raimund VII for enfeoffment. He immediately accepted this unexpected increase in his property, which was also connected with the call to fight the enemies of the emperor in Provence. In the summer of 1240 he moved with a large army to Provence to besiege the city of Arles , the archbishop of which was at war with the emperor. For this and because he made a pact with the emperor, who had been banned since 1239, Archbishop Jean Baussan pronounced the excommunication of Raimund on April 26, 1240, his third. The siege was ultimately unsuccessful and had to face the threat of intervention by King Louis IX. canceled in September 1240. On his march back to Toulouse, Raimund in Pennautier had received a call for help from the royal seneschal of Carcassonne, whose city was besieged by Raimund II Trencavel , who had come with a large force from Faydits from Catalonia to recapture his paternal inheritance. Raimund replied to the request that he first had to go to Toulouse to seek advice there. Ultimately, he did not support the Seneschal, nor did he support the Trencavel uprising, whose withdrawal to Catalonia he was able to negotiate with the French military leaders in October.

Instead of rebelling against the royal authority, Raimund was concerned about a good relationship with her in order to be able to negate the succession clauses of the Paris Treaty. The hope of a heir son initially presupposed the annulment of his marriage to Sancha von Aragón, who could no longer have children and from whom he had been separated for years. To do this, a political change of sides was necessary from the emperor to the pope, who only had to agree to a cancellation. In Clermont in February 1241 he expressed his loyalty to the Pope and his support in the fight against the emperor to the papal legate Giacomo da Pecoraria . His vassals and cities also asked to take such an oath. On March 14, 1241 he renewed his oath of allegiance to King Louis IX in writing in Montargis . , to whom he also promised a train against the Montségur , already notorious as a heretic festival . In order to prove himself worthy of his rehabilitation, he actually had some soldiers raised at the foot of the "Pog" in the same year, but after a few days declared the attempt to take it as failed. He then went to Marseilles to travel by ship to Rome to the council convened by the Pope. But when a Genoese squadron of travelers to the Council was brought up by an imperial fleet ( sea ​​battle of Giglio ), he gave up the trip. Instead, he met on June 6, 1241 in Montpellier with King James I of Aragon , who brokered a peace between him and the present Raimund Berengar V. In addition, a marriage between Raimunds and the third daughter of the Provençal Sancie was agreed, who was not the heir to the count, but the sister-in-law of the queens of France and England. The Pope willingly gave his consent to the annulment of the first marriage of Raymond and Sanchas of Aragon, which had been found to be a goddaughter of Raymond VI. had been, therefore there was a "spiritual relationship" to her husband and the marriage was consequently invalid. However, a special dispensation had to be applied for for the second marriage, as Sancie of Provence was the great niece of Sancha of Aragón and a marriage with her consequently severely strained canon law.

Revolt against the Crown

When Raimund returned to Toulouse in late summer, he found a different situation there. The Inquisition had resumed its work and shortly afterwards Pope Gregory IX. died, the following Celestine IV lived only a few days and the next Pope Innocent IV was not to be elected until more than a year later, she could in fact act for two years without any supervisory authority. But above all, Gregory IX. can no longer issue the dispensation to marry Sancie of Provence, which is why the marriage to her had become obsolete. The vacancy of the Holy See also opened up new political opportunities, which is why Raimund traveled to Angoulême in October 1241 to conclude a secret alliance against the Crown with Hugo X. von Lusignan , Count of Angoulême and La Marche. To this end, he asked for his daughter Margarethe's hand to seal the alliance. With that, Raimund had ultimately joined a broad alliance that was centered around Isabella von Angoulême and her sons Henry III. of England , Richard of Cornwall and Hugo X of Lusignan, which in a revolt against the French crown aimed to regain French possessions for the House of Plantagenet. This alliance was also supported by the King of Aragón and his protégé Raimund II Trencavel, as well as the most important princes of Languedoc. A successful uprising offered Raimund the chance to regain his lands and finally to end the Treaty of Paris. The papal vacancy had also given him the opportunity to eliminate the preachers and the Inquisition they led, for which he again found support on April 1, 1242 in the local clergy, led by the bishops of Agen, Albi, Cahors and Rodez. Only the Tolosan bishop Raymond du Fauga , who was a Dominican, refused him.

