William IX, Duke of Aquitaine
William IX. (* October 22, 1071, † February 10, 1126 ), also called the Young (le Jeune ), was Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony and Count of Poitou as William VII. He was the son of William VIII of Aquitaine from his third marriage to Aldearte, daughter of Robert of France, the Duke of Burgundy.
His Occitan name is Guilhem IX duc d' Aquitania e de Gasconha and Guilhem VII comte de Peitieus.
Policy
Wilhelm took over in 1086, the reign of his father, married around 1089 Irmgard ( Ermengarde ) of Anjou, was divorced from this, however, 1092. His second marriage with Philippa, the Eventualerbin the county Toulouse, resulted in long-lasting conflicts with the family of the wife. 1098 Wilhelm occupied for the first time Toulouse, in 1099 he ceded his rights in exchange for financial compensation to a nephew of the wife, Count Bertrand of Saint- Gilles.
The money was mainly in the crusade of 1101, which William participated on the side of Welf IV and led him to Constantinople Opel after Heraclea, where its troops were defeated in September in 1101 by Seljuk forces. Wilhelm was able to eke out with companions on Antioch to Jerusalem and arrived in the fall of 1102 returned to France.
1103 supported William Fulk IV, Count of Anjou, called " the brawler " (le Rechin ), in whose disputes with his son Gottfried Martell - a company that went out to his disadvantage, as the opponents agreed. Wilhelm had to give up several castles in Saintonge, but could enforce their 1107 return by the capture Fulkos V of Anjou. He supported the lords of Lusignan and Parthenay in their multi-year feud with the Duke.
As Bertrand of Saint- Gilles died on April 21, 1112 in the Holy Land, William renewed his claim to Toulouse. 1113 he took the city for the second time - this time he could with the support of Bernhard Attons IV of Beziers, the Count of Centulle of Bigorre, Pons of Montpezat as well as the citizens of the city keep to 1123; the citizens themselves stormed the town of Chateau- Castle Narbonnais.
From his marriage with Philippa three sons were born:
The marriage itself was unhappy. At the Council of Reims in 1119 Philippa complained her husband of adultery with the Viscountess of Chatellerault at an event with the - as the alleged act of atonement - Wilhelms Spanish expedition is associated.
Together with Alfonso I "el Batallador " of Aragon conquered Wilhelm Calatayud in Spain. On June 18, 1120 Spanish and French beat routed at Cutanda, north of Daroca, the Moors. The alliance with Alfonso I did not last. Wilhelm joined in the debate over Toulouse two years later the fronts - dependent on the support Count Raymond Berengar III. Barcelona against Alphonse Jourdain of Toulouse. On February 10, 1127 ( this date can be found with the 1126 connected ) died Wilhelm IX. at the siege of the castle of Blaye, 56 years old.
" The first troubadour "
Literature History fame won William of Aquitaine as the "first troubadour " and the first secular poet of Christian Europe, who wrote in a vernacular. Eleven songs in the langue d' oc, which is known as Occitan today are attributed to him. The medieval Occitan literature is language in his works - already highly developed - for the first time on record. His songs show two faces ( " trovatore bifronte ", P. Rajna ): sensuous side are very courtly bridled, didactic songs of fin'amors ( courtly love ) to coarse obscene, in which boasts the Duke with his potency. For example, he compares his two beloved in Song 3 Agnes and Arsène with two mares: " For my saddle I have two mares ... But I can not have the one with the other. The horses do not want to suffer it. "
William's most famous verses are dark riddle poem "I want a verse make of pure nothingness" ( Song 7, Farai un vers de dreyt Spain), in which he parodied deals with the poetic creative process and at the same time paradox: "I'll do anything for a song on pure do ... it will not act of love nor youth nor of something else, because it was sealed in sleep ( lit. found). , on a horse "This song in particular, " whose numerous interpretations, the whole spectrum of nonsense, comedy and parody, and existential uncertainty, the not knowing, the philosophical Nothing, scan " (D. Rieger ), justified the verdict, the Occitan Trobadorlyrik kick already in the highest perfection in life. One must therefore assume that this art form has been practiced in the courts of the southern French nobility longer, but that it a powerful and self-confident as feudal lord William needed to make this seal " parchment capable ".