County of Provence

Map showing the march and county Provence and the county of Forcalquier as parts of the Kingdom of Burgundy-Arles in the 12th and 13th centuries.

The County of Provence was a largely independent medieval state that eventually became incorporated into the Kingdom of France in 1481. For four centuries Provence was ruled by a series of Counts or Marquises of Provence. They were nominally vassals of the crumbling Carolingian Empire, of Burgundy, Catalonia, or the Holy Roman Empire, but in practice they were independent rulers.

First Counts of Provence

The Bosonids were the descendants of Boso the Elder, whose grandson Boso of Provence became king. Louis the Blind, the son of the younger Boso, was not satisfied with Provence, and aspired to become King of Italy and Emperor, basing his claim on the fact that he was grandson of the Carolingian Emperor Louis II. He had some success at first, and was crowned Emperor by Pope Benedict V in Rome in 901, but then was defeated and captured by his rival, Berengar I of Italy. He promised to leave Italy forever, and Berengar released him, but the following year he attacked Italy again. He was again captured by Berengar at a battle at Verona and blinded for breaking his promise. He was sent back to Provence, where he ruled until his death in 928.

During the last part of the reign of Louis the Blind, Provence was effectively governed by his cousin, Hugh of Italy, also known as Hugh of Arles. Hugh moved the capital of Provence from Vienne to Arles, and when Louis died took the title Duke of Provence. Hugh, like Louis, aspired to become King of Italy, but with more success. When Berengar died, Hugh claimed the title and was crowned in Pavia in 926. He ruled both Italy and Provence for twenty years. He made Provence a fief of Rudolph I of Burgundy in exchange for preserving his power in Italy. But finally he was chased out of Italy and forced to return to Arles, where he became a monk and died in 948.

With the death of Hugh, the title of Count of Provence passed to Conrad of Burgundy, the King of Burgundy, also known as Conrad the Peaceful, who named the counts of Arles, Avignon and Apt, and viscounts of Cavaillon and Marseille, all of whom were of Burgundian origin. Of these, Count Rotbald of Arles would give rise to a new dynasty who would become the Counts of Provence, beginning with his son Boson, who last appears in 965/7. They would control the county for the next century and a half.

Expulsion of the Saracens

The Abbey of St. Victor, Marseille was destroyed by Saracen pirates in either 731 or 838 then rebuilt in the 11th century

While Louis the Blind and Hugh had been occupied in Italy, the Muslim Saracens in Provence had established a base on the coast called Fraxinetum, near modern-day Saint-Tropez, from which they controlled the mountains of the Massif des Maures and the coast between modern Fréjus and Hyères. Between 900 and 910, and 925 and 940, the Saracens raided throughout Provence. They usually avoided walled towns but attacked isolated villas and monasteries. They raided from the Rhône as far east as the Italian Riviera, to Albenga and Sanremo, and north to the alpine valleys of Piedmont, where they pillaged the monasteries of San Dalmazzo near Cuneo and Novalaise near Suse.

Louis the Blind attempted to expel the Saracens from Provence without success. Hugh of Italy enlisted the Byzantine fleet to blockade Fraxinetum, and was preparing an attack, when an uprising in Italy forced him to cancel his plans.

In 973, the Saracens captured Mayeul, the abbot of the monastery at Cluny, and held him for ransom. The ransom was paid and the abbot was released. Count William I, the Count of Arles, organized an army with the help of allied soldiers from Piedmont, and defeated the Saracens near La Garde-Freinet at the Battle of Tourtour. The Saracens who were not killed at the battle were forcibly baptized and made into slaves, and the remaining Saracens in Provence fled the region.

The expulsion of the Saracens in 973 became an epic event in the history and legends of Provence. William became known as "William the Liberator." He distributed the lands taken from the Saracens between Toulon and Nice to his entourage. His descendants became the recognized leaders of Provence, above the other counts of the region.

During this long period of wars and banditry in Provence, the population retreated to walled cities, maritime trade was rare, and little new art or architecture, other than fortification, was created. The Provençal language was formed, based on Latin and closer to Latin than the French spoken in northern France. In the 11th century Provençal terms began to appear, mixed with Latin, in documents.

Catalan dynasty (12th-13th century)

The Catalan Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Provence, in the Castle in Fos, painted by Marià Fortuny (Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, on deposit at the Palace of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Barcelona).

The German Emperor Conrad the Salic forced the childless King of Burgundy, Rudolph III, to name him as successor which in 1032 led to Provence becoming a fiefdom of the Holy Roman Empire, which it remained until 1246.

There was a tradition of shared inheritance practiced by the family of the Counts, leading to two lines each using the title of Count. In 1112, a descendant of Count William I, Douce I, Countess of Provence, married the Catalan Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, who as a result became Raymond Berenguer I, Count of Provence. He ruled Provence until 1131, and his descendants, the Catalan Dynasty, ruled Provence until 1246.

The claim of the other line, sometimes using the title of Margraves of Provence, passed by marriage to William III, Count of Toulouse. This led to a long-standing Toulouse claim to the county, finally resolved by partition in 1125. Provence north and west of the Durance went to the Count of Toulouse, while the lands between the Durance and the Mediterranean, and from the Rhône to the Alps, stayed with the Counts of Provence. The capital of Provence was moved from Arles to Aix-en-Provence, and later to Brignoles. A shorter lasting partition in the next generation, between the County of Provence and the County of Forcalquier. was ended by an intra-dynastic marriage in 1193.