On May 20, 1242, the landing of the English king on the coast of Saintonge gave the starting signal for the uprising. Raimund took over the fight against the royal seneschal of Carcassonne and, in mid-July, triumphantly entered Narbonne , whose archbishop had fled to Carcassonne. In the same month, however, the King of England was in the battle of Taillebourg by King Louis IX. defeated and forced to flee to Bordeaux . Raimund arrived there on August 28 to meet Heinrich III. to sign an agreement that prohibited the conclusion of a separate peace. Then Raimund succeeded in enclosing the French army under Louis IX. in Penne-d'Agenais . However, when a second royal army under Humbert de Beaujeu advanced into the Languedoc, the Count of Foix and other princes fell away from the alliance and went over to the side of the French. When Heinrich III. left for England, the end of the rebellion was sealed. On November 30, 1242, in Saint-Rome, Raimund declared his surrender to a royal delegation and in January 1243 he signed to Louis IX. the peace treaty in Lorris , which as a whole was a confirmation of the treaty of Paris. Immediately afterwards he was able to marry Margarethe von Lusignan, but only with the reservation of a papal dispensation, since both were too closely related to one another as fourth cousins ​​under canon law.

The failed uprising had not only dashed all of Raimund's hopes for a repeal of the Paris Treaty, it had also maneuvered him back into a difficult relationship with the Holy See - especially since on June 6, 1242, the Inquisitors of Carcassonne and the Archbishop of Narbonne as " Protector of Heretics ”had been excommunicated. A few days later the indictment against him was expanded by making him jointly responsible for the murder of the inquisitors of Toulouse, Étienne de Saint-Thibery and Guillaume Arnaud , carried out on the night of May 28th to 29th, 1242 by a command of Montségur were cruelly murdered in Avignonet . Indeed, his nephew, Raymond d'Alfaro , had also been involved. Raimund's involvement, on the other hand, is ruled out, although his revolt against the crown may have encouraged the assassins around Pierre Roger de Mirepoix in their plans.

On April 18, 1243 Raimund took part in the council convened in Béziers , where he again campaigned unsuccessfully for the secular clergy against the preachers and his absolution on the Inquisition question. In order to save what could be saved, Raimund then went to Rome to negotiate with the newly elected Pope Innocent IV . Because the latter continued the conflict with the emperor from his predecessors, Raimund hoped to be able to restore his relationship with him by offering himself as a mediator. For this he even had the support of Louis IX. received, who repeatedly campaigned with the Pope for his absolution, which was pronounced on March 14, 1244. However, the negotiations held Raimund longer than intended in Italy, so that he could not intervene in the simultaneous siege of Montségur , the destruction of which the Council of Béziers had decided in response to the attack in Avignonet. Only one engineer had joined the defenders on his behalf to build a catapult for them. On March 16, 1244 the Montségur had to surrender, 224 Cathars who refused to renounce their faith were burned on site. As far as Raimund's personal affairs were concerned, he was able to achieve partial successes with the Pope and Emperor. In fact, he managed to reach a compromise solution between the two, in which the emperor was supposed to give up the territories he occupied in the Papal States, in return liberated them from the ban and to receive compensation from the Lombard cities for war damage suffered. On Maundy Thursday, March 31, 1244, Raimund and two faithful prelates swore peace with the Holy See for the emperor in front of the Roman population and the curia. For his services, Raimund had received confirmation from the Emperor that he owned the Provencal Mark, which had been withdrawn from him because of his change of sides in 1241, and had received absolution from the Pope, which had been announced on March 14th by the Archbishop of Narbonne. But in the end the peace failed because of the continued distrust between the emperor and the pope. As early as December 1244, the Pope fled Rome to safe Lyon .

Last years

Nevertheless, Raimund had some successes considering his defeat last year in Rome. Only the Inquisition remained forever beyond his control, which the Pope had entrusted to the leadership of the preachers and which had also expanded their powers. His resistance to her had come to a standstill, so that in the last few years of his life he largely indulged in inaction on this matter. However, he did not have to contribute anything further to the situation, since the dispute between the Dominicans and the local bishops did not calm down and the Pope, weary of the conflict, increasingly leaned towards the position of the world clergy. In 1248 he had withdrawn the Inquisition in the dioceses of Agen, Toulouse, Cahors and Rodez, i.e. the territories of the Count of Toulouse, from the Dominicans and placed it under the direction of the Bishop of Agen. On May 14, 1249, a few months before Raymond's death, the Dominican Inquisition finally gave the final blow to the whole of Languedoc. Raimund only had to help with a letter to the Pope of April 29, 1248, complaining about the negligence of the preachers in persecuting heretics.

