Roger Bernard III (Foix)

Representation of Roger-Bernard after a seal, 1880

Roger Bernard III († March 3, 1303 ) was from 1265 until his death Count of Foix , Vice Count of Castelbon (as Roger Bernard II), from 1290 by marriage Vice Count of Béarn (as Roger Bernard I) and since 1278 co-prince of Andorra . He was the only son of his predecessor Count Roger IV and his wife Brunissende de Cardona.

Fight against France

The Count of Foix attacks Casaubon while his castle is besieged by the King of France
(Photo: Jean Fouquet around 1455)

Right at the beginning of his reign, Roger Bernard III. are at the center of significant events that were decisive for the further fate of his county. Since the Peace of Lorris in 1243, the Counts of Foix had to recognize the King of France as feudal lord for the lowlands of their county. Roger Bernard tried to end this relationship of dependency with a risky policy.

In 1268 Roger Bernard took a train to the Catalan county of Empúries , where he went robbing and pillaging. Thereupon he was summoned before the royal seneschal of Carcassonne , who sentenced him in 1271 to settle the damage caused by a payment of 5533 livre tournois , but Roger Bernard appealed against this judgment. Only a year later it was to come to a military confrontation with the king when Roger Bernard got into a feud between Count Géraud VI. of Armagnac and Géraud de Casaubon interfered. He sided with Armagnac while Casaubon submitted to the protection of the king. This did not prevent the two counts from destroying Casaubon's castle Sompuy, whereupon they should answer again before the Seneschal of Carcassonne. But Roger Bernard not only missed the scheduled date, he also had the Seneschal attacked personally, whereupon he immediately occupied the lowlands of Foix. Meanwhile, King Philip III. a campaign against Foix .

When the royal French army marched on Pamiers in May 1272 , Roger Bernard appealed to the Aragonese King James I for his protection, claiming that he was a vassal of Aragon for the highlands of Foix. In fact, however, the count is likely to have ruled the highlands as a sovereign prince, since Aragon had already waived any claims in the north of the Pyrenees , with the exception of Roussillon , in the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258 . In spite of this, James I moved across the Pyrenees with an army. In this tense situation, the Vice Count of Béarn, Roger Bernard's father-in-law, intervened as a mediator and a war between the two kingdoms could be prevented diplomatically in the Abbey of Boulbonne . Both kings agreed that Roger Bernard should submit to the French crown, but the latter refused this request.

submission

Foix Castle

King Philip III began on June 3, 1272 with the siege of Foix and on June 5, Roger Bernard surrendered to the superiority. The count was handed over to prison in Carcassonne and his wife had to come to Paris as a hostage . The highland castles were confiscated by France, although Aragon claimed them for itself, and placed under the administration of the Count's mother.

After being imprisoned for over a year, Roger Bernard was ready to surrender to the royal highness at the end of 1273. He was invited to Paris where he was knighted by the king . On March 15, 1273 he received all rights back for the lowlands of his county, but in the highlands he had to continue to accept the royal occupation. In this way the king put a stop to the count's reunification with Aragon.

The Count's family also became an object of French interest politics when his sister Esclarmonde married the Aragonese Prince Jacob in 1275 after French mediation . This wedding was intended to drive a wedge in the Aragonese royal family by drawing the prince, who was the heir to important parts of his father's empire, closer to the side of France. Prince Jacob needed a strong ally to escape his brother Peter's claims to power . This wedding also gave Roger Bernard the opportunity to display his enormous wealth by raising the dowry of 3000 silver marks on his own.

In the service of the crown

Then Roger Bernard was able to prove himself in the service of France when he was sent to Navarre at the head of a royal army . King Heinrich I had already died there in 1274 and only left his underage daughter Johanna I who was under the reign of her mother Blanche d'Artois. This aroused desires for an annexation of the Basque Kingdom among the Spanish neighbors Castile and Aragon . After the residents of Pamplona rose against the regent in 1275, she fled with her daughter to France, where she lived with her cousin King Philip III. solicits support. She got this at the price of her daughter's hand, who was to be married to Prince Philip .

