Count Raimond Berenger PROVENCE, VI

   Other names for Raimond were V, Raymond, BERENGAR, FORCALQUIER Count and PROVENCE Count.

   Ancestral File Number: 8XJ8-D1. User ID: 9454874.

   General Notes:

Count of PROVENCE, Count of FORCALQUIER.

BOOKS
Kings and Queens of Europe, Genealogical Chart, Anne Taute and Romilly Squire, Taute 1989: "Louis IX, Son Louis VIII, King of France 1226-1270, Mar Marguerite Daughter of Raimond V Provence."

The Political History of England, Vol II, George Burton Adams Longmans Green and Co, 1905, Ch XII, p267:
[1159] "...By the end of June the attacking forces were gathering in the south. The young king os Scotland was there as the vassal of the king of England and was knighted by his lord. Allies were secured of the lords to the east and south, especially the assistance of Raymond Berenger who was Count of Barcelona and husband of the queen of Aragon."

A History of The Plantagenets, Vol II, The Magnificent Century, Thomas B Costain, 1951, Doubleday & Co, p136: "Provence at this stage of history was smaller than it had once been and much smaller than it would become later. It was, in fact, a mere slice of land east of the Rhone, too unimportant for egress to the Mediterranean, too restricted to contain any city of size save the old Roman town of Orange. It was still, nevertheless, the symbol of the South, the cradle or literature and minstrelsy, the core of European culture and sophistication. Here the troubadours loved and sang, finding the Courts of Honor a fitting background for the cultivation of the muse, their inspiration waxing in the lovely gardens and the plantations where the white mulberry grew.
"The Count of Provence was Raimund Berenger V, who made his headquarters in quite restricted splendor at Courthezon, close to Orange. The classic age of the troubadour was passing and the high-flown sentiments which had made the `sirventes' a tedious form of enjoyment were giving way to a more robust form of `ballada' after the fashion of Barnard of Ventadour, who sang:
"`You say the moon is all aglow,
The nightingale is singing.
I'd rather watch the red wine flow,
And hear the goblets ringing.' "Raimund was determined to maintain the old standards and had gathered about him so many singers who still waxed ecstatic over a lady's eyebrow and filled their verses with classic allusions that the impression was created of a court of greatbrilliance. He was a composer himself, and his wife Beatrice, who had been a princess of Savoy, was as famed for her compositions as her beauty. It was in this rarefied atmosphere that the couple raised a family of four daughters who were to become more famous for their loveliness than the court was for its culture. The charm of Provencal princesses was on an ascending scale, each one to arrive being more highly praised than those before her. Marguerite, the first daughter, was fresh and pretty with dark hair and fine eyes. Eleanor, the second, was thought at first to have transcended all comparison and was known as La Belle, although Sanchia, who followed her, was of such subtle charm and fascination that she was described as `of incomparable beauty.' It remained, however, for Beatrice, the fourth daughter, to set men's hearts thumping and the fingers of troubadours to fevered twanging of lyres. Two of the balladists at the Provenchal court were temporarily deprived of reason for love of the entrancing Beatrice.
"The father of these four fair charmers was so poor that his household, which is described as `noisy with youth,' traveled about from one chateau to another in order to take advantage of all the food which was grown, sometimes staying in one place no more than a single night. Money was so scarce that clothes were handed down from mother to daughter, from one child to another. The officers of the household had patches on theirelbows; the minstrels sometimes did not get the suppers for which they sang. But the atmosphere was always gay, the intoxication of Provencal gardens made up for the lack of the vinous kind, and when supplies were exhausted the court trumpeter, Mort-du-Sommeil (Death of Sleep), would sound his horn and a laughing cavalcade would ride on to the next chateau, confident that ahead of them the harvests had been good and that there would be fat capons and plenty of stubble geese for thetable.
"Count Raimund was so poor, in fact, that he never possessed enough money to make up a suitable dowry for any of his beautiful daughters. He had an asset of much greater value than gold, however, an officer named Romeo of Villeneuve, who possessed such a shrewd head on his threadbare shoulders that he could devise ways and means of snaring kings for the lovely brood without paying out as much as a single coin. This Romeo had already managed to marry Marguerite to King Louis of France...
"About the time that Henry's proposal of marriage was sent to Joanna of Ponthieu, the nimble mind of the machiavellian Romeo was considering means of attracting his attention to Eleanor La Belle, who was now fourteen and ready for marriage..."

The Political History of England 1216-1377, Vol III, T F Tout, 1905, AMS Press, p61: "...Richard was back in England early in 1242, and on November 23, 1243, his marriage with Sanchia of Provence, the younger sister of thequeens of France and England, completed his conversion to the court party..."
p63: "...Henry took ship on May 9 at Portsmouth and landed on May 13 at Royan at the mouth of the Gironde. He was accompanied by Richard of Cornwall, seven earls, and 300 knights...
"...while Peter of Aigueblanche, the Savoyard Bishop of Hereford, went to Provence to negotiate the union between Earl Richard and Sanchia, and, if possible to add Raymond Berengar to the coalition against the husband ofhis eldest daughter..."

INTERNET
Draper Gedcom
http://www.my-ged.com/db/page/draper/01966
Berenger was the last and most illustrious of the Royal Provençal Counts;
and, even had he not been the sovereign of the land of song, his own
verses would have entitled him to a distinguised rank among the
Troubadour poets. By Ramon's time Provence had been at peace for two and
a half centuries. There were few lands that had enjoyed peace and
prosperity with so little interruption. Since the end of the tenth
century Provence had grown more in population and wealth than any other
part of Europe. Few men in history have been more successful in finding
powerful and influential mates for their daughters than Ramon. His four
daughters married two sets of brothers - all of them kings! Margaret
married King Louis IX of France; Eleanor married King Henry III of
England; Sanchia married Henry's brother, Richard of Cornwall, who was
recognized for a time as the German Emporer; and Beatrice, the youngest
and his appointed heir, married Louis' brother, Charles of Anjou, who at
one time or another held the titles King of Sicily and King of Jerusalem
and was briefly master of most of Italy and Greece. He was almost able
to make an independent state of Burgundy. Ramon bequeathed to Beatrice
an administrative machine to be rivaled only by those created by the
Normans in England and Sicily.

[Internet source:
http://www.charweb.org/gen/rjones/d0008/g0000067.htm#I1048]

ANCESTRY.COM
World Ancestral Chart No. 125360 Ancestors of Patricia Ann Kieffer: Raimund Berenger V PROVENCE.

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File Ver 4.10/4.11 8XJ8-D1 Raymond Berenger V, Count of PROVENCE AND FORCALQUIER Born 1198 Of Aix-en-Provence Bouches-du-Rhone France Mar 5 Jun/Dec 1219 Provence Died 19 Aug 1245 France.

INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGICAL INDEX
IGI Birth T990834-36-1396383 Raimond Berenger V, TPHE Raymond Berengar/ Berenger.

IGI Birth T990834-36-1396383 Marguerite De PROVENCE Father Raimond Berenger V PROVENCE Mother Beatrice De SAVOIE 1221 St Maime Provence Province France.

   Marriage Information:

Raimond married Grasenda. (Grasenda died in , Gascony, France.)

   Marriage Information:

Raimond also married Countess Beatrice De SAVOY, daughter of Count Thomas SAVOY, I and Beatrice Margaret GENEVA, on 5 Dec 1219-1220 in , Provence, France. (Countess Beatrice De SAVOY was born about 1201-1202 in Ghamberg, Savoie, France and died in Dec 1266 in , , France.)