Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

PARSIFAL 21
for an instant that the French monarch's real aim was to extend his frontiers all the
way to the Pyrenees. Bertran, who had until then been Richard's adversary, openly
declared in his favor. He managed to persuade Pedro of Aragon, who had recently
been crowned King, and the Count of Toulouse to forget their profane quarrels and
get the crown prince of Toulouse to ask Richard for the hand of his sister Joan as a
symbol of reconciliation between the Plantagenet and Toulouse families. In this
way, the differences between Aquitania and Languedoc were overcome and
Aquitania recovered the image that it had in the tenth century when the counts—
the "Heads of Burlap"—and Raimundo-Pons of Toulouse reigned fraternally, side
by side, from Occitania to the Rhone.
From Toulouse, Bertran went to visit the most important woman of Occitania,
Adelaide de Burlats. A widow, she was the daughter of Raimundo V of Toulouse
and Constance of France. She lived in Carcassonne, which was by far the most
elegant city of the Languedoc, and from which she governed the territories of the
House of Trencavel during the minority of her son Raimon-Roger. From
Carcassonne, Bertran traveled to the summer residence of the Counts of Toulouse
at Beaucaire on the Rhone. There, all the princes and lords of Provence,
Languedoc, Aquitania, the Pyrenees (from Perpignan to Bayonne), and Aragon, as
well as the consuls of all the free cities of the Midi, and all the troubadours and
joglars of Occitania had come to witness the reconciliation of the three monarchs
and attend the marriage of Raimundo de Toulouse and Joan Plantagenet. A
chronicler of the time, the Prior de Vigeois, describes for us how the festivities at
Beaucaire were celebrated.
Ten thousand knights flowed to Beaucaire. Through the mediation of the
seneschal of Agout, Count Raimundo divided one thousand gold pieces
among those knights who were lacking resources. Twelve yokes of oxen
plowed the spot where they were going to celebrate the tournaments, and the
Count planted three thousand silver and gold coins in small ditches, so the
people could also have their share of happiness after the tournaments. A baron
who was lodging four hundred knights in his castle had goats and oxen
roasted on spits. A countess from the House of Provence placed on the head of
the joglar Iveta, who was proclaimed king of the troubadours, a crown made
from forty thousand silver and gold coins. 20