The only goal that Raimund pursued to the end was to transform his line of succession through the birth of a son. First, however, he had to face an ecclesiastical investigation of his marriage to Margaret of Lusignan at the Council of Lyon convened in June 1245 . As a fourth cousin, his marriage required a papal dispensation to be fully legal. At the council, however, he found out about the fourth daughter of Count Raimund Berengar V of Provence, Beatrix , who was still unmarried and was also the heir of her father, who, due to the situation, was also dying. On September 25, the Pope annulled the marriage with Margarethe von Lusignan, probably with Raimund's consent, who immediately threw himself into the international game of intrigue over the hand of the Provencal heiress. King James I of Aragón had moved to Aix with troops to marry off his son to Beatrix. He was opposed by the French prince Charles of Anjou , who was urged to marry by his mother. All three applicants ultimately needed the Pope's consent to win Provence, as they were all too closely related to the bride. In the end, thanks to his brother, Charles of Anjou had the longer diplomatic arm than the Pope granted him the necessary dispensation because he was King Louis IX. wanted to keep France as an ally against the emperor. For Raimund, the last hope of a son was shattered and the way from Toulouse to the possession of the French crown was mapped out. Because even his daughter and her husband were not to leave any heirs, so that the county could have continued to exist as an autonomous principality on a royal sidelines. After both deaths in 1271, it was forever united with the royal domain. According to contemporary rumors, Raimund is said to have been looking for a bride even after the failed Provencal marriage and spontaneously married an unknown noblewoman there during his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1246, who, however, never came to Toulouse.

death

In the spring of 1247 Raimund was ordered to the royal court, where he was received by King Ludwig IX. to participate in the decided crusade ( Sixth Crusade ) was urged. With reference to his lack of financial resources, he had tried to evade a promise, whereupon Queen Blanka agreed to pay for the maintenance of his armed pilgrimage. The title of Duke of Narbonne, which had been taken from him in 1229, was also to be returned to him. He could not refuse this offer and he took the cross in order to start the journey to the Holy Land, to which he had committed himself in the Paris Treaty. With him, some other Occitan compatriots also showed themselves ready for the crusade, among them the Raimund II Trencavel, who has meanwhile been granted grace, and the formerly notorious Faydit Olivier de Termes . However, Raimund had never seriously considered participating in the crusade. After bidding farewell to the king in Aigues-Mortes on August 25, 1248 , he went to Marseilles to wait for the ship he had built in Brittany . When this finally arrived, the late autumn weather conditions had deteriorated so much that he postponed the departure indefinitely.

In June 1249 Raimund traveled to Agen to settle a dispute between the Count of Armagnac and the Vice Count of Lomagne. In the nearby town of Berlaigas, according to Guillaume de Puylauren, he then ordered the cremation of eighty heretics who had previously been convicted before the episcopal inquisition but had confessed, so that their execution was not compatible with the procedural rules of the inquisition. Why he ordered this execution remains unclear, it should remain the only one he ordered in his life. But not even the Dominican Inquisition, which was already felt to be excessive, had ever ordered such a mass cremation. Presumably Raimund wanted to demonstrate to the Pope the effectiveness of the episcopal inquisition he supported. In the modern view he had put his behavior in a dark shadow, especially since this act was the last before he died.

In August 1249, Raimund said goodbye to his daughter and son-in-law in Aigues-Mortes on the crusade, which he also did not join. Then he moved to Millau , where he was attacked by a fever, which he initially ignored. When he arrived in Prix ​​(today Causse-et-Diège) near Figeac , he finally had the Bishop of Albi come to him to receive Holy Communion. Back in Millau, the clergy and aristocracy of the Languedoc, who had learned of the count's condition, also met there. On the night of September 23rd to 24th, he laid down his will, in which he ordered his burial in the Fontevraud Abbey at the feet of his mother and not, as usual, in Toulouse, where his ancestors rested in the church of Saint-Sernin . He died on September 27, 1249 in the presence of his nephew Raymond d'Alfaro and the chronicler Guillaume de Puylaurens. Moving over Albi , Gaillac , Rabastens and Toulouse , his body was housed for the winter in the Paravis monastery in Agenais, around spring 1250 to be buried in Fontevraud.

