42
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_GelloneSaint William of Gellone , in his own day
Guilhem, also known as
Guillaume d'Orange,
Guillaume Fierabrace, and the
Marquis au court nez, was the second
count of Toulouse from 790 until his replacement in 811.
He is the hero of the
Chanson de Guillaume, an early chanson de geste, and of several later sequels, which were categorized by thirteenth-century poets as the
geste of
Garin de Monglane. Another early product of oral traditions about William is a Latin Vita , written before the 11th century, according to
Jean Mabillon, or during the 11th century according to the
Bollandist Godfrey Henschen.
William in history
William was born in northern
France in the mid-8th century. He was a cousin of
Charlemagne and the son of
Thierry IV, Count of
Autun and
Toulouse. As a kinsman and trusted comes he spent his youth in the court of
Charlemagne. When William was made Count of Toulouse in 790, Charlemagne placed his young son
Louis the Pious, who was to inherit
Aquitaine, in his charge. As Count he successfully subdued the
Gascons.
In 793,
Hisham I , the successor of
Abd ar-Rahman I, proclaimed a
holy war against the
Christians to the north. He amassed an army of 100,000 men, half of which attacked the
Kingdom of Asturias while the other half invaded
Languedoc, penetrating as far as
Narbonne.
William met this force and defeated them. He met the Muslim forces again near the river
Orbieux, at
Villedaigne, where he was defeated, though his obstinate resistance exhausted the
Muslim forces so much that they retreated to
Spain. However, Narbonne was garrisoned and remained under Muslim control. In 803, William took part in the campaign that took
Barcelona from the
Moors.
Romanesque apse of
Saint-Guilhem-le-DésertIn 804, he founded the
monastery of Gellone near
Lodève in the
diocese of Maguelonne, which he placed under the general control of
Benedict of Aniane, whose monastery was nearby. He retired as a monk there in 806 where he eventually died on the 28th of May 812 . His
feast is on that date.
Among his gifts to the abbey he founded was a piece of the
True Cross, a present from his cousin Charlemagne, who reportedly wept at his death. Charlemagne had received the relic from the
Patriarch of Jerusalem according to the Vita of William. When he died, it was said the bells at Orange rang on their own accord. He mentioned both his family and monastery in his will.
[1]. He granted property to Gellone and placed the monastery under the perpetual control of the
abbots of Aniane. It became a subject of contention however as the reputation of William grew. So many pilgrims were attracted to Gellone that his corpse was exhumed from the modest site in the
narthex and given a more prominent place under the choir, to the intense dissatisfaction of the Abbey of Aniane. A number of forged documents and assertions were produced on each side that leave details of actual history doubtful. The
Abbey was a major stop for pilgrims on their way to
Santiago de Compostela. Its late 12th century
Romanesque cloister, systematically dismantalled during the
French revolution, found its way to
The Cloisters in
New York. The
Sacramentary of Gellone, dating to the late 8th century, is a famous manuscript.
William in romance
Main article:
La Geste de Garin de MonglaneWilliam's faithful service to Charlemagne is portrayed as an example of
feudal loyalty. William's career battling Saracens is sung in epic poems in the 12th and 13th century cycle called La Geste de Garin de Monglane, some two dozen
chansons de geste that actually center around William, the great-grandson of the largely legendary Garin.
One section of the cycle, however, is devoted to the feats of his father, there named
Aymeri de Narbonne, who has received
Narbonne as his seigniory after his return from Spain with Charlemagne. Details of the "Aymeri" of the poem are conflated with a later historic figure who was truly the
viscount of Narbonne from 1108 to 1134. In the chanson he is awarded Ermengart, daughter of Didier, and sister of Boniface, king of the
Lombards. Among his seven sons and five daughters is William.
The defeat of the Moors at Orange was given legendary treatment in the 12th century epic
La Prise d'Orange. There, he was made Count of Toulouse in the stead of the disgraced Chorso, then King of Aquitaine in 778. He is difficult to separate from the legends and poems that gave him feats of arms, lineage and titles: Guillaume Fièrebras, Guillaum au Court-Nez , Guillaum de Narbonne, Guillaume d'Orange. His wife is said to have been a converted Saracen, Orable later christened Guibourc.
Later references
In 1972 historian
Arthur Zuckerman published A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, a book about the dynasty of
Makhir of Narbonne published by
Columbia University Press. In that book Zuckerman argued that it was possible that William of Gellone was in fact one of the sons of Makhir, who he identified with the individual known in medieval sources as "Theodoric, King of the Jews of
Septimania." Zuckerman made no definitive conclusions on this point, and the suggestion has since been refuted. ; N.L. Taylor, "Saint William, King David, and Makhir: a Controversial Medieval Descent", The American Genealogist, 72: 205-223.)
William, listed under the name
Guillem de Gellone, is a prominent figure in the pseudohistorical book
Holy Blood Holy Grail. The book claims that William was the son of Theodoric, and that since Theodoric was
Merovingian, that meant that William was Merovingian as well, and plus was a "Jew of royal blood". The book goes on to state that "modern scholarship and research have proved Guillem's Judaism beyond dispute." It should be noted, however, that many other claims in the book which were listed as "fact", were later proven to be false , because the authors were basing much of their researches on "medieval documents" which were later shown to be forgeries.
The importance of citing William's noble heritage and Judaism, was so that the authors could prove a genealogical link between the
House of David, the Merovingian nobility, and France, in order to make a case that the
Holy Grail was actually the bloodline of Jesus that had worked its way into the bloodline of Frankish royalty. This line of reasoning was later incorporated into the plot of the bestselling novel
The Da Vinci Code and from there into various television documentaries.