County of Toulouse

County of Toulouse
Comté de Toulouse
County of Toulouse Comté de Toulouse
778–1271
	Coat of arms
	Political map of Languedoc on the eve of the Albigensian Crusade, under the rule of the House of Toulouse (County of Toulouse in green; its vassals in light green) click map to expand
Capital	Toulouse
Government	Monarchy
Historical era	Middle Ages
• Established by Charlemagne	778
• Annexed by Kingdom of France	1271
	Succeeded by
Kingdom of France
Today part of	France

The County of Toulouse was a territory in southern France consisting of the city of Toulouse and its environs under the Merovingians ruled by the Counts of Toulouse, and the center of the special culture of the Languedoc, Southern France, where the Occitan language, rather close to the Catalan language today, was distinct from that of the north of France, the Langues d'oïl. No succession of such royal appointees is known, though a few names survive to the present. With the Carolingians, the appointments of both counts and dukes become more regular and better-known, though the office soon fell out of the orbit of the royal court and became hereditary.

The hereditary Counts of Toulouse ruled the city of Toulouse and its surrounding county from the late 9th century until 1270. The counts and other family members were also at various times Counts of Quercy, Rouergue, Albi, and Nîmes, and Margraves of Gothia and Provence. Also, Raymond IV founded the Crusader state of Tripoli, and his descendants were counts there.

As a successor state for the Visigothic Kingdom, Tolouse, along with Aquitania and Languedoc (but not Gascony), inherited the Visigothic Law and Roman Law which had combined to allow women more rights than their contemporaries would enjoy until the 20th century. Particularly with the Liber Judiciorum as codified 642/643 and expanded on in the Code of Recceswinth in 653, women could inherit land and title and manage it independently from their husbands or male relations, dispose of their property in legal wills if they had no heirs, and women could represent themselves and bear witness in court by age 14 and arrange for their own marriages by age 20.^[1] As a consequence, male-preference primogeniture was the practiced succession law for the nobility.

Royal appointments

floruit 587 Austrovald
floruit 660 Felix
778–790 Torson
790–806 William I
806–816 Beggo
- Raymond Raphinel (811–818), his relation to the preceding and succeeding counts is unknown
816–835 Berengar
835–842 Bernard I
842–843 Acfred

House of Rouergue

Senior branch

844–852 Fredelon
- 844–849 William II, successfully opposed Fredelon
852–863 Raymond I
863–865 Humfrid, deposed Raymond
- 863–865 Sunifred, appointed to oppose Humfrid
865–877 Bernard II
877–886 Bernard III
886–918 Odo
918–924 Raymond II
924–ca.950 Raymond Pons, traditionally called Raymond III

It had long been thought that he was succeeded directly by William III. However, recent research suggests adding at least one and as many as three previously overlooked counts. That at least one of these was named Raymond has resulted in conflicting numbering systems, but most historians continue to use the traditional numbering for later Raymonds.

Reconstruction 1:

ca.950–ca.961 Raymond III (or IV)
ca.961–ca.972 Hugh
ca.972–ca.978 Raymond IV (or V)

Reconstruction 2:

ca.950–ca.978 Raymond III (or IV)

978–1037 William III
1037–1061 Pons
1061–1094 William IV
1094–1105 Philippa Maude, Duchess of the Aquitaine
- 1094–1098 Raymond IV de Saint Gilles, Philippa's paternal uncle, usurps the County of Toulouse on the death of William IV. While Raymond IV was on Crusade, Philippa and her powerful husband William IX, Duke of Aquitaine reclaims Toulouse for her in 1098.

Junior branch

1105–1112 Bertrand Toulouse was mortgaged to Bertrand, a cousin of Phillipa. Thereafter the county was vested to Bertrand's heirs
1112–1148 Alphonse I of Toulouse
1148–1194 Raymond V
1194–1222 Raymond VI
1222–1249 Raymond VII
1249–1271 Joan
- married Alphonse, Count of Poitiers

At that point Toulouse passed to the Crown of France, by the terms of the Treaty of Meaux, 1229.

House of Bourbon

In 1681, Toulouse was resurrected as a royal appanage by Louis XIV.

1681–1737 Louis-Alexandre

He was an illegitimate son of Louis and his longest serving mistress Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan.

MacCarthy Reagh of Toulouse

In 1776, Justin MacCarthy Reagh (1744-1811), of Spring House, Bansha, of the princely House of Carbery of the Irish Eóganachta dynasty, was made Count de MacCarthy Reagh of Toulouse by Louis XVI. He was succeeded in the title by his son, Robert Joseph MacCarthy Reagh (1770-1827), Aide de Camp to the Prince de Conti. His son in turn, Justin-Marie-Laurent-Robert (1811-1861) succeeded as the 3rd Count de MacCarthy of Toulouse. The 4th and final Count de MacCarthy was Nicolas-Francois-Joseph (1833-1906), first cousin of the 3rd Count. The male line then became extinct on the death without issue of Count Nicolas-François-Joseph.

References

^ Klapisch-Zuber, Christine; A History of Women; Book II: Silences of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992; Chapter 6, "Women in the Fifth to the Tenth Century" by Suzanne Fonay Wemple, p. 74. According to Wemple, Visigothic women of Spain and the Aquitaine could inherit land and title and manage it independently of their husbands, and dispose of it as they saw fit if they had no heirs, and represent themselves in court, appear as witnesses (by the age of 14), and arrange their own marriages by the age of twenty.

External links

'Les Régnants Toulousains": list (in French)
Famille MacCarthy Reagh at GeneaWiki (in French)

[Visgothic_Women-1] Klapisch-Zuber, Christine; A History of Women; Book II: Silences of the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992; Chapter 6, "Women in the Fifth to the Tenth Century" by Suzanne Fonay Wemple, p. 74. According to Wemple, Visigothic women of Spain and the Aquitaine could inherit land and title and manage it independently of their husbands, and dispose of it as they saw fit if they had no heirs, and represent themselves in court, appear as witnesses (by the age of 14), and arrange their own marriages by the age of twenty.

[1]