judgment

The contemporary judgment on Raymond VII was more moderate than that of his father, although he had two well-meaning chroniclers in the anonymous continuer of the Canso de la Crosada and the secular Guillaume de Puylaurens . In the Canso the young Raimund is praised for his drive and knightly disposition and praised as the ideal leader in the fight against the northern French crusaders, qualities that his father was denied. The Occitan author tried several times to establish the family relationship between the young count and his uncle Richard the Lionheart . Guillaume de Puylaurens was a critic of both the Cathars, the preachers and the French royal power and therefore viewed the policies of Count Raymond VII with benevolence, even if he avoided idealizing exaggerations of his person. Raimund's critics naturally came from the ranks of the preachers who argued with him about the conduct of the Inquisition. The Dominican Guillaume Pelhisson therefore subject him to the promotion and protection of heresy during the events in Toulouse in 1235/1236. As the son of his father, Raimund was generally suspected of heresy by the zealous persecutors of heretics, although their criticism of him never slipped into the hateful polemic of Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay .

More recent considerations of his biography paint a rather negative picture of Raimund VII, who, according to Michel Roquebert, showed the unscrupulousness of a Machiavellian prince in his political actions . He refers to the frequent breaches of oaths and treaties that the count had committed when the situation arose, and the erratic political changes of sides between the emperor and the pope, which testify to a pronounced opportunism . The indulgence of his cousin Blanka of Castile, to whom he owed his survival as Count of Toulouse in 1229, he had retaliated by betraying her son in 1242. In doing so, Raimund had always been concerned about his personal benefit and retention of power, for which, unlike his father, he was ready to sacrifice his own subjects. His work against the Inquisition, described especially in romanticism as a fight against religious intolerance and state centralism, turns out to be a pragmatic power politics. His rivalry with the preachers was not aimed at abolishing the Inquisition, but at influencing it. After all, it was the Count of Toulouse who had made a profit from the confiscations of heretics convicted of goods. In that way, at least, he was successful a year before his death. However, he did not succeed in bringing down the Paris succession plan.

Raimund's personal attitude to the Cathar faith was similar to that of his father, rather characterized by indifference. In his retinue were Cathars as well as Catholics, but if he considered it opportune for his interests he had dropped them, as exemplified by the case of Montségur in 1244, which was admittedly not one of the Count's domains, or the mass burning of Berlaigas in 1249 which incidentally caused the Cathar community of Languedoc to make the first great exodus to Lombardy . Guillaume de Puylaurens, who sympathized with Raimund, had primarily blamed the Cathars for the fall of the House of Toulouse and thus justified their persecution.

Familiar

ancestors

Alfons Jordan of Toulouse (1103–1148)

Faydive from Uzès

Louis VI. of France (1081–1137)

Adelheid von Maurienne (around 1092–1154)

Gottfried V of Anjou (1113–1151)

Mathilde of England (1102–1167)

William X of Aquitaine (1099–1137)

Aénor of Châtellerault

Raymond V of Toulouse (1134–1194)

Konstanze (around 1128–1176)

Henry II of England (1133–1189)

Eleanor of Aquitaine (ca.1122–1204)

Raymond VI. of Toulouse (1156–1222)

Johanna (1156–1199)

Raymond VII of Toulouse (1197–1249)

Marriages and offspring

Raymond VII had been married a total of two times. Before his first marriage, he was engaged to the newly born Infanta Sancha in the winter of 1205, the daughter of King Peter II of Aragón and Maria of Montpellier, who should have brought him the dominion of Montpellier into the marriage. However, the Infanta had already died again in 1206. In 1211 he finally married another Infanta Sancha, daughter of King Alfonso II and sister of King Peter II of Aragón, from whom he lived separated after the birth of their daughter in 1220. In 1241 the marriage was annulled because of "spiritual kinship". His second wife was Margarete von Lusignan, daughter of Hugo X. von Lusignan , from 1243 , whose marriage to her was annulled on September 25, 1245 due to close relatives. She died after two more marriages in 1288. The separations from his wives were ultimately politically motivated. In addition, Raimund had ultimately unsuccessfully sought two of the four daughters of Count Raimund Berengar V of Provence , Sancha (Sancie) and Beatrix .

