#garsenda of provence

[city-of-ladies]

"Garsenda was born into nobility around CE 1200 in Provence, France. She was the daughter and granddaughter of two strong-willed women who shared her name. Her mother, Garsenda, Countess of Provence and Forcalquier, was a troubadour in her own right. Her father was Alfonso II, Count of Provence, second son of the King of Aragon (whose territories stretched across much of Northeastern Spain and southwest France), and Count of Barcelona and Provence. Garsenda’s marriage in 1220 to Guillem de Montcada, soon to be Viscount of Béarn, connected her to powerful families on both sides of the Pyrenees. In short, she was a powerful woman from a line of powerful women.

But as we well know, nobility doesn’t insulate people from all tragedy. At age nine, Garsenda lost her father, Alfonso, Count of Provence. Alfonso’s death prompted her mother to execute a legal agreement to protect both of her children’s inheritance from other Provençal nobles—including family members—who had designs on their titles. Within a few years, the Albigensian Wars raged throughout Occitania and Provence, and the family of three was forced to flee from Provence to Catalonia, in what is now Spain, for safety.

Tragedy struck Garsenda again in 1229, when her husband was killed in a campaign to conquer Majorca. Guillem’s death left Garsenda with the personal responsibility of caring for their two young children, Constança and Gastó. At the same time, Garsenda was thrust into a very public role when she was forced to contend with the crushing debts left by her husband and parents-in-law when they died. She also had to defend her title to lands on both sides of the Pyrenees mountains—stretching all the way from Aquitaine and Gascony in the west to Majorca in the east. Ambitious men were as eager for her to make good on her husband’s debts as they were to seize control of her lands. Against those odds, Garsenda rose to the occasion. There she was, a young widow with two toddlers who had to face down dozens and dozens of the kingdom’s most powerful men, who were demanding immediate repayment of her husband’s and debts. The wolves were at the gates.

She knew how to play the game. First, she petitioned the king. With support from King Jaime I of Aragon, Garsenda was able to temporarily suspend all financial claims in order to protect assets and titles belonging to her and her children. Lodged among the surviving parchments from the era of King Jaime, now held in the Archive of the Crown of Aragon in Barcelona, are more than 100 individual charters from around 1230-1258 that give us insight into the scope of Garsenda’s actions.

From Garsenda’s surviving charters we find that she assembled a team of advisers, drawn from among Cistercian monks at Santes Creus (a monastery that still stands in Catalonia). These monks became her financial advisers. They helped her assess her debts and apportion payments to her creditors until those debts were satisfied or forgiven. We find in the archives legal agreements that she executed throughout her life on her own behalf.In others, she worked through agents charged with carrying out her direct orders.This is significant. Her dealings over nearly forty years challenge the perception that medieval women lacked agency in their own legal affairs. If women were not allowed agency, nobody told Garsenda about it.

Her plans were so successful that within four years of her husband’s death, Garsenda’s finances had recovered enough for her to make a major donation to reinvigorate a struggling Barcelona convent, Santa Maria de Jonqueres. She would remain involved with that convent, as well as another local one, for the rest of her life. After dispensing with her debts in Catalonia, Garsenda turned to her other problems, namely, her son’s considerable claims to lordships and territories in France and Spain. In order to protect his interests, especially in and around Béarn, she relocated to its capital at Orthez (Ortés). It was there that she established a base of operations for political negotiations. She negotiated with nearly everyone of note: the kings of France, Navarre, Castile, and England, as well as bishops, leaders of religious communities, and local officials. She also ensured her own physical safety by reinforcing the castle there. Even as her son reached the age of majority and could rule in his own name, Garsenda never stepped away from center stage as “countess and viscountess of Béarn.”

#history #women in history #garsenda of provence #france #french history #spain #13th century #middle ages #medieval history #medieval women

[publicmedievalist]

Part 6 of Gender, Sexism, and the Middle Ages!

#gender sexism and the middle ages #garsenda of provence #history #medieval history #medieval women #body shaming

[nanshe-of-nina]

your post on the daughters of gasto vii was really good, i've always found them interesting. do you have any good resources for reading about them?

The Armagnac Faction: New Patterns of Political Violence in Late Medieval France. A doctoral dissertation about the development of the Armagnac faction during the Hundred Years’ War looked at through the lens of Gascony and Languedoc. Even though most its focus is about a century or so after the deaths of Gastó and his daughters, it discusses the origins of the Armagnac-Foix feud and the forms that it took throughout the 13th and 14th centuries in detail and how it tied in with tensions between the Capetians/Valois and the Plantagenets over Gascony and Languedoc.

Authoring the Past: History, Autobiography, and Politics in Medieval Catalonia. A general work about Catalonia, which the Montcadas were definitely a part of.

The Eagles of Savoy: The House of Savoy in Thirteenth-Century Europe: Has a little bit about Gastó and one line about Constança. This is also worth looking at if you’re interested in the daughters of Raimon Berenguier V. However, for some reason, Cox misidentifies Gastó’s mother as Garsenda de Sabran, comtessa de Forcauquier, when he was actually her grandson. My guess is that Cox assumed that Garsenda de Sabran and Garsenda de Provença were the same person when they were actually mother and daughter. (Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe also conflates the two Garsendas.)

Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England: Has some information about Constança and claims that Eleanor arranged for Constança’s marriage to Henry of Almain.

A Medieval Catalan Noble Family: The Montcadas, 1000–1230: Talks a lot of about their family and their relationship with the counts of Barcelona and kings of Aragon (the two merged following the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona and Peyronela of Aragon in 1150), but it cuts off during the childhood of Gastó and has little about his daughters.

#asks #french history #european history #history #books #medievalcat