Wilhelm Raimund (Béarn)

Wilhelm Raimund von Montcada ( Catalan: Guillem Ramon de Montcada , French: Guillaume Raymond de Moncade ; † 1224 ) was a vice count of Béarn from the House of Montcada . He was a son of the Catalan nobleman Wilhelm von Montcada (Wilhelm I von Béarn; † 1172) and the Vice Countess Maria von Béarn .

After the death of his grandfather Guillem Ramon II. De Montcada , the "great Seneschal", Wilhelm Raimund inherited the Catalan family estates around Montcada and Vic in 1173 , while his older brother Gaston VI. had already assumed co-reign in Béarn in the previous year as the successor to his father . At first he was under the tutelage of his uncle Ramon I. de Montcada , who was the Seneschal of Catalonia. In 1185 he married Guillema de Castellvell.

In 1194 Wilhelm Raimund murdered his wife's uncle, the Archbishop of Tarragona . The motive for the act remains unclear, but it probably happened against the background of an opposition struggle between various Catalan nobles against the growing authority of King Alfonso II. The act was passed on to Pope Celestine III. reported, who pronounced the excommunication about Wilhelm Raimund, after which he had to go into exile for almost twenty years in 1195, which he spent most of the time in Aragon and traveling to the courts of Spain and England. He had now returned to Catalonia on few occasions to settle business matters there. During this time, his wife had separated from him, who then married into the family of vice counts of Narbonne. His position at the royal court was soon taken by his son Wilhelm . After the childless death of his older brother in 1214, Wilhelm Raimund was able to take over the vice-county of Béarn and became involved against the Albigensian crusade . At the same time, he returned to the Catalan politics, where he assumed the regency of Count Sancho and Nuno Sanchez for the infant King James I recognized. After making donations to several religious institutions, including the Hospitallers and Templars , he traveled to Rome in the autumn of 1215 , where, after the fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III. among other things for the promise of a five-year crusade to the Holy Land granted absolution. Back in Catalonia, he helped Count Nuno Sanchez in the successful defense of Lourdes Castle against Simon de Montfort in September 1216 and Count Raymond VI a year later . on his return to Toulouse .

In February 1224 Wilhelm Raimund had redeemed himself from his promise of crusade through further donations to the Hospitallers and Templars, including the transfer of the castle of Manciet to the knightly orders. He must have died in the same year, since in October 1224 his son officiated as Vice Count of Béarn. He was buried in the Sainte-Marie Cathedral of Oloron .

literature

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

annotation

1. ^ Cartulaire general de l'ordre des hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jérusalem, 1110-1310. Vol. 2, ed. by Joseph Delaville Le Roux (1897), no.1781.
2. ↑ Miret y Sans, No. 27, p. 236.

predecessor	Office	successor
Gaston VI.	Vice Count of Béarn 1214–1224	Wilhelm II.