The army under the leadership of Roger Bernard was able to take Pamplona in 1276 and establish the formal rule of Joan, actually that of France, over Navarre, until 1277 even Castile's access to Navarre could be repulsed. After Crown Prince Ludwig died in 1276, Johanna's fiancé, Prince Philip, was to become the new heir to the throne of France. As a result, Navarre was to be effectively united with France by 1441. Roger Bernard was rewarded for his services with the office of governor of Biscay , and the highland castles of his county were given back to him, but he now had to take the oath of feudalism in France for his entire county.

Founding father of Andorra

Stele in memory of the Paréage of 1288, in front of the parliament building in Andorra la Vella .

In 1278 Roger Bernard was able to settle a dispute with the Bishop of Urgell Pere d'Urtx over control of the Pyrenean valleys that had lasted since his grandfather's days. At a meeting on September 8th in Lleida , he agreed with Bishop Pere d'Urtx a paréage treaty that should regulate the division of power between both parties over the disputed area.

The provisions of 1278 were as follows:

• the taxes to be raised by the people were to be paid annually to the count and the bishop
• the count and the bishop exercise joint jurisdiction
• the people were obliged to follow both lords in armed forces, unless the two lords fought each other

Paréage contracts were not uncommon throughout the Middle Ages. The Counts of Foix had used this means several times to settle disputes with other powers over feudal matters. What was special about this contract, which was also recognized by Pope Martin IV in 1282 , was its extremely long life. It should have existed until Andorra's declaration of independence in 1993 and was only then replaced by the Andorran constitution. The feudal rights of the Count of Foix were to be taken over by the French sovereign over the centuries, after the last Count Heinrich II had ascended the French royal throne as Henry IV in 1594.

This treaty was to be expanded by Count Roger Bernard and the bishop on December 6, 1288 after tensions between the two had re-emerged when the count had built a castle on Puy-Saint-Vincenç to oversee the bishop's activities . So they added that neither of the two gentlemen is allowed to build castles in Andorra without the consent of the other.

Crusade against Aragon

King Peter III from Aragon

In the spring of 1280 Roger Bernard interfered in the internal affairs of Aragon where the Counts Arnaud Roger I of Pallars-Sobirà and Ermengol X. of Urgell , a cousin of Roger Bernard, opposed the rule of King Peter III. raised. Roger Bernard supported the revolt but was crushed with the other counts at Balaguer and was taken prisoner by Aragon.

During the time of his captivity, a revolt of the population broke out on the island of Sicily against the rule of the ruler Charles of Anjou . This Sicilian Vespers was used by King Peter III. from Aragon, drove Charles of Anjou from the island and crowned himself King of Sicily. Anjou, however, was a protege of the Pope and also the uncle of the French king. So Peter III. of Aragon excommunicated by the Pope and a crusade against him was called, which was led by King Philip III. should be led by France. In this situation, King Peter thought it appropriate to release the Count of Foix from captivity in 1283, as the price for his freedom Roger Bernard was to cede the Vice-County of Castelbon to Aragon. Once on the loose, Roger Bernard did not think about keeping to agreements with a banished king and joined the Aragonese crusade . In the course of this, Roger Bernard was able to take Elne on May 25, 1285 , which the Bastard of Roussillon stubbornly defended. On September 7th, he was also involved in the conquest of Girona . However, the crusade failed after the French army was severely decimated by disease. After the army had withdrawn to Perpignan , King Philip III died there. of France on October 5th, ending the crusade. Only the quick death of King Peter of Aragon on November 11th of the same year saved Roger Bernard from a counter-attack by Aragon.

