Raimon-Roger Trencavel was a remarkable young man. He had inherited his title when he was only nine and had managed to hold on to it at a time when it was difficult for minors to grow to manhood, let alone retain their lands. He had been hoping for a peaceful future, with his wife Agnes and their little son. Bertran was bringing news that would lead to the break-up of that dream. Trencavel was only twenty-four when he died in the dungeon at Carcassonne.
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The Count of Toulouse
Raimon VI, Count of Toulouse, was an extraordinary character. He was married six times. His first wife, Ermessinde, died childless after four years of marriage. The second was Beatrice Trencavel, who bore Raimon a daughter but later became a Perfect. It was not difficult to get the Pope to grant him a divorce from her since she was a declared heretic.
Wife number three, Bourgogne of Cyprus, lasted a year before Raimon divorced her. Then there was Joan of England, sister of Richard the Lionheart. She gave the Count his only heir, another Raimon, who would be the seventh count of that name. Joan left the Count and took refuge in a convent, but a respectable one of the Church, at Fontevrault. She had been carrying another child. They both died, from the results of Joan’s having to be sliced open to release the baby.
And once he had his son and heir, who grew and thrived, Raimon had been able to please himself about a fifth wife, another Beatrice, but this marriage also ended in divorce, in 1202. His sixth and last wife was a good dynastic choice. She was Eleanor (Leonora) of Aragon, King Pedro II’s sister.
Raimon VI was therefore uncle to Raimon-Roger Trencavel twice over, being his mother’s brother and the ex-husband of Trencavel’s Beatrice – though that marriage was not referred to during the crusade, because of her being a heretic.
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The Feudal System
It is perfectly possible for a lord to have vassals and yet himself be a vassal to another lord of higher rank or to a king. Hence Bertran is vassal of Lanval, who is vassal of Trencavel, who is vassal of Toulouse, who is vassal of King Pedro! The only figure to whom Aragon is vassal is the Pope.
King Pedro is suzerain (= overlord) to Toulouse and all those below him.
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The Languedoc and the Langue d’Oc.
The region of southern France that we know as the Languedoc got its name from the language spoken there. This was the ‘Langue d’Oc’, the language of Oc where ‘Oc’ meant ‘yes’. In northern France they spoke the ‘Langue d’Oïl’ the language of Oïl, where ‘Oïl’ meant ‘yes’ (= modern day French ‘oui’).
This language has been called Provençal in the past but this is misleading, because it was not limited to Provence; the preferred term used now is ‘Occitan’ and I have provided a glossary of Occitan words used in Troubadour.
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After the Crusade
During the crusade troubadours became distrusted – some were forbidden to compose – and many fled from Occitania into Northern Italy or Spain.
Most of the characters in Troubadour are fictional but I have made even the historical ones do some fictional things. I could find out virtually nothing about the Papal Legate who was Bishop of Couserans, for example, so felt no compunction in having him interrogate Bertran de Miramont. Or in making Simon de Montfort the leader who suggested betraying Raimon-Roger Trencavel. Someone did it and why not Montfort the wolf? It is perfectly in character.
Only Jean-Charles-Léonard Sismondi, in the mid-nineteenth century, has the detail that some citizens of Carcassonne escaped through a series of caverns to Cabardes, but it was suggested first in 1645 and was too good an idea to resist.
There is no historical record of the ‘Nightingale of Carcassonne’ or that a couple of joglars were, for good and ill, at Béziers. I have shamelessly stolen the words of William of Tudela for Huguet’s planh at Termes.
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Fate of Historical Characters
Simon de Montfort was made to yield up the child of Maria and King Pedro in 1214 and the proposed marriage with his daughter never took place. The boy was already an orphan because his father had been killed at Muret in 1213 and his mother, Maria, had died some months before. But little Jacques/Jaime was raised by the Templars and eventually became King of Aragon, a strong and well-made man, known as James the Conqueror.
The Abbot of Cîteaux never got his hands on Toulouse. He became Archbishop of Narbonne and was dead before the end of the crusade.
Pope Innocent died in 1216 and was replaced by Honorius III.
Guglielmo, Marchese of Monferrato, died in 1226 when about to set off to defend his father’s conquests in Greece. His Marchesa, Berta, had already died in 1224.
Raimon of Toulouse lived another four years after Simon de Montfort’s death. He was excommunicated at the time of his death and his body was not allowed to be buried in hallowed ground. He and his son, Raimon VII, managed to recapture much of their territories before the crusade ended in 1229. But when Raimon VII died, twenty years later, the County of Toulouse passed to the French King of the time, Louis IX (later Saint Louis). That marked the end of Occitania as a separate entity from France.
Pierre of Castelnau never did become a saint. The man whose murder set off the whole crusade remains merely ‘Blessed Pierre’.
