William IX of Aquitaine
William IX of Aquitaine (October 22, 1071 – February 10, 1126, also Guillaume or Guilhem d'Aquitaine), nicknamed the Troubador was Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitiers as William VII of Poitiers between 1086 and 1126. He was also one of the leaders of the crusade of 1101 and one of the first medieval vernacular poets.
His Occitan names were Guilhèm IX duc d'Aquitània e de Gasconha and Guilhèm VII comte de Peitieus.
Life and Family
William was the son of William VIII of Aquitaine by his third wife Hildegarde of Burgundy. His birth was an event of great celebration, but at first he was considered illegitimate by religious authorities because of his father's earlier divorces and his parents' consanguinity. This obliged his father to make a pilgrimage to Rome soon after his birth, where he sought and received papal approval of his marriage and children.
In 1094 he married Philippa of Toulouse, the daughter and heiress of William IV of Toulouse. By Philippa, William had two sons and five daughters, including:
- William X of Aquitaine, his heir.
- Agnes of Aquitaine, who married (1) Aimery V of Thouars; (2) King Ramiro II of Aragon.
- Raymond of Poitiers, who became ruler of the principality of Antioch, a Crusader state.
He was excommunicated twice, the first time in 1114 for some unknown offense. His response to this was to demand absolution from the Bishop of Poitiers at swordpoint. He was excommunicated a second time for abducting Dangereuse (Dangerosa in Occitan), the wife of his vassal Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault. He installed her in the Maubergeonne tower of his castle, and, as related by William of Malmesbury, even painted a picture of her on his shield.
This greatly offended both his wife and his son, William. According to Orderic Vitalis, Philippa protested against her treatment in October 1119 at the Council of Reims, claiming to have been abandoned by the duke in favor of Dangereuse. She later retired to the convent of Fontevrault. Relations with his son were only repaired when the younger William married Aenor of Châtellerault, Dangereuse's daughter by her husband.
An anonymous 13th century biography of William, forming part of the collection Biographies des Troubadours, remembers him thus:
- "The Count of Poitiers was one of the most courtly men in the world and one of the greatest deceivers of women. He was a fine knight at arms, liberal in his womanizing, and a fine composer and singer of songs. He travelled much through the world, seducing women."
Military life
William invited Pope Urban II to spend Christmas 1095 at his court. The pope urged him to take the cross and leave for the Holy Land, but William was more interested in exploiting the absence of Raymond IV of Toulouse, his wife's uncle, to press a claim to Toulouse. He and Philippa did capture Toulouse in 1098, an act for which they were threatened with excommunication. Partly out of a desire to regain favor with the religious authorities and partly out of a wish to see the world, William joined the First Crusade in 1099.
He arrived in the Holy Land in 1101 and stayed there until the following year. His record as a general is not very impressive. William fought mostly skirmishes in Anatolia and was frequently defeated. His recklessness had his army ambushed on several occasions, with great losses to his own side. In September 1101 his entire army was destroyed by the Turks at Heraclea; William himself barely escaped, and, according to Orderic Vitalis, reached Antioch with only six surviving companions.
Later on in his life, William joined forces with the kingdoms of Castile (an old ally) and Léon. Between 1120 and 1123, Aquitanian troops fought side by side with queen Urraca of Castile, in an effort to conquer the Moors of Cordoba and complete the Reconquista. During his sojourn in Spain, William was given a rock crystal vase by a Muslim ally that he later bequeathed to his granddaughter Eleanor. The vase probably originated in Sassanid Persia in the 7th century.
William IX also provided troops to Philip I of France in his war against William the Conqueror.
Poetry
William's greatest legacy to history was not as a warrior but as a poet. He was the first known troubadour, or lyric poet employing the Romance vernacular called Provençal or Occitan. Eleven of his songs survive (Merwin, 2002). They are attributed to him under his title as Count of Poitou (lo coms de Peitieus). The topics vary, treating sex, love, women, his own sexual prowess, and feudal politics. His frankness, wit and vivacity caused scandal and won admiration at the same time. He is among the first Romance vernacular poets of the Middle Ages, one of the founders of a tradition that would culminate in Dante, Boccaccio, and Villon. Ezra Pound mentions him in Canto VIII:
- And Poictiers, you know, Guillaume Poictiers,
had brought the song up out of Spain
with the singers and viels...
William was a man who loved scandal and no doubt enjoyed shocking his audiences. Upon returning from crusade, he abandoned his wife in favour of a married woman, known as Dangereuse (Dangerosa in Occitan) from his poems, and risked excommunication for the deed. He also composed a song about founding a convent in his lands, where the nuns would be picked from among the most beautiful women in the region, or from the best whores, depending on the translation. While this confirms William's lusty persona, it also makes a joke about the penitentiary convents for prostitutes founded by the charismatic preacher Robert of Arbrissel. (Bond, xlix) In fact, William granted large donations to the church, perhaps to regain the pope's favour. He also constructed the palace of the counts of Poitou, later added to by his granddaughter Eleanor of Aquitaine and surviving in Poitiers to this day.
One of William's poems, possibly written at the time of his first excommunication, since it implies his son was still a minor, is partly a musing on mortality: Pos de chantar m'es pres talenz (Since I have the desire to sing,/I'll write a verse for which I'll grieve). It concludes:
- I have given up all I loved so much:
chivalry and pride;
and since it pleases God, I accept it all,
that He may keep me by Him.
- I enjoin my friends, upon my death,
all to come and do me great honour,
since I have held joy and delight
far and near, and in my abode.
- Thus I give up joy and delight,
and squirrel and grey and sable furs.
He died on February 10th, 1126, age 55.
Sources
- Bond, Gerald A., ed., transl. intro. The Poetry of William VII, Count of Poitier, IX Duke of Aquitaine, (Garland Publishing Co.:New York) 1982
- Duisit, Brice. Las Cansos del Coms de Peitieus (CD), Alpha 505, 2003
- Biographies des troubadours ed. J. Boutière, A.-H. Schutz (Paris: Nizet, 1964) pp. 7-8, 585-587.
Bibliography
- Harvey, Ruth E. The wives of the 'first troubadour', Duke William IX of Aquitaine (Journal of Medieval History), 1993
- Meade, Marion. Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1991
- Merwin, W.S. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2002. pp xv-xvi. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41476-2.
- Owen, D.D.R. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend
- Parsons, John Carmi. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, 2002
- Verdon, J. La chronique de Saint Maixent, 1979.
- Waddell, Helen. The Wandering Scholars: the Life and Art of the Lyric Poets of the Latin Middle Ages, 1955
| Preceded by: William VIII |
Duke of Aquitaine | Succeeded by: William X |
| Count of Poitiers |