The legacy of Béarn

In 1290 Roger Bernard's father-in-law, Vice Count Gaston VII of Béarn, died . Already in May 1268 he made his second daughter Marguerite the sole heir of his property, not without the help of Roger Bernard. So now Roger Bernard ruled in the name of his wife in Béarn. But in 1293 Marguerite's younger sister Mathe and her son Count Bernard VI. of Armagnac to challenge the inheritance. Despite a royal ban prohibiting private feuds, the Count of Armagnac asked Roger Bernard to a duel. It actually took place, but the outcome of the duel remains unclear. In the further course of the war against Armagnac, Roger Bernard also occupied territories in Aragon, for which he was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Saragossa .

But in the end Roger was able to win Bernard Béarn for himself, which he again entered into a complicated relationship of dependency, because Béarn was a fiefdom of the Duchy of Gascony and this was held by the King of England , who in turn had to pay homage to the King of France for Gascony. Roger Bernard took advantage of his new situation to challenge royal authority again and attacked the Cistercian Abbey of Cahors , where he killed several royal guards. After he refused to answer for this act, the king forced him to do so by occupying part of the county of Foix. Now Roger Bernard gave in and was supposed to undertake a crusade to the Holy Land as a penance and if he had not started it within a year, he should pay a fine of 10,000 Libra . Roger Bernard is likely to have paid the fine because since the conquest of Acon on May 18, 1291, further crusade ventures have become hopeless. Even more serious for the count was the handover of the castles of Lordat and Montréal to the Seneschal of Carcassonne. In July 1291, Roger Bernard traveled to Paris, where he was compelled to make a declaration not to violate any royal orders or to damage property of the crown.

After that, Roger Bernard was again firmly on the side of France and took part in Prince Charles de Valois' entourage until 1295 in his Gascon Wars against England , which earned him the lucrative governor posts in Auch , Aire , Dax and Bayonne .

The Count versus Bernard Saisset

After the relationship between King Philip IV and Count Roger Bernard relaxed again, the King was ready to give the Count several proofs of his favor. For example, the count was allowed to take back two highland castles, which the king had previously confiscated. In 1294 the king also intended to restore the Count of Foix his lordly rights over the city of Pamiers . However, the abbot of St. Antonin de Frédélas, Bernard Saisset, appealed against this plan.

The co-rulership of this city was once regulated in 1111 by Count Roger II with the Abbot of St. Antonin in a paréage contract, in which the abbot and the count had agreed on a division of the rule in equal parts. This treaty had lasted for generations, but when Roger Bernard was fighting France in 1270, the abbot Bernard Saisset transferred the count's rights to the king. This made him the de facto sole ruler of Pamiers. But as early as 1175, after the count had submitted to him, the king wanted to return these rights to Roger Bernard. But Bernard Saisset refused to accept the pre-1270 restoration. So they agreed on a transitional period of 5 years, which was extended by a further 10 years in 1280, during which the count received the income from Pamiers reimbursed by the king.

But now, on January 30, 1294, the king asked the abbot to finally recognize the count in his contractual rights, but the abbot refused again. In February 1295 the king instructed the Seneschal of Carcassonne to withdraw the royal troops from Pamiers and to hand over the city's castle to the count. After the Seneschal did not comply with this order after a month, Roger Bernard felt deceived and with the help of the citizens of the city occupied the castle and the abbey and took control of Pamiers. Saisset responded by excommunicating the Count and the citizens of Pamiers and calling on Pope Boniface VIII for help. But his intervention with the king was unsuccessful, so in November 1297 the abbot was forced to recognize the count in his rights. But Roger Bernard had to recognize the abbot as his liege lord for Pamiers and also had to pay for the damage to property. The Pope, on the other hand, lifted the excommunication of the Count and the townspeople.

The Count and the Babylonian Captivity

In the last two years of his life, Count Roger Bernard was to play a small, albeit decisive role in the conflict between the Pope and the French king over the relationship between spiritual and secular power, which in the long term resulted in the so-called Babylonian captivity of the Church in Avignon .