His first marriage was Johanna as his only child . She was in 1225 with Hugo XI. betrothed by Lusignan , later her father's brother-in-law. As a condition of the Treaty of Paris, she was betrothed to Prince Alfonso of Poitiers in 1229 and finally married in 1241. Since Johanna had left no children when she died in 1271, she remained the only descendant of Raymond VII.

literature

• Malcolm Barber: The Cathars. Heretic of the Middle Ages. Artemis & Winkler Verlag, Düsseldorf and Zurich 2003. (English first edition: The Cathars. Dualist heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. Pearson Education Limited, Harlow 2000).
• R. Benjamin: A Forty Years War: Toulouse and the Plantagenets, 1156-1196 , In: Historical Research , Vol. 61 (1988), pp. 270-285.
• Laurent Macé: Les Comtes de Toulouse et leur entourage, XIIe-XIIIe siècles: Rivalités, alliances et jeux de pouvoir. Toulouse, 2000.
• Lauent Macé: Raymond VII of Toulouse: The Son of Queen Joanna, 'Young Count' and Light of the World , In: Marcus Graham Bull, Catherine Léglu (eds.), The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in southern France between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries (2005), pp. 137–156.
• Rebecca Rist: The Papacy and Crusading in Europe, 1198-1245. New York, 2009.
• Michel Roquebert: The History of the Cathars, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Languedoc. German translation by Ursula Blank-Sangmeister, Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart 2012. (French first edition, Histoire des Cathares. Hérésie, Croisade, Inquisition du XIe au XIVe siècle. Éditions Perrin, Paris 1999).
• Jörg Oberste : The crusade against the Albigensians. Heresy and Power Politics in the Middle Ages. Darmstadt 2003.
• Wolfgang Stürner : Friedrich II. Primus, Darmstadt 2009.

swell

The biography of Raymond VII is described in detail in the work of Guillaume de Puylaurens , who was a contemporary witness and knew the count personally. There are also two chronicles written in Toulouse that were written in Occitan and Latin by clerics who were active in the administration of the count and his son-in-law. The crusade report by Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay and the Canso de la Crosada by the anonymous Occitan poet both close with events in 1219 and consequently only provide a few details about the Count's early years.

• Guillaume de Puylaurens = Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii Historia Albigensium , In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 19 (1880), pp. 193-225.
• Guillaume de Puylaurens = Historiae Albigensium auctore Guillelmo de Podio Laurentii , In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 20 (1840), pp. 764-776.
• Patrice Cabau: Deux chroniques composes à Toulouse dans la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle , In: Mémoires de la Société Archéologique du Midi de la France , Vol. 56 (1996), pp. 75-120.
• Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay = Petri, Vallium Sarnaii Monachi, Historia Albigensium et sacri belli in eos suscepti , In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 19 (1880), pp. 1–113.
• Chanson de la Croisade (Canso de la Crosada) = La chanson de la croisade conte les Albigeois , ed. by Paul Mayer, Vol. 1 ( Guillaume de Tudela ), 1875; Vol. 2 (Anonymous), 1879.
• Guillaume Pelhisson = The Chronicle of William Pelhisson , in: Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250 , ed. by Walter L. Wakefield, University of California Press 1974.

Web links

• Literature by and about Raimund VII. In the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)

