William X, Duke of Aquitaine
Guillaume X called the Holy or the Tolosaner (* 1099 in Toulouse, † April 9, 1137 ) is the last Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou from the dynasty of Ramnulfiden.
He reigned from 1126 to 1137 under the name of William VIII in Poitou and as Guillaume X of Aquitaine. He was the son and successor of Duke William IX. the troubadour and Philippa of Toulouse, daughter of Count William IV
He was born during the short period when his parents ruled the county of Toulouse; a short time later transferred his father, Wilhelm IX. Toulouse to Philippa's cousin, Bertrand of Toulouse and himself went on the First Crusade, during Philippa and his son remained in Poitiers. After his return, the young William fell out with his father when he left his wife and the wife of his vassal Amaury I, Viscount of Chatellerault, took to the beloved - the dispute was only settled when Wilhelm 1121 Eleanor of Chatellerault († after March 1130) married the daughter Amaurys and the lover of his father.
William X. allied himself with the Count Geoffrey V Plantagenet against the Normandy. The rest, which he thus received on the northern border, he used to combat his vassals Isembert de Châtelaillon, Lord of Aunis.
Little happy was his support that he the anti-pope Anacletus II of 1130 had come five years later at the castle of Parthenay with the papal legate Girard d' Angoulême up to a meeting with Bernard of Clairvaux. He died during a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela from food poisoning. In his last will, he asked the French King Louis VI. therefore to agree to the marriage between his daughter Eleanor of Aquitaine and the eldest son Ludwig.
Like his father, was also a patron of William X. troubadours, music and literature. He was an educated man and tried to send an excellent education to his two daughters, were in a time when Europe's rulers barely read and write. When Eleanor succeeded her father as Duchess, she continued the path of her father and made the Aquitanian court and scientific center of Europe.
William and Eleanor had three children:
- Wilhelm aigret, † Dezember 1130/37
- Eleanor (* 1122, † March 31, 1204 ), 1137 Duchess of Aquitaine, Countess of Poitou etc.;
- Aélis ( Petronilla ), † after October 24, 1153; ∞ 1142, probably divorced in 1151, Rudolf I ( Raoul I. le Vaillant ), Count of Vermandois, † November 14, 1152
At the end of the Middle Ages Guillaume X was an entwined with legends figure, thereby partially confused with William of Gellone, who was also Duke of Aquitaine, and the Founder William of Malavalle.