Toulouse

Toulouse, medieval county of southern France from the 8th to the 13th century. The countship can be dated from ad 778, when Charlemagne attempted to create bulwarks against the Muslims of Spain. The great dynasty, however, dates from 849, when Count Fredelon, a vassal of King Pippin II of Aquitaine, delivered Toulouse to Charles II the Bald of France, who thereupon confirmed him as count. Dying in 852, Fredelon left a heritage including Rouergue (around Rodez) and the Pyrenean countships of Pallars and Ribagorza as well as the Toulousain to his brother Raymond I, who added Limousin to it; but Septimania was then probably detached.

Marriages and partitions changed the extent of the counts’ dominion. By 1053 it included Quercy, the Albigeois (around Albi), and Rouergue. Raymond IV (d. 1105) added the marquessate of Provence but pawned Rouergue. The crusaders Raymond IV and his son Bertrand (d. 1112) won the countship of Tripoli in the Holy Land; but at home the dynasty was weakened by quarrels with the house of Barcelona over Provence and with William IX of Aquitaine, who usurped the countship in 1098–1100 and again in 1114–19. Towns such as Toulouse and vassals such as the Trencavel viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne became practically autonomous. Raymond VII (d. 1249) left the countship to his son-in-law Alphonse of Poitiers, on whose death in 1271 it was annexed to the French crown.