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Rangard of La Marche

Overview

Title social-status
Countess of Carcassonne
Date of Birth
1130's?
Date of Death
after 1171

Biography

(See also Genealogical Table(s): 6.)
Rangard of La Marche was the daughter of Bernard of La Marche and Amelia;  she is identified as the daughter of Amelia in some charters.  She married Peter Raymond of Carcassonne.  Her sister Almodis was married three times, first to Hugh of Lusignan, second to count Pons of Toulouse, third to count Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona.   Rangard and Peter Raymond had four children:  Ermengard, who married Raymond Bernard of Albi and Nimes, Roger, who died in 1067, Adalaide who married the count of Cerdagne, and Garsendis, who married Raymond of Narbonne.  After Peter Raymond died in 1060, Rangard ruled his counties with and for her son Roger.  Rangard was associated with her husband from 1054 on; after his death she received an oath of fidelity from his cousin Raymond, affirming her control of Carcassonne, Beziers, Agde and towns along the Herault river.   She and her son Roger received two castles and an oath of fidelity, Prouille and Mirepoix. 
The marriage contract Rangard made with William Raymond of Cerdagne for marriage with her daughter Adalaide includes her promise to put him in control of castles within the Razès (and only the Razès), to have castellans swear oaths of fidelity to him.1  Rangard was looking for the support of Narbonne-Cerdagne by this marriage.   William Raymond was to share control of Razes with her, and to inherit it jointly with his wife after Rangard’s death, but he gave a different version later when he handed over his rights to the count and countess of Barcelona, along with his wife, whom he apparently abandoned.  
When Roger died in 1067, various relations had claims to the succession:  his mother, Rangard, his sisters Adalaide (soon to marry the count of Cerdagne), Ermengard, wife of Raimond-Bernard (a Trencavel), viscount of Albi and Nimes, as well as first cousins and more distant relatives .  Rangard’s attempt  to hold on to power through the alliance with Cerdagne failed when her daughter Ermengard and Ermengard’s husband, the viscount of Albi and Nimes, joined with Rangard’s sister, Almodis, the countess of Barcelona, and her husband to take over the Carcassonne lands.   The two sisters and their husbands arranged a transfer of their brother’s and father’s lands, Adelaide and her husband selling the rights he claimed to have in Carcassonne to Ermengard and her husband, though as Cheyette points out, neither possessed the rights  they transferred:  “the upper aristocracy of this age and place were really quite free with gifts and sales of rights and properties over which they had no control” (“The `Sale’, 845).   In April 1070, Rangard accepted the transfer of power, giving up all her rights and claims in return for 400 ounces of gold; in August the abandoned Adalaide did the same with no recompense.