Béarn

Who he is

Name

Gaston VI 'the Good' (Gaston de Montcada, Gaston de Moncade)

Title

Viscount of Bearn (also of Gabardan and Brulhois, and count of Bigorre in right of his wife: see Gabardan and Brulhois and Bigorre)

Since

1173, when his mother Marie resigned Bearn to him as a newborn; declared of age and did homage at Huesca to Alfonso II of Aragon in 1187

Born

1173 (one of twins), so about 26 on 1 January 1200

Family

Son of Marie, viscountess of Bearn (died 1186), and the Catalan magnate William of Montcada; his twin William Raymond of Montcada holds the Montcada lands in Catalonia. Married in 1196 his cousin Petronilla, heiress of Bigorre and Marsan, daughter of Count Bernard IV of Comminges; betrothed by Alfonso II's charter of September 1192. No children.

Confidence

high

FMG: the 1170 homage of Marie to Alfonso II, 'renewed by Vicomte Gaston VI in 1187'; Alfonso II's charter of September 1192 arranging the Bigorre marriage. French Wikipedia: invested with Bigorre by Alfonso II in 1192, married 1196, exchanged Mixe and Ostabarret with the viscount of Dax for Orthez in 1194 (FMG: Orthez and Riviere-Gave taken in 1193), made peace with the viscount of Soule in 1196.

Overlord

Peter II of Aragon for Bearn (homage of 1170 renewed in 1187). In law Bearn lies within the duchy of Gascony, but the viscounts have looked to Aragon since Marie's homage at Jaca in 1170.

What it holds

• Morlaas, the capital and mint of the Morlaas penny, the coin of Gascony
• Oloron and the valleys of Aspe, Ossau and Bareton, with their passes into Aragon (the Somport road)
• Lescar and the Gave de Pau; the castle of Pau
• Orthez and the Riviere-Gave, gained from the viscount of Dax in 1193-1194 in exchange for Mixe and Ostabarret
• The salt springs of Salies and the town of Sauveterre
• The Montaner border towards Bigorre (the viscounty of Montaner's status in 1200 not pinned)

How it was acquired

Inherited in 1173 from his mother Marie, heiress of the Gabarret line of Bearn; Orthez by exchange in 1193-1194.

Allies and rivals

Peter II of Aragon, his lord and kinsman. His father-in-law Bernard IV of Comminges, ousted from Bigorre by Alfonso II in 1192. The viscount of Soule, with whom he quarrelled until the peace of 1196 (the dispute was taken to Sancho VII of Navarre at Olite). The viscount of Dax-Tartas, his partner in the 1194 exchange. The duke of Aquitaine, of whom he holds Gabardan, Brulhois and Marsan.

How things stand that morning

Gaston VI holds Bearn in full. He is the vassal of Peter II, and with Bigorre his wife's, his power reaches from the Landes to the high Pyrenees. He is not at war on 1 January 1200. Across his borders: Soule and Mixe (ducal Gascony) to the west, the Landes viscounties (Tartas, Marsan, Tursan) to the north, Bigorre (his wife's) to the east, and over the Somport and the Pourtalet the kingdom of Aragon (Jaca, Tena).

Wealth

Salt of Salies; tolls on the Somport road from Oloron to Jaca and on the Gave crossings at Orthez; the mint of Morlaas; flocks and the transhumance of the valleys; the markets of Morlaas and Oloron.

Military

Castles of Morlaas, Pau, Orthez, Sauveterre and Oloron; the levy of the valleys under the Fors of Bearn; Gascon and Aragonese routiers for hire.

Threats

• Being caught between the duke of Aquitaine and the king of Aragon
• Church censure: he will be excommunicated for siding with Toulouse in the wars of the next decade
• Disputes on his borders with Soule, Dax and Bigorre's neighbours

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1200, not pinnedNo dated event for Bearn in 1200 is known to me. Gaston's attention is on Aragon, where Peter II is preparing his coronation journey to Rome (1204) and the marriage of his sister Eleanor to Raymond VI (agreed during 1200).Depends on: Peace with his Gascon neighbours. Stopped by: A Gascon or Navarrese quarrel on his borders.

Places of note

• Morlaas: Capital and mint of Bearn.
• Castle of Pau: Viscount's castle over the Gave.
• Orthez: Bridge town gained 1193-1194.
• Salies: Salt springs.
• Sauveterre: Castle on the Gave d'Oloron facing Mixe and Soule.

Where the sources disagree

• FMG dates the gain of Orthez to 1193; French Wikipedia gives 1194 and says Mixe and Ostabarret were given to the viscount of Dax in exchange. Both agree Orthez is Bearnese by 1200.

Evidence: The homages to Aragon (1170, 1187), the Bigorre marriage (1192, 1196) and the Orthez exchange are well documented; the inner limits of Bearn are drawn from the later province.

On the map: Outline traced from the later province of Bearn; the Montaner border and the edges against Soule, Mixe and Tursan are approximate.

Primary sources for Aragon

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.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. 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.
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• The Pleasant Book: a Summary of the History of the Maghreb, Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi (completed in 1224, in the East, after the author left the Maghreb in 1217). Abd al-Wahid was a boy of fifteen at Fez and Marrakesh in 1200 and later moved in Almohad court circles, so his account of Yaqub al-Mansur (died January 1199) and of the first years of Muhammad al-Nasir is partly from memory and from men he knew: the character of the new caliph, the weakness that let the Banu Ghaniya overrun Ifriqiya, the Majorca expedition of 1203 and the Ifriqiya campaign of 1205 to 1206. Read online
• Official Letters of the Almohad Chancery (1140s to 1260s; the letters nearest 1200 are of the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Nasir). Circular letters from the caliphs to governors, tribes and towns announcing victories, appointments and policy, preserved in later manuscript collections.

7 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.