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.1175–1188), Provence (1181–1185), Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat (1183–1185), and Roussillon (1208–1212). 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.
Contents
Life
Count of Cerdanya
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 appears to 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.
Count of Provence
When Sancho inherited the county of Provence in 1181, he probably also inherited the governing arrangement that had been set up by Alfonso. His power would have been heavily circumscribed by a council. His first responsibility as count 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.
Early in his administration of Provence, conflict arose every spring between him and the neighbouring prince, Count William IV of Forcalquier. Finally, in 1184, Sancho signed a treaty of alliance with the count of Forcalquier, the count of Toulouse and the Republic of Genoa agreeing to oppose the king of Aragon's efforts to dominate Genoa and to take the city of Marseille from him. Sancho then intervened on the side of Genoa in that commune's war against Pisa. These actions of disloyalty caused a rift between the brothers, and Alfonso dispossessed Sancho of Provence, Gévaudan, Rodez and Carlat. In his place he appointed Roger-Bernard I, count of Foix, as his bailiff or procurator in Provence.
According to some historians, the king was merely looking for an excuse to seize control of Provence. Alfonso was in Aix by March 1185, when the dating clause of a charter reads "when we recovered Provence from the hands of Sancho, our brother". Evidence of Alfonso's ill-will towards can be found in the Gesta comitum Barcinonensium, which records that Alfonso "never loved [his brother Sancho] and did not wish to give him anything in his kingdom." The hostility between Sancho and Alfonso caught the notice of the troubadour Peire Vidal, who addresses the king in a tornada:
Francs reis, Proensa·us apella,
qu'En Sancho la·us desclavella,
e gasta·us la cer'e·l mel
e sai tramet vos lo fel.
Count of Roussillon and procurator of Provence
In 1204, Sancho and his son, Nuño Sánchez, witnessed the donation of the county of Roussillon to Maria of Montpellier, the new wife of King Peter II, Sancho's nephew. Since Roussillon was a region in which Sancho had ambitions, his recognition of the donation to Maria was critical. In 1208, Peter finally granted Sancho the county of Roussillon. In 1209–10, Sancho left the day-to-day government in the hands of a "vicar and bailiff" (vicarius et baiulus), Ferran de Norvais. In January 1211, Peter granted the county's revenues to Guillem de Creixell, since Guillem was the king's creditor, but Sancho continued to govern the county into 1212.
In 1209, Sancho's nephew and King Alfonso's successor in Provence, Count Alfonso II, died. He left behind a minor, Raymond Berengar IV, as his heir. King Peter appointed Sancho governor of Provence on behalf of Raymond Berengar. One of his first tasks was to subdue the rebellious city of Arles. Sancho also promptly brought his own son, Nuño, into the government of Provence. Together they pursued a policy that favoured communal liberties and commercial activity while opposing encroaching French and Papal influence. As a base of support in Provence, Peter granted Sancho and Nuño the ports of Agazi, Boch and Monaco.
In 1212, Sancho fought at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on the side of Peter II. That same year Roussillon was transferred from Sancho to his son Nuño, to be held by the latter along with Cerdanya and Conflent for life.
Peter II died fighting the anti-Catharist crusaders at the Battle of Muret in 1213. His heir and successor, James I, a minor, was taken captive by Simon IV de Montfort, earl of Leicester. An army was soon assembled at Narbonne with the support of Viscount Aimery III to recover the captive king and avenge the dead king. Sancho and his son Nuño were among the leading men present. The situation was diffused, however, by the papal legate Peter of Benevento, who secured James's release.
Procurator general of the realm
Since Peter had placed his kingdom under the authority of the Papacy, the papal legate arranged for James to be placed under the guardianship of Guillem de Montrodon, master of the Templars in Aragon, and for Sancho to be appointed procurator general, effectively regent. The exact date of Sancho's appointment is uncertain: it occurred either late in 1214 or early in 1215. James in his autobiographical Llibre dels fets, later accused Sancho of wanting to be king and of plotting to seize the throne. Although this claim has been widely accepted by historians, the historian Salvador Sanpere wrote a short monograph in an effort to "vindicate" Sancho's actions.
In the summer of 1214, Peter of Benevento convened a council of the realm in Lleida. The assembled clergy and nobility agreed on a political programme for James's minority that included a prohibition on new taxes. Sancho was charged with implementing the programme. His power base, however, was in Provence and he had limited support in Aragon and Catalonia, especially for his preferred policy of continuing the war against Simon de Montfort.
In 1214, Gaston VI, viscount of Béarn and count of Bigorre, died. In order to prevent the county of Bigorre from falling out of Aragon's orbit, Sancho arranged for his son Nuño to marry Gaston's widow, the hereditary countess Petronilla, in 1215. The plan failed when the clergy annulled the marriage in 1216. Petronilla ended up marrying Guy de Montfort, brother of Simon.
In November 1215, Sancho sent two envoys, Pedro Ahones and Guillem IV de Cervera, to attend the Fourth Council of the Lateran in Rome as representatives of Aragon. At the council, they undermined Sancho's anti-crusade policy, alongside Bishop Hispan of Segorbe. In the end, the council upheld the legality of the crusade. In a letter addressed to Pope Innocent III, Sancho had also requested enhanced authority as procurator, but the envoys returned instead with a series of orders dated 23 January 1216 in which Innocent appointed seven noblemen from both Aragon and Catalonia as deputy counsellors to assist Sancho and ordered all the men of the realm to observe the truce with the crusaders. Innocent did order the cities of the Aragon and Catalonia to subsidise the regent's redemption of pledged lands (royal demesne that had been pawned by Peter II to fund his wars), but royal finances were transferred to Guillem de Montrodon. As a result, Sancho found his power curtailed rather than strengthened.
Marriages and children
Sometime before 1184, Sancho married Ermessenda, daughter of Geoffrey I of Rocabertí and Ermessenda de Vilademuls. In 1185, he married Sancha Núñez de Lara, daughter of Count Nuño Pérez de Lara and Teresa Fernández de Traba, and thus a step-daughter of King Ferdinand II of León. By her he had his only known son, Nuño Sánchez.