The Church of Saint Trophime in Arles (12th century

Following the Crusades, international commerce began to resume in the ports of the Mediterranean and along the Rhône. The port of Marseille flourished again. A new city built on the Petit-Rhône, Saint-Gilles, became a transit point for cloth from Flanders and spices and the products of the eastern Mediterranean. Tarascon and Avignon on the Rhône became important trading ports.

During the 12th century some of the cities of Provence became virtually autonomous. They were ruled by consuls, formally under the Counts of Provence but with considerable autonomy. Consulates existed in Avignon in 1229, 1131 in Arles, between 1140 and 1150 in Tarascon, Nice and Grasse, and 1178 in Marseille. Marseille went farther than the others, establishing a confrerie or charitable and religious organization of the one hundred leaders of the professions, crafts and businesses in the city, which drew up a code of justice and municipal regulations. Several Provençal cities directly negotiated commercial treaties with the republics of Pisa and Genoa in Italy. Other cities, however, such as Aix, Toulon, Hyères, Digne, Cavaillon and Carpentras, remained under the authority of the Counts. In the 13th century the counts of Provence suppressed most of the consulates, but the seeds of civil liberty and democracy had been planted in the cities.

France, Toulouse and Catalonia battle for Provence

In the early 13th century the Albigensian crusade in neighboring Languedoc upset the existing order in Provence. Pope Innocent III sent missionaries and then soldiers to suppress the Cathar religious movement in Languedoc. The Pope accused Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse of supporting the Cathars, excommunicated him, and invited an army of French knights on a crusade to cleanse the south of France of the heresy. A war began in Provence between the French knights and the soldiers of Raymond VI and his son Raymond VII.

Soldiers from Tarascon, Marseille and Avignon joined the army of the Counts of Provence to fight the French. The French commander, Simon de Montfort, was killed at the siege of Toulouse in 1218. Then Raymond VI died in 1222, and a dispute over his lands in Provence began. King Louis VIII of France decided to intervene, and a French royal army marched down the valley of the Rhône and laid siege to Avignon. The city held out for three months but was finally forced by hunger to surrender. Avignon was forced to destroy its city walls and accept a French castle on the other side of the river, and by a treaty signed in Paris on April 12, 1229, the part of Provence west of the Rhône that had belonged to the Counts of Toulouse became part of France.

Statue of Ramon Berenguer in Aix Cathedral

Beginning in 1220, Provence east of the Rhône had a new ruler, Ramon Berenguer IV, of the Catalan dynasty. He was the first Count of Provence to actually reside in Provence permanently, usually living with his court in Aix. He launched a military campaign to impose his authority over the cities of Provence, ending the independence of Grasse and Tarascon, occupying Nice, which had tried to ally with Genoa; and founding a new town, Barcelonette, in the far east of Provence, near the Italian border.

The ambitions of Ramon Berenguer were energetically resisted by the new Count of Toulouse, Raymond VII, who had lost most of his own territory to France. Raymond VII became an ally of Marseille and Avignon in their fight against Ramon Berenguer. In 1232 his army devastated the territories of Ramon Berenguer around Tarascon and Arles.

Ramon Berenguer responded to this attack by strengthening his alliance with France; he married his daughter, Marguerite, to King Louis IX of France, and appealed to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, for support. In exchange for his support, Frederic demanded that the cities of Arles and Avignon be governed by the Holy Roman Empire. A prolonged struggle took place between Raymond VII and his allies, the cities of Marseille and Avignon, against Ramon Berenguer for authority in Provence. Arles was blockaded and all traffic on the Rhône stopped.

The French army finally intervened to help Ramon Berenguer, the French king's father-in-law. Raymond VII was forced to abandon his quest, and Ramon Berenguer was able to appoint his own candidate as bishop of Avignon and to subdue the rest of eastern Provence. When Ramon Berenguer died in 1245, not quite forty years old, he controlled all of Provence between the Rhône and Italian border except the rebellious city of Marseille.

Ramon Berenguer had four daughters, but no sons. After his death his youngest daughter and heiress, Beatrice, married Charles, Count of Anjou, the youngest son of Louis VIII of France. Provence's fortunes became even more closely tied to the Angevin dynasty.

Good King René, the last ruler of Provence

Detail of the Burning Bush triptych by Nicolas Froment, showing René and his wife Jeanne de Laval

The 15th century saw a series of wars between the Kings of Aragon and the Counts of Provence. In 1423 the army of Alphonse V of Aragon captured Marseille, and in 1443 captured Naples and forced its ruler, King René I of Naples, to flee. He eventually settled in one of his remaining territories, Provence.

History and legend has given René the title "Good King René of Provence", though he only lived in Provence in the last ten years of his life, from 1470 to 1480, and his political policies of territorial expansion were costly and unsuccessful. Provence benefitted from population growth and economic expansion, and René was a generous patron of the arts, sponsoring painters Nicolas Froment, Louis Bréa, and other masters. He also completed one of the finest castles in Provence at Tarascon, on the Rhône.

When René died in 1480, his title passed to his nephew Charles du Maine. One year later, in 1481, when Charles died, the title passed to Louis XI of France. Provence was legally incorporated into the French royal domain in 1486.