Remarks

1. ↑ For the year and place of birth see Puylaurens, RHGF 19, p. 198. For the date and place of death, see Puylaurens, RHGF 20, p. 772.
2. ↑ Chanson , Vol. 1, laisse 38, Z. 875, p. 41.
3. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 845-849.
4. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), No. 220, Col. 759-760 = Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 1, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1863), no.1538, p. 546.
5. ↑ Roquebert, p. 271. Barbar, p. 152.
6. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), No. 229, Col. 779–780 = Catalog des actes de Simon et d'Amaury de Montfort , ed. by August Molinier in, Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes , Vol. 34 (1873), No. 203.
7. ^ Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), no.7118 and 7120, p. 615.
8. ↑ Louis VIII had already been offered the donation to Amaurys de Montfort on February 24, 1223. Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.1631, p. 24.
9. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 275-277.
10. ^ Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 7299, p. 630. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio vol. 22, ed. by Giovanni Domenico Mansi (1778), Sp. 1206-1207 .
11. ^ Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 7358, p. 634. Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.1693, p. 17.
12. ↑ Roquebert, p. 279. Barber, p. 153.
13. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 279-280. Barber, p. 153.
14. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), nos. 1742 and 1743, pp. 68-70.
15. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 282-283.
16. ↑ On the alliance treaty between Raimund VII and the Agen municipality of May 22, 1226 see: Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.1777, p. 82.
17. ↑ Annales Monastici de Dunstaplia et Bermundeseia , ed. by Henry R. Luard in: Rolls Series , Vol. 36.3 (1866), pp. 102-103.
18. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 290-291. The forest battle against Beaujeu is only mentioned in an English chronicle. Matthäus Paris , Chronica majora , ed. by Henry R. Luard in: Rolls Series , Vol. 57.3 (1876), p. 156.
19. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 291-292.
20. ^ Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 8216, p. 708. Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), No. 1969, pp. 140-141. Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 177, col. 900–901.
21. ↑ Roquebert, p. 293.
22. ↑ On the Treaty of Paris, which was signed on April 12, 1229, see: Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no. 1992, pp. 147-152.
23. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 296-297.
24. ↑ Barber, pp. 199-202.
25. ↑ Barber, pp. 202-203.
26. ↑ Barber, p. 127.
27. ↑ Barber, pp. 203-204.
28. ↑ Concerning the Council of Béziers, Pope Gregory IX. in two letters dated February 18 and March 12, 1232, to send corresponding instructions to Gauthier de Marnis and Raimund VII. Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by Augustus Potthast (1874), No. 8881, p. 762 and 8896, p. 763.
29. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), No. 2234, pp. 248-250.
30. ^ Three letters from Pope Gregory IX. to Ludwig IX., Blanka and Raimund VII. of March 4, 1232 in: Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 8888, 8889, 8890, pp. 762-763.
31. ↑ Matthäus Paris, Chronica majora , ed. by Henry R. Luard in: Rolls Series , Vol. 57.3 (1876), p. 304.
32. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), No. 2275, pp. 261-262.
33. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no. 2309, pp. 270-271. King Louis IX had already informed the Provencal clergy in March 1234 of the imminent enfeoffment of Raimund VII with the mark, see: Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.2276, p. 262.
34. ^ Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 10150, p. 863.
35. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 324-327. Barber, pp. 216-217.
36. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), nos. 2711 and 2712, p. 377.
37. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 337-340.
38. ^ Gallia Christiana novissima , Vol. 3, ed. by Joseph Hyacinthe Albanès / Ulysse Chevalier (1895), no. 1046, col. 407–409.
39. ^ Letter from Raymond VII to the Pope dated March 1, 1241 in Clermont with the confirmation of the conclusion of the alliance in Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 336, col. 1052-1053.
40. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.2898, p. 442.
41. ↑ Roquebert, p. 367. Barber, p. 224.
42. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), No. 2920, pp. 450-451.
43. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.2941, p. 457.
44. ↑ The conditions for submission were negotiated on October 20, 1242. Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 357, col. 1097–1105.
45. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 352, col. 1090-1091. Letter from Pope Innocent IV to the Archbishop of Bari dated December 2, 1243 confirming the excommunication on Raymond VII of Toulouse in Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no. 3144, pp. 523-524.
46. ^ Barber, S, 220. Yves Dossat: Le massacre d'Avignonet. In: Le crédo, la morale et l'Inquisition (1971), pp. 343-359.
47. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 369, col. 1142–1144; No. 371, col. 1145-1146.
48. ↑ Stürner, Part II, pp. 520-521.
49. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.3163, p. 530.
50. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 385-386.
51. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 404-405, 408.
52. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , Vol. 2, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), No. 3382, pp. 585-586.
53. ↑ Roquebert, pp. 405-406.
54. ↑ On the letter of Pope Innocent IV of December 3, 1247, confirming Raimund's taking of the cross, see: Layettes du Trésor des Chartes , vol. 3, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1875), no.3624, p. 18.
55. ↑ ^{a b} Puylaurens, RHGF 20, p. 772.
56. ↑ Roquebert, p. 360.
57. ↑ Spicilegium sive collectio veterum aliquot Scriptorum qui in Galliae bibliothecis delituerant , Vol. 3, ed. by Luc d'Achery (1723), p. 567. Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 132, col. 533-534.
58. ↑ Chronicon Turonense , In: RHGF 18, p. 307.
59. ↑ On the year of the marriage of Johanna and Prince Alfons see: Guillaume de Nangis , Chronicon , In: RHGF 20, p. 549.

predecessor	Office	successor
Raymond VI. (III.)	Count of Toulouse 1222–1249	Johanna and Alfons of Poitiers
Raymond VI. (III.)	Margrave of Provence 1222–1249	Johanna and Alfons of Poitiers