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LIST OF CHARACTERS
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Aimeric de Sévignan, a knight
Alessandro da Selva
Alys de Sévignan
*Arnaut-Aimery, Abbot of Cîteaux and Papal Legate
Azalais de Tarascon, a trobairitz
Berenger, Lord of Digne
Bernardina, a joglaresa
*Berta, Marchesa of Monferrato
Bertran de Miramont, a troubadour
Blandina le Viguier
Borel, ferryman between Arles and Saint-Gilles
Clara de Sévignan
Elinor de Sévignan
*Ermengaud, Bishop of Béziers 1205–8
*Folquet de Marseille, Bishop of Toulouse, formerly a troubadour
Garsenda, servant of the Lady Iseut
*Guglielmo VI, Marchese of Monferrato
Gui le Viguier, a knight, foster son of Lord Lanval
Hugo, the cook
Huguet, a joglar
Iseut de Saint-Jacques, widow of Jaufre, a trobairitz
*Innocent III, Pope (1198–1216)
Lanval de Sévignan
Lucatz, a troubadour
Maria, a joglaresa
*Maria de Montpellier, the Lady of that city
*Milo, Papal Legate, a Cistercian monk
Miqela, an old servant in Sévignan, formerly a wet nurse
Nahum, a Jewish spice trader of Béziers
*Bishop of Couserans, a Papal legate
*Otto IV of Brunswick, Holy Roman Emperor
*Pedro II, King of Aragon
Peire, a child orphaned at Béziers
Pelegrina, a Catalan joglaresa
Perrin, a joglar
Philippe-Auguste, King of France 1180–1223
*Pierre of Castelnau, Papal Legate, murdered in 1208
*Peire-Roger, Lord of Cabaret
*Raimon VI, Count of Toulouse
*Raimon-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Béziers, Albi, Rezés
and Carcassonne
*Raimon, Lord of Termes
*Renaut de Montpeyroux, Bishop of Béziers, 1208–11
*Simon de Montfort, one of the most ferocious leaders of the crusade
Thibaut le Viguier, a nobleman
Victor, a jailer at Saint-Gilles
* = a historical character
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GLOSSARY OF OCCITAN WORDS
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Amic Friend
Amistat Friendship
Canso Love song
Canso de gesta Song about heroic deeds
Cortesia Courtly behaviour
Domna Lady
Donzela Young girl
Dolcment Gently
Dolor Sadness, grief
Estampida Vigorous dance
Familha Family
Fin’amor Courtly love
Joglar Minstrel
Joglaresa Female minstrel
Joi Joy
Joven Young boy
Noiretz Foster-son
Oc Yes
Planh Lament
Ribaut A ruffian (literally ‘ploughman’)
Senescal Senior male servant in a castle
Senhor Lord of a bastide, castle or city
Senhoria The position and authority of a feudal lord
Tenso Debate poem
Trobairitz Female troubadour
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GLOSSARY OF MEDIEVAL WORDS
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Bailey Courtyard of castle
Ballista Siege engine, like a giant crossbow
Bastide Fortified town
Consolamentum Ceremony of being received into the Cathar faith
Believer What would now be called a Cathar
Chansons de Geste French songs about heroic deeds
Demesne A lord’s lands, castle and property
Faidit A lord who has lost his demesne
Fealty Allegiance owed by subjects to their lord
Fief A vassal’s source of income, land and labour
Hippocras Spiced wine
Keep The main tower of a castle
Mangonel Wooden siege engine
Perfect A man or woman who had received the consolamentum and lived according to the strictest rules of the Cathar belief
Rebec A small stringed instrument played with a bow
Saltarello A lively dance involving jumping or leaping
Seigneury The position and authority of a feudal lord
Solar A private or upper chamber in a medieval house
Suzerain Sovereign or feudal lord over other kings or lords; overlord
Trebuchet Wooden siege engine, like a massive catapult
Trencher Platter, sometimes wooden, sometimes made of bread
Vassal A free man who held land (fief) from a lord to whom he paid homage and swore fealty. A vassal could be a lord in his own right.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Dr Susanna Niiranen, of the Department of History in the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, kindly read and commented on this novel. She specialises in the women troubadours of Southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries. Norman Allum was most helpful in the Languedoc.
And Alessandro Barbero, Claudia Grosso and Riccardo Pergolis all provided invaluable information on the court of Monferrato. In spite of their assurances that the court would have moved around, I have taken the view of the Enciclopedia de La Repubblica (Utet, 2003) that it would have been at Chivasso, because I needed it to be somewhere!
I am very grateful to Nicolas Gouzy and Véronique Marcaillou of the Centre for Cathar Studies in Carcassonne for their assistance and support.
I have read many books and articles about troubadours, trobairitz, Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade while researching this book. Among the most useful have been Yves Rouquette’s The Cathars (Loubatières, 1998), Jonathan Sumption’s The Albigensian Crusade (Faber, 1978), Stephen O’Shea’s The Perfect Heresy (Profile Books, 2001) and Laurence Marvin’s The Occitan War (Cambridge University Press, 2008). On troubadour life and poetry, Linda M. Paterson, The World of the Troubadours (Cambridge University Press, 1993), and F. R. P. Akehurst and Judith M. Davis (eds), A Handbook of the Troubadours (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995), have been invaluable.
I’m grateful to the Bodleian and Taylorian libraries in Oxford and, as always, the utterly wonderful London Library.
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Also by Mary Hoffman
The Falconer’s Knot
.
The Stravaganza Sequence:
City of Masks
City of Stars
City of Flowers
City of Secrets
City of Ships
.
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY
Text copyright © Mary Hoffman 2009
Map illustration © Peter Bailey 2009
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted
Raymond Lévesque, Quand les hommes vivront d’amour . . . , used by permission of
Éditions Typo, 1989 © 1989 Éditions Typo and Raymond Lévesque
This electronic edition published in September 2010 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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