The trigger of this conflict was again Bernard Saisset, who, meanwhile Bishop of Pamiers , got into another dispute with Roger Bernard in April 1301 about the jurisdiction in Pamiers. Roger Bernard enjoyed the support of the king, whereupon the bishop once more excommunicated the city. However, the citizens of the city successfully appealed to the Archbishop of Narbonne and the Pope against the ban.

Bernard Saisset let it come down to a direct confrontation with the king and publicly supported the papal demand for the release of the Count of Flanders , Guido I , who was in royal custody . The king reacted by setting up a commission of inquiry to investigate the suspicion of high treason by the bishop. Before this commission, Roger Bernard also appeared as a witness, and there he said from the bishop had asked him and other counts of the region to lead an uprising against the king. This statement was enough for the king to arrest the bishop on October 6, 1301 for high treason and lese majesty and to bring him to Senlis , where the trial against the bishop was to take place. The Pope saw this as an attack on ecclesiastical authority and convened a synod in Rome in December that year , which withdrew King Philip IV of all privileges granted to him and called on him to submit. The king, however, had the papal bull made for it burned and, at a synod in Paris on April 10, 1302, forbade all prelates of his empire to travel to Rome. This sealed the break between France and the Pope, which culminated in the Anagni assassination attempt on September 7, 1303 , after the papacy had to accept an increasing dependence on the French king, which a few years later resulted in the Pope's relocation Avignon ended.

Bishop Bernard Saisset, on the other hand, was released from royal custody as early as 1303.

Death and conclusion

Count Roger Bernard III. died on March 3, 1303 in Tarascon while preparing for a campaign to Aragon, where he wanted to assert himself as the heir of a distant relative.

Since his reign, the Counts of Foix had to finally accept the suzerainty of France over their county, which they had to give up their almost sovereign position in favor of French interests. Instead, from then on, the counts tried to rise to the leading nobility within the French feudal world, which was already reflected in the wedding of Roger Bernard's heir to a Capetian princess.

Within their county, however, the counts retained their prerogatives in relation to the crown for a long time in matters of justice, taxes and important mining, which not least was Roger Bernard III. had stubbornly defended.

Marriage and offspring

Count Roger Bernard III. was married since 1267 to Marguerite de Montcada († 1319), a daughter of the Vice Count Gaston VII of Béarn and his wife Mathe de Matha. This marriage was contractually agreed by the couple's parents on October 3, 1252 in Layrac and brought the Foix vice-counties Béarn and Marsan as well as a claim to the county Bigorre . The couple's children were:

• Gaston I (1287–1315), successor as Count of Foix, Vice Count of Castelbon, Béarn and since 1310 of Marsan, co-lord of Andorra
• Konstanze († 1332), ⚭ 1296 Johann I. de Lévis, Lord of Mirepoix
• Math, ⚭ 1294 Bernard IV., Count of Astarac
• Marguerethe († 1304), ⚭ 1291 Bernard Jourdain IV., Lord of l'Isle-Jourdain
• Brunissende, ⚭ 1298 Elias VII, Count of Périgord ( House of Périgord )

literature

• Hans Christoph Stoodt: Catharism in the underground. The reorganization by Petrus Auterii 1300-1310 . Mohr, Tübingen 1996, ISBN 3-16-146156-8 , ( Late Middle Ages and Reformation NR 5), (At the same time: Frankfurt am Main, Univ., Diss., 1988).

Web links

• “Short biography of Roger Bernard III. von Foix "(French) ( Memento from May 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Roger iv	Count of Foix Vice Count of Castelbon 1265-1303	Gaston I./I./VIII.
---	Co-Prince of Andorra 1278–1303	Gaston I./I./VIII.
Gaston VII.	Vice Count of Béarn (de iure uxoris ) 1290–1303	Gaston I./I./VIII.