Everything about William I Of Baux totally explained
William I of Baux ( ; c.
1155 – June
1218) was the
Prince of Orange from 1182 until his death. He was an important
Provençal nobleman.
William was the son of
Bertrand of Baux, the first Prince of Orange a major patron of
Occitan poetry, and
Tibors de Sarenom, a sister of
Raimbaut d'Aurenga and herself a
trobairitz. In 1215 when the
Emperor Frederick II sought to make his power effective in the
Kingdom of Burgundy, he granted to William at
Metz the whole "Kingdom of Arles and Vienne", probably referring to the
viceroyalty of the kingdom. William was imprisoned in
Avignon in the summer of 1216 and remained there until his death in June 1218. William's descendants continued to claim the Kingdom of Arles until 1393.
William was a man of letters and a
troubadour, inheriting his love of
lyric poetry from his patron-composer parents. Two
coblas and a
sirventes are preserved of William's writings. He was also in contact with other troubadours. The lone surviving
sirventes of
Gui de Cavalhon was written against William.
An anecdotal
razo is preserved describing how William robbed a French merchant, who subsequently took his case to the king,
Philip Augustus, but was rejected because "it had taken place too far away" (for example out of French jurisdiction in Provence). The merchant subsequently counterfeited the
royal seal and used it to lure William to his (unnamed) city with promises of rewards. When William and his companions arrived in the city the merchant had them arrested and imprisoned until he'd made amends for what he'd taken. On his return to Provence, William allegedly planned to annex a piece of land ("la Osteilla" or "Estella") belonging to
Ademar II of Valentinois when he was captured by Ademar's fisherman in a small boat on the
Rhône. This event inspired a
cobla from the troubadour
Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, who nicknamed William
Engles (the Englishman, for unknown reasons).
William married Ermengarde, daughter of Raymond of Mévouillon, but divorced her on
21 March 1203. Their child,
Raymond I of Baux, succeeded his father as Prince of Orange and King of Arles. William remarried to a woman named Alix. His sons by her,
William II and
Bertrand II, both later inherited Orange. William also had a daughter named Tibors who married Giraud III Amic, lord of
Thor de Châteauneuf.
Sources
- Cook, Theodore Andrea. Old Provence. Signal Books, 2001. ISBN 1 90266 918 5.
- Egan, Margarita, ed. The Vidas of the Troubadours. New York: Garland, 1984. ISBN 0 8240 9437 9.
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