Cahors

Who holds it

Name

Guillaume (III)

Title

Bishop of Cahors

Since

1199

Confidence

medium

Only his first name and his attestations in 1199 and 1202 are known from the lists; his family is not pinned. His predecessor Géraud Hector held the see from 1159 to 1199 and lived until 1202. A later bishop, Guillaume de Cardaillac (1208-1234), is the one who does homage to Philip Augustus for the county of Cahors in 1211.

What it holds

• Cahors: lordship of the city; the bishops are its barons and counts (the county is formally recognized by Philip Augustus when Bishop Guillaume de Cardaillac does homage in 1211)
• Episcopal castles and fiefs in the Quercy (not detailed here)

How it was acquired

Not pinned here; the bishops' lordship of the city is old, and the comital title is acknowledged by the crown in 1211.

How things stand that morning

Held, as far as the thin evidence shows; the see changed hands in 1199.

Wealth

Trade and lending by Cahors merchants, tolls on the Lot and its bridge, wine and linen.

Threats

• Being caught between Toulouse and the Angevins
• The consuls' pressure on the bishop's customs

Advocates and rivals

The consuls of Cahors; the counts of Toulouse, overlords in the Quercy; the Angevin dukes of Aquitaine, who took Cahors in Henry II's Toulouse war of 1159 and have fought for the Quercy since; Quercy lords such as the Cardaillac.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The bishop's comital lordship is attested, but mostly from later acts; the bishop on 1 January 1200 is known only as Guillaume.

On the map: Only the city is drawn; the modern commune is large and includes country outside the medieval town.

Primary sources for Toulouse

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Chronicles of Saint-Martial of Limoges, Bernard Itier and other monks of Saint-Martial; Geoffrey of Vigeois for the earlier chronicle (Geoffrey's chronicle to 1184; Bernard Itier's notes about 1195 to 1225). Bernard Itier, librarian of Saint-Martial, kept dated notes through 1200 of what reached Limoges: Richard's death at Chalus in 1199, the viscounts of Limoges and the lords of the Limousin, John's passage through Aquitaine in 1200 and the affairs of Angouleme and the Lusignans, and the abbey's own elections and prices. Read online
• Deeds of the Counts of Barcelona, Anonymous (monks of Santa Maria de Ripoll) (first version 1162 to 1184; continued in the later 13th century; final version 1303 to 1314). The house chronicle of the counts of Barcelona.
• Documents of the French Royal Treasury of Charters, vol. 1 (755 to 1223) (755 to 1223; the archive was organised from the 1190s). The treaties and bonds the French crown kept in its own archive, printed in date order. Read online
• The Great Book of Fiefs, Various; compiled by Ramon de Caldes for Alfonso II of Aragon (compiled 1192 to 1194). The register of the count-king's feudal rights, finished a few years before 1200 and in use at Peter II's court: some 900 charters of homage, convention, oath, sale and marriage arranged by county and lineage, covering Catalonia, Roussillon, Cerdanya, Pallars, Urgell, the Carcassonne and Beziers lands of the Trencavels, Provence and Aragon.