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Rh the government to his brother-in-law, Duke Boso, who, taking advantage of the struggles between the Frankish princes which followed the death of Charles the Bald, reconstituted the former kingdom of Charles, the son of Lothair, and in 879 was acknowledged as its sovereign at Mantaille in Viennois. This is the kingdom of Provence (Provence, Viennois, Lyonnais and Vivarais), sometimes, but improperly, called Cisjuran Burgundy.

Boso died in 887, having succeeded in maintaining his independence against the united Frankish princes. His widow Ermengarde, daughter of Louis II., with the assistance of the emperor Arnulf, had her son Louis acknowledged king at an assembly held at Valence in 890. Louis attempted to seize the crown of Italy in 900, and in 901 was even crowned emperor at Rome by Pope Benedict IV.; but in 905 he was surprised at Verona by his rival Berengar, who captured him, put out his eyes, and forced him to give up Italy and return to Provence; he lived here till his death in 928, leaving an illegitimate son, Charles Constantine. The principal figure in the country at this time was Hugo (Hugues) “ of Arles,” count, or duke, of Viennois and marquis of Provence, who had been king of Italy since 926. In order to retain possession of this country, he gave the kingdom of Louis the Blind to (q.v.), and thus the kingdom of Burgundy extended from the source of the Aar to the Mediterranean. But the sovereignty of Rudolph II. and his successors, Conrad (937–993) and Rudolph III. (993–1032), over Provence was almost purely nominal, and things were in much the same condition when, on the death of Rudolph III., the kingdom of Burgundy passed into the hands of the German kings, who now bore the title of kings of Arles, but very rarely exercised their authority in the country.

At the beginning of the 10th century Provence was in a state of complete disorganization, a result of the invasions of the Saracens, who, coming from Spain, took up their quarters in the neighbourhood of Fraxinetum (La Garde-Freinet in the department of Var) and ravaged the country pitilessly, the Christians being unable to oust them from their strongholds. All the real power was in the hands of the counts of the country. It is probable that from the 9th century several of the Provençal countships were united under one count, and that the count of Arles had the title of duke, or marquis, and exercised authority over the others. In the middle of the 10th century the countship of Provence was in the hands of a certain Boso, of unknown origin, who left it to his two sons William and Roubaud (Rotbold). These two profited by the commotion caused by the capture of the famous abbot of Cluny, St Maiolus (Mayeul), in 973, who had fallen into the hands of the Saracens, and marched against the Mussulmans, definitely expelling them from Fraxinetum. About the same period the marquis ate seems to have been re-established in favour of Count William, who died in 993, and from that time the descendants of the two brothers, without making any partition, ruled over the different count ships of Provence, only one of them, however, bearing the title of marquis. The counts of Provence had, from about the middle of the 11th century, a tendency to add the name of their usual residence after their title, and thus the lordships, known later under the names of the count ships of Arles (or more properly Provence), of Nice, and of Venaissin, grew up. Roubaud had one son named William, who died without children, about 1043, and one daughter, Emma, who married William, count of Toulouse, by whom she had a son, Pons (1030–1063), the father of Raymund of Saint-Gilles (1063–1105). William also had a son of the same name. This William II. had three sons by his wife Gerberge-Fulk, Geoffrey and William. The last mentioned had a son, William Bertrand (1044–1067), whose daughter Adelaide married, first, Ermengaud, count of Urgel, and then Raimbaud of Nice. Geoffrey was the father of Gerberge, who married Gilbert, count of Gévaudan, and he had a daughter Douce, who in 1112 married Raymund-Bérenger, count of Barcelona; by this marriage, Provence, in the correct sense of the word, passed over to the house of Barcelona. At the beginning of the 12th century the various marriages of the Provençal heiresses, of whom mention has just been made, led to the land being divided up among the different branches of the ancient countly family (1105, 1125 and 1149), and thus the count ships of Provence, Venaissin and Forcalquier were definitely formed.

Under the command of Raymund of Saint-Gilles the Provençals took an important part in the first crusade, and the use of the term “ Provençal" to denote the inhabitants of southern France, their language and their literature, seems to date from this period.

The history of the princes of the house of Barcelona, Raymund-Bérenger I. (1113–1131), Raymund-Bérenger II. (1131–1144) and Raymund-Bérenger III. (1144–1166), is full of accounts of their struggles with the powerful feudal house of Baux, which had extensive property in Provence; in 1146 one of the representatives of this house, Raymund, obtained from the emperor the investiture, though only in theory, of the whole count ship of Provence. After the death of Raymund-Bérenger III., who was killed at the siege of Nice (1166), his cousin Alphonso II., king of Aragon, claimed his inheritance and took the title of the count of Provence. But his succession was disputed by the count of Toulouse, Raymund V., a marriage having been previously arranged between Raymund-Bérenger's daughter and his son, and he himself hastening to marry the widow Richilde, niece of the emperor Frederick I. The majority of the lay and ecclesiastical lords of Provence recognized Alphonso, who in 1176 signed a treaty with his competitor, by which Raymund V. gave up his rights to the king of Aragon in consideration of a sum of money. Alphonso was represented in Provence by his brothers Raymund-Bérenger and Sancho in turn, and in 1193 by his son Alphonso, who succeeded him. This Alphonso gave Aragon and Catalonia to his brother Peter (Pedro), and kept only Provence for himself, but on the death of his father-in-law, Count William II., in 1208, whose son had been disinherited, he added to it the county of Forcalquier. He was able to protect Provence from the consequences of the war of the Albigenses, and it was not until after his death (1209), during the minority of his son Raymund-Bérenger IV., who succeeded him under the regency of his uncle, Peter of Aragon, and later. of his>mother Gersende, that Provence was involved in the struggle of the count of Toulouse against Simon de Montfort, when the part played by the city of Avignon in the Albigensianmovement finally led to Louis VIII.'s expedition against the town. William of Baux took advantage of the troubles caused by Raymund-Bérenger's minority to have the kingdom of Arles conferred upon himself by Frederick II.; this led, however, to no practical result. Raymund-Bérenger had also to fight against Raymund VII., count of Toulouse, the emperor having ceded to this latter in 1230 the count ship of Forcalquier, and showed another mark of his favour in 1238, when, in consequence of some difficulties with the city of Arles, Raymund-Bérenger drove the imperial vicar from the town. The intervention of St Louis, who in 1234 had married Margaret, the eldest daughter of the count of Provence (the second, Eleanor, married Henry III. of England in 1236), put an end to the designs of the count of Toulouse. Raymund-Bérenger died in 1245, leaving a will by which he named as his heiress his fourth daughter, Beatrice, who shortly afterwards, in 1246, married the celebrated Charles of Anjou (see, king of Naples), brother of the king of France. After her death, in 1267, Charles still maintained his rights in Provence. The countship of Venaissin was left to him by his sister-in-law, Jeanne, countess of Toulouse, but in 1272 King Philip the Bold took possession of it, giving it up in 1274 to Pope Gregory X., who had claimed it for the Roman Church in pursuance of the treaty of 1229 between Raymund VII. of Toulouse and St Louis. Almost all the time and energy of Charles of Anjou were taken up with expeditions and wars concerning the kingdom of Naples, which he had gained by his victories over Manfred and Conradin in 1266 and 1268. His government of Provence was marked by his struggles with the towns. The movement which resulted in the emancipation of these had its origin fairly far back. In the first part of the 12th century the towns of Provence, no