Gaston VI of Béarn (1173-1214) was Viscount of Béarn, Gabardan and Brulhois. He was also count of Bigorre by his marriage in 1196 with Pétronille, heiress of the comté.

Childhood

Gaston was the son of Marie de Béarn, viscountess legitimate of Béarn since 1170, and of Guillaume de Moncade, lord Catalan, that the king Alphonse II of Aragon had imposed in 1171 like husband of Marie and Viscount of Béarn. The noble inhabitants of Béarn had revolted against the Aragonese intrusion and had successively named two lords who were quickly carried out not to have respected the Fors de Béarn. In 1173, a delegation inhabitant of Béarn went to the monastery where Marie had taken refuge to ask him to give to them one of her two new twin sons born. Marie accepted and Gaston gave to them, who was going to become Gaston, sixth of the nom.
During the minority of Gaston, the Viscount was controlled by regents Aragonese including one certain Pelegrino de Castellarzuelo, lord of Barbastro. This period of the history inhabitant of Béarn is very badly documented.

The Viscount of Béarn

In 1187, at the 14 years age, Gaston was declared major and lent homage to Huesca to king d' Aragon for his Viscount of Béarn; it was not the same for the Viscounts of Gabardan and Brulhois which were thus in fact recognized by Alphonse II like forming integral part of the possessions of the duchy of Aquitaine.

It did not take share with the Third crusade (1189-1192), just as the other noble ones of the south of France, because the area was then committed in a great conflict confronting the crowns of Aragon-Catalonia on the one hand and Toulouse of the other. During this fight, Béarn was clearly side aragonais.

In 1194, it put an end to the territorial conflict with the Viscount of Dax, while renonçant with the small territories of Mixe and Ostabarret and while receiving exchanges of it the town of Orthez.
In 1196, he also concludes a peace with his neighbor the Viscount from Soule.
This same year he married his cousin Pétronille, heiress of the county of Bigorre and the Viscount of Marsan.
Gaston thus managed to establish peace with all his immediate neighbors.

The Albigensian crusade

Barcelona was essential on Toulouse, which required a truce, but this did not bring back peace in the area because the pope Innocent III launched in 1208 a crusade against the Cathares, a religious movement installed especially in the Languedoc. A French Army (i.e. made up knights of Ile-de-France) under the command of Simon de Montfort invades the area. Various noble occitans was dispossessed of their territories, and as they were the vassal ones of the king d' Aragon Pierre II of Aragon, this last felt obliged to protect them. The pope ordered in Gaston not to intervene against the crusaders but this one did not hold account and took part of it in the counter-attack which obliged Simon de Monfort to raise the head office of Toulouse (1211). It also took share with the disastrous attack against Castelnaudary. Gaston did not act of the kind for religious reasons (there was no Cathares in Béarn nor in Bigorre) but by fidelity with the king d' Aragon.
The conséquenses for Gaston were disastrous. Some Aquitanian crusaders dispossessed it of small the Viscount of Brulhois. It moreover was excommunicated by the council of Lavaur and its grounds declared without lord by the pape.

January 27th, 1213, Gaston once more lent homage to king d' Aragon, follow-up this time by the counts of Comminges, Foix and Toulouse. Pierre II thus carried out his project of great transpyrenean state, ensuring his domination of the Èbre until the Provence, including the two slopes of the the Pyrenees. But all was called into question on September 12th by the defeat and the death of Pierre II at the time of the Bataille of Low wall. Gaston could not join this battle because king d' Aragon, by excess of confidence, had not left time to all his vassal to join the troupes.

Shortly after the battle of Low wall, the pope publicly granted his forgiveness to Gaston VI like with the count de Comminges. Penitence was light: to give to the bishop Oloron lords of two districts of the city. Gaston also recovered the Viscount of Brulhois.

Its fidelity with king d' Aragon was clearly clarified in the Llibre del Fets (chapter 37) of the king Jacques Ier d' Aragon, who mentions it at the sides of his Guillaume brother as one of rare which accompanied it with the seat by the town of Tamarite de Litera.

Gaston died without descent in 1214. His/her twin brother, Guillaume-Raymond succeeded to him. Bigorre returned again to his wife, who remaria shortly after.

Internal bonds

• List of the Viscounts of Béarn

External bonds

Bearn, Auñamendi Entziklopedia

Sources

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