Ermengard of Carcassonne
Overview
Biography
(See also Genealogical Table(s): 6.)
Ermengard was the daughter of Peter-Raymond, count of Carcassonne, and Rangard of La Marche. Ermengard married Raymond-Bernard (Trencavel), viscount of Albi and Nîmes by 1061 and they had a son, Bernard-Ato IV and a daughter Guillemette. Bernard-Ato married Cecilia of Provence and Guillemette/Guillerma married Peter, viscount of Bruniquel. Raymond-Bernard succeeded his father Bernard-Ato III in Albi and Nîmes, which he shared with his uncle Frotar, bishop of Nîmes. Ermengard and her husband sold her rights to Carcassonne and Razès, though they did not have clear possession, several times (in 1067, 1070) to the count and countess of Barcelona, Raymond Berenguer and Ermengard’s aunt Almodis, probably to counterbalance the claims of their cousins, the counts of Foix (HGL 3.361-63). Cheyette suggests that Ermengard and her husband joined with the count and countess of Barcelona to take over the Carcassonne lands against the claims of her mother Rangard, claims which she surrendered by 1070 (“The Sale,” 836-37). Roger, count of Foix, disputed her right to make those sales, a dispute that was only resolved when he went to the Holy Land in 1095. Raymond-Bernard was dead by 1078, succeeded by his son Bernard-Ato IV, under the regency of his mother Ermengard, though his great-uncle, Frotar, bishop of Nîmes, shared Albi and Narbonne with him as he had with his father. Ermengard's aunt, Almodis, was murdered by a stepson in 1082, and one of her own sons murdered the other. Ermengard, in the words of Cheyette, “moved into the vacuum” (“The Sale” 854). Ermengard lived to at least 1101 perhaps to 1105, keeping the administration of the viscounties of Bèziers and Agde. There is a record of a hearing on June 27, 1078, in which Ermengard joined Raymond of Saint Gilles at Béziers to hear a case on the property of the abbey of Conques at Pallas, near Mèze (her ancestral lands). The resolution: Peter, son of Bermond, agreed “to relinquish what my father unjustly possessed, with the counsel of the count and my viscountess and my friends” (cum consilio comitis & vicecomitissae meae meorumque amicorum, quod pater meus injuste possederat dereliqui, HGL, 5.642-43, #333, CCLXXV). In a successful attempt to save the monastery of St. Bausile, the viscountess met on Dec. 28, 1084, with count Raymond of Saint Gilles and others to persuade bishop Peter Ermengald to give the old and declining abbey to Séguin, the abbot of Chaise-Dieu and his successors so services might again be held there (HGL 3. 444, cf. HGL 5.691-92, #362). Bernard-Ato inherited from his mother the viscounties of Béziers, Agde, Carcassonne and Razès, uniting them with his father’s lands of Albi and Nîmes, which, according to Vaissete, made him the second greatest lord of Provence after the count of Toulouse (HGL 3.558), but he was not as successful at governing them as his mother (“The Sale,” 859-60). In Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours (Ithaca: Cornell, 2001), 27, Cheyette say Ermengard was “the real creator of the family enterprise that modern historians know as the Trencavels. After her husband’s death, she took the reins of power as her mother [Rangard] had done before her, going from castle to castle all the way from Albi in the west to Nîmes in the east and Razès in the south to collect oaths of fidelity. In the 1080’s she repeated the process with her young son Bernard Ato.” 1
Letters from Ermengard of Carcassonne
A letter (1084, December 28)A letter to Almodis of La Marche (1067/1068, March 2)
A letter to Almodis of La Marche (1067/1068, March 3)
A letter to Almodis of La Marche (1070, June 26)
A letter to Almodis of La Marche (1070, June 27)
A letter to Guillemette of Albi and Nîmes (1069, October 29)
A letter to Public (1062, January 3)
A letter to Public (1089, March)
A letter to Public (1097, December 29)
A letter to Public (1099, March 26)
A letter to Public (1101, June 22)
A letter to Public (c.1075, June 24)
A letter to Public (c.1090, November)
Letters to Ermengard of Carcassonne
A letter from Almodis and RaymondA letter from Almodis and Raymond Berenguer
A letter from Almodis and Raymond Berenguer
A letter from Bertran II, count of Province
A letter from Peter-Raymond
A letter from Raymond Berengar
A letter from Raymond of Saint Gilles
A letter from Roger, Count of Foix
A letter from Roger, Count of Foix
A letter from Roger, Count of Foix
A letter from William of Seixag
Letters from her Vassals