Raymond III, Count of Toulouse

Raymond III is the designation assigned to distinct or possibly-distinct Counts of Toulouse in the mid-to-late 10th century. Recent scholarship has overturned the traditional account of the counts during this period without consensus arising for a new reconstruction.

Until recently, Raymond III was the numerical designation assigned Raymond Pons, Count of Toulouse, who seems to have succeeded his father as count before 926, and who is last seen in 944, apparently being dead by 969. In that year his widow Garsenda appears, acting alone. It was thought that she then acted as guardian for Raymond's successor and (supposed) son, William III, Count of Toulouse, who appears along with his wife Emma in the early 11th century. This reconstruction was not without problems. Not only was the chronology of this single generation long, but it is at odds with a surviving contemporary source, the Códice de Roda. The surviving manuscript of this collection of genealogies is of a later date, but is thought to derive from a 10th-century original. In its account of the Counts of Toulouse, it shows Garsenda, daughter of García II Sánchez of Gascony, to have married (Raymond) Pons, having by him one son, Raymond, who in turn is given children Hugh and Raymond. William (III) is not mentioned. Likewise, the will of Garsenda fails to name William.

This consensus reconstruction was shown to be flawed by the discovery of a 992 charter of William III and his wife Emma which explicitly named William's mother as the still-living 'Adelaix'. While this document shows that William was not son of Raymond Pons and Garsenda, it does little to illuminate the true relationships, and several scholars have proposed alternative solutions. These are in agreement with regard to the identity of William's mother. She is identified with Adelaide of Anjou, who as widow of the deceased Raymond of Gothia, married to Louis V, King of France, divorcing him two years later and remarrying William III of Provence. Her husband, the 'Prince of Gothia', had previously gone unrecognized or had been dismissed as inaccurate, but given the historical association of this title with the County of Toulouse, the identification of William's mother with Adelaide of Anjou is now accepted. This means that William's father was a previously unrecognized Count Raymond of Toulouse, but his relationship to the previous documented count, Raymond Pons, remains a matter of debate, with several competing theories being proposed.

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