William IX Duke of Aquitaine

1071 - 1127  (55 years)

• Name	William IX Duke of Aquitaine
  Born	22 Oct 1071	Aquitaine
  Gender	Male
  Died	11 Feb 1127	Poitiers Departement de la Vienne Poitou-Charentes, France
  Buried	Saint-Jean l'Evangéliste de Montierneuf Poitiers Departement de la Vienne Poitou-Charentes, France
  	Grave location: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=90062291
  Notes	Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_IX,_Duke_of_Aquitaine Called the Troubador, was the Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou, William was the son of William VIII of Aquitaine by his third wife, Hildegarde of Burgundy. He was also one of the leaders of the Crusade of 1101. Though his political and military achievements have a certain historical importance, he is best known as the earliest troubadour, a lyric poet in the Provençal language whose work survived. William inherited the duchy at the age of fifteen upon the death of his father. In 1094, William married Philippa, the daughter and heiress of William IV of Toulouse. By Philippa, William had two sons and five daughters, including his eventual successor, William X. His second son, Raymond, eventually became the Prince of Antioch in the Holy Land, and his daughter Agnes married firstly Aimery V of Thouars and then Ramiro II of Aragon, reestablishing dynastic ties with that ruling house. Pope Urban II urged him to "take the cross" (i.e. the First Crusade) and leave for the Holy Land, but William was more interested in exploiting the absence on Crusade of Raymond IV of Toulouse, his wife's uncle, to press her 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 Crusade of 1101, an expedition inspired by the success of the First Crusade in 1099. To finance it, he had to mortgage Toulouse back to Bertrand, the son of Raymond IV. William arrived in the Holy Land in 1101 and stayed there until the following year. His record as a military leader is not very impressive. He fought mostly skirmishes in Anatolia and was frequently defeated. His recklessness led to his being ambushed on several occasions, with great losses to his own forces. In September 1101, his entire army was destroyed by the Seljuk Turks at Heraclea; William himself barely escaped, and, according to Orderic Vitalis, he reached Antioch with only six surviving companions. William, like his father and many magnates of the time, had a rocky relationship with the Church. He was excommunicated for "abducting" the Viscountess Dangerose (Dangerosa), the wife of his vassal Aimery I de Rochefoucauld, Viscount of Châtellerault. The lady, however, appears to have been a willing party in the matter. He installed her in the Maubergeonne tower of his castle in Poitiers. Upon returning to Poitiers from Toulouse, Philippa was enraged to discover a rival woman living in her palace. She appealed to her friends at court and to the Church; however, no noble could assist her since William was their feudal overlord, and whilst the Papal legate Giraud (who was bald) complained to William and told him to return Dangerose to her husband, William's only response was, "Curls will grow on your pate [head] before I part with the Viscountess." Humiliated, Philippa chose in 1116 to retire to the Abbey of Fontevrault and did not survive there long, however: the abbey records state that she died on 28 November 1118. Relations between the Duke and his elder son William also became strained. Father and son improved their relationship after the marriage of the younger William to Aenor of Châtellerault, Dangerose's daughter by her husband, in 1121. William's greatest legacy to history was not as a warrior but as a troubadour, a lyric poet employing the Romance vernacular language called Provençal or Occitan. His work is the earliest surviving troubadour poems and songs. An anonymous 13th-century vida of William 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 traveled much through the world, seducing women." He died on 11 February 1127, aged 56, after suffering a short illness.
  Person ID	I35264	Master File
  Last Modified	27 Jun 2016

  
  

  Father	William VIII Duke of Aquitaine,   b. 1025, Aquitaine ,   d. 25 Sep 1086, Chize, Deux-Sèvres, Poitou-Charentes, France  (Age 61 years)
  Mother	Hildegarde of Burgundy,   b. 1056, County of Burgundy, France ,   d. 1104, Aquitaine  (Age 48 years)
  Family ID	F14563	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Philippa of Toulouse, Countess,   b. ca 1073, Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, Midi-Pyrénées, France ,   d. 28 Nov 1118, Fontevraud Abbey, France  (Age ~ 45 years)
  Children	1. William X of Aquitaine,   b. 1099, Toulouse, Haute-Garonne, Midi-Pyrénées, France ,   d. 09 Apr 1137, on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain  (Age 38 years)
  Last Modified	27 Jun 2016
  Family ID	F14561	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart