Sancho, Count of Provence

Sancho (died 1223), also spelled Sanç or Sanche, was a Catalano-Aragonese nobleman and statesman, the youngest son of Queen Petronilla of Aragon and Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona. He was at different times the count of Cerdanya (c.1175–89), Provence (1181–85), Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat (1183–85), and Roussillon (1208–12). He served as the regent of Provence from 1209 until 1218 during the minority of Count Raymond Berengar IV, and as regent of Aragon from 1214 until 1218, during the minority of King James I.

Sancho was a minor at the time of his father's death (1162) and he did not inherit lands or titles, but only the right of reversion should his elder brothers die without heirs. Thus, according to his father's will, he should have inherited Provence and Cerdanya only after his elder brother Raymond Berengar III, count of Provence, was assassinated in 1181. In fact, while he inherited Provence at that time, he may have received Cerdanya shortly before that.

Sancho came of age between 1175, when he first began witnessing the royal charters of his eldest brother, King Alfonso II of Aragon, and 1180. In these years, he witnessed charters only in Catalonia and Provence. Before 1180, he occasionally signed documents with the title "Count of Cerdanya" (comes Ceritanie), but usually he was described as just "the king's brother". Alfonso does not seem to have entirely trusted his administration of Cerdanya, for he intervened in the county in 1177 and again in 1188. Sancho is not recorded as count of Cerdanya after that.

Sancho's first responsibility after inheriting the county of Provence in 1181 was to defend the county from the claims of Count Raymond V of Toulouse. For the following four years, Sancho and his brother Alfonso prosecuted a war against Toulouse. On 9 December 1182, Alfonso visited his brother in Aix and exempted the Knights Hospitaller from commercial duties and tolls in Provence. In March 1183, Alfonso enfeoffed Sancho with the counties of Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat. Sancho's expense account for his stay at Perpignan in November 1184, where he met his brother, has survived and provides a detailed look at how his court functioned.

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