Bigorre

Who he is

Name

Petronilla of Comminges (Petronille de Bigorre), with Gaston VI

Title

Countess of Bigorre (and viscountess of Marsan: see Marsan); the county governed by her husband Gaston VI of Bearn as count

Since

1192, when Alfonso II of Aragon forced her father to give up Bigorre and invested Gaston VI as count; her marriage to Gaston in 1196 confirmed it

Born

About 1184, so about 15 on 1 January 1200

Family

Daughter of Count Bernard IV of Comminges and Beatrix (Stephanie), countess of Bigorre and viscountess of Marsan, whom Bernard put away in 1192. Half-sister of Bernard V of Comminges (born 1196). Later married four more times (Nuno Sanchez, Guy de Montfort, Aimar de Rancon, Boson de Mastas); died 1251.

Confidence

high

French Wikipedia (Petronille de Bigorre; Bernard IV de Comminges; Gaston VI de Bearn) and FMG. Bernard IV married Beatrix in 1180, seized Bigorre and separated from her in 1192; Alfonso II, as suzerain of Bigorre, made him give it up in favour of his daughter and betrothed her to Gaston. Petronilla herself appears in no Bigorre act of these years: Gaston rules.

Overlord

Peter II of Aragon, suzerain of Bigorre (his father Alfonso II disposed of the county in 1192).

What it holds

• Tarbes, the count's city and castle beside the bishop's cathedral
• The castle of Lourdes, key to the Lavedan valleys
• Bagneres, Vic and the plain of the Adour
• Overlordship of the viscounts of Lavedan and of the valley communities (Bareges, Azun, Campan)

How it was acquired

Bigorre passed to the viscounts of Marsan by Peter of Marsan's marriage to the heiress Beatrix in the 1140s; then to Petronilla's mother Beatrix (Stephanie), heiress of Count Centulle III; Bernard IV of Comminges held it 1180-1192 as her husband; Gaston VI since 1192.

Allies and rivals

Gaston VI of Bearn, her husband and the real ruler. Peter II of Aragon, overlord. Bernard IV of Comminges, her father, who lost the county in 1192 and has every reason to want it back. The viscount of Lavedan and the mountain valleys. Neighbours: the viscounts of La Barthe in the Four Valleys to the east, Astarac and Pardiac to the north-east.

How things stand that morning

Held by Gaston VI in right of his wife, under Aragon. The marriage is childless; Petronilla is absent from the county's acts.

Wealth

Pastoral wealth of the high valleys and the transhumance; the markets of Tarbes, Vic and Bagneres; the hot springs of Bagneres; tolls on the roads to the passes.

Military

Castles of Lourdes and Tarbes; the levy of the valleys under the Fors of Bigorre.

Threats

• Bernard IV of Comminges's claim through his daughter
• The childlessness of the marriage: at Gaston's death the county's marriage becomes a prize for Aragon and its enemies
• Valley communities jealous of their customs

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. 1214 (after the year)Gaston VI dies childless; the king of Aragon marries Petronilla to Nuno Sanchez, and in 1216 she is married to Guy de Montfort.Depends on: Gaston's death without heirs. Stopped by: A child of the marriage.

Places of note

• Castle of Lourdes: Key castle of the county, guarding the Lavedan.
• Tarbes: Count's seat and bishop's city.
• Bagneres: Market and hot springs.

Where the sources disagree

• FMG names the mother Beatrix III; some older lists call her Stephanie. FMG places the transfer of Bigorre to the Comminges line at about 1200; French Wikipedia gives Petronilla as countess from 1194 and Gaston as invested in 1192. We follow the Wikipedia and FMG charter dates (1192 investiture, 1196 marriage).

Evidence: The dynastic facts are well attested; the day-to-day government of the county in 1199-1200 is thinly documented.

On the map: Outline of the later county of Bigorre, without the Four Valleys and the Riviere-Basse; the Montaner edge is 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.