Raymond VII (July 1197 – 27 September 1249) was

Count of Toulouse The count of Toulouse ( oc, comte de Tolosa, french: comte de Toulouse) was the ruler of Toulouse during the 8th to 13th centuries. Originating as vassals of the Frankish kings, the hereditary counts ruled the city of Toulouse and its surroundi ...

, Duke of Narbonne and

Marquis of Provence The land of Provence has a history quite separate from that of any of the larger nations of Europe. Its independent existence has its origins in the frontier nature of the dukedom in Merovingian Gaul. In this position, influenced and affected by ...

from 1222 until his death. RaimondVIIToulouse1242

Family and marriages

Raymond was born at the Château de Beaucaire, the son of

Raymond VI of Toulouse Raymond VI ( oc, Ramon; October 27, 1156 – August 2, 1222) was Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence from 1194 to 1222. He was also Count of Melgueil (as Raymond IV) from 1173 to 1190. Early life Raymond was born at Saint-Gilles, Gard, ...

and Joan of England. Through his mother, he was a grandson of

Henry II of England Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin kin ...

and a nephew of kings

Richard I Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...

and

John of England John (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin ...

. In March 1211, Raymond VII married

Sancha of Aragon Sancha of Aragon (1478 in Gaeta – 1506 in Naples), or Sancia of Aragon, was an illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso II of Naples and his mistress Trogia Gazzela. In 1494, she was married to Gioffre Borgia, youngest son of Pope Alexander VI. ...

. They had one daughter,

Joan Joan may refer to: People and fictional characters * Joan (given name), including a list of women, men and fictional characters *: Joan of Arc, a French military heroine *Joan (surname) Weather events *Tropical Storm Joan (disambiguation), multip ...

, and were divorced in 1241. He was engaged to Sanchia of Provence, but she married Richard of Cornwall instead. In 1243 Raymond married Margaret of Lusignan, the daughter of Hugh X of Lusignan and Isabella of Angoulême. They had no children and the Council of Lyons in 1245 granted Raymond a divorce. He then tried to get support of Blanche, mother of King

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the d ...

, to marry

Beatrice of Provence Beatrice of Provence (23 September 1267), was ruling Countess of Provence and Forcalquier from 1245 until her death, as well as Countess of Anjou and Maine, Queen of Sicily and Naples by marriage to Charles I of Naples. She was the fourth and ...

, who had just become Countess of Provence, but Beatrice married Blanche's son

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

instead.

Life

During the

Albigensian Crusade The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crow ...

in May 1216, Raymond set out from

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

and besieged Beaucaire, which he captured on 24 August. He fought to reconquer the county of Toulouse from

Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester {{Infobox noble , name = Simon de Montfort , title = 5th Earl of Leicester , image = File:Simon4demontfort.gif , caption = Seal of Simon de Montfort, depicting him riding a horse and blowing a h ...

and later Simon's son Amaury VI of Montfort. He succeeded his father in 1222. At the moment of his accession, he and the new

count of Foix The Count of Foix ruled the independent County of Foix, in what is now Southern France, during the Middle Ages. The House of Foix eventually extended its power across the Pyrenees mountain range, joining the House of Bearn and moving their cour ...

, Roger Bernard II the Great, besieged

Carcassonne Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the Aud ...

. On 14 September 1224, the

rs surrendered and the war came to an end, each southern lord making peace with the church. However, in 1225, the

council of Bourges The Council of Bourges was a Catholic council convened in November 1225 in Bourges, France; it was the second largest church assembly held in the West up to that time, exceeded in the numbers of prelates that attended only by the Fourth Lateran Cou ...

excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

him and launched a

crusade The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

against him, the

king of France France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the fir ...

, Louis VIII, called ''the Lion'', wanting to renew the conflict in order to enforce his royal rights in

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

. Roger-Bernard tried to keep the peace, but the king rejected his embassy and the counts of Foix and Toulouse took up arms again. The war was largely a discontinuous series of skirmishes and, in January 1229, Raymond, defeated, was forced to sign the Treaty of Paris (also known as the "Treaty of Meaux"). By this treaty he ceded the former viscounty of Trencavel to

Louis IX Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the House of Capet, Direct Capetians. He was Coronation of the French monarch, c ...

and his daughter

was forced to marry

Alphonse Alphonse may refer to: * Alphonse (given name) * Alphonse (surname) * Alphonse Atoll, one of two atolls in the Seychelles' Alphonse Group See also *Alphons Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given n ...

, brother of the king. In 1242, Raymond allied with Count Hugh of La Marche and King

Henry III of England Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry ...

against Louis IX during the Saintonge War. Louis sent against him an army under the Constable Imbert de Beaujeu and Bishop Hugh of Clermont. He was forced to surrender the castle of

Saverdun Saverdun (; Languedocien: ''Savardun'') is a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France. Population Inhabitants of Saverdun are called ''Saverdunois'' in French. Name Saverdun gave its name to the former city of Verdun, Que ...

and Bram. When Raymond died, Alphonse became count of Toulouse, and after Alphonse's death the county was annexed by

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Raymond VII was buried beside his mother Joan in

Fontevrault Abbey The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault (in French: ''abbaye de Fontevraud'') was a monastery in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in the former French duchy of Anjou. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preach ...

References

Sources

* *Macé, Laurent. "Raymond VII of Toulouse: The Son of Queen Joanne, 'Young Count' and Light of the World." ''The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries'', edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. . * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Raymond VII of Toulouse 1197 births 1249 deaths People from Gard Counts of Toulouse Margraves of Provence People excommunicated by the Catholic Church People of the Albigensian Crusade Christians of the Sixth Crusade Occitan nobility French Christians Burials at Fontevraud Abbey 13th-century peers of France